How would you tackle this new water?

After an enforced lay off from fishing for the last year / 18 months due to new house, new job, and now new baby! I have just joined a new club and am determined that this season I will fully accept my parental responsibilities and get out and catch some fish and leave my wife to look after the children!

I am targeting two waters; the first being one of the Pevensey drains (Wallers Haven) which offers ample opportunity to get an hour or two in on the way home from work, so roll on next weekend! And the other is an old estate lake in a very historic and picturesque part of the East Sussex countryside.

It’s the lake that’s giving me the problem!, its about two acres in size, oval shaped running east/west, with a small island in the middle, the swims are quite cramped with trees and bushes all around making overhead casting very difficult, the western half is full of lilly pads, and the eastern half has clumps of lilies around the island and much of the bankside, where there are no lilies these is a lot of pondweed, the water is about three feet deep and quite clear.

There are very few areas that I could see free from any weed making presentation of baits a real problem.

I fished a 6 hour session yesterday morning and managed to catch one small roach on maggot to my float rod, the ledgered tutti fruity boilies were totally ignored! Another member told me corn was good, however he totally blanked during the time I was theremg:!

So how would you tackle a new water such as this one? (I’m sure raking is banned otherwise Murv's raking thread would have been ideal)

What tactics would you use?
What baits would you try?
How would you present the bait?
Would you use any specialist tackle?
Would you give up, go home, have a cup of tea and wait for the river season to start?

Many thanks in advance for any advice

Nick

Hand grenade !!!!! Lol

If frantically trying to find a clear spot proves impossible, or raking to create a clear spot is not allowed, I suspect that I'd try to encourage the fish into clearing patches by prebaiting. Carp, tench and bream that are really going for it should all be capable of clearing all but the most stubborn of pond weed, provided they have the incentive to do so. Steady baiting of particles into specific target areas should have the desired effect. The problem arises if you either feed an area where the bait doesn't get found or there isn't a big enough head of fish to create the desired clearance effect.

A shorter rod and sitting lower on the ground at the bank edge is sometimes useful if theres trees above/around you. I use an old acrylic seat cushion from a Shakespeare box (which has lasted 30 years so far!) and 11ft rod to fish swims that are really tight.

The weed issue depends a lot on what weed it is. If its hornwort, you can sometimes clear a sufficient patch by repeated casting with a float and plummet (or similar) which can act as a grappling hook, as this weed is lightly rooted and bunches can be gently extracted in one piece. If you can find any small holes these can be enlarged.

One of my favourite tench waters was like that years ago - i would guess 95% was choked with weed (although sometimes clearer areas underneath the surface cover). i was fishing in holes with strong line capable of cutting through the weed with a fish on. The more you fish the swim the easier it gets with the weed.

As for baits, sweetcorn is more effective in weedy waters in my opinion than in many other situations. No idea if this is the really case or not, but i am most confident using it for tench in those sorts of places.

sam vimes said:

Steady baiting of particles into specific target areas should have the desired effect. The problem arises if you either feed an area where the bait doesn't get found or there isn't a big enough head of fish to create the desired clearance effect.

Click to expand...

I'll give this a try although locating the small clear spots may be a challenge - I presume you would then put a leger / feeder into the spot rather than a float?

chub_on_the_block said:

A shorter rod and sitting lower on the ground at the bank edge is sometimes useful if theres trees above/around you. I use an old acrylic seat cushion from a Shakespeare box (which has lasted 30 years so far!) and 11ft rod to fish swims that are really tight.

Click to expand...

The problem is the tree overhang comes over the lake side so your end tackle end up in the tree branches, I couldn't get a cast away with a 12ft rod and the end of handle virtually touching the floor! so casting is limited to underhand casts only.

chub_on_the_block said:

The weed issue depends a lot on what weed it is. If its hornwort, you can sometimes clear a sufficient patch by repeated casting with a float and plummet (or similar) which can act as a grappling hook, as this weed is lightly rooted and bunches can be gently extracted in one piece. If you can find any small holes these can be enlarged.

One of my favourite tench waters was like that years ago - i would guess 95% was choked with weed (although sometimes clearer areas underneath the surface cover). i was fishing in holes with strong line capable of cutting through the weed with a fish on. The more you fish the swim the easier it gets with the weed.

As for baits, sweetcorn is more effective in weedy waters in my opinion than in many other situations. No idea if this is the really case or not, but i am most confident using it for tench in those sorts of places.

Click to expand...

I think the weed is hornwort (long stringy stuff easily pulled up) and came up in huge clumps with each retrieve of the float or leger and did start clearing slightly however to make a meaningful gap would take forever!

What bs line did you use on your tench water to cut through the weed?

Thanks for the replies its helping me build up a solution

---------- Post added at 15:46 ---------- Previous post was at 15:45 ----------

blounty65 said:

Hand grenade !!!!! Lol

Click to expand...

I thought about that too! nothing in the club rules banning it

Old Nick said:

I'll give this a try although locating the small clear spots may be a challenge - I presume you would then put a leger / feeder into the spot rather than a float?

Click to expand...

Whatever it takes to get a bait out to the naturally clear or fish cleared spots.

You would need to be able to raise a rod up to play and land a fish, even if you can get away with underhand cast. If the swim was that good, id go for an even shorter rod (i have an old glass 9ft ledger rod which i have used as a lightweight stalking rod).

Re BS line, i used to use about 6Ib but 8Ib may be more appropriate. That was for tench in the 3-4Ib range primarily. I would be float fishing, with a hooklength.

I was quite happy to fish a hole about the size of a snooker table.

sam vimes said:

Whatever it takes to get a bait out to the naturally clear or fish cleared spots.

Click to expand...

Yep point taken - feeder going to be favourite

chub_on_the_block said:

You would need to be able to raise a rod up to play and land a fish, even if you can get away with underhand cast. If the swim was that good, id go for an even shorter rod (i have an old glass 9ft ledger rod which i have used as a lightweight stalking rod).

Re BS line, i used to use about 6Ib but 8Ib may be more appropriate. That was for tench in the 3-4Ib range primarily. I would be float fishing, with a hooklength.

I was quite happy to fish a hole about the size of a snooker table.

Click to expand...

Short rods and heav line going to be the order of the day, although the clear areas are about the size of a coffee table rather than a snooker table!.

I suspect the fish to be quite line shy so heavy hook lengths may be counter productive?

Would some form of zig rig be a viable option, and get the bait just on top of the weed?

Thanks for the advice

Best

Nick