I thought I would write this story as it was very amusing to
witness what I saw whilst I was fishing down at the Shimano Linear lakes in
Oxfordshire... It was in the month of August 2002, after arriving on a late
summer's evening to fish a four day session we picked our swim which happened to
be the life buoy swim for those of you who are familiar with this particular
water (Manor Farm). After setting up camp and all rods attended to we decided to
settle down for the night. We woke up the following morning after a bloody good
nights sleep to the sounds of Coots, Grebes and the tweeting of the birds, the
rods had been quite all night. I put the kettle on to make a cup of lemon tea
when I saw a grass snake coming from round the back of the Bivvy, I quickly
jumped to my feet in a state of fright... come on I'm not Steve Erwin you know!
I followed the snake at a distance to see where it was going at
that particular time of the morning, the snake took me to the hedges to the far
right of the little stream which runs at the back of my swim then I lost sight
of it. Then on the way back to the swim I decided to climb the big trees which
are located just at the side of where we was fishing to see if I could see any
carp, I got half way up and I saw a carp of around 18lb feeding on a gravel bar.
I quietly climbed back down the tree making sure I did not disturb the fish and
went back to the swim. I alerted my partner and told him about the incident, we
quickly got some bait in a bucket along with my roaming rod and went back to the
tree the fish had gone. We decided to bait the gravel bar which was just in
front of the tree around a rod length or so out. Once the gravel bar had been
baited up with tiger nuts and other particle baits such as corn, chick peas and
barley, we very carefully placed the roaming rods hook bait right in the middle
of the baited area and sat there patiently.
I was sat up in the tree and my partner waited on the bank side
slightly hidden by hedge growth with rod in hand, After about 15 minutes of
sitting in the tree I saw the fish return, I quietly shouted down to my partner
that the fish was sniffing around the baited area. Again the fish in question
was a mirror carp of around 15-18lb, my heart was pounding as I was sure we
where going to get a take at anytime, the fish swam to and fro around the baited
area then just swam off without even feeding. The water on this particular day
was gin clear I could see everything except the fish 10 more minutes passed by,
when the fish returned yet again. Only this time it had three other fish with it
all three fish where swimming over the hook bait, I could see 3 mirror carp with
a combined weight of around 50lb hovering in one spot but still no take! They
too then swam off only to return within 2 minutes with what I would describe as
a mirror carp of around 38lb which went straight to the baited area. I was lucky
not to fall out of the tree when this beast turned up! The mirror carp swam
round and inspected its potential meal, then I saw the big carp hover over the
hook bait and slowly but surely take the hook bait in
its mouth and swim
backwards slowly, the fish then felt the resistance of the led and immediately
swam off along with the other fish that was with it .(Not a single fish was
caught from this spot)
I was absolutely gob smacked to witness what had happened on
this occasion, I knew carp where intelligent to a certain extent but for one to
pick out our hook bait amongst all the others which where there and pull it back
in the manor it did do was amazing. I think the carp had an idea of what was
happening and it was its own way to make certain that the feeding area was safe
to do so for himself and his friends! Spinning Spools!
