Tom Maker runs us through a winter session on Linear Fisheries’ popular Brasenose One, where he landed more than 50 carp!
I had a couple of days free and fancied a bit of fun over on Linear Fisheries. My intention was to fish on Oxlease, but after a few laps around the Lake the only swim I really fancied was taken. I jumped back in the van and had a look at Brasenose One where a few lads had had a good session fishing with maggots and were packing up.
The fish were clearly there, so I decided to follow them in. I hadn’t got any maggots with me, only a few bags of boilies, a couple of buckets of hemp and some sweetcorn. I was hopeful of a few bites, but maggots at this time of year can often dominate lakes.
The wind was pumping into my face and it made range fishing a tricky prospect. The bottom was clear all over, so I clipped up at 18 wraps to make life a bit more comfortable. I didn’t want to fish anything complicated or technical, so simply hair rigged a 16mm bottom bait on a very simple rig.
The bait was something new from Sticky and it smells divine. They have played around with the Vor-Tex to make it a bait that can be used all year round, perhaps lending itself more to working better in the colder weather. I had used it before and knew it would be suited for a trip like this. I Spombed out half a bucket of mix and cast three rods over the top of the spot.
Manic
It was getting dark and the weather was unreal for this time of year; the wind was relatively warm and the rain powered down at times. By 11pm I had landed six fish, nothing big but it was a start. Then I brought the rods in for the night and had a good night’s sleep.
I woke early and put the rods back out, but it was dead. It wasn’t until 10am when I got my first bite, but then throughout the day it was manic, to say the least. At times I had three fish on at once; it was ridiculous. After every fish I would put another couple of Spombs of bait out there to keep the fish feeding. The highlight of the day was a cracking 27½lb new Lake record common.
I decided to bring the rods in again that night and have decent sleep. I Spombed a bucket of bait out there and left the fish to it, then woke up fresh and raring to go in the morning. I topped the swim up with a few more Spombs and recast all the rods. It took no more than 10 minutes before the action of the previous day returned, and it was total carnage. I fished hard through the day, tallying up the number of fish and weighing the ones that looked over 20lb. I ended up with 53 bites of which I landed 51. This included 20 twenties to over 27lb. I couldn’t believe the average size of fish I was catching. Normally a few singles turn up on Brasenose, but it certainly seemed that by fishing with boilie hookbaits I was getting through to the bigger fish.
I had used nearly 10 kilos of boilies, which is a lot of bait, but the fish were loving it and the more I put in the more I caught.
The highlight of the day was a cracking 27½lb new Lake record common.
Tom Maker
