Casting my mind back to the season of 2007 - 2008, which now is nearly three years ago, I remember taking my first foot steps around CEMEX's 'Road Lake' and instantly falling in love with it. It reminded me of my beloved 'Sutton at Hone', where I had spent many happy years fishing as a young boy and a grown man.
The thing with the Road Lake is, although slightly smaller than Sutton, you still have that intimate feeling with it! At almost three acres in size, it has beautiful tree lined banks, lovely snagged corners, pads and weed; there is so much weed! It's rather like a football pitch in the summer months and you could almost walk across it. I kid you not, it really is a special little place to fish! Its got every type of fishing situation you could wish for, snag fishing, margin fishing or out in the middle towards the massive weed beds that are situated out there. Its got the lot! The stocking of the Road Lake is roughly around 35 - 40 fish which sounds a lot and is a lot, but don't be fooled by this for one minute. The thing with these small lakes is that the fish are very clued up with rigs, bait and even line lay. All this adds up to the bigger picture, so for that, and that alone, in my eyes, they deserve the utmost respect from the anglers that fish for them. The average sort of depths in the Road Lake is between ten foot and twelve foot which is a nice depth for feeling the old leads down, although there are a few gravel bars and gravel patches, it's the harder silt areas or sand patches you tend to look for when your fishing up there.
Now that I have given you a bit of a build up of the lake and its surroundings, I thought it would be nice to tell you about certain carp I wanted to catch so much, that it seemed I was always the bridesmaid and never the bride. The carp in question was none other than Clover, one of the most beautiful carp you could ever imagine catching, with its lovely over slung mouth and its almost leathery flanks. Its a true stunner!
This was coming up to my third season and I still hadn't managed to bank her or the mighty Dink, but it was Clover that was playing on my mind the most .I had to catch her this year, no question about that. Now don't get me wrong, in the two years I've spent up the Road Lake, I've been lucky enough to have had over thirty bites, which is nearly the whole stock of the lake, including fish like Orange Spot, (the fish I had joined the Road Lake for) plus The Big Linear and The Missing Starburst. I caught them all at good weights but still no Clover or The Dink? So it wasn't though things wasn't going to plan, I just couldn't put a hook in the two biggest residents in the pond! So this year, my third season, I was only going to fish one end of the lake; the end where Clover gets caught the most, and I wasn't going to move from that end until I had caught her.
The swim I had in mind, was a swim called 'The Bar'. A lovely enclosed swim, the type I love to fish, where you have your own bit of water where no one can interfere with you and which also has some lovely areas out in front of you. Now, I would like to say that this season got off to a flyer but it didn't! I just couldn't catch a cold yet alone a carp. I was having an absolute nightmare !
It was now the end of June and apart from losing one, I had nothing to show for all my effort. I was now on suicide watch by the rest of the syndicate! All the old jokes were coming out like, "make sure you take them laces out of your trainers, John" and "who had the rope last?". All that sort of stuff which comes with carp fishing now days; don't you just love fishing? But all jokes aside I have never fished with a better group of lads.People like, Peter Bond, Kodak and Nigel Sharp to name a few, so it was a good crack honestly. Now back to the matter in hand, catching Clover. As I said, I had to have her no matter what!
It was July 11th when I was loading the van up with my kit and my new lucky mascot, my son Ollie and getting ready to do a single 'overnighter'. Then we were in the van, 'Road Lake' bound, taking the slip road to pick up the M25, when we hit a huge traffic jam. "Just great", I thought. Then the normal things start to go through your mind like, 'this bloody lake hates me at times' and 'is anyone in the swim I've got your heart set on?'
Some two hours later we were pulling into the gates of the 'Road Lake' and 'Fox Pool'. Myself and Ollie set about doing a lap of the lake although in my head I knew where I wanted to fish already. Walking down towards the bottom end of the lake, I could see that the Bar swim was free. "That will do me", I thought. So, not wasting anytime, me and Ollie ran back to the van to get my kit. After getting everything setup, I had a plumb around and found what I was looking for. No more than twenty yards out is a nice bar that comes up to about six foot in depth. I found the spot by teasing back the marker until it locked up in the weed and the float popped up. That will do for me!
Now I would like to thank John Clarridge at this point as it was an article of his that I was reading at the time, about counter balanced baits. Now this was a rig I had used to some great success over at Sutton (the old brain isn't what it use to be) and it all started coming back to me. It was the rig John had actually caught Clover on himself!
Now I put a bit of cork into a bottom bait just to lift the hook a bit, which took the weight out of it and I had one rig already tied up on one of my rods . So, a little bit of tweaking in the margin and I had the whole lot sitting perfect. Now, there was only one place this rod was going and that was to the bar and then I teased it back to the bank of weed. After getting the rod positioned, I only put out two little spods of pellet and chopped up twenty of my faithful Poacher baits and I spoded these to the same area. After flicking the marker about, I found another bank of weed to put the left hand rod to and so, by putting another two spods of pellet and chopped boilies out on that rod, everything was sorted for the night.
Me and Ollie spent the rest of the day chatting, as he was excited about his first look at the Road Lake. We ended up having dinner about 9 o'clock that night and no sooner had we eaten the heaven's opened up. We both crashed out about eleven o'clock. The following morning, I awoke about seven o'clock, and me and Ollie sat there and had our first brew of the day. The sun was starting to warm up nicely and the mist was starting to come up off the lake from the rain from the night before. It was about nine o'clock, as I was eating a bowl of cereal, when Ollie noticed my left hand rod was in melt down. My buzzer had packed up due to the heavy rain. After throwing the bowl of cereal up in the air and grabbing the rod, it just stripped line from the off. After gaining a bit of line back from its first run, the fish weeded me up. I kept the pressure on for about two minutes and I got the fish moving again. The next ten minutes of the fight was all under the rod tip and although I caught a glimpse of the fish it didn't look that big to me. So, I decided to let Ollie net it for me now (if I had known what fish it was I might have had second thoughts). Credit where credit is due, Ollie netted it first go! Not bad for a twelve year old! When looking at it in the net, for a split second, I thought it was a re-capture of the 'Missing Starburst'. Then me and Ian, who had been fishing along the bank, looked at it again and the penny dropped. It was at last Clover!
Lifting her to the unhooking mat, she felt heavy alright and she had already been out at a weight of 43lb and so I was buzzing at this point. When trying to get the size eight mugger out, I thought to myself that the counter balanced bait had done its job, as the hook was some two inches back in her mouth! When I finally did get the hook out it was weighing time and it was a new PB at 42lb! I would have been happy with her at any weight! It was Clover and that was enough for me. She behaved perfectly for the pictures and I got some nice shots with Ollie in too. All that time to catch her and it feels like it was over in a flash but it was worth it. All the pain and heart ache goes when you achieve your goal. So until next, time be lucky.
John Elmer