Gyozo Szekeres

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The fishing season started really late this year. Usually I am preparing for the first trip at the end of March, but this year we had 20 cm of snow in the last days of the month and the first half of April was chilly too. I fish a deep gravel pit, which is why my season started even later, actually at the end of April when the weather was really nice. This short session ended without any result, but at least I had a good sleep in the fresh air.

I thought that because of the sudden but constant high temperatures, the carp would start spawning soon, but before this I definitely wanted to go fishing once more. So, 10 days later I was on the bank again, and this time I was planning for 4 nights.

Previously I have never used SBS products (I am getting familiar with them this year), because of this I chose different hook baits from the Premium 20+ range.

Ready for action

For pre-baiting I was using halibut pellets (smaller amount), and the Frankfurter Sausage and Fish & Liver boilies from the Eurostar series.

After arriving I first spread approximately 3 kg boilies, with the bait boat, in the fishing area. The terms of baiting; my tactics were to make a bigger carpet of food to one rod (about 1 kg per area) and just a fistful of baits each time to the other one.

The sun went down quickly, so I had to set up my bivvy with the help of my head torch. After this I went to see my neighbours and later returned to my rods with the hope of the first carp of the year. At this moment I noticed that there was already a take. The hanger was dropping slowly, just one beep and then pause. I thought it was going to be a bream or a grass carp, but I was wrong. After a quick play I landed a catfish kitten of around 4 kg. (The bait was a 24 mm M1 boilie.) The night was silent. In the morning I was late with the re-baiting because I started to play around with my tackle box (I was checking the new fluorocarbon snag leader, and the lead free Silk Ray leader.) But this was to bring me luck, because I had a take around 9 AM on the left rod. Again the M1 and at last the first carp of the year had arrived (It was a nice common, around 7 kg.)

The first one of the season

I had to wait until 4 PM for the next action. At that time the alarm on the right was screaming (the bait was a 24mm C2 boilie) and as a result I landed another common.

Mussel eater

The boat is ready to go. Inside is the hookbait with a PVA mesh, 1 kg boilie and a fistful of pellets

There it goes

“This rig goes into the deep water”

On the way

A bit later my friend Tom arrived. He was not fishing this time, just visiting me on the bank. Unfortunately he did not bring any luck with him, because I did not have a single beep in the next 24 hours. Still, we had a good time. After the long winter months we enjoyed the fact that we could spend some time away from the noisy city. In the morning there was a big thunderstorm, but even after this the fish were still not in feeding mode. At 7 PM Tom was already preparing to leave when there was a take on the right rod. I was getting dressed so Tom had to nail it. By the time I took the rod from him, the fish went away to the left side of the swim. It was a strong one, so I had to fight to turn it back. In the end I succeeded, so we could land a dark, fat mirror. It weighed 14.6 kg and was caught on the ACE Lobworm boilie.

It is playtime!

The fatty

After this Tom left, so I was alone again. During the night I caught a couple of smaller carp on the 24 mm M2 boilie, so I decided to try bigger baits. As a result, I had the 30 mm ACE Lobworm on the hair - carved into tapered shape for a better hook hold - when at around 8AM I had a take on this presentation. The alarm was screaming. After I have nailed it, the fish took about 10 m of line from the reel. I knew immediately that this one was going to be bigger than the others. After several minutes of play I managed to land a mirror with a big belly, which was 18.55 kg. I was happy to have my first really nice fish of the year.

18.55 kg (40 lb 14 oz)

All day the water was silent, and it remained like this ‘til late evening. Luckily, around 10 PM there was another take with the 30 mm ACE Lobworm boilie. I had another pleasant play and at the end of it I had put another big carp – this time a common – on the mat. This fish pulled the scale round to 17.5 kg. Taking the pictures, disinfecting, releasing, recasting and… let’s go to sleep. Or almost, because I had left the door of my bivvy open and it was now full of mosquitoes. Now, instead of sleeping, I had to start the hunt for mosquitoes. Rookies mistake… Last night I slept well, there was no action at all, but in the morning I caught another common around 10 kg on the ACE Lobworm.

Evening 17.5 kg (38 lb 9 oz)

During the session I lost only one fish, but that was a good lesson for me. On the last day the wind was blowing from the opposite direction. Because of this, the flakes from the thriving aspen trees gathered on my mainline. When I was trying to get rid of these wet flakes on one of the rods, I had a take on the other one. I had the rod in my hand, the fish was hooked but I could not rewind the line because of the wet dross. The line became slack two times and even my reel got stuck once. As a result the fish got rid of the hook (It is a good thing that it was not a big one.) But the worst part of the story came at the end of the session when I was packing away, because I noticed some small damage to my reel, as the result of the stuck line… (And I was lucky, because the expert said that the damage to the reel could have been much worse.) I learnt a lot from this incident (We must not let our mainline becoming dirty, because we could lose the fish of our lifetime, or we could damage our expensive gear.)

Except from this incident I think that the session was really successful. Most of the carp were male (The proof of this was visible on the mat.) This means that I was fishing most probably just before the start of the spawning or at the beginning of it. Moreover, I think that the female carp were not feeding because of it.

Cold-blooded visitor

I caught most of the fish on the ACE Lobworm boilie and the bigger carp came on this bait too. The M1, M2 and the C2 boilies were also working (Somehow I have the feeling that the last one is going to get me some nice surprises on the bank later.)

Because of the spawning I will not be disturbing the fish in the coming weeks, but after that I will be there again, because I am sure that after the spawning period the carp will be feeding a lot more in order the get back the energy they lose during the spawning. And I do not want to miss this period for sure!

By: Győző Szekeres