Stuart Court - Savay Lake Part Two

Rota 2. All the lost confidence from the previous season had returned with that first fish of the season under my belt so early on. It's a strange thing confidence, its affects are very, very real but I have no idea how something such as a mental state of mind can convert into a fish picking up your hook bait out in the middle of a lake. The wave of confidence continued to wash over me and a succession of fish came my way resulting in a five-fish hit. Three of these fish were caught on chods, two on mutli rigs so it felt as though everything I'd planned was working to perfection. The multi rigs were being fished on the clearer spots, the chods on the not so clean areas.

Rota 3. More success came during this session in the shape of a true Savay warrior known as The Trophy. She was freshly spawned out at 41Ib 12oz but looking in fine condition all the same. The weed was beginning to get a bit thicker at this stage but the chod rigs were proving to be the ideal solution and the Heli-Safe clips were working to perfection.

Rota 4. This rota was a total wash out for me because the floating weed was causing havoc with presentation and I just couldn't keep my lines in the water for

any length of time before they all got wiped out. These things are quite commonplace on Savay and anyone who has ever fished it will tell you that nothing comes easy.

Rota 5. There were five other anglers in the car park on Sunday for the draw and, as has become quite normal, I came out dead last. It's a big old lake though so with four swims taken I still had a huge amount of choice in front of me. I decided to load the barrow up and just walk until I saw something that told me where to fish. I got as far as the Roach swim along the Canal Bank and stopped for a look. It's a lovely swim but one that I'd never actually had a bite from before. I decided to get the marker rod off the barrow and have a little lead around to see how weedy it was in the area. First cast and my lead pulled back like it was skating across black ice, "That'll do," I thought to myself! Second cast was a fair bit further and out towards a bar that I could visibly see glowing a few feet under the surface at around 120 yards. Again, the feeling of lovely clean silt had me smiling.

As easy as that, without actually seeing a fish show, my mind was made up, these two spots just felt right for the conditions. With confidence levels sky high from previous weeks' successes I honestly felt as though I could fish any swim on the lake this week and I'd catch; what a complete turnaround from last year when I couldn't buy a bite!

The spots in this swim felt so clean that I opted to go with the multi rigs on all three rods as I thought the chods would be far too blatant in this situation. I like to use a size-8 Longshank Xs on my multi rigs as they are simply astoundingly sharp straight from the packet. I personally don't like to sharpen hooks and prefer to use a hook that is consistently sharp and reliable without the need for any modification. The Longshank X may sound like a strange pattern to use on a multi rig but trust me, with the aid of a small shrink tube kicker to set the angle perfectly, it's a hook and rig combo that takes some beating. Incidentally, I also use this very same hook on my chod rigs.

Unbelievably, everything went to plan again this session and over the space of a couple of days I landed four fish and lost one to an unexplainable hook pull. I was really riding the crest of a wave and I didn't want it to stop. My next bite came minutes before I was due to go to work. My left-hand rod bucked in its rest as line peeled from the clutch but no sooner had I lifted into the fish, it ground to a very solid halt. All the other fish I'd hooked so far in this swim had given me no trouble with weed whatsoever so this was a bit of a surprise. Damian Clarke was standing beside me by this time, along with Carl Pashley as both were fishing nearby swims. We tried everything to move this fish but it was clear that the only option was to lay the rod back down and give it some slack line in the hope that it would start to move clear of the weed bed.

Twenty minutes went by without so much as a bleep from the buzzer when all of a sudden the fish decided it was time to make a move. I let it take a bit of line in the hope that it would swim free of the weed but all that happened when I put pressure onto it was I pulled it back into the same spot where it was locked up before. This happened twice more over the space of a couple of hours and I began to think that this fish just wasn't destined to come ashore. By now I'd had to call into work and tell them that I wasn't going to make it, there was literally no other option as I couldn't just leave with a fish attached and I certainly didn't want to pull for a break and risk leaving the it trailing any tackle. This game of cat and mouse went on for a long time then, a full three hours after the initial bite, an epic battle, which I couldn't have won without the help of my fellow Toads, resulted in a gorgeous big mirror carp was laying on my unhooking mat. We weighed her in at 441b 4oz and took a few shots before returning her to recover from the ordeal. I was so happy to have landed this fish because the longer it was weeded the more chance it had of getting rid of the hook and throughout the duration of the morning I was :at convinced on numerous occasions that the fish had long gone; the old saying is true, sometimes your name is just on them!

Rota 6. I decided to fish in the Cottage Bay this rota and again it miraculously turned out to be the correct decision as I had three bites, losing one and landing two upper twenties. This run of form just seemed to be continuing and I couldn't quite believe my luck if I'm honest.

Rota 7. My first swim choice this rota was the same swim in the Cottage Bay as I fished last rota but I soon got a feeling that I needed to be elsewhere in the wet and windy conditions so packed up and moved to the Canal Bank.

And what a move that turned out to be! Three takes on the same re-cast rod within the space of a couple of hours were topped off with what is probably the best looking fish I've ever caught.

A rarely caught fish known as the Double Linear. One which I saw on the bank at 381b during my first year on Savay, four seasons ago. At the time I remember thinking what a beautiful creature it was and that I'd love to catch it one day. Now I had, and this time it was a lot bigger at 451b 4oz. After that capture, I would have been more than happy if I'd not caught another fish all season if I'm honest, but there were three rotas left so time was still on my side before the colder weather arrived and I would be on the rivers chasing perch or barbel.

Rota 8. My only chance this rota was missed when I hooked a good fish at range, which subsequently fell off.

Rota 9. Confidence was knocked a little from the lost fish last rota but I felt as though I just needed to keep doing what I'd been doing all season and things would come good again. I knew I didn't have to worry about my bait or my rigs so my head was clear to concentrate on being accurate with my baiting and reading the swim to try and get the most out of it.

Fortunately, things started well with a 361b mirror, which was soon followed up with a couple of lovely mid twenties. With one rota to go I was up to 19 fish for the season. I couldn't quite believe how well this year had gone in comparison to last but I really wanted to round it off and make it 20, That would truly make it the greatest season of my life.

Rota 10-:The usual Sunday draw a Was very strange, as I found myself with the whole of Savay Lake to N. choose from as nobody else had turned up. I opted to start on the Canal Bank but after my first night I realised that with the late-October weather feeling more much more autumnal than previous weeks I'd need to go and find an opportunity and make the most out of having the lake to myself. Dropping bait in the edges of various likely looking swims, I walked right round the Colne Bank as far as I could. My plan was then to check all the baited spots on my way back round.

My bait was clearly untouched in most swims but when I crept up to the margin of Clive's I was greeted with the sight of two common carp t hoovering up my free offerings. I watched these fish for some time before deciding that it was too late in the afternoon for me to get back round to my swim on the other side of the lake, prepare my tackel for a stalking mission and go back to the swim with the feeding fish before nightfall, so my plan was to leave them in peace until the next day. Being the only angler on the lake meant that I had to be fully prepared to deal with a fish on my own so next morning I loaded my unhooking mat with all the things I'd need. Tripod, camera, scales, sling, net, bait and rod were rolled into the mat and strapped to my barrow for the long walk round the lake. As the fish were feeding so close in on a clean gravel spot I swapped my reel spool from 15lbs Touchdown to the Kontour fluorocarbon. To this I added a few tiny blobs of tungsten putty above a 4oz inline lead set to drop off on the take as I was fishing quite close to some trees. I was using a very simple, three-inch hook link made from 30lbs Dark Matter braid with a basic knotless knot securing a size 6 Wide Gape hook into place. Half a boilie was slipped onto the hair and the rig was lowered into place and positioned precisely where I could see the bait. I then started to introduce a few broken boilies to try to entice the fish onto the spot like I had the day before.

Nearly two hours passed without a fish entering the swim, I thought my chance had gone and I was kicking myself for not having a go the day before when the fish were feeding hard, then I noticed a bit of movement from under the tree to my right. One of the commons was back and it was searching for the bait I'd introduced. During the next tense 20 minutes I watched as the fish scoured the bottom sucking up every single morsel of bait, I even saw it spit my hook bait out once. Thankfully it didn't spook or even flinch for a second, it just continued to feed further down the shelf then slowly it started to come back up towards my hook bait. My heart was racing as it came close, then it shook its head and all hell broke loose. A mega close quarter battle ensued as the common tried its hardest to get under the branches of the trees on a very short line. I can honestly say that I've never played a carp as hard as this before in my life, I just couldn't give it an inch of line or it would reach the branches and be gone. It was twisting around in the clear water while I had my rod buried under the surface away from the danger of the snags. Eventually I gained some form of control and managed to slip the net under the fish. Standing there all alone literally shaking, I realised that I needed to compose myself and get the mat, sling scales etc ready as there was nobody there to help me. As I leant over the waters edge and broke the net down to lift the fish up

Onto the awaiting matt I suddenly realised that it was considerably heavier than I had expected. You know straight away when you've got a 40, it just feels like a struggle to lift from the water and this gave me exactly that feeling. On the scales my hunch was proven to be right as she took the needle round to 431b 3oz. An absolutely pristine, mint-conditioned, stunning Savay common. My season ended right there and then with fish number 20. What a beauty and what a way to catch it!