Valley Of The Water Pigs - Part One - Michael Stewart

This entry was posted on 19th February, 2014

Valley Of The Water Pigs – Part One Valley Of The Water Pigs – Part Two        Valley Of The Water Pigs – Part Three

Date: 2006/07 Venue: The Nene Valley Title: The slow start and lucky 2007

I'd spent the winter and early spring on a Hertfordshire club water, catching a few very old Leney strain mirrors to upper 20s, but it was time for a change, it was the start of April and the start of a new ticket.

A Northants syndicate was my chosen venue, a 23 acre lake with a stock of around 70 or so semi unknown fish (at the time) to mid 30s.

Up until the lease had been taken over, the lake had been relatively unfished and the fish had seen very little in the way of angling pressure, it had only been visited by the odd sneaky so and so who had been prepared to do a bit of ‘guesting’!

I'd like to say I got among the resident's from the off but it really wasn't the case and the first year on the water was a real struggle, I was going through my divorce at the time and to be honest I was just going for the sake of being out the house. It seems that first year I was camping rather than fishing, I ended up with ten takes between April and October managing to loose half of them! Out of the five I landed the best of them was a mid twenty common and a stunning mid 20 fully scaled.

I pulled off the lake late October going back to my Herts club water for the winter in the hope of rebuilding some confidence and getting a few bites, in what can be a very difficult time of year. I had a few, but mostly repeat’s and by the end of January I’d had enough; the Northants lake was back in my sights!



The winter period on the club water hadn’t been wasted, I’d done lots of thinking and planning, I was now sorted and my head was well and truly back in the game... There would be no more ‘camping’ at the weekends!

The plan was simple and I wanted to be strict with myself, I’d try and get on the fish and if I wasn't I’d move and keep moving until I was ‘on them’.

I didn’t have to wait long; it was the second week of February that I enjoyed my first slice of action, of the new season. A single fruit special pop up cast to a showing fish produced the goods. I remember the capture well as the fish poked its head out well out of casting range and I only managed to reach it by wading down the margins and casting under the power lines. The fish wasn’t massive, a shade over 21lb, but I was off the mark early.

As the weeks passed I started to put a few fish on the bank, roughly managing a fish every other week, nothing massive but some nice mid to upper 20s with one, a corking Linear, now known as Scaley at around 28lb.

At this time I was doing a Tuesday night in between work coupled with a Friday and Saturday night, the midweek overnight was merely so I could see what was happening and where the fish were, it also enabled me to spread a bit of bait about. These sessions turned out to be invaluable as I started to build up a really clear picture of the lake in my head, working out that the usually feeding times came between the hours of 6am and 10 am.

By early April I was well and truly engrossed with the place and was keen to book a week off work, with just one thing in my mind.

Unfortunately this was something the new operations manager wasn't so keen on me doing; I had a heavy work load to plan for the factory that wasn’t getting any smaller . With a little thinking we came up with a compromise that suited both parties, he offered to put me on a four day week until the end of September; I didn’t need asking twice, it was now a case of game on!

A working week of Monday to Thursday with a 4pm finish meant I could load the Carp wagon, pick up Jeri my faithful Springer Spaniel, aka the Jez-Star and be down the lake for 6pm. Perfect!



My new working week meant I could beat the rest of the weekenders down Thursday night and move about as needed before the hoards arrived for the weekend.

It was a case of up with the dawn on the Friday watching the water and looking for signs of fish, if I hadn’t seen any or received any signs then it was a case of moving to a different area where I thought my chances would be increased.

I remember one weekend in particular, I moved four times before I was rewarded with hard earned tatty mid twenty common, now four times may seen excessive but as I mentioned earlier I wanted to be strict with myself.



My next session was simply one I will never forget, one that will live with me for the rest of my life…

It was now the last week of April and I turned up on the Thursday night in some pretty grim conditions, a nasty north easterly and persistent drizzle… lovely… not!

After a quick chat to another member he revealed that the fishing had been slow since I’d left on the Tuesday, but just as the conversation ended, I saw a fish show, shortly followed by another, both had appeared behind the island on the opposite bank.

You didn’t need to be a mind reader to know where I was heading too! I was off there sharpish, there was no need for a wander.

I set up exactly where the fished had shown, dropping two rods off the island shelf towards the left hand point, in around 9 feet of water at sixty yards and another off the middle point of the island. All three were baited with cork ball pop ups fished with the ever faithful hinged stiff links, a couple of kilo of boilie’s were added over the top to complete the set up.

The fourth rod (it was a four rod limit) was cast down my right hand margin amongst a small hole in the weed, around 12ft deep and two rod lengths from the bank, it looked a perfect ambush spot. This was baited with a balanced tiger nut on a softer combi link and completed with a handful of tigers over the top.

Around 7am on the Friday morning the middle rod on the point produced a scrapper 20lb common, however this wasn’t enough to convince me I was in the right area. I’d started to get itchy feet and contemplated a move, but with only three hours left of ‘bite time’ I decided to stay put, promising myself I’d weigh up my options after this time.

This proved to be a shrewd move, as around 8.30am the left hand rod fished to the island absolutely tore off and as soon as I lifted into it I knew it was no scrapper 20! As I slowly pumped the fish towards me, it got to within 30 yards of the bank before all hell broke loose!

It went off like a train, a 40 yard run, a 50 yard run, it just kept going and going for nearly 20 heart stopping minutes, before finally running out of steam and tiring enough for me to draw it over the folds of my waiting landing net.

On first glance it looked big and I estimated it at a good 35lb+, but when I finally lifted the big girl on the scales the dial on the Rueben’s swung right past the 35lb mark, the 37lb mark and all the way to the 40lb mark, before settling bang on! I was there looking down on my new PB all forty pound of it! As the pictures were taken it was a case of big, big smiles all around as all my hard work and endless amount of rod hours had all been worth it. Once the pictures has been taken I had one last admiring glimpse before carefully releasing her, which unknown to be had been named two tone.



Another mirror of 27lb fell to the same rod an hour later and as you can imagine I wasn't moving now!

I wound in later that afternoon and went to fetch some much needed bait and supplies from the car, by now the lake was filling up fast, since the membership had been increased from 30 to 40, most weekends were the same. It seemed that the majority of the members who had joined were keen as mustard ‘weekenders’.

I'd not seen a sign of a carp since the 27, but I wasn't too bothered, I was still grinning from ear to ear as I repositioned the rods and settled in for the evening.

The evening passed without incident and it wasn’t till around 6.30 the next morning, when I woke, that I saw any signs of fish.

Just as I was looking at the Tiger Nut rod, the one fished in the margins, a single bleep sounded on the Delkim and the rod tip twitched. I thought I should get out of the bag and investigate and just as I was putting my boots on the same thing happened again, there was definitely something over my baits.

I picked up the rod and instantly felt a tell tale thump of a nice fish, combined with heavy resistance and that solid feeling of a weeded fish. Not knowing exactly what to expect I grabbed the net and carefully waded down the margin to where the rod had been positioned. As I slowly reached the spot I was able to put a slightly different angle on the hooked fish, which instantly came free, a nice Common broke surface and went straight into my waiting landing net. Lovely… no scrap, no fuss, just nice and easy!



As I manoeuvred the fish out of the water I knew it was another ‘good’un’ it looked just as big as the Mirror I’d landed the previous day! With the help of some of the other members the big girl was eased on to the scales, my first thoughts were correct, this was as big as the Mirror, in fact it was even bigger! The needle eventually settled on 41lb 1oz, the second forty of the session and the second PB of the session, it didn’t feel real, it was crazy, two forties in one session…



After a few snaps it all became a little more real as I was bundled into the cold water to celebrate, those members who’d helped thought that two forties in the same session was just plain greedy and that I needed a little dip!

I was buzzing off these captures and words of my achievement made there way onto the angling grapevine, the pictures and story even made its way into Carp Talk, with the big Common making it on the front cover!



The next few weeks on the water were in complete contrast and were a bit of a downer, hooking only six fish and managing, some how, to lose all six of them! In fact it wasn’t until July that I landed another fish.

The boilies approached I’d started with simply wasn’t working, so I switched to a particle approach, fishing large beds of it, with fake corn or balanced tiger nuts over the top, this picked up the odd fish, but it wasn’t till October that I picked up one of the better fish.

I was in the process of having one of those sessions… you know the one, where everything was going wrong! I’d managed to break my bivvy, I’d cracked off, had my rods wiped out by swans and even lost a fish.

Finally after all the shenanigans I eventually landed one, a corking fish known as the dark mirror, which weighed in at a few ounces over 33lb. All that had previously gone on in the session didn’t matter; it all seemed a distant memory!



The next weekend the winter tickets started and the swim I’d been baiting and that I’d caught from the week before, as expected, was taken. So it was onto Plan B as I could reach the productive area from three or four swims , a bucket of particles was placed over three of the rods, whilst the fourth was fished roving style, with a single Hi-viz Hookbait.

I landed Three mid twenties Commons that night, which turned out to be my last fish of the year, even though I fished through the winter, my next action wouldn’t be till the following year…

The Tackle Box Harrison Torrix Carp Rods ESP Stiff Rigger Hooks Ace Riggamortis Dynamite Tiger Nuts ESP Leadcore