During the previous few years it seemed that spring took forever to arrive but this year got up and running a lot earlier than expected. I started my spring campaign on St. Johns on the linear complex in the last week of Feb and managed ten fish during my first weekend. This took me a little by surprise as I felt it was still too early, going on previous years. To be honest within 20 mins of turning up I got the feeling that I was going to have a good session. The fish were well active and put on a good display when I arrived and more importantly I was able to set up on the social bank bang on them. I always feel that as long as I have fish showing in front of me on St.Johns, they are more than catchable. During my first session they really got their heads down and I managed to catch over both bait and also a few on zigs.
On my return the following week the weather was a little less favourable with a bitterly cold north easterly wind making it feel like the depths on winter. The session started off with a struggle but soon as the weather warmed up the fish became more active and zigs accounted for nine fish in a day for me up to 29Lb. It is not the first time this has happened to me, quite often in the past I have had a quiet 24 hours and then it suddenly switches on and a number of takes come along in quick succession.
After a great zig session, my following session coincided with some very warm weather and again I managed a couple of fish on zigs up to 28Lb during my first day from the road bank. With the weather warming up, a few fish started to move up the channel into the shallower water so I decided to move. I have always found the fish in St.Johns spend a large amount of time in the upper layers up the deep end and zigs score well but they can be hard work getting them to get their heads down in 12 foot of water, especially in high pressure conditions. However, whenever I have got on them in shallower water, they are more than happy to drop down and get on the bait. During my final night of the session I moved to the channel and had six fish during the night all on bait in five foot of water. The channel isn’t an area of the lake that gets targeted very often and once I had slipped the net under my 6th fish of the night which turned out to be a 36Lb 12oz mirror, I wondered why I hadn’t put more effort into fishing the area.
Zigs up the deep end and bait up the shallows is how my next few sessions continued and I caught plenty of carp sticking to this routine. My catches included a very welcome scaley scraper 30 and a number of good twenties. I ended my spring campaign with around 40 fish from the venue from 12 nights angling and had some beautiful carp but the real big girls managed the steer clear of me for another year. I will be back to see if I can get hooked up to a member of the A team in the not too distant future I am sure.
Tight lines,
Kev Hewitt