Spodding Doesn't Work - A Session on Sandhurst Lake - by Nathan "Bumpy" Highly
Bumpy with a 27lb 10oz Sandhurst Common
It was roughly 9 years ago that I last fished over at Sandhurst lake in Yateley, It's a lovely pit of about 11 acres or so. Average depth is around 4 foot going down to about 9 foot at the deepest. When I last fished over there 9 years ago it was nicely weeded in most places giving the fish plenty of cover, I really loved the place.
When Kishy decided he was going to hold his stag weekend on there I just had to jump at the chance of fishing it again. So I arranged to go down a couple of days earlier on the Wednesday with Basil to try and get a rough idea where I wanted to be on the weekend.
I arranged to meet Basil at Yateley Angling Centre on the Wednesday at around lunch time to get our tickets and any last minute pieces of tackle. After meeting up and getting everything sorted we set off for the lake at around 2ish in the afternoon. On arriving at Sandhurst we were gutted to see how many cars were in the car park, it was rammed! We spent the next couple of hours walking round the lake to try and see if we could spot anything. On walking round we could see only 5-6 pegs were free.
Another mint common at 25lb 8oz
We decided on pegs 13 and 14 with me going in 13 and Basil in 14, these two swims had quite allot of water in front of them compared to the rest of the free swims, so was a obvious first choice. After getting all the gear in the swim I got out the marker and had a feel about. The first thing that shocked me when having a feel through the swim was the lack of weed, in fact I couldn't find anything but gravel. Apparently they had treated the weed about 2-3 years ago due to people complaining about it. Anyway I continued to have a feel about to try and find something. I finally found a small silt patch at about 80 yards out that I could just fit 3 rods onto. Now going from past experience on here they love their bait, I used to catch on maize over hemp and groats. So I'd prepared 15 kilos of hemp and 7 kilos of groats ready for the session. I mixed up roughly 4 kilos of hemp, 1 kilo of groats, a tin of sweetcorn and put in about a quarter of a bottle of hemp oil. For the next half an hour I spodded that lot out and proceeded to cover myself and bivvy in a nice creamy juice...
Rig wise I kept it very simple, 1 metre of leadcore, lead-clip, 10 inches of ESP Stripteaze, Kamazan carp maxx size 7 and a small piece of silicone to create a blow-back effect and to keep the bait in place. On the hair I put on two yellow bastards(fake corn) soaked in a special dip, 1 bottom and 1 pop-up to create a wafting bait.
A clonking 31lb 4oz common to Bumpy
I got all the rods out onto the spot by about 9ish that night, it was then time for pizza and a couple of beers. Me and Basil both hit the sack at about 12ish and set the alarm clock early as we knew a lot of people were going, so if we had no action through the night could move if we wanted to. I woke up at about 5ish and took Basil round the usual cup of tea. At about 7 that morning I had an absolute one toner and on lifting into it I couldn't believe how hard it was fighting, it was heading towards the island so I had to put some pressure on to try and turn it, as soon as I did the hook pulled, I was proper gutted. I put the kettle back on and rolled up a smoke to calm down a bit. I got the rod back out at about 9ish as I thought recasting it straight away may disturb the area if the fish were there. I received another screamer at about 10am, this one did the same as the last and I had to put a lot of pressure on it to try and turn it again. Fortunately it turned and I had it coming in, the fight was a real good one with it going on long runs as the water is so shallow. After about 15 minutes I finally got it into the net, up on the scales it went 27lb 10oz (first photo), a real nice common and a great way to start the session. I received another 2 takes on that Thursday resulting in a scaly 17+ and another one lost.
25lb 12oz Sandhurst Common Carp
I brought the rods in for a couple of hours that evening to go and have some dinner and a couple of beers with Basil as he had moved swims. I got back to my swim at about 5ish and put another 5 kilos of spod mix out. By 7pm that night I had all the rods back out onto the spot and settled down with a smoke and a beer. A chap came in next door to set up for the night. I went round for a chat as you do, just being polite and he preceded to tell me I'd "ruined everyone's chances of catching as I'd been spodding". I laughed it off and went back to my swim to settle down for the night. Well throughout the night the chap next door turned out to be my photographer! By 5am I'd had another four fish and lost three, he apologised for being a bit rude the evening before and wanted to know what I was using etc, (they do make you laugh). The highlight of the four fish was a stunning 30lb+ common at 4 that morning, as you can imagine I really was on a high now.
Everybody was due down to fish the stag weekend at about 15:00 and we were drawing for swims at 4pm. I obviously knew where I wanted to be, so hopefully lady luck would be on my side and I was hoping for a good draw. The draw couldn't of gone better and I came out 3rd, so obviously opted to go back into peg 13.
On getting back to the swim I put out about 5 kilos of spod mix again and got the rods out by 6pm. AJB was set up next door in peg 12 so I went round his swim to nick his beer and get him to cook some dinner as you do, I hit the sack at about 1am that morning.
I was woken up at 4am to a Nev screaming out, after hooking into the fish it went on a long run. I was shouting to Andy to say it was going to take out his rods but I got no reply, I kept the pressure on but the fish was down the margins and knew that it would take out one of Andy's rods soon. About 30 seconds later I heard Andy's alarm going and knew I had crossed him, He didn't wake straight away and his alarm must of gone for about 10 seconds before he got up (That lad could sleep through anything lol), anyway after shouting to him that it was me he dipped his rods and about a minute later the fish freed itself from his lines. I had it plodding up and down the margins for another 5 minutes before going into the net. On looking down into the mesh I could see it was another good fish. On the scales it went 33+, a real fat common and one of the known ones, I was really buzzing now.
I had another one that morning, a stunning 25+ common and also had another one in the afternoon, a 24+ mirror and that turned out to be my last one of a fantastic session. I celebrated with Andy that night as you would do and packed up the next day a very happy angler.
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