Puddledock Farm

I had breakfast before leaving home so didn’t visit the on-site café or the tackle shop. Payments for fishing are taken on the bankside.

I chose to take a short damp walk to Peg 12 on Snake Lake, away from the view of the car park.

After some seatbox adjustment, I started fishing around 10 a.m. The first job was to plumb up, the far bank, 24”, Top 4 48” and the margin 24” to 30”. I also had a short slapping rig and a long mugging rig. Pretty much my go-to setup for summer snake lakes.

I started long to the far bank, around 13m. Since watching back my last YouTube video I had determined my seat box was too high. I removed one low section and fishing the long pole across my knees was that much more comfortable, both feet nice and flat on the platform.

The improved seating position and posture were soon tested. As soon as I dropped the 6mm Robin Red pellet over the 2mm soaked pellets dropped from a medium cad pot I was seeing movement on the float but also lots of fish up on the surface. I missed the first couple of bites but was quickly into the first carp of the day, around 3lb. This was followed by two tiny F1s.

An hour in I made a change to a shallow slapping rig. I fed 4mm pellets by hand and a 6mm Robin Red on the hook. I was quickly getting them to take my hook bait by constant feed and slapping. Several nice fish followed up to around 4lb. All day long the water had looked ripe for the jigger so I replaced one of my rigs for a 6mm Preston jigger set with a total of 2ft drop.

The jigger fishing was slow but constant, regular feed and a bit of slapping though produced a regular nice carp and as the afternoon progressed the bites and my technique became more consistent and the clicker was soon nearing 80 lbs. As most of these fish were up around 12″ I made a change for the last part of the day.

I changed the rig to the mugging setup, set to 18″ but no weight down the line, all set just under the float, again fishing a 6mm Robin Red and feeding 4mm pellets. Keeping a tight line I hooked the odd fish and also snagged the odd mugged fish as they mooched past in the afternoon sun that appeared from behind the clouds from time to time. Mugging has to be one of the most satisfying ways to hook a carp. A more practised angler with the mugging setup would have caught more.

To round out the day I changed the hook bait to a 8mm pellet and started feeding 3 8mm pellets as I slapped in the rig. This produced a couple of nice-sized carp around 6 pounds to finish off the day nicely.

I did try, during the day, corn and meat, both in the middle on the bottom and the edge. This produced the odd Roach and Skimmer but no Carp. On the day the bigger fish just wanted to be at the top.