Mark McKenna is back to his old catching ways at Savay after a short lean spell by his standards. We have a feeling a few more will follow before the end of the year and as is usual with the legendary Savay Lake, they are nearly always whackers! Watch this space…
Having blanked on the previous rota I got back down to fish the overnighters on Savay last rota ( 2-9/10/11) and came out last in the draw – again! I opted for the ‘Roach’ swim as there were fish on the Canal Bank albeit a bit further left than the Roach – it was as near as I could get and I had a plan to fish really long to a feature that runs off the Ruislip Island margin in front, it meant spodding at range (150 yards+) which is a pain but doesn’t get done so it’s a tactic that I felt sure would pay off. Wrong – God laughed at my plan and dished out an unexpectedly stiff wsw with accompanying ‘weedbergs’ on the Tuesday which meant I couldn’t bait the area I intended to fish so I reorganized my rods accordingly, however doubt had begun to creep into a mind still haunted by a previous blank rota so a move was on the cards Wednesday saw the reeds free to my left but as there was no one due down until the weekend I let it lie fallow with no lines out for a day before moving in at 5.00am Thursday then shooting off to work for the day having run my lines out to bankside marks from the lucky stone and clipped up, spod rod included.
I returned that evening knowing the swim as I do it was no bother to get it all out tight on the money and baited up only having a 120 yard range on the longest rods made life a lot easier in the breeze which was still pumping into the canal bank all the while, my mate Cabbie had tagged Lionels at 45.02 next door that morning so we celebrated the capture as the evening drew on. Nothing very much happened I heard a fish just before bed that sounded like it was where I needed it to be so I retired happier than I had been. I blanked the night then returned the following evening having had a frantic call from Cabbie saying he’d seen a load in the cottage bay and he was moving if I’d care to join him, he’d bagged position ‘A’ though so rather than be a ghilly for the duration I decided to stick to my guns and have the whole Canal bank to myself for a change, rightly or wrongly, I convinced myself there were fish still present.
Saturday saw me mutilating myself mentally for it had gone ever so quiet on the carp sightings front and to make matters worse I had a tonne of seriously dodgy ‘JuJu’ to contend with as it appeared I might be stuck on my 13th fish of the year – though John Harry did remind me when I relayed my woes to him that there were a lot of people around who’d love to be stuck on 13 right now! As an angler I’m never content with what I’ve already got and wanted ‘just one more’ real bad, so when a good ‘un flopped out just off the Island margin in front of me I breathed a huge sigh of relief – I wasn’t a useless so and so after all, there were still fish in the area.
A rethink on the rigs saw me change all three onto a critically balanced set up I’d blatantly copied from the Cabbie’s ‘Hogwarts magic rig manual’ complete with ‘yella fella’s’ for hook baits. As the night drew I was half way through my dinner when my middle rod levitated out of the buzzer with the accompanying one noter signaling I’d got it right at last!
When they can take line at 120yards they are normally good uns and I had to spend time convincing it that it couldn’t stay behind the 3rd bar forever, having got it back in to my bank I then proceeded to miss net it twice before, finally, another Savay chunk lay wallowing in the net, it looked a bit like the Trophy fish I’d had earlier in the year however it didn’t have a lump on its flank so I thought I had tagged a new one for myself, however it turns out that the lump fades to nothing with the Autumnal weight gain and it was indeed a recapture of the ‘Trophy’ fish at 44lb 8oz I wasn’t complaining avoiding a blank and number 13 in one foul swoop.
Autumn is upon us so I’m eagerly anticipating a better draw and hopefully more action in our last rota of the year before the November free for all I’ll keep you posted!
A brief run down of the tackle I used: line was syncro XT in 18lb with clear ESP Tapered Leaders, lead set up was 12 bore tubing in silty green, adjustable lead clips in choody silt, two tone hook link 25lb in choody silt, size 7 D-7’s with accompanying shrink tube, bait was a ‘yella fella’ fished over spod mix comprising hemp, corn, prototype pellets boilies and additives I used about 30Kg in total over the course of the week.
For more advice on carp bait, you can visit Mark’s website at www.baitcraft.com.