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JOCK’S
DINTON DIARIES
Episode
9
Dinton
Pastures is a Country Park covering several hundred
acres near Wokingham in Berkshire. Owned and
run by
Wokingham District Council, there are numerous
lakes on the park, but the only fishing lake is white
swan lake. The carp fishing is very, very
tricky with a large head of very shy carp to 50lb +
inhabiting the weediest lake you are ever likely to
see. The waiting list for night syndicate
places is about 8-9 years long, with Wokingham area
residents given first shout on vacancies.
Although a
small head of carp was already present, a big
stocking in 1978-79 is the source of many of the
biggest residents. Astute fisheries management
by Derek Brant initially, but mainly in the past 15
years by Simon Bartlam has resulted in an astonishing
head of big carp. In addition to the lake, the
nearby River Loddon offers Big Barbel and
Chub.
Monday
18th December-Thursday 21 December
This
session was rubbish so I’ve condensed it into a
few short lines. All through November and
December the weather had been perfect and I was
desperate to get out fishing. South-West winds,
mild air and frequent rain had kept the fish feeding
throughout and I knew quite a few had been caught,
but by the time I had sorted out my work and got some
time off, the weather had changed to the worst sort
of winter carp fishing weather-freezing fog, frost
and high pressure. Anyway, that’s my
excuse and I’m sticking to it!
Friday
12th January-Monday 15th
January
The
conditions had returned to the mild, wet and windy
weather of earlier in the winter, and I was much more
confident of getting on fish. I started the
session next door to the Beach swim where I had
caught a couple in the early winter, and it looked
good for a fish. A couple showed well out, and
although the majority of the weed had gone from the
swim, I felt sure there were fish still in the
area. Gary Verrity moved into the Beach
on the Friday evening, and while he was getting set
up a couple more fish showed. That night one
carp was caught at each end of the lake, suggesting
the fish were feeding where the weed was still
heavy. Of particular note was Apple Slice at
41lb caught by Dinton regular Bucks ‘The
Vegetarian-I never get cold feet-Fizz. Apple is
one of the best looking carp in the lake and Bucks
was rightly pleased with his capture.
Bucks Fizz
with Apple Slice at 41lb
I
immediately got itchy feet -no, I haven’t got
fleas- usually Dinton carp are the hardest to catch
in the winter, so any pattern in their feeding needs
to be diligently explored. However I decided to
stick with the Beach area for one more night since
there were already a number of anglers fishing either
end of the lake, and I didn’t want to go
jumping in where people were already catching.
Saturday
night was as quiet for me as Friday night, and by the
time dawn arrived I had already packed up most of my
gear. Although I was ready to
move by about 9am, it still wasn’t clear where
I would move to
Peg
8 near the big oak tree was probably my favourite
winter swim at Dinton, and I had caught from there
numerous times before in the winter, but the
weed there was pretty horrendous for January. I
had already tried to find clear areas there this
winter but the small gravel and silt areas I had
caught from previously were obscured by silkweed and
Canadian pondweed. Peg
7 was also a good winter area with a lot of water to
cover and varying depths. There were good clear
areas and some heavy weedbeds, and it was here I
eventually moved to in the afternoon. I saw a
couple of fish roll about 100 yds away and felt quite
confident of catching. 2 rods went on a soft clear
area right up against a massive weedbed. The
bottom here is slightly curious, no tangible
‘donk’ as the lead hit the bottom, no
stinking black silt yet no silkweed or pondweed, and
no clay on the lead. Is it
pure sand or something? Anyway I’d caught
a couple of good fish here 2-3 years previously so I
felt happy fishing this spot. The
3rd rod went on a gravel spot over the
marginal weed about 20 yds out.
All
three rods were baited with boilies, and it might be
worth saying a few words on the bait. The close
rod was baited with the air dried 12mm Blitz
Boilies I had caught on in October and November,
while the 2 farther rods were baited with my own home
made milk protein baits, flavoured with Hinders
Betalin sweetener, a few millilitres of Nutz
Concentrate and tiny quantities of my favourite
solvent based flavour. The dried baits were
then rolled repeatedly in Minamino.
Having got
the bivvy all set up and cooked some dinner, it was
nice sitting out in the light rain listening to the
sounds of carp rolling and small stuff flipping on
the surface. There are few occasions at Dinton
where you know in advance that something is going to
happen, but this was one of those times. It was
just so mild and pleasant that I knew the fish would
be feeding. At 8.45pm the middle rod baited
with milk protein screamed
off. A heavy fish stripped
line from the clutch with ease, and after just a few
seconds I knew the line was snagged on the bottom, a
heavy grating feeling come up the line. The
fish ploughed into the weed and after a couple of
minutes I knew it was off. The main line came
free of the bottom and when I checked the line, a
length of about 10 yards was badly mangled by the
snag, about 3 rod lengths from the end tackle.
Now that did piss me right off because up till now I
had landed every fish I’d hooked this
season. Bizarrely, while all this was going on
a couple more fish crashed not far out.
After
re-tackling I got the bait back out and by this time
it was pretty late so I hit the sack. At 2am
the same rod burned off again and this time I bullied
the fish away from the weed, never giving it the
chance to get it’s head down. On the
scales it went 28 ½lb,a beautifully coloured
mirror which had a familiar broad tail.
Strangely enough it was Heart Tail, which I had
caught just a couple of months previously at
29lb12oz. It’s pretty unusual to catch a
Dinton fish which loses weight at this time of year,
so although it looked healthy enough, I
couldn’t help worrying that the fish just
wasn’t getting enough to eat.
Despite
the persistently good conditions I didn’t catch
anymore, and indeed after landing Heart Tail there
wasn’t much fish activity in the area, but I
left the lake full of confidence and fully intending
to come back for another session in a couple of
days. Fate has a strange way of
affecting our lives sometimes though, and on the
drive home I was involved in an unpleasant car
crash. My ex-Army Land Rover Defender was
written off in the accident, and although I escaped
without serious injury my dodgy back and neck were
both wrenched in the accident, something I
didn’t realise until I tried to get up the next
morning! Thankfully none of
my tackle was damaged (fishing or wedding), but it
took another month to sort out the insurance money
and find a suitable replacement vehicle, a diesel
powered Toyota Hiace van. This is a brilliant
carpmobile, and it was quite refreshing to do 30 mpg
instead of the old Land Rover’s 13mpg V8 petrol
engine! Anyway, with all this it was nearly the
end of the season before I got back down the
lake.
Heart Tail
Again at 28½lb
Saturday
10th March-Wednesday 14th
March
Dinton
Pastures has retained the old close season system, so
we fish from June 16th to March
14th and with the fish usually being so
hard to catch in the winter, the closer we get to the
end of the season and spring, the more anglers arrive
to fish. This year was no exception and 20 odd
anglers fished over the last few days, making swim
choice rather difficult. The weather had
changed back to high pressure, fog, bright sunshine
and chilly night temperatures, so although the fish
were unlikely to feed with the gusto they had shown
all winter, at least the visibility might be good
enough to spot a few fish.
After
exhaustively checking numerous swims, climbing trees
and trying a few casts with just a lead, I found
myself back down the bottom of the lake, curiously
enough in the same swim I had started the season
in. With the sun well up and the water quite
clear, I felt sure that I could see any fish in the
area up to about 50 yards out from the big spotting
tree. Sure enough, a group of 7-8 fish were
listlessly drifting around the corner, coming in
remarkably close to about 3 yards in front of the
swim, and moving down in front of the reeds that had
been so productive for me in June and July. For
about an hour I watched the fish to try and ascertain
their movements and identities, but the visibility
wasn’t quite good enough to identify an
individual by name, although I was pretty sure one of
the fish was 40lb+.
Anyway, to
cut a long story short, the change in weather and
particularly air pressure which was up around
1038millibars, put the fish right off, and despite
around 3000-3500 rod hours spread over 15-20 anglers,
only 1 carp was caught in the last few days of the
season. On every one of the last 4 days of the
season I had fish in my swim, but they seemed totally
disinterested in feeding, and the only place they
looked like having a munch was right on the shallows,
where Mike Robinson bagged a fully scaled 24lber on
the last day of the season.
It
was a poor end to the season, but I’ve got to
say that I enjoyed my fishing tremendously and was
delighted with the capture of 15 carp to 50lb14oz in
about 30 nights fishing from this very difficult
venue. At times I had the fish feeding on my Nutz
Sludge/Partiblend
groundbait totally without caution, and I will be
pursuing this approach again in summer 2007.
Of
particular note, I lost just one carp compared to six
the previous season, and I put this success down
mainly to the ESP Raptor
D7 hooks – they are deadly hookers and very
rarely come loose even with the barb crushed right
down. In size 4,5 and 6 they might be the
ultimate crushed barb carp hook.
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