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The one thing that has been made so apparent during this series so far is the attention to detail and the confidence of the anglers. My next guest is a good friend who is known as Mr Method and one of the best pva bag anglers in the game today. He has a vast knowledge of bait ingredients used for the method and used this to good effect on waters like Horseshoe where his catches were making the headlines regularly. Another very busy and thinking angler, Mike is very well suited to busy day ticket type waters where his methodical approach and baiting techniques score well and yet he’s quite happy to be sitting in wait for bigger fish on lighter stocked waters as well as big French lakes. He can work on any type of water and has been a regular face in the BCAC’s since its launch and even won it in 2000 at Horseshoe with Tim Fromont, winning with a very big weight and a display of Mike’s fishing at its best.

Mike is known for his catches on the Linear complex over the past few years and so it seemed the place for this session to take place. With so many good lakes to choose from, we decided on Gaunts Lake, on the Guys syndicate complex as it was a water that I had fished a couple of times recently and one that Mike had never fished but was keen to see it for himself. Its one of those venues that you just fall in love with and since my friend Ian Russell had taken me there at the beginning of October, I had not fished anywhere else, I too was hooked.

Gaunts is about twenty-three acres and is a very matured and lovely looking lake with plenty of trees and reeds lining the margins as well as one island, almost in the middle. The stock is estimated at 350-400 carp with between eleven and fifteen 30’s and two, maybe three 40’s, the record standing at 41-4 and the average size being 20+.

The weather was far from ideal for our 48-hours but nether the less, our confidence and excitement was fully charged and we were both keen to get one on the bank. It had been very still and clear during the nights, and with little wind and very clear water, it looked as if one or two fish between us would be a result. I set up at one end of the island with Mike at the other with any wind that was north, northeasterly, coming over our backs. Mike’s swim gave him the option of fishing tight to the island margins, which were fringed with trees and bushes, as well as fishing the gravel that came away from the point of the island. If fished showed in the open water to his left, he could also cover this as well as seeing down into the bottom bay, a very productive area in the past.

Mike’s kit has not changed since I last fished with him, and this is what Mike is all about. He is not one for fashions or trends and does not change anything without a lot of thought and good reason. His rods were the 12ft 3.5lbs test curve Free Spirit X.S.‘ive’s paired with Daiwa 5000 Tournament reels loaded with 15lb Big Game line in the green. One look inside Mike’s tackle box and rig wallet again confirms that he is a man of belief in what he uses, gaining complete confidence in what he uses rather than keep switching and changing. His main choice for hooklength material is the new Armaled ‘Kik-Bak’ or Korda’s ‘Hybrid’, both stiff-coated, braids and most of his fishing is done using Korda’s wide gap hooks in a size 8 and barbless. Buzzers are Stevie Neville’s used with light bobbins and the rest of his kit is all well proven and reliable after many years of trying and testing.

After setting up his bivvy and getting everything sorted out, Mike set about choosing his spots but was not too keen on using the marker rod too much to start of with. He knew that fish were in the area as I had banked a 22-4 Common off the island the previous evening and so Mike was keen to keep anything to a minimum that might spook the fish in these conditions. He decided on one rod towards the island and about 5 yards short where there was a slightly deeper trench that ran along the island. One rod was going to be used as a rover with a pva bag and moved in search of fish or cast to any fish that might show. Mike did find a gravel bar at about 50-55 yards where the depth came from about 9 foot up to just under 7 and this was to be the spot for the third rod, just over the gravel. This was the only feature in an otherwise feature-less swim and we had been told that this was the key, find something no matter how small and fish it. The rest of the bottom was a very thin silt with some odd pockets of slightly deeper, softer silt dotted around.

This was when I started to see why Mike is so successful as he set about laying his traps for the coming evening. How many people cast three rods out and then put bait over or around each one? Not Mike, he explained to me that he much prefers to only introduce free bait onto the one spot and to see what happens from then on. If any fish are in the area, rather than risk splitting them into three, he would rather have all of them competing for the food in the one area and the fish getting to that stage where they are trying to beat each other to it, hopefully resulting in a take.

With this plan being used again as it had been so successfully in the past for him, Mike fished the island area with just a small bag of low-oil content pellet, Hinder’s Neptune’s and Mini Shrimp, and a small Mainline Milky-Toffee pop-up. The rig consisted of 12inches of 20lbs Korda Hybrid hooklength tied to a Korda wide gape size 8 barbless hook. The hook shank was extended with a length of small bore, clear shrink tubing that was bent at almost 90 degrees to the shank, resulting in a safe ‘bent hook’ rig and one that Mike used almost exclusively when fishing pop-ups. A length of ESP ‘Anchor’ rig tubing above a Korda lead clip and a 3.5oz tournament lead completed the set up with a shot placed initially about 2 inches below the hook.

In the hope that the gravel bar was a patrol route for the carp, Mike decided that this was to be the one area that was going to be baited with a light scattering of bait consisting of hemp, maggots, casters, Mainline’s Fusion Response Pellet and a mixture of Hinders 2&4mm Neptune pellets and their mini Shrimp pellets. About 12 spods of bait was kept nice and tight to the back of the marker that was positioned just as Mike felt the gravel at the bottom of the bar. The terminal presentation for this rod consisted of a rig that Mike has been using for some time now and has recently published in various magazines. It basically consists of a length of Amnesia of about 12inches with a loop at the swivel end, created using the Whychwood crimping tool and crimps and a small swivel at the hook end, again fastened with a crimp. Through this small swivel is a loop of fluro carbon with a bead at the ‘blobbed’ end of the nylon and a Korda size 8 wide gape at the other. The bait is attached onto a loop of bait floss that slides up and down the hook shank on a small ring, stopped by a float stop at the top of the bend. The end result is a rig that pushes the hookbait well away from the lead and any tubing as well as gives the hookbait almost un-hindered movement in any direction. The third rod, the roving rod, was set up with the same terminal presentation and was baited with a Mainline Activ-8 pop-up, the ‘bar’ rod with a 12mm milky toffee pop-up.

We settled back for the night and discussed various options for this water. It’s so nice to fish new waters as you tend to try harder and think more and this place certainly had us doing just that. On my previous trips, I had seen very few during the day but always heard a lot of fish crashing during the night, normally about an hour before dark up until about midnight or the very early hours of the morning. The takes that I had seen or had myself came at various times but late evening and early morning did seem to be the most productive times. My best up to this time, and this was only my third visit, was a 25-1 Common but I had been on the lake when a couple of thirties had been caught as well as one of the forties so we knew that they had been active and with very little difference in the conditions, we were in with a chance.

That night passed as they had done so far with me up nearly all night and no fish on the bank. I just could not sleep whilst there was carp crashing and up at Mike, it was no different. He had seen a lot of fish showing to his left in the open water and despite casting his roving rod to them, no fish were caught.

Now this is where a lot of anglers would just sit tight and carry on but not Mike. Even at this time of the year when you have so much more kit with you due to the cold weather, Mike was up and off down to the far end of the lake where he had seen fish. This then gave him the option of still being able to cast to the area where they had been showing as well as down the margin to the left where again fish had been seen. With no other anglers down that end, Mike had a good chance of catching if they were still there and as the lake was new to us, we were not sure if it was the right thing to do or not but Mike had to find out for himself.

Mike set up in the last swim on that bank and decided to wait to see if any fish showed before casting any rods out. It was early afternoon by now and Mike was quite prepared to wait until darkness if need be before deciding where to place his baits. He was now fishing for one take and so bags were going to be the only freebies used, if at all and he was quite happy to use just single hookbaits, an approach that does take a lot of confidence and one that a lot of people struggle to come to terms with.

Mike did find a few fish showing and feeding down the far end under a tree that Ian Russell had caught from on a recent filming trip with Len Gurd. Mike walked around to a swim closer to the tree and with one rod carefully placed at the tip of the tree, he waited to see if he could tempt one whilst he waited to see if any fish showed anywhere else as they had the previous day.

With the light fading and no action, Mike returned to his swim to get his baits out and decided to fish one at about 35 yards where he had found another slight variation in depth and a bit of gravel, and the other two over towards the far side, a reed-lined margin with no swims. With the rods out, and plenty of tea, I continued with the interview and asked Mike about some of the little edges that had helped him in the past and his approach to the waters that he fishes.

The first thing that is so obvious with Mike is his confidence and believes in his terminal tackle and what he is using. As we said earlier, he is not one to keep swapping things about and would rather keep trying different things with what he is using before considering a change. One example of this was with the Hybrid hooklength that he had been using. Mike found that although he was getting bites when he stripped back say an inch or two, he got more takes if he stripped it halve the length of the hooklength. So even if he were popping up a bait just an inch, with a 12-inch hooklength he would strip back 6inches of the coating material and this got him more takes. Not rocket science maybe but a subtle change that many people just wound not have bothered with and would have changed to another rig or another material, or even just sat there, despite not catching.

Mike has fished many busy day ticket type waters and has had his fair share of success and this again; he puts down to being confident and doing something different. Many times Mike has gone to St Johns and it has been blatantly obvious that most people have fished over lots of bait and the spods have been very busy. Mike will quite happily sit there with a single pop-up or stringer but will look for the less obvious spots that do not get fished as much, if at all. He would much rather have a single hookbait in a likely looking spot that he has found than lots of bait in the obvious places that anyone can find. He will happily use small bags or the method to create an attraction to the hookbait but once these are on the spots, they are left and it is quite common for Mike to only recast after 24 hours during the colder months, that’s how confident he is in what he does and what he uses.

I left Mike for the night with fewer fish being seen or heard but his confidence still sky high. It pasted with no action for me and only the odd fish heard in the area but Mike did bank an upper double on one of the rods cast over towards the far margin with a Milky Toffee pop-up on the Amnesia boom type rig. I was thinking about reeling in to go down to see Mike when the island rod was off and away and another cracking looking upper double was in the bag. Not a big fish but I am happy just to catch one fish per trip on any new water and this was my second so a successful trip for me. I reeled the other 2 rods in and went to sit with Mike and enjoy some more of his tea. It was about 9.30am by now and Mike was having to sit on his hands. He had seen several good fish showing tight to the far margin and after casting 2 rods over there, he was full of confidence but his time was running out.

The pair of us had to leave lunchtime but Mike has sworn that he will return as he had thoroughly enjoyed the trip and wanted to fish this venue more in the future. I asked him if he would have changed anything looking back and his only comment was that he would have fished the end, bay swim from the beginning but when you do not see fish whilst walking around looking for somewhere to fish, its easy to say after being there for 48-hours.

He was quite happy with his baiting and methods and would start the same next time. There are very few nuisance fish in the lake, just small roach and rudd and the odd tench so you can get away with maggot, caster, corn and such like but Mike much prefers using boilie as the main line of attack, relying on the smaller baits to get a response as quickly as possible and take it from there. He never goes to a venue with a plan in mind or a baiting strategy already prepared, much rather waiting to see what has been caught, from where and on what before making his mind up. He will have everything in the car just in case and always carries a selection of pellets, some prepared hemp and a few kilo of boilies but if the situation calls for single hookbaits, then that’s what he does and with the same level of confidence as at any other time.

The most important thing for Mike to do first is to establish where he is likely to get a bite from and not what bait he is going to use there. A lot of the waters that he fishes are not dominated by any one particular bait as people come and go all the time, all using something different, so to establish a bait is almost impossible on these waters. For Mike, presentation and bait are not an issue as he has total faith and confidence in what he uses and location is his prime concern on any water. It was made harder for him on this trip as he did not want to make too much disturbance in these conditions and with only 48-hours, time was against him so a softly, softly approach was taken.

I don’t doubt for one minute that Mike will be back on Gaunts and that he will learn the ways of the carp and bank more than his fair share in months to come with his methodical and meticulous approach. The one thing that I have learnt from this is that I should do these features on less attractive waters so that the guest angler does not want to come back! Gaunts is going to be my main water for the rest of the season, and with Mike on there, I can see that I’m going to have to step it up a gear to keep up with him. Well, try to anyway!