Lake John

When there is an obvious feature to fish to, in this case, the island, I will nearly always try to fish there. Fish will push to the furthest bank into the shallow water of the margins in warmer weather and even though it was early October it was still warm. Depth there was around 18″ judging by the drop of the line when my method feeder was out there. 

I mixed up some ground bait and 2mm micros, just covered and left for 30 minutes. My first few casts to the island were just ground bait, 4 or 5 casts, should have been less but my accuracy needs some improvement. I fished with a 30gr Preston ICS method feeder on an 11ft Daiwa feeder rod. On the hook Sonubaits Hookable Expanders, the pre-made ones, 6mm as the 4mm kept breaking on the quickstop. On the method feeder, I put some 2mm pellets.

I recast every 10 minutes or so. The first fish was a decent Bream around 2 pounds which was on the third cast, 2 more casts a small skimmer. Within 90 seconds of the next cast, I was into the first Carp of the day, a nice, common around 6 to 8 pounds. Same process as before, out to the island, 2mm pellets and the hookable expander, 2 more casts and I was into the second Carp of the day, a torpedo-shaped fully scaled mirror again 6 to 8 pounds.

I stuck with the island for a bit longer but decided to try closer when the bites slowed down. My distance was my island clip-up less 20 turns of the reel, I go into this double clip-up method in more detail in the video above. I changed bait here and fish varying colours of 8mm Sinking Bandums with a mix of groundbait and 2mm pellets. There were lots of bites and a couple of nice bream plus the odd skimmer.

I then gave the Margins a try, I had fed one margin with a few balls of groundbait and some thrown 6mm pellets. I under-armed the feeder to this spot but was disappointed by the lack of movement on the tip, with no fish showing. I tried the margin I had not fed but the result was the same. It was probably too early.

Last hour I was back out to the island using the Bandums, not much happening on these so I changed back to groundbait and expanders and within a few minutes of the first cast, I was into another Carp, a long lean common, around 8lb. So that’s today’s lesson learnt, if something works, stick to it. Just to underline this a couple of casts later I was into the fourth and last Carp, a mirror getting close to 10 pounds. I packed up happy I had learnt a little more about fishing Lake John, this might have to wait for next year for the weather to warm up again. I will though make a cold-weather visit in a month or two and see what I can catch then.