It all began in May 2021.
My good friend Paul Lanaway phoned me telling me he was involved with a new bait company that's addressing the issue of over production of fish meals within the carp bait industry and has found a sustainable and highly nutritional alternative and would I be interested in giving it a go on the infamous Car Park Lake down at Yateley!? Okay you have my attentionI thought to myself.
He informed me about it saying it was all about sustainable ingredients. The bait was insect meal based and the companiesethos was to avoid using fish products to feed fish (makes sense really) whilst having a positive impact on our oceans at the same time. Again what's not to like!? At this point I'd decided that I was happy to give it a go , it all sounded good and a bit different.
Arrangements were made to get bait to me and when it arrived he explained to me that the bait in itself was quite soft and that using hardened hookers would be a handy choice, also suggesting adding a generous layer of the 'Slick insect oil attractor to the bait had been a successful tactic in other testing stages. I always get a little bit excited about using a new bait especially as it was a bit different to fishmeal/nut baits, so as you can imagine, I was eager to get back down to Yateley Car Park Lake and give it a go.
Being the weekend warrior that I am, I arrived on Friday ready and armed with the new bait and a spring in my step. The lake was fairly busy but not too bad. After a few laps I settled on the 'middle secret' swim as I saw a bit of disturbance out in front of the swim. The weed as the same in previous years, was not for the faint hearted, but I knew a spot out in front that was just about modest enough for a couple of tightly placed traps.
One rod was fished on a chod and the other in a pva bag with some crushed boilie and bug glug which had insect oil , insect meal and whole dead insects in it, game on . Friday night saw little to no action but seeing that movement on arrival kept my spirits high. The next morning I reset the traps but opted tonot bait up until the dark hours to avoid the bird life. Armed with a catapult I was using the weed on the surface as a marker to help get the oiled up boilies to where I wanted them.
As it was a new bait I did not go heavy, probably scattering around 100 boilies on and around the spot. Ian added that with a new bait he prefers to go lightly. (If its any good you should not have to use loads) About 1 am the rod was ripped off on the choddie, and quickly was buried in the nearest weed bed, the next hour was a game of chess trying to ease this carp from the safety of the heavy weed. Silk weed was jamming up the tip eye and even in the dark you could see it hanging off the line it was truly horrendous. I was starting to get tired having to keep clearing the tip eye by putting the rod down and pulling the weed off the line and
I was sure I was going to lose this fish but the carp gods were looking down on me and took pity and after an hour battle, she was mine.
After tearing at the weed in the landing net like a kid with his Christmas presents, I finally saw it was a little mirror of around 18lb (an excellent result for the bait first time using it) I felt after such a long and tiring battle for both parties, mat shots were most suited. The next couple of weekends were fish less for me but I did see evidence of carp feeding over the baits. silk weed had become a real problem at this point and although I could feel a drop with a bare lead, hooks were finding the stringy nuisance. I did try pva bags with bait scattered over, and even though it was viable that the fish were enjoying the bug-based boilies, presentation was an issue.
Towards the end of June I decided I should try another area of the lake and I managed to get into trumptons as there were a few carp moving about in front of the swim . A pva bag approach on both rods would be approach again waiting until dark before baiting up, again using the weed as a marker and also to try and overcome the coots driving on the spots, it worked for a while.
I was using the bug glug in the pva bags with hard hookers and crushed baits, it was a bit messy with the bug glug but worth it as its really something different. The second night just before dark I got picked up by a coot , not what I wanted but that’s fishing for you. I redid the rod with another pva bag and only 30 minutes after recasting the bobbin pulled up tight and I was into a carp that tore off towards the back bay, after a few nervous moments I managed to turn it back towards me and a more reasonable battle commenced. The carp was landed after a few minutes.
A nice mirror of 34lb 8oz was in the net and the ball was starting to feel like it was rolling The carp started spawning the following weekend so Martin closed up for a couple of weeks to let the carp do their thing. The next bite came from the island swim which I had been fishing a bit at the end of July , a hard hooker in a pva bag again with bug glug and crushed boilies. This one managed to weed me up solid and my friend ED came down from the north lake and got the boat out, there was no way I could managed to land it without the boat. So a merry battle in the boat was had but eventually we got the carp in the net. ED did the pictures for me and the carp weighed 29lb. I was very happy with the bait by now and was using more than I normally would at the weekend as the carp were certainly liking the bug baits. August came and went no more carp for me as I was struggling to get on the carp and the lake was busier.
I never had a chance of a carp until the beginning of October back in the island swim I set up Friday night after work and put the rods out just before dark nothing happened, now I would normally recast some time Saturday afternoon but this Saturday I left the rods alone the coots had not picked me up so I left them where they were. I was confident that they were ok and saw no point moving them.
About 5. 30 am I had a take on the right-hand rod and after a 10 minute battle a carp was in the net. a quick call to Tony to get him to come and do pictures for me while I got the unhooking mat ready. I still had not looked to see what I had caught all I knew was it was a good one. Tony arrived and asked what I had I said I didn’t know so I grabbed the head torch and there was the one I really wanted 3 scale. I was buzzing the decision to leave the rods was a good move. We got the fish out and weighed her 44lb 12oz. What a result bug bait hard hooker in a bag again !!!!!
Middle of October I had a few days off as it was my birthday in a couple of days my 60th, where did all those years go lol. I got down early on Thursday morning with my friend Tony for a social after walking around the lake I saw a carp roll in the bars swim so that’s where I set up with tony in the curly.
The following morning a take on the left rod and after a good battle a 29 lb mirror was landed. I was over the moon as it was the day before my birthday so a really good result for me. That was the last carp of the year for me and I was really pleased with how the bait had worked for me.If you're looking for something that's sustainable, a bit different that certainly works, look no further than Seasoned baits, I think they might be onto something...
Ian Castle
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