14 November, 2024 | Carp | Angler Blogs | Articles

2 Comments

Andy Bradnock: Frimley Moves and Crucifying Losses

Sometimes carp fishing doesn’t always go as planned and we just can’t explain why… Here’s all the action and despair from Andy Bradnock’s latest period of fishing at Frimley.

 

Frimley Moves and Crucifying Losses

I had been without my angling fix for 3 weeks by the time I was next heading into Hampshire for my session at Frimley, like the addict I am the withdrawal had been painful.

Adam was already there and had managed to extract a 35lber that looked like it had 20 coats of varnish over its golden scales so lustrous was its shine. He was set up in double boards and that morning had seen lots of showing fish all over the middle section of the lake.

There had been plenty seen within the water covered by ‘Fallen Tree’ so it was here that became my first camp of the session.

Just down to our right is the back of ‘Daisy Bay’ which is usually obscured by dense trees and shrubs. During Adam’s 48hr session, Mark had decided that some of the Birch trees around the bay and behind ‘Double Boards’ were unsafe as they had started to show evidence that they were dying.

This resulted in the trees being removed and the foliage being denuded, so the bay was now visible from this angle. However, with all the disturbance and the fact that the area was still littered with various bits of heavy machinery (they are still there a month later) that were employed in the deforestation, the chances of fish being present in this intimate little bay were remote.

Adam finished his pack down and left planning his next assault on the lake. I was all set up and settled in ‘Fallen Tree’, baits out on my usual spots and a new sneaky one down the tree line.

As the light was fading, I wandered around to the back of ‘Daisy Bay’ to find it was full of bubbling fish, at least 10 were in there obviously impervious to the mechanical mayhem that the bay had been subjected to over the weekend.

I stayed put in ‘Fallen Tree’ for the night as it tends to do night bites but as soon as it was light on the Monday morning, everything was slung on the barrow and wheeled round to the swim in ‘Daisy Bay.’

There was no sign of the activity seen the night before so I got the rods out on 3 spots I have had takes from previously, threw the house up and settled in for the usual wait.

All three rods were baited the same way as usual with the Swim Stim Margin Mix ground-bait, Amino Pellets, Krill Liquid, Crab Extract and Fish Gutz. I know it’s boring as I do the same thing each time, this is borne from the confidence gained of previous successes.

I tend to tinker and try various new bits and pieces hoping to find a better combination but thus far, I am happy with the results I have achieved for the majority of the time.

The blanks I suffer I always think are down to poor application or the wrong place rather than the bait itself and that is all down to my lack of ability. It’s all about confidence knowing that if you put the bait in the right spot then you are in with a chance. With a great attractive bait, I think rigs become less important.

On the underwater videos they are fishing places that are shallow, gravely, bright and during the day so that the action is all visible. They bait in a manner to keep the water clear and I have never seen a video where the fish throw caution to the wind and really get stuck into the bait. We have had multiple fish fizzing up for hours on spots we have created using ground-baits and liquids which makes getting one of the crafty buggers to make a mistake a lot easier.

Anyway, I was several teas to the good when the right-hand rod on the entrance to the bay pulled up tight.

I had been poised for action all day so I was soon joyously bending carbon into the foe on the far side of the bay. Every time I reeled down to the fish expecting it to pull back it just came towards me.

This made getting into my chesties while keeping tension on the fish really difficult. There is a small inconsequential patch of lilies in the middle of the bay and within a minute the fish was stuck behind these. This wasn’t overly worrying, you can wade out to almost the pads so it’s just a matter of keeping calm and extracting the fish carefully.

With the fish in the pads, I managed to get into the chesties I had been fighting with and wade out to the pads where, with a bit of patience I managed to unwind the nylon from the tough stems.

After a few minutes I got the mainline free and was in direct contact again. Stupidly, if I had brought the net with me, with a little more grunting and shuffling it could have been all over at this point! I had yet to see the fish as the visibility had deteriorated to next to nil again, so I waded back to the bank keeping the line tight, grabbed the net and paddled back out halfway to the pads again, increasing the pressure on the fish as I did so.

The next was conducted in HDR slow motion high-definition vision, a giant sized common rose up in water and laid broad-side on the surface. There was just a single leaf and stem stuck around the hook-link and I could clearly see my hook-bait hanging outside its huge gob, the hook firmly embedded in its bottom lip.

The fish then turned and shook its head rolling over very slightly at the same time. As it did so I watched on forlornly, as the fish used the stiff stem to un-hook itself.

She then slowly righted herself and waddled off with just the anguished cry of a fisherthem (what a plonker) lingering on the breeze to mark its escape…

I was almost sick at that loss. The fish didn’t fight which is one of Charlie’s Mate’s hallmarks, she was well due, does a lot of her captures from ‘Daisy Bay’ and looked enormous (she still hasn’t been out since either). I am not sure if I am just looking through the prism of a devastating loss, I will never know but I am worried that I lost the queen of the pond that day.

My swim was a miserable place to visit that afternoon – I just didn’t know where to put myself.

The ‘I should have done this’ dialogue in my head was painful. By 4pm I had come up with at least 20 courses of action that would have been preferable to how I conducted the battle.

To the back-drop of this self-flagellation, the left hand Delkim with a bait on the opposite side of the bay decided to yell ‘get up’ at me and I was soon attached to a living rocket.

The high-octane fight did nothing to calm my frayed nerves as this fish powered one way then the next within the tight confines of the swim. I don’t remember much about the intricacies of the scrap but remember the relief as the long solid bar of muscle and scales went into the net.

At 30lb 2oz it helped allay some of my misery but felt like a runners-up prize.

A quiet night followed but the next day at 1.00pm, the peace of the afternoon was shattered by the raucous squeal of the right-hand rod’s alarm.

Before any line was taken from the clutch, I was bent into the fish on the far bank and soon had it into the deep channel. I clambered into chesties and was waded out with a nicely bent rod in hand in fairly short order.

My initial confidence was shattered when my adversary decided on a backwards and forwards plod up and down the channel. It then managed to collect both other mainlines and surfaced like Moby Dick festooned in tackle. I was in the middle of yet another miserable battle.

I hadn’t enjoyed a fight for some time and this was another one where catastrophic loss was but a hair’s breadth away all the time.

Just as my final nerve was about to snap the fish decided to be benevolent and 38lb of golden sovereigns was wrapped up in the net. The sight of that fish going over the net cord filled me with elation but also anguish as it didn’t look anywhere near as big as the one I lost. The only other thing of significance that happened was the sighting of a number of fish showing in front of the ‘Gravely’ as I was packing away.

When I got home, I was greeted with the most bizarre occurrence.

Earlier this year I had taken guardianship of a magnolia tree. These trees are the most ancient of the flowering plants, they generally flower in the early spring before they have produced any leaves; which is what this one did producing lovely cream/white flowers.

The significance of the tree is that it was grown from a cutting by Dave Short. Dave was an amazing man, even as a young man when catastrophe beset his family he became the father to his younger siblings, married young and raised the kids as if they were his own.

How many 20-year-olds would be able to, let alone be willing to do that nowadays?

I didn’t get to meet him until much later in his life but sat drinking tea with him in Andy’s old shop, he regaled me with tales from Longfield before anyone realised there were carp in there.

He was a bailiff at Redmire, fished with the likes of Jack Hilton and Tom Mintram.

He was also here the day that Chris Yates caught the British record at 51lb 8oz and there are pictures of that fish being returned with just the angler’s hands visible. These were Dave’s as he got the honour of putting the fish back.

I cherish every second I spent with him.

He hadn’t really carp fished for some time instead chased chub and barbel on our local rivers. As well as fishing he loved his allotment and garden spending many hours growing and nurturing his plants and vegetables. It was from here that he grew the Magnolia tree that is now in my care.

I am quite nervous about looking after it as it is still in a pot and needs to be pampered a bit and fed and watered correctly.

It also means a huge amount to us all, a sort of last living reminder of our friend as he had sadly died a couple of years previously.

When I walked out into the garden on my return home, I was greeted by the sight of this Magnolia covered in purple flowers. This is really strange and I cannot find any reference of this being seen previously, to repeat flower is unheard of let alone with a different coloured flower. I am quite the agnostic but for a second, I did feel that I was being watched over and Dave was signalling his approval. If he could just see the way forward to stopping giant fish from falling off that would be great.

My trip the following week started with a very near calamity. I left home with plenty of time to spare but had forgotten my tools to fix Andy’s shower.

I had agreed to go over to his place after leaving the lake early on Tuesday. I therefore had to turn around five minutes into the journey costing me 15-20 minutes in total which would make getting to the crossing on time very close.

The dash across country seemed to be blighted by every Honda Jazz that has ever been made, the grey-haired old biddies driving seemed to be passing me back and forth like the baton in a geriatric relay race that’s main aim was to go so slowly that time actually started to go backwards.

I finally arrived at the crossing with a minute to spare but the crossing guard didn’t see me so I missed the crossing slot. I therefore had a miserable hour to wait for the opportunity to cross the tracks. This is annoying but not catastrophic, the catastrophic bit was I needed to pee – really badly.

Post 50 years old is a point in a man’s life when the relationship with his prostate becomes more complicated.

The reality of PSA tests and peeing in the night will be all too familiar to other ageing carpers. I was parked at the busy railway crossing next to a station with no toilet and had already been desperate to pee for about 10 miles. I was initially promised that I would be able to cross in 20 minutes but this didn’t materialise and as the minutes ticked slowly by my misery increased.

The sweats started about halfway through, I was shifting and wriggling in my seat like a ferret trapped in a bag, just as I thought I would definitely be needing new trousers the gates were finally opened and I was across. I was in the car-park and peeing before the gates had swung shut behind me.

Now I was comfortable and safely behind locked gates I was off to find something to angle for. Nothing was on obvious show so after a couple of laps I decided that last week’s display in the ‘Gravely’ would have to be enough to go on.

I was soon settled in with my kit an hour later.

In the ‘Stick’ next door,Aqua Andy had seen a few and was down for one more night so at least I had some company.

This week I was also putting my new Spod reel through its paces. I had bought an Okuma Obsidian reel which has a price tag of around £200.

This is quite extravagant for a spod reel but I have blown up 2 cheap spod reels this year, they do get quite heavily abused especially when I am chucking ground-bait balls around.

After discussing it with Andy he was banging on about how great these reels were. Now I have owned and loved my Diawa Infinites for twenty odd years they will be prised from my cold dead fingers. However, I have been nothi

Absolutely not a sign of a fish was seen all night and through the following morning, this is strange for September as the fish tend to be more active at this time of year on here.

I had not seen a show or a bubble over the whole flat calm surface of the lake, then finally I thought I saw a subtle show around the corner up towards the top end of the lake which is obscured from my view.

I walked round the corner to look at the top end and saw 3 fish show in short-order in fronts of ‘Henry’s’, just about as far away from me as it is possible to get.

The whole kit was packed and strapped precariously to the teetering barrow and raced around the top end of the lake coming to a welcome halt as I reached ‘Henry’s’. As way of greeting, a huge fully scaled mirror rolled on one of the short spots I fish in this swim. There was evidence of fish between me and the last swim on the lake, the ‘Pads’ which is up to my left, because of this I concentrated all the rods to the left and didn’t fish my usual treeline spot down to the right.

Once I was all sorted and had the spots baited, I wandered up to the ‘Pads’, the fish had moved in for a spot of Tiffin and decided to dig around the lake bed sending up great sheets of mixed sized bubbles.

This narrow piece of water is impossible to get a bait into quietly without spooking feeding fish so I had to sit on my hands knowing that I had baits less than 10m from where this activity was taking place.

That night I was treated to a video Adam sent to us. He had entered one of these carpy online raffle draw things, the prize being an amazing converted, wrapped, carpy green VW Transporter. For the princely sum of £19.58 he brought himself 20 tickets, it was one of these that turned out to be the ticket that won him the van.

He had just been up north to collect it, the video of him receiving the keys was used as a promotional tool for the raffle to be put on the interweb blog. It was this video I was being subjected to as a clown shoe wearing, suspiciously dark haired 55-year-old man circled his new toy oohing and arhhing.

There is an old adage that the camera adds 10lbs, I am not sure how many cameras he had on him but his usual King Edward like potato head now looked like a whole sack of Maris Pipers. I was really looking forward to our imminent trip to France now though as it would be experienced from the luxurious captain’s chair of this pimped up VW Transporter!

The bubbling in the ‘Pads’ subsided but as the fish went back past me, there was no evidence that they stopped to sample the bounty of Dynamite’s Frenzied Amino Pellets and Margin Mix ground-bait that I had carefully laid out for their delectation.

A quiet night and an undisturbed sleep meant I was awake nice and early wondering what had gone wrong.

At this point, a fish started to bubble profusely down the tree line to my right where I would normally have a bait, thus following the law of sod to the letter, there was also evidence that they were starting to feed in the ‘Pads’ swim again.

These fish were less than 10m from my carefully placed baits surely, they were aware of the bounty of Crab Extract, Krill Liquid and Amino Pellets that was there. I had to be away early as Andy’s shower needed fixing so I started to pack down slowly aiming for the 11.00am crossing.

Well into overtime I had everything packed and on the barrow, apart from the rods by 10.00am, I was just deciding which one to reel in first when the middle rod roared into life.

Battle commenced as yet another hard fighting common refused to give in, constantly surging away stealing back hard-won nylon as the clutch ticked slowly away.

After what seemed like an eternity, a chunky two-toned fish finally gave in to my reasonable terms for its surrender. At 31lb 15oz she was a magnificent way to snatch victory from the jaws of a blank. I even just managed to scrape onto the 11.00am crossing the sweat smell of success coating my jumper.

My two-night trip the following week was probably going to be my last trip to Frimley for a month or so. In a couple of weeks, Adam and I were due to head South on our annual pilgrimage to France. I would be doing a few extra shifts to make up for the time I was away, also my mechanic mate was putting a supercharger into an air-cooled Chesil Speedster which sounded like a lot of fun and as he could do with a hand, I signed up to help him when I was back from France.

So, with the spectre of this being a last chance saloon, I headed west to the land of commons.

Adam was there before me and had set up in ‘Dead Hedge’ with fish showing through the central section of the lake.

All the West End swims were taken and Disco Dave had secured what looked to be the dolly hole, the ‘Gravely’, as bubbling and crashing fish gave their position away.

The whole of ‘Fox Peninsula’ was free so I dropped into ‘Fox Point’ which was as close to the action as I could get.

Baits were out in fairly short order and as we went into the first night the activity in front of ‘Disco’ went up a notch.

I was close but sometimes on here close is not good enough.

Dave fished well and managed to extract four fish from their watery abode that first night.

Me – I didn’t have a single bleep. Nothing much happened through the day so I spent time drinking Adam’s tea and went back to my swim in the evening to get the rods out as he packed up to leave.

The second night looked more promising for me as fish seemed to have migrated my way slightly.

I went to sleep quietly confident.

It was around 02.00am that the hooting of owls was drowned out by a high pitched screaming buzzer, the middle rod 40yds out into the lake was charging off up the lake to my left.

‘Fox Point’ has an enormous lily bed along its left-hand margin extending quite some way into the lake. Due to this, I was in chesties and waded to my limit as soon as possible.

The fish continued in its single-minded exodus heading left up the lake in a slow heavy plod, eventually grinding to a halt in what I thought was the middle of the lake. It had gone completely solid but I was sure that it was miles away from any sets of pads or snags.

I was stood with a fully compressed rod trying to decide on the best course of action when it started to move again and take more line.

I think it had just sat still on the bottom, my nerves started to get the better of me at this point, it felt enormous and what fish is heavy enough to just stop so you cannot retrieve any more line?

My mouth went dry, I was shaking like a naked man in a snow storm but felt reasonably in control at this point. The fish continued to kite left with a slow irresistible power so I was trying frantically to gain enough line to bring it to my side of the lilies before it got too close to them.

This became but a pipe dream as the line began to squeak and rub along the outside stems of the pads, this didn’t start as a complete disaster and the fish continued to slowly come towards me but eventually all locked up solid and no further line was gained.

I was shaking like a leaf at this point convinced I had lost another giant.

I waded ashore, clambered out of my chesties, got a life jacket and went to collect the boat parked just down the bank.

Due to the continuous rain, we had experienced recently the boat was full of water, I had to drag it onto the bank then empty it, this was a gut busting nightmare before I even started to paddle round to collect my rod and net.

As the boat had been full of water, once empty the algae covered boat floor was as slippery as a soap dish, as I tried to paddle through the lilies to reach the swim I was falling all over the place.

I eventually collected the rod and net and slowly paddled out to where my line was disappearing into the edge of the leaves.

As I was deciding on a course of action, the wind that had been blowing quite hard at this point, managed to catch hold of the boat and I was soon flying down the lake, only just managing to get the bail arm open before disaster struck.

I paddled like fury and eventually managed to wedge the boat into the pads and retrieve the slack line tracing it down out of sight.

Suddenly it came alive in my hand, the fish was still on which considering how long this palaver had been going on for was a surprise in itself.

This fired off a new wave of panic – could I potentially steal victory from the jaws of disaster?

I slowly traced back the line and eventually I had the leader in my hand, I was just 3ft away from triumph the life in the nylon still palpable as I tried to trace which leaves I was stuck around.

Large oily vortexes where erupting on the surface as I tried not to spook my prize pulling stems out of the way while maintaining tension on the fish.

Then suddenly the rig was swinging in the air, no surge, no sudden pull just no longer attached.

I was devastated yet again, even now weeks later that loss and plans of how I could have done everything better plague my waking thoughts.

Dejected, I paddled the boat back to its hidey hole and sat sulking hardly able to raise my head, eventually I wrapped the rod back up casting it to its skyline marker, sleep though was impossible and I was still awake at 06.00am.

Just as it was getting light, I was called to arms again as the right-hand rod started shouting me, me, me in an attention seeking manner.

Straight into chesties I waded out and started to get control of the fish that was trying to put as much distance between us as possible.

Just as I was getting a modicum of control, the rod sprang straight and yet again; I was reeling in fishless end tackle.

This time it was due to a swivel snapping; how does that even happen? I have lost loads of fish this year, a few to hook pulls but the rest were all random occurrences which are impossible to plan to avoid. I do feel a sternly worded letter to the swivels manufacturer may be necessary.

That was the last of my action, a very broken angler started to pack away knowing that revenge may be a long time coming as Frimley isn’t exactly a prolific winter water.

However, I had my first whole week off for a year coming up and would be spending it with great friends on a fantastic lake hopefully catching some giants. I couldn’t wait.

-Andy