Team Trakker Blog

Last time around, I told you about the session where I caught Hendrix from Clevely Mere. I was lucky enough to catch seven carp that session including 4x20’s, 2x30’s and the 40. One of the 30’s was a lovely old linear as known as Mofo, which I was really pleased to land as she doesn’t see the bank much and brought a fitting end to my fishing on the lake. Sometimes when you catch the carp you’ve wanted for a long time you find that you’re at a loose end, so rather than waste time, I thought I’d give the other water at Cleverly a go. This lake is known as the Top Lake and is around five acres, holding approximately 70 fish to 45lbs. The 45 is a carp known as Big G and has grown steadily over the last few years becoming the biggest fish in the complex.

I started my first session on the lake a week after catching Hendrix and was still flying high with confidence. I set up in the first swim on the lake as there was an inlet running in nearby and the water coming in to the lake from the recent rain seem to be pulling a few fish in. I put a kilo of Cell bait 10ft away from the corner where the inlet was, cast one rod to the margin and the other 10ft off in six feet of water. The wind was blowing down the other end of the lake so I was hoping the fish didn’t move out on the wind.

Through the night my swim had a few visitors and my tea gear was taking a beating but the rods stayed quiet until 4am when the rod that was cast 10ft off the outlet tore off. After a good fight I landed a lovely mirror that turned out to be a 25lb 10oz. An hour later and the same rod was away again, but this time the hook pulled on what felt like a small fish. The same rod went again at 9am and I played in another mirror of 18lb. What a start to fishing the Top Lake! I have since been back and had another 20lb mirror.

I’m not 100% sure I’m going to make this lake my next target water despite getting off to a good start, as every now and then life chucks a spanner in the works and due to being made redundant, my new jobs going to be five days a week. This means I’ll be a weekend angler, so I’ll be looking to fish more challenging water with less anglers fishing it, which will give me more chance of getting a swim going. The change in jobs should give me a few weeks off fishing, so I’ll use this time to have a good look around some prospective waters.

The product I’m going to write about this month is the PVA Pouch. When I first got told about this I have to admit I wasn’t sold on the idea, I’d always kept my PVA tubes and tape in the end pocket of my barrow bag. I had the pva pouch come through and am well impressed with it. With enough room to take four Korda PVA tubes the pouch also has four pockets for PVA bags and also an inner zip to insure everything stays neat and apart. There’s even a small section for pre-made PVA bags. I now use it every time I fish. Look at the photos I took to see just how useful this bit of kit is!

Till next month,
Dave Levy.