My Approach To The Victoria Pool

There are many ways to approach the Victoria Pool, due to the variety of species that you can fish for. However, my prefered tactics are for the carp. They run from about 2lb to just over 20lb, although you'd think the 2lb'ers are the bigger fish due to the hard fighting attitude they have.

Now, as we are in the middle of summer, I've decided to time my session to coincide with the late on feeding that the Victoria Pool's carp seem to prefer. I arrive at the pool around 6.30pm to find ten other anglers already fishing. My prefered area near the car park is taken leaving me a few options. Speaking to a few anglers, it seems most carp have been seen surfacing on the end of a warm wind blowing to the far end of the pool. The near side pegs are taken but the far bank is free and I decide to fish three pegs up from the outflow pipe.

I usually set up two different methods to fish for the Victoria Pool carp. The first and usually most productive in the early evening is a simple leger rod. I slide a small fox 1/2oz leger bomb down the 6lb main line followed by a small bead and then a swivel. The hooklink is then a hair rigged size 14 hook attached to a 10 inch 5lb pro micron hooklink. this is then tied to the business end of the swivel. The 10 inches of hooklink are crucial to the bait which is simply bread. I cut a bread section inclusive of some crist about 2cm square. I then use a baiting needle to attach the bread to the hair rig). The crust is important to stop the bread coming off the hair but more importantly to help keep the bread bouyant. I cast this rod slightly to the wind swept corner about 10 yards out. Now underwater, the bread pops up 10 inches off the bottom which I find is the perfect depth to catch the carp swimming round mid water.

The second method is 5 metres of pole. A simple pole rig made up of a 5lb main line to 4.5lb hooklink. Attached to this is a 14's hook and a small lightweight float weighted down leaving 5mm of brittle left showing. The carp don't half pull on the pole so a strong 16's elastic is needed to slow them down. The bait on the pole is luncheon meat on the hook with loose fed carp pellets.

As I expect the pop up bread to work better at this time of day, that rod was cast out first. This decision proved correct as before the pole was even shipped out, the quiver tip of the leger rod bend round and I was in.

A short fight at the net and a chunky 7lb mirror was in the net after only ten or so minutes. The rod was re-baited with a small square of bread and cast to the same spot. Within no more than a minute the tip bend round again nearly pulling the rod in with it an I was on again resulting in a 3lb common.

The next hour passed with a hectic period landing another 3 carp to 6lb on the pop up bread not really giving me chance to catch on pole. After the fifth carp, the rod went quiet and I started to see movement in the pole swim. A missed bite or two later and I managed to hook one on pole.

Not that I'd turn down any carp but I must admit, the fight of a carp on pole gets my adrenaline going. This carp actually took about 5 minutes to get in taking the elastic to its limit a couple of times and it was only about 3lb. I re-baited the pole line and quickly hooked another. Unfortunatley, this fish took off like a train and snapped the 4.5lb hooklink. I baited again and decided to change the now quiet pop up bread rod. A method feeder was attached with a small piece of luncheon meat hair rigged as bait. This was cast in a similar area as previous. Before I'd even sorted the pole line the tip started tapping round. I lifted in to a much lighter weight and landed a skimmer bream about 10oz.

On many of occasion I could catch fish like these all day but everytime I caught a bream on the rod, I'd disturbe the carp on the pole line. On this basis, I decided to fish the method feeder closer to the bank to my right to try and not catch the bream. By this time (8.00pm) the wind was dropping and the bites were slowing.

Neither methods were producing any bites so I had the option of moving to the now free car park pegs which have a reputation for producing late on or change my method to catch to few carp left in my area. With the light fading I decided to stay put and fish on the surface with the pole. The leger rod was left where it was. A few carp took my loose fed bread off the surface but seemed only to play with the bait. They've had a lot of pressure on surface bread and have started to wise up to the method. The leger rod also reamained quiet making me wish I'd moved or at least stayed with the bream.

Overall, I manged 6 carp to 7lb catching one on the pole and 5 on the pop up bread. I think if I could have got the car park pegs I'd have caught late on. For some reason the carp love this area at night and I'd reccommend these pegs for anyone night fishing. I hope the above information can help you catch a few more carp. I don't pretend to be an expert and this is simply how I fish the water. Tight Lines.

 

 

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