I was planning to fish a 48 hour session on Northfield White Lake from Saturday evening till Monday afternoon. Whilst at work I received a message from a friend that was already fishing the lake, telling me that all the swims was taken and I wouldn’t be able to get a swim. I knew that the lake next door – Northfield Wash Pit – didn’t get fished that much despite it being a runs water, so I was going to fish that for the night and then move onto White Lake the day after. I phoned my dad and told him that I was going to fish the Wash Pit and move onto the other lake in the morning and he said he would pick me up and take me from work.  We arrived at the Wash Pit 20 minutes around 20 minutes after being collected and I started to unload all of my gear onto the barrow. I was unlocking the gate when I saw my head torch catch on a white sign at the right of the bush just tucked away so I couldn’t read it. So I ventured through the gate and my session took a turn for the worse as it was revealed that it was the new ‘no night fishing sign’. So I ventured back to the van with my wheel barrow and we sat around for a bit deciding what to do because time was getting on. We decided that we would try our luck by driving over to another nearby pit; on arrival I unlocked the gate and saw a couple of cars in the car park but driving up the gravel track it quickly became apparent that this lake was also full. So I said to my dad ‘lets go to White Lake tomorrow and I’ll just do a 24 hour session on there’.

 

 

Sunday morning I woke up at 8:00am got dressed and started to do some final checks that I had everything I needed. I sat down, tied some chod rigs and baited them so I knew that when I found a swim, I could just clip them on to the rods and I’d be ready to fish. The chod rig that I was using consisted of a size 4 Korda Krank Choddy hook, 20Lb Korda Chod Filament and a Korda Chod Swivel. The bait that I was going to use was the Urban Baits washed out Nutcracker yellow and white pop-ups. At 9:02am I received a message from the same friend which said that ‘the lake was emptying but people are jumping in the swims behind people’, so I left my house straight awa

y to try and get a swim. We arrived at the lake at 9:30am and my friend that had been in contact with me was leaving but he had people already waiting for the swim, so he let me un-pack all my gear as he was packing away, so nobody could get in the spot. Whilst standing around talking, the lad in the next swim had landed two fish within ten minutes and the friend that had been reserving the swim lost two fish which was a massive boost for my confidence. I had a short and fast walk around the lake and spoke to a couple of anglers and they hadn’t had a touch so I knew I was at the right end of the water. So I settled in, cast out the baited rods and then begun the process of spodding out a bed of feed.

 

 

The spod mix I used consisted of 1kg of both 14mm Nutcracker and Strawberry Nutcracker boilies, 1kg of maize and ½ kg of crumbed Strawberry Nutcracker boilies. I left the frozen maize in the bucket over night to defrost as the gloopy liquid that is emitted after the cooking process acts as a glue, which would coat the boilies helping the crumb to stick to them. I like to do this as it means that when they are submerged in the water, they sink to the bottom leaving behind a cloud of boilie crumb through the water column. The free offerings were spodded out 120 yards to a small buoy at the very beginning of my session as I knew i’d only have 24 on the lake. After my spot had been baited, I put all three of my baited rods within two metres of each other and sat back and waited.

 

 

It was getting into late evening now and another guy had turned up in the swim next to me and I went over to help him with his gear and have a chat. I had been talking to him for about ten minutes when my middle rod had rattled off, it was a ‘one toner’ bite which, the fish never materialised and my friend remarked ‘that’s a savage Northfield liner’. I cast the rod back out on the spot, luckily, I could see the buoy as the light that was emitted from the caravan park at the back bank lit up the water. I went into the night as confident as I had ever felt, normally when doing night sessions I go straight to sleep, but this time, I stayed up until about 2:00am on Monday morning without another touch so I went to bed. I woke up at 6:10am with the sun beaming in through the bivvy from over the caravans; I knew that the fish were on the feed because I could see slight bubble patches on the ropes. At 7:30 am the right hand rod melted off, after a ten minute battle – which resulted in the other two rods wiped out – my friend slipped the net under a nice Simmo. I unhooked the fish and put it in the sling to rest for a bit, whilst the fish was resting I began to put the other rods back on the alarms, as I was doing this, the middle rod screamed off. Sadly there must have only been a light hook hold because the hook pulled as I tightened up to the fish. I ran back up the bank to the wrap sticks to get the rod back out because the fish were feeding and I knew that I had a chance of bagging a few more. As I started to wrap the middle rod up I heard a drag peeling on a reel, I had forget to turn my alarm back on and I had a third fish on. I was happy to have converted two of the three runs into fish landed, which I thought was a good catch rate. It was my first session out using the Urban Baits boilies and they worked well for me. We will be stocking a section of the Urban Baits products in the next few weeks.

I went out the following weekend, braving the harsh weather that was coming hoping to bag a few more fish. When I arrived at the lake all the swims were taken once agin with only the day swims available. Not to be deterred I covered my barrow with my bivvy and walked the lake. Luckily for me there was an angler in the swim I fished the previous week about to leave, I quickly collected my gear got set up ready to battle the elements. Northfield lake was getting hit by a 50mph wind which made casting that little bit more difficult, it took me about 30 minutes to get all the rods out on the spot where I felt they needed to be. Then began the game of spodding, needless to say this was a learning curve, after an hour of spodding I had put out about 2.5kg/3kg of bait. My first action on came around 1.30am, after which I continued to get liners for the next hour or so, the fish were on my bait yet again. The next thing I know its 6.30am, my left rod had it’s bobbin dropped back, as I reeled into the lead I found my lines had been tangled, one nil to the fish. I must admit it took me some time to get all three rods sorted and back out on their spots, far from ideal as it was ‘bite time’, at least casting was easier as the wind had backed off. I had been back in a little over an hour when in a flash the middle rod had two quick bleeps with the bobbin hitting the blank and a fish beginning to take line. The moment I connected with the fish I knew that this was a good fish due to the slow plodding then the short outbursts whilst peeling line, after a 20 minute battle the fish was in the net, I won!  This was what fishing Northfield was about for me, it’s commons. This was far from it’s biggest but my first and one to remember, 20lb on the nose.

See you soon,

Billy