ACROSS THE WATER-IT’S SHOW TIME!!!
Winter Ramblings Part 3

By
LEIGH HEMSLEY

Into November and it’s show time, after a long slog on the ski lake for 1 lost fish it’s been a long hard autumn with still been off work with my back every fishing session has to be planned around my good friends that I go with, as I have to be careful but need to try and keep as active as possible.

November started off on a high as I found out I had made the front cover of the new Maximum Carp magazine with my first article so I was well happy and I also made it into Carpworld for the Nash xmas clothing give away as I was the model for the day (never know where it may lead to lol!). Then the second week of November saw a group of us from Nash travelling over to Holland to do the big angling show in Utrecht. I arrived at the Nash HQ on the Wednesday morning and after a quick cup of coffee or 3 and a chat with Richard (ditch) Ballard to sort out the details of the trip, he told me if possible could I sort out the stuff for the bait stand while the other guys did the heavy work and load the van.

As normal with the lads at Nash been so busy keeping this giant tackle empire going we slowly began to run behind schedule and we all started running round like headless chickens. What made this particular show hard to organise and pack for was that it was the first show with all the new gear and release’s so this new stuff had to be picked from the stores for the van. But after been a few hours behind everyone rallied round and we were on our way to the Euro tunnel only about an hour behind but with an open ticket this was not a problem.

In the van was myself, Ditch and a good friend of Ditch’s Steve who would be driving, and we would be met at the show Thursday night by Alan Blair. It was to be a long night as we had to stop of at the show room in Belgium to pick up some new art work and a few bits of tackle that had not reached England yet. It was the early hours before we retired to our bedchairs for a few hours, before we hit the road again heading for Holland. We reached the show venue about tea time on the Thursday and got straight to setting up the massive stand we had. Later on Alan Blair and Dutch consultant Luc Coppins turned up to help, so we just about finished the stand as we were turned out of the hall. A quick stop off at McDonalds for some food and we were on our way to the lake we were to fish between the show days for the next 3 nights.

The venue we were to fish was a 2000 acre plus lake and to make it different we were to fish from boats, which we made our way to by boat, we were met at the dock by the owner of Flexible Carping Holland Freak, a different name I know but one of the nicest people I’ve met it was now well after midnight so he quickly showed us around the boat and were to fish and then bid us farewell and left us to settle in.

Fishing wise Alan had sent some bait out a few weeks before the trip so it was to be our IC-1 for hookbaits, as I was to be fishing about 150 yards away and on such a big lake with the under tow I was using the new tractor leads in 5oz on the weed safe bolt clips so the lead is dropped on the take, hooklinks were to be 18” 35lb missing link the length to help with the soft bottom and the breaking strain for any unseen obstacles that may be lurking below not to mention the size of the fish witch run to about 25 kilo’s. My hookbaits were a 20mm bottom bait with a 15mm pop up fished snowman style and soaked in matching food dip.

Over the next 3 days we were as busy as ever fishing the nights from our watery homes and spending the days talking to thousands of keen carp anglers wanting to see all our new products and see how we fish in England, what rigs and bait we use and recommend. It was also good to catch up and talk to the Dutch consultants swapping tips and tactics from home and abroad. The high lights of this trip for me were, I managed a couple of fish but alas only bream but they were about 9lb+, Ditch did manage to bank an absolute Beauty of a beast in the shape of a 38lb 3oz common, watching Alan and Ditch chase a 20lb grass carp in a small drain outside Macdonalds in the middle of the town it had to be seen to be believed.

I eventually arrived home Monday afternoon knackered but very chuffed with what we had achieved over the 5 days, and even though I was tired I couldn’t wait to get down to the ski lake to see how it was changing and see if anything had happened. My good friend Kim had also now joined so my next visit was to be a 3 day session with him so we were due to go the following Tuesday so first thing Monday morning I found myself driving down the track towards the lake once more. On talking to Eamonn the owner no one had been down apart from a couple of pike anglers, this is something I want to do later on in the winter as the lake holds some very big pike. On the carp front I had some fantastic news from Eamonn he wanted me to help him set up the syndicate next year and help and give him advice on running it along with helping set up the fishery. With been off work and having no ties such as kids I could go down to the lakes on a regular basis and with him having some workmen down there working on the ground works we could sort the lakes and swims without me having to risk doing anything with my back.

So the next day saw me and Kim walking the lake trying to find any signs of carp and me telling him of my good news regarding the lake. We settled for a small bay on the eastern bank into which the wind was blowing, what also made this a good swim was if I could find it there was a hole that was about 2ft deeper than the rest of the surrounding water. A couple of hours later we were sat having a cup of tea watching the lake when a small carp poked its head out right over my middle rod which was placed on the edge of the hole which I had found earlier with my marker rod, maybe we had found them. The weed is still bad at the lake so I’m still using light leads on the Nash weed safe bolt beads along with long hooklinks between 12 and 18” of 25lb missing link along with a size 8 Fang Twister fished blow back style, hookbaits were now a 15mm amber strawberry bottom bait with a homemade amber strawberry 10mm * 15mm barrel pop up and each rod was tip with a different colour red, yellow, pink and orange. Kim was fishing just down to my right but whereas all my rods were close in Kim had found a spot about 65 yards out, about midnight we were both woken by a very big fish in the margin between us, it sounded massive and was definitely a carp so my right hand rod was quickly reeled in and along with a freshly tired Gardner PVA bag of crumbed Scopex and Amber boilies it was dispatched to where I had seen the rings coming from.

Nothing was forth coming that night, but while sat having our tea the next night one of the lorry drivers tipping soil out the back stopped and said “your fishing in the wrong place mate” and went on to say there was 3 big fish swimming with their backs out along the back where they were tipping the soil we quickly went to have a look just in time to see the fish heading out into the main lake then they disappeared, so at least they were still moving. Once again another blank but I knew it was not going to be easy taking up such a challenge on such a water just before winter, but it’s time to try a few other lake now the cold winter weather is hear but I will still keep the bait going in and pick and choose short day sessions unless it looks right plus the indoor show session is with us now so I’ll be on hand to help with all your bait questions so if you’re at any of the big shows call into the stand and see if we can help!

Next on my schedule was the first of the big indoor shows The Carp Society’s Winter conference at Sandown, and what a show it was to be, we had a massive 200 square feet stand as well as all the corridor with our bivvies and we had also got the talk stage to dress so it was going to be one hell of a show for Nash. I arrived down at the Nash HQ once more on the Wednesday morning and met up with Simon the event coordinator to see what needed to be done, 1st job was to pick up my new bait stands from Gary Bayes at the bait factory and have a chat with him about what new bait there would be at the show. I will give you a quick rundown of the new bait but will go into more detail on each one in my Winter Ramblings- Bait Special in which I will look at the new releases on the bait front and some off my winter edges, so on the bait front I would be showing the ever popular Monster Squid Black, then there’s Salt you will be seeing and hearing so much about this in the next few months and if you have bought Kevin’s new DVD he goes into more details with it. But a quick rundown is he has found a pure source of rock salt that still has all the vitamins and minerals in and we have made it into Soluballs and Chain Reaction. On the Boilie front we have dropped IC-1 to make room for the Squid Black and in the Classic range we have replaced the Shellfish Sense Appeal with the new Monster Crab and Crayfish. Then there are several additions to the Fish Frenzy Range which I will look at in my ramblings bait special. Back to the show and Wednesday was spent sorting out all new gear for the show, as we have a show shed now at HQ as me and Simon do all the years shows so the gear is cleaned and put away after each show and lasts the whole year. As each item was picked, checked off our list and placed on the van by the time we got to the end of the check list it was now getting late so it was time to grab some food and get our heads down ready for an early start.

We were up at first light and after putting the final touches to the van we were on our way to Sandown. We arrived at the hall just before dinner and were met by the Nash team and Alan had arranged for us to be helped by the kids from the local school where he helps, so as the van was unloaded everything was taken to it relevant place and as more people turned up to help the empty space soon began to look like the pages from the Nash brochure. By Friday evening the stage was set ready for a busy weekend, thousands of eager carp anglers attended the show and I must have rolled kilos of all different baits for people and give away loads of my little secrets to help them land that special carp or new PB. The main attractions from a Nash point of view had to be the Emperor bedchair the carp world’s first double bed and that was closely followed by the Titan Brolly and Brolly AS and also on the shelter front was the re-emergence of the Hog and Ground Hog Brollies. Then there was the whole new range of Zero Tolerance clothing. Also another 1st for me was I had to do an interview for Karp TV in Poland so can’t wait to see that.

So that’s what I’ve been up to this month, so I hope you’ve been out catching some good cold water carp. I now have some quite time in the run up to Christmas with some peaceful fishing of my own and a trip to France to help my friend stock some more fish into his lake.

So til next be lucky and Hook A Hippo!!!

Leigh.