A Mist Opportunity

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
A. A. Milne

Myself (Kev) and Jon took ourselves out for a 24hr session at a local club water this weekend called Grey Mist. Fishable on the Warrington Anglers card, Grey Mist is a 7-acre lake encircled with tall tree’s and oversaw by a couple of pylons. The Mist is popular with Specimen Carp and Specimen Tench anglers but also boasts a large stock of Roach, Pike, Perch and Eels.

We’ve fished the Mist a few times before, but only for a couple of hours at a time, so this is the first time we were able to get stuck into a longer session and watch the lake for a little while.

It was a scorching hot day, and after talking to a couple of other anglers, we found out quickly that the carp had been cruising in the upper layers all day, not interested in feeding much. That wasn’t a big surprise, and we knew it was due to cool down quite a lot in the evening, so it gives us plenty of time to pick some pegs and get going.

We opted to fish along the left side (from the car park) as you can see on the picture below as ‘1‘ and tried to get as close to the centre of the lake as possible. Jon got some good advice from a friend where he works about the carp congregating in the centre of the lake, and they tend to avoid the margins.

We planned in the days before the session that we would team up lay down a big bed of particle and fish our two rods each over it. We opted for ‘Crafty Catcher Particle Spod Mix’. We added some ‘CC Moore Pacific Tuna Pellets, Pacific Tuna Liquid and some crushed 15mm Pacific Tuna Boilies’.

I chose to fish one rod on a Ronnie Rig with a size 6 Gardner Mugga and a ‘CC Moore Odyssey XXX 16mm Pop Up’ on one rod and the other on a simple hair rig, size 5 Fox Wide Gape hook, tied to 20lb Korda N-Trapp equipped with a 15mm CC Moore Pacific Tuna Boilie.

Jon took a similar method fishing a 16mm Pacific Tuna Pop Up on a multi-rig on one rod and a 15mm Pacific Tuna Boilie on the other rod again with a simple hair rig.

We didn’t want to overcomplicate things on this session. We only had 24hrs and the carp in the Mist are old and wily. We found out just how wily they were later on in the night.

I had a little search around our swims with my Deeper Pro+ and found that around 50 yards out, there was a 7ft deep spot that was clear, as soon as it started to shallow up to 6ft that was when the weed started. So we found a nice clear patch to lay down our traps.

We spodded around 1.6kg of our mix and spread it out enough to put four rigs on it and then it was time to kick back with a beer and wait for go time.

Spotify on, beers out and BBQ on, we were feeling good. Around 7ish, we started seeing a lot of action in the dead centre of the lake with some big fish crashing around (red circle in the diagram below). Sadly it wasn’t an option for us, there was a group of lily pads in between us and the action zone, and we weren’t prepared to take the chance on abandoning the spot we’d built to chase it.

Jon was gifted with a take little after sunset, it was tentative and for a second Jon hesitated before a drop back sparked him into life. He leant into a good fish, and the battle commenced. The fish immediately swam toward him high in the water, but before we could get a look, it darted off fast and hard to the left. He did his best to keep it away, but it eventually found some thick weed to bury itself in.

With his rod completely locked up, he left it for a little while hoping it would free itself, but sadly he eventually pulled through the weed, and his rig returned to the bank minus a Carp.

Dejected but still hopeful for the night ahead he re-baited his rod and sent it back to the spot. I say still hopeful; he did describe it as “the most upsetting 10 minutes in Carp angling history, ever”. Dramatic? Yes, maybe, but it was a big loss, and I would have loved to have seen what was on the end of that hook.

Around 10 pm in between line bites, we were gifted with the noises of some creepy children’s laughter and some blood-curdling screams from a man somewhere close by, but, that’s what you get for fishing in Warrington.

Jon regaled me with his plan of making a horror movie based on two lads night fishing. I’ll be honest; he didn’t sell it to me. I’m only interested if while the horror is ongoing, they keep going back to check their rods, and discuss possibly re-baiting in the dark, before returning to their escape from evil.

Without another take, we hit the bedchair’s at about 11:30, not before FaceTiming the third man, Mad, who was sunning himself in Florida to give him some abuse. He took it quite well.

About 00:20 Jon had a screamer. We both scrambled out of the bivvies, and another battle ensued. He got the better of this battle, but as he got it to the net, it was no carp. It was a water snake. Yes, a massive eel to be fair, Jon bottled it and proclaimed he wouldn’t be touching it. So it was left to me to wrestle with it in the dark.

With the water snake sent back to the dark depths, it was back to bed. Not for long though, Jon had another melter, and it was all hands on deck again. Of course, he knew straight away; it was another eel. This one even bigger, I unhooked it and sent it packing. Jon re-baited for a 3rd time and as we went back to bed, I think I heard him talking to the Samaritans helpline.

I was kept awake all night with line bites and little dropbacks but sadly no reward for me. As the morning grew bright and warm, we got the kettle on and talked about how big that lost fish was the night before. Through the night it had grown about 10-20lbs, but that’s ok.

We give our rods a little more time, threatened a few moorhens and decided it was time to pack up. Trolleys packed, we headed for the van when I had a stroke of genius. “Jon”, I said, “you could say last night was a Mist Opportunity”. I won’t tell you what he said because it was bang out of order, but off home, we went.

Jon is possibly back at the Mist this Friday night coming. While we were disappointed by the outcome, I do think we got our tactics right, and a little perseverance and maybe an improvement on location could prove fruitful for us at the Mist.

We’ll be back.