Tackling Alders Farm.

After several successful sessions on local venues I arrived at Alders Farm Fishery with a confident anticipation. After a few phone calls to anglers with a knowledge of the water, I felt that my approach could not fail. So I set up camp for our 48 hour session on Peg O, just to the left at the bottom of the infamous Alders Hill. If there is such a thing as a text book swim, then this was it. At 35yds you have an Island with features galore, to the right of the island there was a sand bar with bubbles showing along it's full length. Down the edge to my right I had a large bed of Bull Rushes and to my left over hanging trees, PERFECT!!.

My plan of attack was to fish a PVA stick filled with 6 & 8mm G.O.T Baits Sinking Feed Pellets soaked in Pineapple Atomic Cloud Solution and left  overnight, to prevent this melting the PVA I then glugged the mix with Mainline Pineapple Syrup.  My preferred hookbait for this swim was the Mainline 14mm Double Strength Hi-visual Pineapple Pop Up Boillie, Presented 3" of the bottom next to an over hanging branch to the far left of the island. My second rod would be fished to the right hand side of the island, Just past the point on the far side of the sand bar. I felt that a bottom bait would produce in this area, so I decided to go for a double Nutrabaits BFM, Pineapple & N-Butric Acid 14mm boillie, to find out what was in the area I wrapped small ball of BFM paste around the boillies to hopefully draw attention to my hook bait amongst the 1/2kg of hard Air dried loose offerings I would feed to hold the fish once they where in the area.

I was advised to keep rigs as simple as possible, knowing what I  know now this was a bad decision. For my Pop Up rig my choice of hook was a size 8 Korda Kurv Shank B, simply because you require a hook to stand well of the hooklength when fishing a Pop Up. The hooklength was choice was a  Korda IQ2 Xtra Soft Flurocarbon 10lb [0.32 diameter] simply because this is the best hooklength flurocarbon I have found to date, I tied my hooklength at 7" long to a size 8 swivel. To counteract the Pop Up boillie I used a small piece of Kryston Heavy Metal Extra rig putty fixed to the hook Length 2" below the hook. To finish the rig off I used a Korda Stik Klip [Small] linked to the size 8 swivel attached to the reel line. Above this I had a Korda safety Clip & Sleeve to house the 2.5oz Flat Swivel Lead,  with 2ft of Gravel rig tube.

My second rig was vertually identical except I used a Korda Wide Gap B Hook for my bottom presented baits.

My first Cast to the Over hanging Branch off the island and after only 30 minutes in the water my remote started screaming!

After a short but entertaining struggle a perfect 8lb 9oz Common came to the net. Not exactly what I was hoping for but the first fish on the bank always gets the blood rushing. After safely returning the fish to his humble abode, I loaded another PVA stick onto my hooklength and re-cast with great expectations.

Now minutes later , not to be out done, Darren flew into action with his buzzer sounding off the charge of another Alders Farm resident.

Now to his joy this was more like it.   A good, steady, heavy chug produced a fine curve in his 3.25 Test curve rod. after a   8-10min tussle Darren landed a fine17lb 10oz  Mirror,  now we we're talking but the good start was about to go paer shaped for yours truly.

After 3 hours of bleeps and knocks on my Pineapple Pop Up, I decided to have a re-cast. On retrieving my rig I could not believe my eyes. The Pop Up had been destroyed along with my hair rig [Signal Crayfish! Not a good sign] I replaced my hooklength, loaded another PVA Stick and re-cast, 3 hours later the same again [Poo!!] I now realised I had to try something different I tied a 18" Hooklength and fished a Pop Up on a shallow Zig Rig with no PVA Stick [get that on Mr Crayfish] After another 50 minutes of bleeps, I retrieved my rig to find tiny little cuts all the way along my hook length and a destroyed Pop Up, by know I was getting the right hump. I had a cup of Coffee with Darren who was finding this all exceptionally funny [ Git ] After a few snide remarks he informed me that small particle with a fast breakdown especially sweet flavoured baits are like catnip to Signal Crayfish, so a major change of Bait was required. to deal with this problem Darren gave me a few samples of a 20mm freezer bait that had been air dried to the point of needing to drill them to get them on the hair. so I re-cast again with no PVA Stick to see if this would help, time would only tell.

Now my second rod had shown little signs of activity  in the first 5 hours, so I proceeded to fire another 40 or so hard  air dried BFM Boillies into to my second swim. 15 Minutes later my remote screamed of again, yes at last a descent fish was putting a solid bend into my 2.5 test curve Fox Rod. After a great scrap and a few juddery moments a 15lb 10oz Mirror graced the scales. This was the start of a fish a bung 3 hour period, but to my dismay I only managed I more double of just over 10lb out of 8 fish landed. Time for another Coffee and another chance to rack Darrens brain again, after about half a hour of in-depth discussion we came to the unanimous decision that anything smaller than an 18mm Boillie and you would get plagued with small fish, after catching them for 3 hours who was I to argue.

With the light slowly fading it was time to settle in for the night, after re-feeding both swims and feeding a margin swim for day 2, I re-cast both rods and with 20mm Hard Boillies and settled in for the night. My First run came at around 3.30AM, after a couple of knocks my left hand rod screamed to the steady charge of a good run. I grabbed the Rod and leaned into a very good fish, this felt very heavy, so with care I proceeded to retrieve line with a steady turn of the reel handle, Then Horror. my line went solid and a grating sensation ran through the rod, turning my head light on I could see the over hanging branch Lifting out of the water every time I applied pressure. I tried every trick I know including a prayer or 2 but what ever I tried the fish had me well and truly snagged. After about 4 minutes I tried slack lining to see if the fish would bolt from the safety of the exposed tree roots around the island, then there was an almighty pull on the rod and that horrible sound that mono makes when it snaps under intense pressure, LOST IT !!

A storm of ALL storms produced a small river down 'Alders Hill'

Day 2 progressed pretty much the same as day 1, a few more smaller fish with the odd low double but I just couldn't find a way of enticing the resident big Mirrors to play ball. Now just to add insult to injury, around 4.30pm mother nature decided to show off and treat us to a torrential 20 minute thunder storm. Not being one to mock the inflicted but after the first 5 minutes of gale force winds and hail the size of a 5 pence piece, the storm started to really show with rain that can only be described as ferocious. Now anyone who knows Alders Farm knows that a approach road on a  very steep hill Leeds to the Lakes and at the bottom bend to the right. So after 15minute of torrential rain the hill became a torrent of falling water which fortunately by-passed my Bivvy and decided to follow its natural course straight under Darren's shelter and into the lake [priceless]. As you can guess the only water to actually fall in my bivvy was the tears of laughter as I watched a clay red river of water enter the rear of Darren's Shelter and run out the front.

On the final morning at around 4.50 AM I had another screaming run but this time on my right hand rod. I ran to the rod and lifted into yet another big fish. I must warn any angler who ever fishes Alders Farm that these fish know a good snag when they see one. This one bolted of around the back of the island and just kept going, I moved about 20yds to my right to try and take control but the fish just kept going. CRACK!! everything went slack, tree roots again or maybe the bramble bush on the corner of the island I will never Know but 2 very big fish on and 2 lost absolutely GUTTED. This was my last run of the session and at 11.00am I packed up contemplating on what might have been.

Follow the 5 golden rules listed above and with a little bit of luck you could catch that fish of a lifetime from this picturesque venue, to get the best from your session remember these fish have seen it all before so be prepared to try something different, you never know it might just work.