(4) Its not you, its me!!!!
ok so couldn't help my self and had to get back by the lake, this time just for a 24 hour session, i had an idea where i wanted to set up and get the traps out but as you all will no its never set in stone, when i arrived there was only one other person set up on the lake and that was Alex, now you cant miss Alex when he is on the lake as he tends to be in the biggest bivvy you have ever seen, i think its called the queens castle and if it isn't then it should be, you could fit 4 bed chairs in it and still have room to swing bob around by his tail.
I turned up at about 7.30am and the cold mist from the night before was just lifting, i spent a good half an hour looking around for signs of life but with no joy, every bit of movement that i was thinking could be a carp turned out to be a black chicken, there was just nothing showing but i had to get this 24 hour started so i remembered that the last time i was here they where coming out on the old river bed in the royal box swim, i couldn't set up in the box as there was over hanging trees above and i didn't want to be struggling with my 13 foot rods trying to hit the spots i needed, I ended up in the next swim up called clear view, I then set out to find some clear spots, baited up with about 2klo of home made specials , it was now just a waiting game.
as the afternoon fell i did think the alarms where going to scream off between 6-8pm but this time came and went, it was getting real cold out side but lucky for me i had a new 2kw heater that sat on my colmans stove running next to me (review to follow) so it was warmer than my house, couple more hours went by with no movement in the water and no fish on the bank, i bunkered down, turned off the heat and hit the sack, i did here some carp lumping out in the night on the other side of the lake but it was to dark and cold to be getting up and trying to cast to them, ooo and i did here that Alex hooked in to a coot at about 12.30pm witch means he had more runs than i did lol, i had all ready decided that i was going to leave the baits out the following day so didn't get up 2 early, the rest of the session went the same and I come home with another blank.
bearing in mind this was my 5th session of blanks and that in the last 5 sessions i had changed my tactics a hell of allot since the last fish i had i started to doubt every thing i was doing, not knowing if the changes to the bait or the rigs where to blame, i know the lake hadn't been fishing well for the last couple of month and there could be loads of different factors to why, i mean they had just spent 2 months clearing the dump of plastic and waste, there where dumper trucks going in and out, diggers running back and forth or may be it was the water levels as there has been a drop in the big lake and new barge, it could also be the abundance of naturals in the water and of course it could be the weather changes, but it felt like when a relationship is coming to and end and the other party has just come and patted you on the back saying "ITS NOT YOU, ITS ME" and your sitting there thinking it must have been something i done wrong, i will have to wait a couple of months to find out if it is me or the lake but find out i will.
