Horseshoe Lake     
by Tony Welch

In December 2008 I had planned to fish the Carp Society’s Horseshoe Lake on the Oxfordshire Gloucestershire border. The weather put pay to that trip as the lake was frozen, the following December I had the same few days planned but, well, we all know what happened there with the coldest winter for years!

Horseshoe is a shallow gravel pit made up of two arms called summer bay and winter bay, with a body of water separating them, totalling 62 acres altogether, and its full of the dreaded weed. It has a good stock of heavily scaled mirrors, nice and dark in colour, with many 20’s and 30’s, which is what I was interested in.

Another opportunity came about in March 2010, and along with a mate, Andrew Endean, we headed for the lake, some 4.5 hours drive away. We arrived at the lake on a Sunday afternoon and soon interviewed one of the friendly bailiffs (Gary) for info! It had been a quiet weekend with only one angler receiving a pull on his string resulting in a lost fish from the mouth of summer bay.

The weather was bad and the forecast worse, torrential rain was on the way, every forecast I looked at said the same thing- rain! Time was of the essence and we decided to set up in swims 53 and 54, just outside the mouth of summer bay, but on the opposite bank to where the only take had occurred that weekend. The wind was due to blow a strong south westerly, and it was already pushing a nice westerly into our faces. I was set up in 53 (also called ‘the mounds’ or ‘Stock ponds’). With the westerly picking up by the minute, I thrashed out a 3oz lead for a feel about and to locate a clear area in the weed. First cast and the lead came down with a right old thump. I slowly pulled the lead back across the bottom and felt that knocking sensation of the lead bouncing over hard stone and gravel. Now feeling really good, knowing that the prospect of time consuming casts looking for a suitable spot was long gone I clipped up and whipped the lead in to reveal just a few strands of blanket weed around the swivel. All three rods were paced out and clipped up to the spot. I wanted to use chod rigs, however because the wind was picking up all the time I knew slack lines was not going to be an option so I went for stiff hinge rigs instead, combining Subterfuge and Tripwire, with a new Gardner Chod  hook. The Chod hook is spot on for chods, stiff hinges, zigs etc, basically any form of mono hook link. The three rods were despatched to the spot and all was well in my world. With everything sorted I sat back and thought the weather can do what it wants now, im all settled! Andrew was all sorted in 54, and the kettle was on, lovely!

That was as good as it got for me in swim 53! Later that evening the wind picked up even more and the rain was torrential to say the least. Massive lumps of weed were sent into my swim from the wind and worked up the lines, basically moving the leads and making the swim unfishable. To make matters worse, I woke up in the morning to find a 2 inch deep muddy puddle under my bed chair soaking into all my kit. I had to pack up there and then, and get completely out of that swim asap.

Andrew was working in the area and was packing up in any case to go to work. He offered me a lift round from our swims to the shower block area so I could re group and hatch a plan for later that day. I declined and said I would barrow my kit round when I was ready. I couldn’t be bothered with strategically loading the car again. What a mistake that was, I should have taken the lift! With it being my first trip to the lake I hadn’t bargained on how far it was from our swims back round summer bay to the main entrance. Also, im used to the mud and hills of Argal reservoir so I assumed the barrow journey would be a piece of cake as the tracks around Horseshoe are flat and hard, how wrong I was, especially when the bearings in the wheel of the barrow started to go! I started to think that perhaps I should have stayed home. I soldiered on in the wind and rain to the shower block and when I got there Andy had already had a shower and was having a shave, looking fresh as a daisy. I can’t think of anything bad enough to describe what I looked like, suffice to say, I needed a shower and a change of clothes!

From there I had a few casts in a few different swims, a couple swims I had fancied were taken and after a bit more barrow work I plotted up in a swim called Boat Point. From my point of view this swim looked great, hard clean area for the bivvy and wind blowing from right to left. I was reliably informed of a large clear gravel area some 70 to 90 yards out. The rain had gone, the wind eased slightly, so the kit was dried out and I set to work to try and catch one of the Horseshoe beauties.

The view from the new swim – Boat Point.

I decided to put two stiff hinge rigs out on the gravel. Hook baits would be my Response Blackcurrant and Scopex white pop ups made with Polaris mix. I spodded around 150 Mainline Cell free offerings over the top. The third rod would be flicked out around 40 yards to an area I found containing light weed. On this rod I used a Gardner coated braid hook link with a  Covert Mugga hook, a slow sinking Cell hook bait tipped off with a piece of Enterprise red fake corn. A pva bag full of chops was attached and around 100 15mm Cells were added to this spot.

Ingredients required to make the white pop ups.

Kit needed to make slow sinking or pop up Cell hook baits.

Andrew arrived back in the evening after work and settled into the swim next door. I thought I heard one or two shows out in front but couldn’t really pinpoint the location in the darkness, although one sounded close to the left hand spot. At 8pm the left hander was away and after a short battle Andy netted a plump 24lb mirror for me. I was off the mark at Horseshoe.

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Off the mark!

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Back she goes!

After hitting the hay around 11-ish I woke up, late for me, around 8am, a bit miffed with myself for not being up and about at first light. I wondered into Andrew’s swim and noticed his rods were in. Andy explained he had been in the hospital since the very early hours with some serious tooth pain and had only just arrived back at the lake. I helped him pack up and he made his way off to work, still in lots of pain.

As that day went on the wind picked up again, into an absolute howler, I had re cast in the morning and the rods went in nice but I was now fishing 4oz leads and bow string tight lines with lumps of weed all over them. Around midday I received a call from Andrew who was once again in the hospital. He just couldn’t carry on with the session and said we would need to head home, so I packed up all my kit barring the bivvy and rods, and awaited Andrew’s return to pick me up, around 4pm.

You can imagine my surprise when at 3.50pm the right hand ATTS went into a one toner. I had a right job to even feel the fish as the wind was now gusting to 60mph and I had several lumps of weed running along the line, each one must have been half a pound in weight! Another angler fishing with his wife saw I was struggling and ran over to net the fish for me. When he picked up the net the wind nearly took it out of his hands! As the dark mirror neared the net I could see the Gardner Lead Clip had released the lead and done its job perfectly. Matey (sorry iv forgotten the chaps name) netted the carp first time and did a great job all things considered. With that Andrew arrived back, holding his face (I didn’t laugh or take the proverbial, promise)! Ah, perfect timing, I said with a big grin, another one in the net. We quickly weighed the mirror in at 27.08lb, did a few pictures and returned the fish. All the wet kit was stuffed into the car and I drove us back to Cornwall. I did ask Andrew if I could video him in such pain and post it on the net so we could all have a giggle at his expense but he wasn’t overly enthusiastic about that one! It turned out the poor sod had an infection in a nerve!

I
last gasp mirror.

Moving into April 2010, I had another chance to fish the lake for those lovely dark old mirrors, but this time my car had 970 quid’s worth of work needed. Again Andrew was working in the area and offered a lift covering the fuel, with that bit of good fortune in mind I agreed, and after a bit of jiggery pokery, put off half the car work until May.

Again we arrived on the Sunday and it was a completely different place. The sun was out, it was flat still and looked lovely. We had a look round and found some fish off the stock ponds area and decided to drop back in these swims. The stiff hinge rig / blackcurrant pop up combo were used once again and I fished both rods (now in April it’s a two rod rule) out to the clear gravel area and filled it with a few kilos of Cell free offerings. It was a still, cold night and at 1am my ATTS sounder box let out a few bleeps, as I was getting out the bag it went into melt down and after a nice scrap I had a 21lb heavily scaled mirror in the Out Reach net. A typically cracking scaled and coloured carp of which Horseshoe is famed for.

First night success, the 2llb mirror.

A quick chat in the morning with some other lads revealed the carp during the night had moved further into summer bay. Andrew headed off to work and I packed up to move further into the bay. It was quite busy in swims 60 upwards so I opted for 58 which has a decent gap between it and 60. I wanted to be further in the bay and I was happy with the area in front of 58. 58 itself is quite an awkward swim and I could have done with my waders for netting purposes, but of course never had them with me! The Out Reach landing net did come into its own though as it has an extra handle which attache’s spigot style to the bottom of the normal 6 ft handle. This extra handle would provide vital extra length to reach over marginal weed and reeds to net any fish at full stretch. If this didn’t work I would be getting wet!

The Out Reach landing net handle with extension.

The view from swim 58.

Rods were paced out at 55 yards to a spot which consisted of light blanket weed. This time I would fish one rod on the stiff hinge and on my second rod I went for the coated braid with a snowman hook bait and Covert Mugga hook. I decided to use a Cell bottom bait with a Mainline 10mm Fruit-tella pop up. Again a few kilos of Cell were spread with a throwing stick over the area and we also decided to try a little spod mix that night which has worked well for years at Horseshoe. The spod mix was simple to say the least and consisted of some hemp from Kent Particles mixed in with chopped Cell boilies and a ground bait to firm it up. Spodding is usually done over a very tight area but that’s not the type of fishing I like to do so I spread 15 spods over an area of around 2 rod lengths wide. Andrew had set up in 59 and things were looking good.

Cell bottom bait with any of the Mainline 10mm pop up’s work a treat as snowman hook baits.

The simple spod mix. 

My rods were cast in and within 10 minutes the left hander on the snowman hook bait had ripped. The fish kitted hard left and was taking line. I put on some decent pressure in an attempt to turn the angry carp and on this occasion it played ball and started to come back toward me. Gary the bailiff was on hand to net the fish and did a superb job. There was a huge lump of weed on the line probably weighing a few kilos and the fish was around 3 feet behind it just swimming around on a slack line! I obviously couldn’t lift this weed with the rod and had to let it drift past the net, Gary then, at full stretch slipped the fish into the net and then unhooked the fish in the net for me. The end tackle was a right mess but held firm against the weed. The lead clip had once more dropped the lead making a massive difference and the new Hydrotuff line was spot on in the weedy conditions. I was more than happy with the way the tackle was performing. The carp in the net was one stunner to say the least. A 27.12 dark fully scaled mirror. Andy did some nice pics and the carp swam off none the worse for its experience.

Hydrotuff – handled the horseshoe weed very well!

The 27 fully, cracking carp!

We were joined by Rich Farnan for the night who popped down for a quick over-nighter. He may as well of left his rods at home because he spent most of his time in my swim eating my biscuits and depleting my coffee stocks!

Around 9pm the right hand alarm let out a few bleeps. I looked at the Bug indicator and could see it had pulled up tight. The rod tip was being pulled down and it was clear a fish was on. I lifted the rod and pulled into the fish (no need to strike) and it plodded around giving a really good account of itself. To be fair it felt heavier than 25.06 but I was made up nevertheless. Andrew and Rich were spot on helping out with the netting, photos and what not. Later that night I received another take resulting in a 19lb fully. I did a few self takes and returned the fish. It was around 4am and knowing both Andrew and Rich were off to work in the morning I didn’t think they would appreciate being woken up to photo a double. If you fish on your own for any amount of time then a tripod and a camera which allows you to do self takes is essential.

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25.06lb

19lb fullyscaled.

The following day was hot and I considered a zig rig. The area I was fishing was 5 feet deep and even if the fish were cruising in the upper layers being so shallow it wouldn’t take much to draw them down to the bottom. I decided to keep one rod on the bottom and fish a zig on the other. I tied the zig hook link to a size 10 D-ceptor hook, 4 feet in length and used a piece of  black Gardner Zig foam as hook bait. The hook link was attached to the Kwik-loc swivel on my lead clip set up and cast out over the spot. In the mid afternoon sun the zig rig was away with a mirror weighing in at just less than 18lb.

The zig caught 18lb mirror.

Zig Rig Componants.

As the final night approached Andy dropped in the swim to the other side of me, 57. he had not used the stiff hinge rig before and asked I tie him one up while he set his bivvy and rods up. Andrew then went about spodding to pretty much the same distance as me in the clearest spot we could find in his new swim. There was no clean ground per se, only a lighter weed of around 6 inches deep to fish on top of. It took us both several casts in this swim to find this small area. Andy paced his two rods out, clipped up and dropped in on the spot. It must have been all of 5 minutes after the commotion of spodding and casting when his new stiff hinge rig rod was away. A nice fully was netted and hit the scales at 25.12 for him. It was a stunner of a carp and I was well pleased for him. I received a phone call from Rich who was sneaking around the lake stalking at the time, he had found a group of fish in a far corner of the lake and had taken two off the top, an 18 and a 23, both mirrors, the Horseshoe carp were feeding well it seemed. Later that evening I had another take on the Blackcurrant/stiff hinge combo which turned out to be a 22lb mirror.

Andrew Endean with a 25lb plus Horseshoe fullyscaled mirror.

Last but not least the 22.06 mirror.

No more action occurred that night or the following morning. The fish in Horseshoe certainly move around, especially in the spring. You have to be prepared to up sticks at a moments notice and move when the opportunity presents itself. It’s a cracking lake with friendly people running it. Best of all it has that stock of heavily scaled dark old mirrors to fish for. Ill definitely be back for another go!

Rig tips…

Attach your hook link via a Kwik-lok swivel, saves loads of time.

Add some Critical mass to a size 12 Flexi ring swivel to balance your hook bait.

The finished Stiff hinge should look like this, note the Anti tangle sleeve and how far the tail rubber is pushed over the clip to allow the lead to eject early.

Gardner D-Ceptor and Chod hooks are spot on for Zigs, Stiff Hinge and Chod rigs.

Gardner supply quality kit needed to tie the rigs mentioned.

Tony Welch