2007 – Carp Dam Rock!!!

We decided to get onto a new lake for 2007. This fantastic looking spot, a stones throw from Madrid looked just the ticket. It was our first session on the water, and we figured 6 rods would be better than 2. Tony, Angel and I got on the water at about 11.30am. and put baits out!

We didn’t want to start fishing too early as temperatures had been low and fresh, add to this the fact that 3 days before we had pre-baited quite a bit of our chosen boiled bait and frolic. We knew no-one would have fished our peg, and so there was no real pressure. We were simply trying out our method, introducing fish to a bed of bait to which they could feed without fear and hoping one or two large Spanish carp would fall for our trap..

It was a fresh day with a limp S.E wind. When we cast in we were all thinking with some daylight sun – the fish might get on the move, and who knows maybe between 2pm-4pm we would get lucky!

A theory I maintain is that if you catch on your first session on any new water, you’re doing well. I never expect to do this but I always expect a run…

This session was no excepcion; having done the groundwork we had selected to fish the slightly deeper water about 5/6m. We knew the lake went down to at least 10m but we figured that at 5m the water would not be so affected by the cold and therefore might hold fish…..

Through the day we tried various baits from our usual and most regular selection, by about 4pm. I was getting itchy feet; nothing had happened, except the odd twitch here and there. I wanted to try something else. I opted to walk a bait out along the dam wall, cast it off the wall about 50 yards, plant 30 baits around my hook then leave it, by the time I done this and walked the rod back to the pod ,I was fishing at 220-250 yards, in for a penny.

Needles to say, all our efforts yielded nothing, nada. Tony was after a Spanish pike and used both dead bait and spinners to no avail. Both the water and alarms were silent, but what splendid silence it was…

It’s strange to say, but it was the first blank session I was please with! The pleasure of being by the water, was more than enough. Call it gut instinct, we were on a little haven and we all knew it.

Loads of research and plumbing about done, we discoved the demographic of a large part of this wonderful Spanish water, yeh we lost rigs, and gear to snags on retrieve, o.k. we hardly had a bleep between us on our alarms, but we did have a wonderful day out!

About 30min. before we packed up, Angel dragged in a plastic bag (see photo), it was the only catch of the day, but it did nothing to dampen spirits, actually it kept them alive.

The sun set and the cold bite and fog latched on, the lake transformed and looked like something from a Sherlock Holmes scene, absolutely stunning, we had all blanked with exception of the bag, but now the lake was showing us something else…

As we drove home on the M30, I had a vision of the water stuck in my head, mysty and haunting, mmmh, I thought about Watson and investigation, as Sherlock might have said sometime ago «elementary».

With more time and investigation, I am sure this water will yield.

Tight lines

Andy Mac