This weekend Toby was very keen to try out his new bivvi , so we decided to have a crack at the notoriously difficult Crabmill Flash, in search of Catfish and big Carp for a twenty four hour session.
We arrived just after 7am and had a walk round the lake to find the most suitable area, for pitching up and finding some fish. We set up camp before setting up our rods at the far end of the lake, to maximise my chances and get a good feel for the place, I opted to fully use the three rod rule and have a couple of heavy rods out for the Carp and Cats, and a much lighter rod for some feeder fishing.
The big rods baited with popped up worms on one and big halibut pellets on the other, were cast against some reeds on the opposite bank and the feeder rod much closer in off to the right hand side. Toby nipped round the other side and laid down a bed of particles, while I catapulted some loose pellets over my rigs. And then we sat, our traps set and waited, we both felt that our best chance for the Catfish would come after dark, so during the day our rigs would lean slightly more in favour of the Carp. Toby trying Tiger nut boilies and popped up spam wasn't having much luck and I had to wait until around 1 o'clock for my first run, which came on a single 16mm halibut pellet and unfortunately when I struck into it, there was nothing there.
I continued to cast around my feeder rod, filled with maggots to a worm on the end in search of a bite, yet all day I couldn't attract anything to this line either. As night started to fall we finished the day section of trip with only the one run between us, and not a sniff at the feeder rod. So as my sidekick fried up some steak on the gas stove, I changed out the little quiver-tip for another big rod, this time baited with 3 large 22mm halibut pellets. Hoping it would be time for the kittys to come out and play we sat back and watched the sun go down over Crabmill as we tucked into steak butties.
As we began to wonder if our luck would change and maybe we would get to see a big old Catfish, one of Toby's alarms started to scream off with the sort of run we had been waiting for, filling us with excitement only for it to be dashed, as Toby met with no resistance at the end of the line.
We reset and re-baited all the rods, then settled down for the night in the new and very spacious bivvi of Toby's, hoping to be awoken to the sound of the bite detectors and the sight of a Wels.
At around midnight night Toby's alarm was off again and after stumbling around for a second, the jammy devil was finally into a fish, what we didn't expect though was the 2.5lb Eel that covered the net in slime. Still we were quite cheered by finally managing to get a fish on the bank, but still after hunkering down again we both dreamed of big Catfish as we tried to get some more shut eye, this didn't last long as yet again my buddy's alarms sounded and he made a dash for the rod, only to come back tutting and nestling down again cursing Eels nibbling at his popped up salmon flavoured lob Worms.
Toby didn't manage to get much rest over the course of the night, as ever half hour or so, either the worm rig or a hali pellet rig would get picked up, and then dropped before any hook up could be made. A good frost made me very glad of the bacon and sausage sarnies we had for breakfast on what was a cold and misty morning. We fished on as we slowly started to pack up all our stuff and load up the trusty barrow, but couldn't must another bite. As tempting as it was to stop and fish on, it had turned into a lovely morning, but we will return and have another go on this beautiful but very challenging water again soon as the legends of 60 lb Catfish and 30 lb Carp are to good to resist.
For more information on rigs, set ups, bait and tackle please have a look at our brother blog
On The Bank Technical specs
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