The ancient pit is the kind of magical place that probably sits in the back of every anglers imagination. The kind of place that you could only conjure up in your dreams, with its beautiful old and scaley fish to go with it. The lake itself is said to be over 400 years old, and looked every bit of it too, so beautifully picturesque, and clear to see that mother nature owned this lake. You can feel it when your there, the moment you step on the other side of the gate you immediately travel 400 years back in time. You feel like your the only carp angler in existence and a guest of mother nature herself. It really did have an atmospheric aura about the place.
The lads that fished it were all like minded people too, and with only being ten of us we seldom crossed paths fishing, so they also felt like ghosts at times. Only really meeting on the arranged work party’s and the annual June 16th start of season social. But that’s just how it was, it was so precious and special that nobody really over indulged fishing it. So, it remained the quiet peaceful tranquil setting it was supposed to be, left as if untouched by others, for others.
There are not many places like this anymore, there’s equally as beautiful lakes out there, some maybe more so. But there’s not that many places left where you can shut the gate behind you, and its just you, the lake, and the fish. No politics or competition, just peaceful beautiful fishing, all by yourself. Almost like your very own episode of Passion for Angling with Bernard narrating as you walk round but Chris and Bob couldn’t make it. Angling heaven!!!
First couple of sessions fishing the place was hard work, and I mean hard work! It might have been immensely beautiful but, by God she was a raw and rugged old place to fish. Barrowing was an utter ball ache too! bramble bushes snagging you up, tree roots tripping you over. Up and down narrowing twisty tracks, fallen trees stopping you in your tracks, and Stinging nettles taller than me (not hard really)! Then when you get to your chosen destination (or not) you set up in a tiny rat hole and enjoy back ache for the weekend, a peg you probably can’t cast from there properly anyway, but that is what made the place so special. Swapping the barrow for the boat was soon apparent after a couple of very hard lessons. No wonder the tracks looked untouched; it was the way forward!
Obviously doing this made it loads easier navigating around the place and opened a whole new world, fishing wise. I did catch a few from around the edges at times but most of the fishing was done from the boat pretty much from the get go. What else became apparent pretty soon was why the other members didn’t seem to over indulge. It was because it was quite a readable lake, in respects of as long as you kept in touch with the place It was obvious when the carp were active. And with 400 years of silt, you could imagine how they sheeted up when they got on the feed.
What wasn’t apparent was how do you fish for the carp effectively without all the other species messing it up. Now normally when you hear the term nuisance species you immediately think of tench or Bream. Indeed, tench and Bream did reside in the lake, and I did catch them at times although it wasn’t those, I had to worry about, it was the bloody Rudd! Rudd? You say. Yes, Rudd of all things. I’ll give you this as an example, before touching on it later. You could peer down into a hole in the weed you intend to fish. I’d grab my bag of 18 millers and proceed to start plopping them from the boat on to the spot, watching them descend to make sure there hitting the intended target, suddenly, they start doing frigging zigzags then dart off into the weed? Your eyes adjust more as you lean over the boat to get a better look and there like piranhas, millions of them everywhere from diddy little things to great giants! Even if it did land on the bottom, it wasn’t there for long, the bigger ones of the shoal would mop them up eventually or, if they landed on anything but solid bottom the little ones would peck away at them until they were hidden within the silt.
It was only when you learnt how to beat them, you could begin to think about beating the Carp. Of course, this was not immediately obvious, my first couple of sessions fishing from the bank were blind and unaware of the real situation, and my second little stint was late October margin fishing never seeing any real Rudd activity. Giving me initial false impressions that I could fish conventional style set ups and bait as I did catch a few fish doing exactly that.
It was when the Rudd awoke when this place became the real head banger its known to be, and really began to test everything that you do. It wasn’t until returning the following year that the realisation these little critters were going to be such an issue, and working out how to beat them really began. Again I turn up oblivious, early spring this time a mid March work party I think it was , l proceed to boat out 3 white ‘Current & Spice’ pop ups for the night and a sparse scattering of 15 millers after helping knock up an otter fence. Come morning I’ve got a dark old common just under 27lb in the sling. Easy peasy squeezy lemon, first night back, same method as always and boom! Business as usual kid, come the middle of April I’m a different man, pulling out my hair and really contemplating entering the Drennan Cup for a guaranteed baseball cap at the very least. I’ve not even got to the worst part of the season when they were really on it. I was catching fish but not without consequence and obviously missing out on chances. You just couldn’t seem to keep a bait fishing effectively enough, for long enough for the carp to even have a chance. In turn you’d be missing out with ineffective presentation where the Rudd were playing swing ball all night with your rig eventually pinching the bait. If it wasn’t the dreaded Rudd, you would pick up the occasional Tench or Bream, it seemed I was constantly repositioning rods out in the boat. Not ideal and as you can imagine I did plenty of coursing along the way. My episode of’ Passion For Angling’ would of been somewhat different I to them that we all love to watch.
I was only ever fishing boilie too, obviously most baits were off the menu hence due to the Rudd, so I decided to go down the boilie only approach. Anything to jazz it up a bit was just a no go, but more attraction in the swim meant more trouble. The next thing to go was the 15mm baits, just 18mm’s now in my armoury. My rigs were getting cruder, double 18mm Enhanced / hardened bottom baits, which did slow things down a bit, and stiff ‘D rig’ of 35lb fluorocarbon was the way forward.
As I mentioned before this would have been around the time when I’m now witnessing 18 mm baits doing zigzags as they descend to the spot, carried off into the weed by the pesky Rudd. Little savages were unreal! Obviously still not able to keep any amount of free food around the hook bait come the morning feeding spell.
Then one day it hit me, I’d not long caught a fish, sat getting another rig sorted, and as my rig hang right in front of my eyes with the double 18mm hook bait dangling from my brolly (which to be honest I’d never really been happy fishing, it amongst single 18’s in any situation, its just too obvious in my mind). Something deep down in my old skool carpy basement was screaming at me…. THE SPAGHETTI TRICK, YOU P****! Never heard of the spaghetti trick. Super easy and can’t believe id suffered so long already without remembering it myself, talk about a eureka moment. For anyone who’s isn’t familiar with the method. Its as easy as this, pinch some dry spaghetti from your mum or Mrs (and all other combinations) and slide into your fishing bag on the sly. From the safety of the lake take your spaghetti out your bag and your bait of choice 18mm in my case, take two baits, and snap a 1-inch piece of dry spaghetti and push the two baits on to either end and job done, you’ve now got a double free bait. All you have to do then is repeat for as many baits as you require and maybe bulk up with singles if necessary. They really did struggle to deal with them, too weighty and cumbersome to carry away and too big to engulf. The really satisfying thing to watch is them get to the bottom without the pesky Rudd ruining the party, however hard they tried.
I was starting to finally gain some kind of momentum; I was finally feeling I was fishing effective. I was starting to turn more chances into memorable moments. The final change was to sort out the 18mm single baits still vanishing either when falling through the water or robbed off the spot when all was settled. I wanted to spread the bait out, bulking up the doubled free baits with singles, but the single freebies just weren’t staying on the spot whatever I tried. I was once again questioning why I was putting these single baits out. I didn’t want to put loads of doubled baits out and with so few over such a big area it didn’t seem attractive enough. So, I decided to swap the single boilies for tiger nuts. Nothing seemed to touch the tigers apart from carp and that seemed to be the eventual winning method.
You might think at this point, why didn’t I just switch to just tigers? Two reasons really RG baits don’t do tigers, and when I did try ‘nuts only’ the results were very inconsistent, at times feeling dead in comparison to fishing in conjunction with boilie. Plus, that’s what everybody else did, everyone just seemed to fish tigers for the ease. It was like the greater of two evils, you couldn’t fish with them, but you couldn’t fish without them. You couldn’t live with them; you couldn’t live without them. So, to be consistent I had to find the fine line between enough attraction in the swim, but not enough for the Rudd to do anything about it when they arrived. Don’t feed them owt, because if you did, that frenzy would start, and you’d regret it sharpish and suffer the consequences.
Double 18mm freebies and tigers 50/50 was my go-to method for the rest of my time on the ‘Ancient Pit’ during the warmer months. You could get away with it in early spring, but as soon as the signs were there, I switched over to using tigers very quick. Not only was this the best decision I made, I found a way to deter the Rudd but also, I could hold back on the bait in general knowing its staying there as intended and not unintentionally feeding everything else instead of my intended quarry.
One by one, like pieces to a puzzle the prizes were coming. Absolute beautiful specimens with a few of the old guards amongst them as well, these creatures really did match there surroundings. Some even looked like they were actually carved from the great old trees that surrounded the place. I loved every minute of fishing that special place, the wildlife, the surroundings, the lads on the syndicate, even met a carping hero who joined, and of course loved every capture. I even enjoyed the battle of patience to be honest. It made me work for it, made me fish hard and it made me happy when it all came together. Tell you this as well, I didn’t realise how big Rudd can get!
If you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed the read. Now Greg said, “keep it short with a few photos”, but how do you cram three seasons into a few paragraphs, and pick just a few photos out when they were all so good looking. I tried to condense it the best I could and pick out some of the better ones but probably went a little over the top on both counts. Greg picked this place out of all my fishing adventures, so he can only blame himself!
Enjoy, tight lines, Mark ‘the hobbit’ Baxter
