#pressured lakes

New Post has been published on http://www.bivvedup.com/carp-fishing-tips/unpressured-vs-pressured-by-lee-crampton

UNPRESSURED ‘vs’ PRESSURED by Lee Crampton

Having been asked by CC Moore to write this article I found it hard to know where to start writing about carp that have not been pressured by anglers. At the end of the day, they are just carp, same carp as you find with rivers and day ticket waters.

However I do feel they behave slightly differently and are in fact, once located, easier to catch in my opinion.

Most unpressured pits are normally large windswept lakes that have been dug for materials. I think their stock have either come from stocking campaigns by the excavation companies, moved from rivers and surrounding pits in floodwater, or even fish eggs transferred by a number of ways, or, every now and again, moved by humans.

Most of these lakes are probably estate lakes or Natural England waters and are likely to be either Local Nature Reserves (LNR), or Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) waters, which means you probably shouldn’t really be fishing them.

These waters normally contain very few carp which means location is absolute key. They are normally extremely rich with weed growth and natural food, so the carp don’t need to travel far to find what they need. Additionally, I often find they shoal up on these waters (summer and winter) and most fish will be in one area of the lake at any one time.

If you are fishing the wrong area, you could be there for an entire week without a single fish crossing your path.

I would use your time wisely on these waters and make sure the odds are stacked in your favour before wetting a line. Spend as much time as you’re willing to spend just watching the water. If it’s a new water and you are unsure of its stock then plan your ‘fish spotting’ periods and wait for either a scorching hot day when they should be cursing, or even spawning.

Time is precious so I wouldn’t spend much angling hours until I’m completely confident I know exactly what’s in there, and if you time your fish spotting period correctly you will soon find out.

These carp are not shy, in fact some are even intrigued and will come to check you out. You don’t need to be cleaver with your terminal tackle, they won’t be rig shy – tackle strength and good hook gold is far more important.

Bait wise I would suggest sticking well away from commercialised flavours and focus on keeping everything as natural as possible with hemp, pellets and natural boilies.

Unlike pressured carp which can take hours swimming past your baited area, picking up crumbs and building up their confidence. I find that natural fish will simply get their head down and as long as it’s not completely alien to them, they should willingly accept bait quite quickly.

As mentioned I think location is key, I would suggest that finding them is 80% of the battle. Two days of research can be more productive than two weeks fishing in the wrong location – it’s not about putting in the bank time, or about ‘filling it up’ with bait – I think it’s more about fishing when the time is right – fishing clever, not harder.

Because they are normally big windswept pits, this can make watercraft easier. Their diet pretty much consists of naturals so I would look to follow the wind. Strong winds will cause strong undercurrents which move weed beds and unsettle naturals, makes easy pickings for carp. Plus carp are designed to swim against currents so they should be at the end of a strong wind, especially in warmer months.

I would check Google Maps and if possible screenshot it and play around with contrast in Photoshop in an attempt to identify the bottom contour, I try and find gaps between underwater bars because undercurrents will push naturals through the channels causing entrapment areas which will often get patrolled. If there is such a thing as ‘patrol routes’, I would imagine its due to the bottom contour and undercurrents flushing natural through these channels.

Full moons should be productive on these natural pits. In my opinion the moon doesn’t have a great affect other than that hatches normally happen during a full moon so this should stimulate fish feeding. I think that natural fish will be very much in tune with their environment and know when the most productive feeding times are – it’s just another piece of the jigsaw.

I would also plan my actual fishing time around air pressure, in low pressure they normally have their heads down so I try and sit on my hands until, in theory, they should be feeding.

I try and make sure as much as possible is stacked up in my favour before actually fishing these pits. It’s all the small things that add up for me, each one may only make a 1% difference individually, but collectively they could add up to 10% or even 20% difference and increase your chances of catching by the same amount.

Fishing these pits successfully is all about watercraft and planning your time wisely, rather than bait, rigs, tactics, time or dedication.

Unlike stocked waters and pressured fish, now this is something completely different.

I find the biggest challenge is to stimulate them into feeding. Location isn’t really an issue, presentation is normally straight forward enough, it’s convincing them to get their heads down is the difficult bit.

Now there will be certain spots they will confidently feed and if you manage to track these down then it makes life a lot easier, but that’s often not feasible as they could just be feet in diameter and hundreds of yards out.

I think you will be surprised just how many carp pass your baited area during your session on stocked waters, it’s just a case of grabbing their attention. There are obviously many ways of doing this and I wrote a small article a while ago about coating boilies which might be worth a read:  http://www.ccmoore.com/bait-blog/coating-baits-by-lee-crampton/

Once you have stimulated them into feeding, that’s almost job done and now it’s down to your presentation as these fish have quite literally seen everything before and will constantly be on guard watching for the slightest sign of anything that doesn’t look or even feel quite right.

I truly believe pressured carp can recognise elements such as lifted line, reflection off many materials, swivel, lead clips or even hook contrasts and shapes so the more you can do to break the familiarity the better your changes of going unidentified, and the obvious elements are the lead, lead clip, swivel and hook which you might assume is unchangeable, but with a little effort, thinking and creativity it really isn’t:

There are many other things you can do to stack the odds in your favour but I would suggest that on stocked and pressured waters, the main areas of focus should be stimulating the fish to feed, and rig presentation, which is all completely different challenges to unpressured, natural environment fish where its location, location and location.

Lee Crampton