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Excludes base mix ingredients

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Excludes base mix ingredients

A lovely venue close by to me which I have not fished a lot this year is called Cat Rough Fishery, a lake which has 20 plus pegs, a central island surrounded by lush vegetation and a fantastic stock of fish ranging from small Roach, Skimmers, Bream, Chub, Barbel and lots of hard fighting carp to well over 20lb but my plan was just to target the Carp for the day which are mainly Commons… but there are a few Mirrors in the mix also.

For the session I decided on fishing for the Carp using traditional baits of just Meat and Corn. Planning on feeding heavy during my session I brought along a large bag of frozen Corn, and cubed up 3 tins of Luncheon meat at 8mm and 10mm in size just to mix it up a bit on the feeding as the Carp in the lake can be a bit wise. For the meat I also added a splash of Spotted Fin Luncheon Meat Method Ready Bait Soak which I poured over the cubed meat in a freezer bag and left over night in the fridge, just to take on a bit of extra flavour from the bait soak. 

8mm and 100mm Cubed Meat with Luncheon Meat Bait Soak.

Setting up my Rigs for the day I kept things simple, 2 top kits, one at 13m in the deepest part of the lake at 8ft, and one on the shelf at around 6m out but still at 6ft, both topkits had the same set up but just at different depths which was 14-16 Elastic, 0.19 mainline to a 0.6g DT Floats open water Diamond float and a bulk of number 8 shot set 6 inches above a 14s hook, simple but strong effective tactics which were needed on this venue. 

Starting off the session I cupped in 10 cubes of meat and topped the cupping kit up with corn over the top and shipped it out long and baited the long line while I fished the short line where I fed by hand with 6 cubes at a time just trickling the bait in which I normally do on the closer line, which sometimes works very well. Giving the short line a go for at least an hour with no bites I thought it was a bit worrying with no bites not even off a silver fish, so put a 10mm cube on and shipped out and gave the long line a drop in with the meat and it was not long until the float sailed away with my first Carp at around 4lb. Back out on the long line and straight away I was in again with a nice Mirror carp at around 6lb but after that I could not buy a bite close in or far out. I dropped a good pot of corn closer in and went in over the top with meat and was into a bigger feeling fish which I manage to net and weighed at 12lb and straight afterwards I managed another smaller fish about 5lb… but things were not working out well so had a re-think and decided to mix up a bit from the afternoon onwards. 

Deciding to change things up on the second part of the session I had some Spotted Fin 2mm Catalyst Pellets in my bag which I wetted down and added some Green Betaine Bait Sauce to turn them Green (which I love over the standard colour of Pellets) but what I like about the Sauce range is that it has a thicker consistency to it and also has a perfect binding agent which when adding to the pellets. They can be formed into rock hard balls which when fishing in open water deeper venues like Cat Rough become perfect for the job, staying intact before hitting the bottom and giving me confidence that the ball has not broken down. So with this in mind I fed 3 balls in on the long line with no meat and left for ten minutes just to see if it made any difference over feeding Corn. Within minutes of the balls hitting the bottom it was clear there was fish in the peg with plumes of bubbles hitting the surface. It was evident they had arrived. In over the top with a 10mm cube it was a bite a chuck, carp to 8lb followed with another 12 more ranging from 3lb to 5lb, I would land a fish and drop 3 more pellet balls in over the top but not feed meat, just using what was on the hook and it looked like the right move for the rest of the session. I ended the session on 17 Carp which made the day for me using simple carp tactics which paid off. A fantastic range of additives to cover all situations from Spotted Fin.