Unity Lake

I had only fished Unity Lake, part of the Guys syndicate at Linear, twice before this trip and had already banked several good fish topped by a 27-12 Mirror as well as some cracking Ghost carp to 24-8. It seemed the perfect venue for the winter as fish were being caught during very cold spells when the conditions were against you and far from ideal. I was fishing the next lake, Gaunts when I spotted several fish showing one morning close to the car park, and after moving for the last 24-hours, I caught three 20’s and a double so that was the start of my fishing on Unity which was around the middle of November.

After a blank 48-hours on St Johns, I decided to move onto Unity as Roy said that one angler was doing very well at the car park end with 7 carp in 24-hours to just under 28lbs. Upon my arrival at the lake, I found three other anglers fishing, all up the far end and on both sides of the lake so I decided to get away from them and settled for the first corner that you come to on the road bank.

I knew from recent trips, and much to my amazement, that the fish were still coming out over bait and were still very active, considering the time of year and cold conditions. With this in mind, I decided to go for it straight from the off and spent some time with the marker rod seeing, or should I say feeling, what I had in front of me. The thickest weed was found to be from the bank out to about 40 yards and after this, it was quite patchy but nothing to worry about and quite fishable. One clear area that did seem promising was found at about 80 yards. It was slightly harder with the occasional knocking on the marker rod although no change in depth and with heavier weed all around it, I decided on this to be my main, baited area. The marker was popped up and using a very powerful lamp, I marked the line of the cast with a tree on the far horizon. The marker rod was then paced out along the path and one rod clipped up roughly 5 yards past it to allow for the cast and tightening up etc. At the same time, a spod rod was also clipped up to the same distance, effort that is well worth making when its dark and can pay dividends.

The first rod was fished just short of this mark, and to the left, with a 5inch-braided hooklength, size 8 Korda wide-gape hook and a 12mm Pro-Active-Pineapple pop-up set at about 1.5inches. The lead, a 3oz Fox in-line ‘Kling-On’ was placed into a Fox ‘Bullet’ bag, a set up that I had been trying for bag work and was ideal as you can get the lead at the front end of the bag which really helps with casting distances and accuracy. This was then filled with a bag mix consisting of 50/50 Pro-Active-Pineapple boilie crumb and Hinders ‘Tiger Stik Mix’ with their pineapple slime and a little grilled, crushed hemp.

The middle rod was set up with a 10inch, 20lbs Rigidity hooklength with a short braided section of about two inches tied to a fox series 1, size 8 hook and with a 14mm Pro-Active-Pineapple bottom bait. I always use a small pva bag in one form or another and for the winter, I use Fox’s new 15mm micromesh stocking. I make these up from about an inch to about two inches; just enough to give the hookbait some added attraction as well as eliminating tangles on the cast. One of these small bags of the same bag mix was nicked on and this was fished close to the marker. The third rod was to be a rover for a while in the hope that the fish were going to show themselves and give me a clue as to their whereabouts. This was fished with a good old faithful, 12mm High-Visual Pineapple pop-up on a 10inch, 15lb Mantis hooklength and placed at about 100 yards, slightly right of the marker and again, in slightly clearer water and with a small bag of crumb and various pellets. All 3 rods had a 17lb fluorocarbon leader instead of leadcore or tubing, an alternative that Ian Russell showed me and one that he uses a lot and one that I am now a big fan off. My chosen fluoro is a new line from Fox that is still in its testing and trial stage, but as yet, has not given me any cause for concern. It’s invisible in water and sinks like a brick, brilliant especially at this time of the year when the water is as clear as that from your tap. I also use the Fox ‘Safe Loc-Links’ as these allow me to change the hooklength very easily and quickly without too much fuss.

With the three rods in position, the middle one was baited with about 3kilo of a spod mix that I had used on Unity in the past couple of weeks and one that I like to use in the winter, if the fish are still responding to bait. It consists of boilie crumb of mixed sizes, grilled hemp, both sizes of Mainline’s Response Pellet, as they have much lower oil content, if any, blitzed tiger nuts and a few handfuls of Hinders Winter ‘Wet & Dry’ mix. Having this small amount of dry powders in the mix allows me to add some water from my hemp, and when the whole mix is slightly dampened, I can compress it slightly in the spod eliminating any spillage on the cast. To this, I also added a few handfuls of 10mm Pro-Active-Pineapple boilies.

I caught on low double during the first night followed by another of about the same size during the following evening, both from the baited area, which was topped up after the second take with another 3 kilo of the same mix again. Mike Winstone had left me some of Hinder’s new shrimp pellet to play with and so for the last night, I decided to ‘layer’ the bullet bags with the crumb mix, and a mixture of the small 2mm shrimp pellet, 2mm Neptune’s and a few small Elips.

This was fished back on the same spot and it was at 5.00pm that a slow, steady pull saw me in again. After what seemed like ages, the net was slipped under what I knew to be a much better fish from what I had seen of it. A shout of sheer delight and joy echoed around the lake for all to hear and the scales were shortly pulled down to register 33-4. The photos do not do this stunning fish the full credit that she deserves. She looked absolutely stunning in her winter colours and the scale patterns and tones around her were beautiful. The fish was recognized as one known as ‘Moon Scale’; last out about a year ago at 29lbs and with the added bonus of a new lake record, I went home the next morning a very, very happy man.

Mick Perry