Those carp anglers who know me will tell you that my strength in carp fishing is definitely margin fishing. Although not everyone’s choice, to me it’s the best and most exciting way to catch carp and you get real satisfaction when the plan you have laid out, comes together and you are looking at your prize carp laying at the bottom of your landing net!
Don’t get me wrong, when you do catch a carp, whether its out in the lake or from the margins, the excitement is still there and so it should be.
The three lakes I am going to talk about, Sutton, The Road Lake and Cotton Farm, are all different in there own way.
Lets start off with Sutton. Unlike the other two lakes, Sutton has no weed in it at all and so the visibility is terrible, making it harder to see feeding spots in the margins. The way I used to tackle this problem was to walk Sutton most nights to keep an eye on what swims were being fished and what swims were not. Sutton is heavily tree lined, so every margin spot looks
good. One of the swims I’m going to talk about is a swim called ‘The Close Inn’. This was a swim that didn’t get fished properly for about two years. Every now and again someone would drop in and do an evening session in there, but no carp were caught. Now to me this swim screamed “carp” and so I chose to go to work in this area of the lake, due to its perfect marginal spots. One particular evening, I decided to have a lead about to see what I could find on the bottom. To my surprise, the bottom was quite clean, so that was one problem eliminated but why could none of the other carp anglers get a bite from there? I set about every other night, going down with a small bucket of hemp and baiting tight to the bank, to try and build up their confidence to feed outside of the snag that was situated along to the left of the swim. I kept putting the hemp in to the lake for about two weeks then gradually introducing some boilies when I felt the time was right. After the third week I could not hold out any longer - I just had to fish my pre-baited area. I remember doing an early morning session in there and it was nice and easy to lower a rig on the spot and although nothing happened on that first morning session, I was not put off by it at all. I was starting to build up a little picture of the swim. When bringing the rig in, I had another feel about with the lead and the area was even cleaner than before, so, the fish were definitely feeding on the spot. It took a further three weeks of baiting with the hemp before I decided to do another trip in there. I didn’t add any more boilies on those other three weeks baiting only with the hemp. I was going to take another approach and fish a single tiger nut over the baited area. Now, in total I had spent six weeks of baiting every other night but that next session in ‘The Close Inn’, I ended up having two bites, resulting in two mid twenty commons on the single tiger nut approach. What I’m trying to get across is that some margin spots might take a little longer to get going than others How many anglers would have given up after three weeks of baiting to do their first session in there, and choose a swim which ended up in a blank? I ended up that season with eleven bites from that swim, four of them being over thirty pounds. It got to the point where I had built up the fish’s confidence so much, in that swim, that I could set my watch to what time I would get a take out of it; it was either six or nine in the morning. If I hadn’t had a take by ten in the morning, I would pack up and fish somewhere else. What I’m explaining is, I got to know the swim so well and so sometimes, it’s worth picking those less popular swims to start a baiting campaign in the edge. I think now its one of the most popular swims over at Sutton!
When I first joined the ‘Road Lake’, I was in my element. Due to the vast amount of weed, the water was like tap water, so you could see all the marginal spots where fish had fed. On my first trip on’ The Road’, I fished a swim called No 5, which had pads to the left and a lovely over hanging tree to the right of the swim. I positioned a rod either side of the swim; one to the pads and one to the overhanging tree. The rod by the tree was baited with half a boilie and half a tiger nut. Within six hours of my first session, the rod that was positioned under the tree was away, ending up in a 27lb common. That fish was more luck than judgment but it proved that once again, you just cannot ignore the margins on any lake. One thing I have enjoyed, whilst fishing ‘The Road Lake’, is being able to watch the fish feed, whether in the snags or in the spots that I have primed myself. Watching fish like ‘The Dink’, ‘The Big Lin’ or ‘The Scattered’ in the snags, has opened my eyes in the way that they feed. ‘The Dink’ is more of a slow mover and tends to feed whilst moving very tight to the bottom of the lake bed, not actually tipping up to feed and testing every bit of food item that it picks up in its mouth(a very clever fish I think). Another thing I have noticed with ‘The Dink’, is that it always has a couple of body guards with it. These are fish around the mid twenty mark and ‘The Dink’ tends to hold back, watching these fish going in and feeding first. One of the other fish I mentioned was ‘The Big Lin’. This fish feeds totally different to ‘The Dink’. I have sat in the snags and watched this fish on many occasion come in and flank the bottom, testing for rigs and taking the baits on the drop (again another clever fish). These fish are doing this in their safe haven, so what do they do out in the main part of the
lake when they are feeding? I think, by watching some of these fish, it has helped me in catching some of them. One other thing I have learned by watching these fish, is that they have certain patrol routes into the snags and this is another good thing to watch when you are fishing in the edge. This gives you a pretty good idea where to position a hook bait when you are angling for them. There is one certain swim on ‘The Road Lake’, that I absolutely love fishing and have had some really good hits from, catching fish like ‘Orange Spot’ and ‘The Scattered Linear’. I believe this is due to the fact that I can actually place the bait in by hand. This is perfect from the aspect that you know the rig is bang on the spot and you can bait tight to the hook bait, making sure that the bait is behind the rig and not all over the place, so that when the fish comes in to feed it’s not bumping into the line, causing it to spook off the spot, before its even started to feed! When fishing this certain spot, I have caught on many different baits, whether its boilies or maggots, fishing over broken bits of particle or pellet. On one capture I was lucky enough to watch a thirty pounder come in and feed on some maggots that I had put there. I sat there for about twenty minutes watching this fish come in and out before making its’ mistake and me hooking him. Its only when you fish like this that some of the pieces of the jigsaw start to fit together and you feel like you can get into the fish’s mind so to speak.
The third and last water I am going to talk about briefly, is ‘Cotton Farm’, another very weedy water and gin clear. I only did a couple of overnighters on this lake, resulting in two tench and a lost carp, due to a hook pull. Unlike ‘Sutton’ and ‘The Road Lake’, ‘Cotton’ doesn’t have many trees around it but it has massive reeds around most of the margins and a really lovely back bay, where the fish creep into, for some cover in amongst the massive weed beds situated in it. Although I haven’t started a proper campaign on there yet, I have spent a lot of time walking its banks because its only five minutes from my house. I try to learn as much about the place as I can and through doing this, I have learnt that these fish spend a hell of a lot of time patrolling these reed lined margins and getting caught there a lot too. There is one particular fish in there which is an incredible creature. A monster common that has been out in the region of up to 47lb. It was on my second overnighter that I came very close to catching this fish when, in the morning, I found it in a small little bay in the margins. Now at this point I would love to say that I caught it but I didn’t! I spent best part of three hours trying to stalk it out of the edge but it just wouldn’t have it. So, as I said at the start of this article, to me, fishing in the edge is as about exciting as you can get it, being able to get up close and personal with your target fish only a couple of feet away from it. One thing is for sure, it’s only a few weeks left of the old season before the Road Lake shuts and I will be walking the banks of Cotton Farm for the spring, baiting a few marginal spots and hoping I cross paths with a certain large common again?
John Elmer.