Hints & Tips from owner, Neil Houghton.
To assist those of you planning a trip to Joy Lake for the first time, I thought I’d put together a short ‘tactical briefing’ – nothing too technical (Terry Hearn I am not!), just some guidelines to help you bring the right tackle & baits, and maximise your chances of bagging that new PB……
Baits;
We started stocking Quest Baits over two years ago, and originally went with almost the entire range of boilies, with the intention of picking the best 2 or 3 performing flavours.
It didn’t take long to work out that the Surf N Turf and Pineapple Crush were out-catching all of the others we’d stocked. Of the other flavours Tiger Nut Crunch & Fruity Trifle had some success, but the Surf & Pineapple were by far the most consistent.
For some reason the darker coloured & ‘fishy’ varieties such as Special Crab, Liver B8 and Rahja Spice struggled – perhaps the carp struggle to pick them out in the silty areas around the margins/pads? This wasn’t just limited to the Quest range either, other well known and successful baits, for example ‘The Source’, also struggled – for some reason our carp were just not keen!
Joy lake” width=”300″ height=”200″ />Rob Laise had this 27lb Mirror from the Double Swim on a 20mm Surf N Turf bottom bait – for some reason the Double swim usually produces to Surf ahead of Pineapple!
Of the hundreds of other different brands/flavours available on the market, Mainline have always been very consistent here, in particular Cell, Activ8 & Proactive Pineapple have all caught well.
As a general ‘rule of thumb’ lighter coloured, sweeter flavours would be my choice.
Particles-wise, maize has always worked well here (we mix some into our pellet feed during winter/spring, so the carp are used to it as a free offering). Several pieces on the hair to make a ‘maize kebab’ seems to be the favourite.
Hemp is worth feeding during the warmer months (even more so once we’ve had the lake netted this year and the bream/roach removed), as is parti-mix – a note of caution here though!! Piling in kilo’s of parti-mix will probably kill your swim for a good part of your week here, and as a general rule heavy feeding of any bait usually has the same effect – more of this in Part 2 of the article.
As a guideline, around 5kg of boilies, with 1-2kg of maize, 4-6 kg of our lake pellet and the odd kilo or two of hemp/parti mix should see you through a weeks fishing here at Joy Lake – we keep stocks of all of these here, so you can always top-up during the week if the fish are really having it!
Mark Petch had a hat-trick of 30’s during his week on the Withy swim in 2009 (this one weighing in at 31lb 12oz). Mark used most of a 5kg bag of 15mm Pineapple Crush boilies during the week, and also glugged his baits in Mainline Pineapple Juice Syrup.
Tactics;
One of the best tips I can pass on is USE BACK-LEADS! Some areas of the lake are 3-4 feet deep, so pinning everything to the deck is really going to help your catch rate. I favour the clip-on type right off the rod tip, others use flying back-leads and some have even used both just to be sure! If you favour the clip-on type, don’t forget to bring a few spares, as the odd one will inevitably end up in the margins!
Another big tip, touched on earelier is not to pile in loads of bait when you arrive. Kilo’s & kilo’s of parti, groundbait etc will kill the swim for a good few days (at least!). I usually recommend scattering around 20 – 30 boilies and some of our lake pellet and/or maize over each of your spots, then top-up after each run or before nightfall. If you are stalking, lake pellet and a few broken boilies usually gets the quickest response. A medium PVA bag of broken/crushed & whole boilies fished over the top of the baited area is usually the most consistent method, although a PVA stringer also produces.
If you’re not using PVA bags, I’d always recommend a piece of PVA foam on the hook. This will help sit your rig on top of any margin debris/silt.
Some swims produce to bottom baits, others to pop-ups/snowmen rigs, so be prepared to use either (we stock the Quest pop-ups to match the bottom baits).
A single bottom bait (Mainline Pro-active Pineapple) on a short hook length produced this 33lb 10oz PB from the Withy swim for Chris High last year.
I find the little Quest Baits leaflet (which comes free with the boilies!) really useful, and many anglers have used some of the tips it suggests to fool some of the more wary fish – altering the shape of your boilie and the Japs Cap especially.
Rig-wise, it doesn’t need to be over complicated, a semi-fixed or running rig work fine, but make sure your line is up to the task – we insist on a minimum of 15lb line as a lake rule, which should help you steer those hard fighting fish away from the pads (and trust me, they know where every single pad is when they’re hooked!!)
If you are fishing over the silty areas (the corners on Withy, Stump & Point in particular), I’d steer clear of in-line leads, as they can bury your rig down into the silt.
It’s also worth mentioning, and this is based purely on my own experiences & observations, that certain brands/patterns of hooks work better than others here. For all of my fishing I use Korda Wide-Gape size 6 or 8’s, as the wide-gape seem to give the most consistent hook-hold, and rarely let me down. Don’t even bother bringing anything smaller than a size 8, unless you intend doing a spot of float fishing for the Roach & Rudd!
I hope that these tips and advice are useful and help you to enjoy a great week here at Joy Lake. I’m usually on hand during your stay with us, and am always willing to help out and offer advice/tips where I can.
As the season progresses I’ll update you on any new tips/baits and would be pleased to hear your thoughts & own tips from those of you that have visited us before!
Have a great season, and hope to see you soon!
Neil.
Thankfully, at long last, things have started moving again with the welcome autumn rains (and not so welcome snow & ice!), and we are now having our plans analysed (again!!) by the authorities.
