untapped water - how to approach it?

right, im a member of a fly fishing club, i tend to fish more on the fly than coarse fishing these days but the club owns a fishery which has 1 trout lake and a carp/coarse lake.
the carp/coarse lake has barely ever seen bait or a hook, its very well maintained but it just never gets fished.
i know it holds a decent head of carp and tench (seen plenty of both) and im presuming the usual coarse fish will be present.
it's an old gravel pit i think and has no obvious features other than the margins and overhanging tree's. not much weed is visible, if any.
the initial plan is a 24 hour session (as night fishing is allowed).
im planning on doing an exploratory session with a feeder rod and a marker rod to try and feel around on the bed for features and likely fish holding areas.
so, what i wanna know is, how would you guys go about fishing such a water?
oh by the way, the lake is about 17 acre.
any tips and advice greatly appreciated
ta
Dell

welcome to the forum.

Hehehe - you are being very hopeful for a detailed response with so little information. However perhaps a roughly drawn plan, a few photo's, so people could come up with more accurate responses what part of the country. Many of the experienced anglers will say a lot of the answer you are looking for is very hard to say without seeing the water or knowing roughly where in the country it is. As many when coming upon a new water themselves and having to choose where to fish and how to fish a large lake, will be in a large part instinct but instinct based upon experience often that instinct has been honed over many years and is not always easy to transfer into the abstract nor into a posted response. However I have no doubt that some more gifted with literary skills may manage to assist but the rough location and a few photo's could work wonders.

morning watatoad,
your in luck, im heading there this morning for a bit of a sighting mission, i have the camera loaded in the car so i will get plenty of pics.
the lakes are just south of derby, close to the river trent.
the coarse lake is longer than it is wide, almost retangular, minus the sharp corners.
it lays west to east (north/south being the shortest distance).
it has a reed bed at the east end.
but you will see from the photo's this evening, hopefully.
anyway, gonna go have a good look round and a cast about, i'll update later
Dell

Your best bet is find an area between 3-8 foot deep if you can, gravel bottom if possible and then pre-bait it for a few days. I would use maggots and caster/hemp as your feed if no small fish are about.

You could be in for some real surprises!!

Hi Dell,
And welcome to FM!

As I see it, you are doing the right thing by spending time watching the water without fishing, and by walking around the lake the fish may just let you know where they are!

You say the lake is an old gravel pit, and as so there will be lots of features for you to find, an easy way is to cast just a heavy lead around which will give you an idea of the depth, and by pulling it back on the lake bed, this will show you where gravel, bars, silt, sand and so on, then you can plumb the areas to find changes in depth.

At this time of year the Carp will be heading for shallow areas and grouping up prior to spawning, a good place to look as it will give you an idea of the stock and size of the Carp, you may be in for a supprise! Also they will still be around after spawning....................!

Rigs, I would keep it simple and basic, a knotless knot and running lead set up's, Bait likewise, I know what I would use, and that is Maize as hookbait and a few grains fished over a bed of Hemp! Carp love the stuff and it's cheap as chips!


One last point is that on you're walks you could carry some light tackle, one rod, net and a bag with a bit of bait, just incase you come across a fish feeding in the edge!!!

I wish you luck, have fun!

Welcome to FM Dell

Some sound advice by noknot in respect of features/feature finding including the margins which should never be neglected no matter how big the pit is.
Jerry

Thank you Jerry!

There is one very important thing that has not been mentioned and that is the effect the weather will have on the Carp?
Now bearing in mind that on "pressured" waters, the effect of the weather can change due to Angling pressure, lines going out in the water, heavy leads and baiting may spook the Carp off!
But seeing your water has no pressure, then I would take conditions in to account, and learn how this effects the Carps movements.

Look for a new wind, as I have found the Carp can respond very quickly and usually show or jump ect............

This is where your previous work and feature finding can really pay off!

This is why watercraft is so important, but overlooked so often, and bait and rigs are given a lot of thought, however the best bait and rig's in the world will not catch if presented in the wrong place........................

If a lake, i would make a point of checking the areas around where any streams enter,which are often fish holding areas (unless too shallow and silted) as well as the outlet end which might be a dam with the deepest water nearby.

chub_on_the_block said:

If a lake, i would make a point of checking the areas around where any streams enter,which are often fish holding areas (unless too shallow and silted) as well as the outlet end which might be a dam with the deepest water nearby.

Click to expand...

Now pay attention in the back row caco, it's an old gravel pit
Jerry

good afternoon gents,
just spent a few hours down at the fishery, cast some bait around and chucked some in the margins here n there to see what fish would make an appearance.
saw plenty of decent carp, tench and perch. no silvers though.
spoke to the baliff and got some great information, he again said its barely ever fished but when it is most fish come out at night.
the lake is a gravel pit but quite silty in places, also not much weed at all except one end which is shallower than the rest. depths are ranging from 13ft down to 18ft from west to east. didnt manage to locate any bars but im new to this feature finding stuff!
baliff said there is over 200 carp in there ranging from 8lb upto mid twenties, and plenty of them!
also, lots of decent bream upto double figures.
tench to double figures too
and the perch and pike.
there is more reed beds than i initially thought, most of the margins have reeds, pegs are clear though and well looked after.
baliff advised the west end (13ft deep) as its shallower and the carp favour this area for spawning and feeding. he also said its a great time for surface fishing on floaters.
pics of the lake:
first pic pointing due east (ish)


this one is due north


this one is due north - west (ish)


and finally due west (towards the shallower end) excuse reeds lol


so yeah, its been a lovely few hours at the water, big change from fly fishing thats for sure, but nice to be back on a coarse lake

hope that info helps u guys
im getting plenty of ideas going in my head on how to tackle it, but definately helps with the information from you guys, thankyou
Dell

barbelboi said:

Now pay attention in the back row caco, it's an old gravel pit
Jerry

Click to expand...

Ooops!...sorry

one other thing, where is the best place to buy particles?
im thinking hemp, maize, tigers? that kinda thing
cheers
Dell

dell said:

one other thing, where is the best place to buy particles?
im thinking hemp, maize, tigers? that kinda thing
cheers
Dell

Click to expand...

If in doubt the tackle shop, you'll know your tigers are safe, save a lot of hassle with the hemp and frenzied hemp appears good quality/works well and for corn/maize don't skimp - the freezer stuff is mostly rubbish as a hook bait as are many own brands. For corn JGG is IMO as good as most and easy to flavour yourself if required.
Jerry

One of the best places to buy particles is an animal feed store. There are quite a lot of them around so Google to find one near you. You then need to buy some Pigeon Conditioner (5Kg) and some Hemp (5Kg). Mix them up well in a bucket, take about a kilo, soak it overnight and then boil for about half an hour. I like to add a good glug of horse molasses to this mix (also available in the feed store). This should give you ample feed for a 24 hour session, but you can boil up a bigger quantity and freeze what you don't use.

On a water like the one you've described I'd fish the margins with at least one rod. Find an area where it's around 2ft or deeper against the marginal reeds and feed a few handfuls of your particle mix. Fish corn or maize over the top of this and you should catch. Don't neglect pellets either - adding some to your particle mix will work well. Feed several spots like this and visit them after an hour and I'm sure you'll find some feeding fish.

thanks Sean, thats good information.
now im wondering if anyone from the chesterfield area can suggest a feed store/warehouse type place to buy pigeon conditioner, hemp and stuff like that?

Helllo Dell, good advice by all. To add, if it were me (I prefer float fishing) I would find open gravel or sand close in and fish "laying on". Raking a swim might be an option if going for the tench although don't rule out carp.

If you really want carp (and why not?) look for holes in the weed. From the pictures there doesn't seem to be any high ground nearby but try to get as high as you can and at different times of the day. Try polariods and binoculars to find that hole. Sometimes you can't see the clear bottom but it will look darker.

You can fish in this "hole" using a bolt rig and slack lines over the top of the weed. However you fish it there will almost certainly be carp present at some time.

Matthew.

Sorry if this seems to be over-simplyfied... but to my mind, you've done the hard bit as you've already seen the fish you want to catch on your recces. So without wanting to state the obvious, surely the best place to start would be where you've seen the fish?

I would tend to have a slightly different approach for a night session. If you're not used to fishing in the dark, find a fairly clear bit of the lake bed a nice comfortable cast away (say thirty yards), get a bit of bait out... not too much, say a pint or two of pellet and a good smattering of corn.... and then fish fairly straightforward baits over the top, say worms on one rod and corn on the other. Maybe some other options in resverve (hooker pellets maybe or maggots in bunches) I'd have one rod with a hair rig and one with a straight hook, with bait's chosen in mind for both. Chances are though that worms and corn will both get you loads of bites if the fish turn up and don't get angled for that much.

To begin with, i'd be inclined not to overdo it with the loosefeed. Once you get confident on what works, you can try upping the ammounts. This will also depend on the bites you're getting, e.g. a few patrolling tench and carp in small groups will be distracted by a small smattering but may spook off a massive heap of bait... equally, a big shoal of even average size bream might hoover up the smattering with only one or two fish being caught.

Use longish hooklengths, as you want the bait to settle easily on top of any weed of gunge on the bottom, and a running lead.

Fishing like this is very generic - it could produce any of the species that you think are present. Try this approach in a few different swims and it should help you build up a picture in your mind of what works best where... information that you can then use to hone in on a particular species should you want to (personally, I quite like the idea of not knowing exactly what I'm going to hook next but thats just me.)

It sounds like a lovely spot and the pictures certainly seem to back that up. Good luck, let us all know how you get on!

Don't know any in Chesterfield (the wife is from Brampton) but there's one here

good evening Gents (n Ladies?)
well, we (my other halfs son came along too) had a great time fishing the lake, it was a slow night and we managed to get some kip for a few hours.
we found some nice areas to bait up and after a couple of hours we got our baits out (both fishing 2 rods from the same swim), the lad got constant line bites for ages! it was driving him mad lol
i on the other hand was getting little or no interest in my baits but i hung in there. about 1am we'd had no fish on, so we baited up, recast our baits and hit the sack.
i woke about 3:30am to a chorus of bird songs and the sky beginning to show signs of daylight but still no fish! i got some more bait out over my rigs and went back to sleep.
the Lad woke me up at 5:30 with one of my alarms going balistic! i ran down the bank and lifted into a very strange feeling fish. i couldnt get any line back on it but it wasnt taking any either, it just came round in a huge arc, eventually i managed to move it towards the net and saw a nice mirror carp slip into the net weighed it at 14.2lb (a new PB).
after that the lad got some more freebies out and went back to sleep.
i cracked open the bacon n eggs n a nice cuppa tea n just sat back enjoying the daybreak.
i had one more fish out about 11am, a 5.9lb bream.
so, not a net busting experience but we both had a good night/day and i uped my mirror carp pb, so not bad at all.
i'll definately fish there again, saw plenty of fish again, including a huge pike that swam past the rods.
but for a first night fishing session i was pleased with how it all went.
a pic of the carp..........................



cheers for all the tips guys
Dell

Well done, cracking fish. The main thing is that you both enjoyed it, it means you were doing something right.

Matthew.