Angling Lines Blog

Phil Parker wrote:
Hi there,
I am off to Island lake in September and I’m hoping that anyone could give me some advice on fishing this venue. Rigs, baits (Quest shelf or fresh), swims etc and do the all the cabins have electric in them.  Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Hi Phil,
I fished Island Lake for a couple of nights last August and caught carp to 54lb. Unfortunately I had to cut my trip short due to an accident. However, I will be returning there at the end of this month so should be able to give you much more up to date information then.
I caught three carp the first morning (a upper 30, a 40 and a 50) all from close range after spotting them bubbling.  These were on very light scatterings of tiny baits (broken and crumbed boilie bits). The first fish – the 54 I had seen bubbling and wasn’t 100% it was a fish causing it so rather than drop a rig straight on it I scattered a bit of bait to the side of it. The bubbling moved straight onto the bait. I then got a rod ready and carefully positioned it with the minimum of disturbance to the side of the new bubbling then scattered more bait over that.
The bubbling moved onto the third area, I got a take and after a brilliant fight I netted my second 50 plus in a couple of days (I had caught a 54 at St Christophe just before leaving for Island Lake). The bait it was bubbling over and feeding upon for me to commit a rod to it was Quest Baits Liver B8. However the hook bait was a trimmed down Quest Baits Special Crab boilie. This is something I do a lot of the time – give a slightly different signal to make the hook bait more detectable rather than fishing the same hook bait as free bait. I liken this in human terms to fishing for a cow. Best thing to get it feeding is grass but grass wouldn’t be the best hook bait. Yet put a daisy on the hook and you will increase the chances of a take. Hope that makes sense?

I did lose a couple of fish also on a baited area out in the lake which was on Liver B8 over Liver B8. I had started the area with a couple of kilo of boilies and about twice the amount of Quest Garlic Feast particle mix. Jamie Simpson had been over there earlier in the year on his way back from another venue and had done well on Rahja Spice whilst Kev his mate caught well on the Special Crab. From what I have said above I feel most ‘food quality’ baits should work. Certainly the three mentioned have worked from the off. They see a lot of bait there so you generally find that the better food quality baits will shine through rather than simple cheap flavour carriers. I use shelf life baits for almost all of my fishing now. Rigs were my usual home tied combi-links which you can watch a free video clip of  on http://www.questbaits.com/docs/videovault/combirig/index.html

Island Lake is quite weedy but it is easy to find clear areas to fish to. There are Poisson Chat and Crayfish present but they didn’t give me much of a problem in the short time I was there. It may be worth arming yourself against them though just in case. They don’t seem to like plastic baits much and the Quest Baits Pineapple Crush will be left alone by the Poisson Chat but only choose the 20mm in these as the smaller ones sometimes get swallowed. The Chat don’t like to chew into them so the 20mm’s are your safest option. I must admit I didn’t go into any of the chalets to know about the electricity but I spoke to Bridget at Angling Lines and I understand she emailed the information direct to you. If there are any more questions please feel free to ask. Otherwise if you post again the second week in August I will be more than happy to give you some more up-to-date information.

Best fishes
Shaun Harrison

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