Angling-Adventures.co.uk

At about 2pm Mike pulls up my road, a quick loading of the trailor and then down to pick Wez up, We arrive at the lake at around 3pm after a quick stop at tescos for some supplies (beer, cig papers, water etc.). The swims we wanted we already occupied (the swims next to the car park not that we are lazy or anything). We decided to have a quick walk around the lake to see what was available, every where we look we could see fish topping, we bagged the last 3 swims together oppersite the car park and proceeded to drag all our gear around there.

 The sun was out and tempretures were above normal for April, however one Friday afternoon myself, Mike (AKA Old Codger) and Wez (AKA Wezley) all set out to Charlies Lakesin Ashford, located jst 5 minutes from the M20 and right behind the Hamstreet bypass. This lake we have been to on a couple of occasions however I had a feeling about this weekend. I went quite light on bait (Which is rare for me!) I was armed with some Mainline Cell boilies, some of the new Nash Amber strawberry boilies, some homemade boilies and pellet and finally some Black Cat Catfish pellets. Wez and Mike had just about everything with them. 

Wez was the first to get the line wet and cast towards the central island, a 1oz inline lead, a couple of strawberry jam micro boilies on a flurocarbon hair rig fished over a small pva of pellet. Mike was using some of Premier baits Matrix boilies and their Camos boilies. I tackled up and put out a Nash Amber strawberry on my left hand rod to some lillies, a Cell boilie on the middle rod and a Terry Hearn Red Fish boilie on my 3rd rod all fished over pva of pellets. Whilst i was still sorting out my bivvy and getting ready for the weekend i could hear mike shouting at something, at first i thought it was a string of profainties at some random object or at the marsh frogs behind us starting their mating call, I stuck my head around the bivvy door to see mike standing down by Wez with the landing net in his hand, Strange unlike wez to get in a fish straight away but sure enough the bend in the rod indicated he had locked into something, a few minutes later a mirror carp showed its back and flank through the water, mike quickly got the net underneath it and landed it for wez, Me personally i would of bumped it off for him!. After unhooking and weighing the mirror (24lb) we quickly took some photos before sliding it back into the lake for another day.

 

 

Then about a hour later Wez was off again, a nice tench about 5lb, to the same set up and baits. Me and mike started to plan a way of putting wez into the lake, we cant have him catching more than us, he is known as the Jonah, whenever he goes fishing something happens to the car!.

As the evening progressed we fired up the B-B-Q, to cook our dinner, sausages and burgers etc, I decided to change over to a catfish rig on one of my rods as the light was fading. My catfish rigs consist of a good quality swivel, Ton up hook braid and a catfish pro size 4 hook (i like the angled design of them)(all apart from the hooks available through http://www.jp-tackle.co.uk they do sell black cat hooks which are just the same). The Ton up is too heave to make a hair rig so i use bait floss or Nash Hairline to make the hair rig, Becuase i was using the cat fish pellets i decided to freeline them (they weigh about 2oz on their own anyway), I dropped the bait to my left in open water, no quicker had i put the rod down on the alarms than it started to pull the bobbin up, i stuck into it, knowing it can only be a catfish, 5 minutes later I had a 13lb catfish on the bank,

 

There was no further activity from the rods until 3am when my right hand rod decided to go screaming off accross the lake, I leapt out of my bivvy and struck into it, not knowing what it was at first it proceeded to zigzag accross the lake taking my other 2 lines with it, I had my very own mobile disco on the go complete with flashing lights as the other illuminated bobbins kept flying up my alarms screaming all over the place. Mike stuck his head out of the bivvy with a "whats all the commotion?" he saw i was trying to get this fish in the net and he came up to give me a hand, (try holding a 52inch landing net in one hand a  rod with a angry catfish in the other whilst trying not to end up in the drink) we guestimated the weight at around 8lb so not a massive fish by any means but still a welcome fish. I looked at my lines realised they was all tangled so i thought thats a job for the morning.

The following morning I was woken to some lovley sunshine and a still lake, the wind was picking up a little from the east by now. The main part of Saturday past by uneventfull apart from Mike catching a small catfish 3lb tops. The evening i was feeling confident, so after dinner (chicken Korma, nann bread and poppadums) I rebaited all of my swim and sat back waiting for some action as well did, well we sat there and sat there, checked our batteries in the alarms incase they was dead, but not a beep. Come Sunday morning still nothing. As the morning progressed Mike was in to another fish, a very welcome bit of action. After a short struggle he put a nice comming on the bank

 

  

After the cusomtery fry up we decided to call it a day we all had 2 fish each, nice weather and i suppose the company wasnt to bad either!

 

Charlies lake fishes best if you put a bed of hemp down and then fish over the top of it with a fishmeal boilie, most of the lake is around 4 foot deep however it does get deeper at "the dam end" this is where the lake borders the main road behind the fence, it can be very noisey at this end of the lake. The weekends are very busy so arriving early is best.

 

 For a price list and a list of the rules please visit their website

http://www.charlieslake.co.uk/index.htm