A Bait Makers Diary # 9

In this episode of the Bait Maker’s Diary, Baitworks founder Mark Bryant strips his gear back to the bare minimum around life with a newborn, grabs a couple of short stalking sessions for some cracking summer carp, and heads down to the farm to check on the tiny fry from his home-bred stock. Full transcript below.

Stripping the kit back for fatherhood

Mark: I haven’t really seen a lot of this since I last went fishing, back in the spring, and my rods have probably still got the old baits on. What I need to do is strip everything out, because we all take too much tackle, and now my circumstances have changed. I’ve actually had a little baby boy, who’s in there sleeping at the moment, so I’ve only got a few minutes to come in and get my stuff out.

I’m going to take all my bits out and strip everything down to the bare minimum, because I can’t go night fishing, not really. Early mornings have got to be available for the baby, and the only chance I’m going to get is in the day, maybe an hour slot here and there. So I’ve got to take all this stuff out that isn’t needed, all my cooking kit, take my bedroom out. You won’t see that until probably the autumn. I’ll leave a couple of rods for floater fishing and bottom-bait fishing, that sort of stuff. Right, get this in the house, get it tucked away, back on baby duty.

Meet the new arrival

Mark: This is the reason for life being turned upside down, for the better I might add. This is our little baby boy. Hasn’t got a name yet, although my suggestion of Baron has been chucked out at an early stage, so we’re still deciding. He’s just had a feed and I’m trying to get a burp out of him, which isn’t coming. Come on. Absolutely drunk on milk, by the looks of it.

Anyone who’s had a newborn will know the trials and tribulations of the first six or seven weeks. It’s crazy, absolutely sleep-deprived, lots going on, mum’s knackered, but we’re getting through it. As he gets bigger, hopefully it’ll get a little easier. I’m coming off my paternity leave in the next couple of days, and although I’ll be going back to work, I’ll still be very much involved back here. I might get a little window as well, which would be nice. I’ve got a management meeting at Baitworks next week, and looking at the weather it’s going to get nice and warm, so I reckon I could pinch an hour between the meeting and coming home. All the tackle’s been refined down, so if I see an opportunity I’ll be on it. In the meantime, this one looks like he needs a bit of sleep, so I’m going to put him down.

Back to work

Colleague: Congratulations, mate.

Mark: Thank you, thank you.

Colleague: How does it feel being back to work?

Mark: Strange, actually, coming back in after a few weeks, but it’s nice. Nice to come back and see everyone.

Colleague: Nice to have you back. But clearly the washing isn’t going too well. You’re living in pyjamas and sweatpants with kids, aren’t you.

Mark: It’s nice to put a pair of shorts on and come in.

Colleague: I’ve got something to ask you. Is Mark Bryant ever going to catch another carp like the one behind you here?

Mark: Oh, maybe not as big as that, but maybe one day.

Colleague: I thought you were semi-retired now, maybe. Two kids. Do I need to put a post on Facebook, “for sale, your fishing kit”?

Mark: I’ve still got a little bit of kit in there. And what’s more, I know we’ve got a management meeting in a second, but on the way back I’m going to stop at the lake and maybe have a little go.

Colleague: So that’s why you’re dressed like that. It’s like 25 degrees.

Mark: I like it, mate. What do you reckon, Stacy, what’s your verdict on the fashion?

The management meeting (and a plan to sneak off)

Mark: It’s nice to sit down and have a cup of tea, feels like I haven’t had one for ages. This is where some real work is going on. We’ve got to go through loads of bits and pieces, budgets and that, on a lovely day like today. We’ll wait for the guys to turn up, hopefully get wrapped up, and maybe sneak a bit of fishing this afternoon, because it’s so warm those fish are going to be everywhere. For now, glad to enjoy a drop of this again.

Squeezing in an hour: stalking the margins

Mike: You’ve got a bit of a pace on, I can’t keep up.

Mark: There’s a few here, but I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion. Just come straight out of work, got my new Crocs on. Hopefully christen them in with a fish. Who cares what I look like, there’s fish to be caught. I’m going to grab a rod and come back pretty sharply, because I’ve only got 20 or 30 minutes.

One thing I’ve learned is that the window of opportunity is very small. They’re there at the moment, but they could easily drift off, and I haven’t got long. So I’ll grab one of these, grab a floater rod just in case, and a handful of bait. Job done. Composure is the key now. These fish haven’t spawned yet, probably a week away, who knows, but there are certainly a few good ‘uns. They all look good and healthy, so fingers crossed we can meet one.

It’s all about getting the bait in. They’re in about 12 inches of water. You get a bit of bait down there and they can’t resist it, they always want to come back. Right, there are fish there, so I’ll try and get this rod in without spooking them. It’s so murky down there, they’ve cleared up most of the pellet I put in.

They know we’re here from when we first came down. They were on the bait straight away, but putting a rod in and being here, you can tell by their body language, they’re not quite comfortable. The odd one’s taking a couple of bits, but not like it was, and that’s due to us being here. The vibrations. You’ve got to be crafty. But there are still fish moving, a couple coming in and feeding. And look, I’ve got loads of caterpillars, a massive nest, all hatching out. Amazing.

A hard-fighting common

Mark: Oh, that’s a good fish, in literally a couple of foot of water, twisting and turning. Come on. Need to go left, mate.

Mike: That’s close.

Mark: Wow, got a tarpon. That didn’t take too long. I watched him pick the bait up over the bag, a big flash of yellow, and he was gone.

Mike: I don’t know who’s more excited, me or you. I thought it was going to hit the rod, I saw the line twitch.

Mark: It’s made the island, that’s for sure. Epic run, he’s gone past the island, about 40 yards to my left. But the good news is he’s coming this way. He’s just the other side of the island now, I can clearly feel it going through the clay. This isn’t good. I need him to swim out the other way. There he is, just turning away from the island. He’s right on the ridge, I just need to get him past that little clay ridge. There he is, he’s our side now. This feels a good fish.

He’s coming in close now, so I’ll step out and get Mike to do the honours. Gently does it. Yes, that’s the result.

Mike: Wicked.

Mark: Thank you, Mr Common. What a scrap, and the camo blue shorts on the trip, maybe it blended in with the skyline.

Mike: My arm’s hanging off holding this camera and the net.

Mark: This was the one that gave me all sorts of grief. Lovely to catch him though. We’ll look him in the net, get a couple of snaps, and get him back. Good thing about barbless hooks, they come straight out.

Mike: What do you think of the colour of my legs? Reminds me, I have to pick some milk up.

Mark: They haven’t seen this volume of sun. I had to change the ISO on the camera, thinking, I’m getting bleach-out here. There’s a couple of leaves on him, get rid of those for you. There we go, a nice 25-pounder. I’ve done everything, the weighing and everything, here in the water, because it’s warm. The water’s getting up near the temperature where they’ll spawn at some point. But for now, someone paid me a visit. Lovely jubbly, thank you Mr Carp.

This fish has always had this mark from a very early age, nothing to worry about, but it’s cool to look at, a really nice contrast to the normal colour. Right, let’s get you back, not going to stress you out too much.

One more on the way out

Mark: Well, that’ll do me. It’s clouding over, the sun’s dipping in, that’s the opportunity gone. But that’s nice. I can get back now for a nice little dinner with Claire and the little ones, and to be fair, they should be none the wiser.

Mike: I thought you were going in.

Mark: I was, but literally walking back to the car I’ve gone up a tree where I put a handful of pellet earlier, and there are about 10 fish, all big and pretty much all commons, tails up feeding on it. So I’ve got to get a rod in. This hook’s gone, I’ll change it. And I might have to be late enough to tell Claire there was a machinery problem at work.

Seeing there are fish in a bit deeper water, probably four foot, it’s a tricky cast down to the side. I’m going to put a little PVA bag on, because I know 100%, once that’s in, as long as I get it in the right area, it’s presenting, isn’t it. Change the old hook, otherwise we’d be fishing by now. My eyesight’s terrible, I need glasses. There we go, nothing too complicated. Crush the barb down.

Oh my. There we go. Not one of the monsters of the lake, but very welcome. Just the ticket for a couple of minutes. A young fish for the pond, doing well. Lovely little patch of scales there. Let’s get you back. That’s better.

Spawning time: resting the lakes

Mark: I tell you what, that was lucky, because that capture pretty much marked the end of my fishing for a little while. Not one week later the fish spawned everywhere, all across the country. These big heatwaves came in and everywhere’s gone, including the lakes that I run. So I’ve shut those lakes now, all shut for five weeks, giving the fish plenty of time to recover and regenerate, and a nice rest during this hot time.

Interestingly, down here on the farm, as you know I’m bringing my own fish through, which will eventually stock some of these lakes. About three or four days ago the fish were showing lots of activity in the morning. I couldn’t quite see where they were spawning, it looked like underneath a weed bed. I’m hopeful, if I go down, I’m going to find some tiny pinhead carp. I’ve got them dotted in a couple of lakes here, so I’ll nip down and have a look, then make a bit of a plan. It’d be lovely to bring some fish through that will eventually stock the lakes here on the farm. So I’ll finish my drink, wet my whistle, because it’s absolutely roasting, about 24 degrees, and get down for a little gander. Get my net and get wet.

Down on the farm: checking for fry

Mark: This is going to be exciting, because this pond was all overgrown and really silted up when I took the place over last year. We’ve gone in and reinstated it back to its former glory, so it was a total blank canvas. That gave me the opportunity to grab a couple of fish from the existing ponds, particularly the scale pattern, shape and size I was looking for, and put them into this lake to spawn naturally. Fingers crossed it’s happened, because there was a lot of commotion going on. I didn’t see them spawn, but hopefully if we dip the net I’ll find some tiny pinheads. It’s a bit hit and miss guessing which is a male and which is a female, but it looks like I’ve got it right.

I want to bring these fish through and be self-sufficient on the farm, not have to bring in fish from anywhere else. I’ve got plenty here to do that. This pond only filled up a few months ago from all the rain we had in May, so it’s a total blank canvas. First step, let’s go and see if anything’s happening.

If they’d spawned there’d be tiny little fry. I can’t see anything, but sometimes the best way is to get in with a scoop first and have a look. Well, there we go, straight away I can see quite a few tiny little pinheads. These were hatched a couple of days ago, I’d say, very very small carp, which is amazing to see. Fantastic, they’ve bred naturally. From one scoop I’m getting 20 or so little pinheads, and they’re all around the lake.

There are loads of little predators in here too: water boatmen, nymphs. Everything will be eating these little fry, so what’s really important is making sure there’s a lot of natural food in here. I can see straight away there isn’t a huge amount, which isn’t surprising, because the lake was only reinstated in the winter. All your natural zooplankton, which finds its way into the water over years, probably isn’t well established yet. So these fish are looking for food. I’m going to push that forward by going to a couple of lakes I know have an abundance of natural food, sweep them with my trusty fine-mesh net, and bring it back to jump-start the whole process. These ones are just newborns, so I’ll pop them back.

The older pond: bigger fry

Mark: Here’s the other pond. These would have spawned probably two weeks prior, and two weeks makes a big difference in the juvenile-fry world. They’ll be that much bigger, a little quicker, so harder to catch, but you might be able to see them in here a bit easier. Let’s fill it with a bit of water. There’s one in there. Trying to catch him is going to be tricky, and my hand’s hurting, and they’re very delicate. Wow, look at that, a beautiful little carp, absolutely perfect in every way.

These fish are two weeks ahead of the other ones, and the difference in size is enormous. What’s really important this time of year is available food in the ponds, because everything, water boatmen, water beetles, anything and everything, will eat these juvenile fish until they’re just big enough to be out of the danger zone and off the menu. I’ll put this little fish back and go over to the lakes I’ve worked incredibly hard on over the last decade, sweep the margins in a few key places, and pick up some of that microscopic pond life. Then I can dump that in here and they’ll self-propagate. These older ponds are probably okay, because this pond’s been here for decades, so there’s enough food. Lovely to see. I’m going to get over to the lake and see what we can find.

Harvesting natural food to kick-start the pond

Mark: This is what we’re looking for. I can see loads of it around this little dead area where there’s no undertow, a bit of sun, a bit of pond life about. So it’s a simple case of sweeping around, and you literally get hundreds of these. We found it, there are absolutely gazillions of it. What’s interesting is this really becomes available when the fish have spawned. Everything’s tied in, everything goes in cycles, and as soon as the little juveniles hatch, this is usually available for them. There’s loads in this little spot, out of the way of the undertow, a dead spot with a bit of sun, left alone. I’ve got quite a harvest here.

That was a successful little hour, collecting loads of pond life. That’s going to be the fish’s food for the next few days and kick-start the pond, which is more important. Dinner is served for my little juveniles at the farm. I’ll take the boat back, I’ve got to go to the opposite end of the lake, so who knows, I might see a fish or two. I’ve got my optics and my GoPro, so if I see one I’ll stick it under. Lovely to get out in the sun for a quick hour, but it’s back to the realities of life, I’m afraid.

A quick walk with Mike: a new lake

Mark: We’ve got a quick hour, and poor old Mike’s been dragged out of the office for a quick walk around, because time’s against us. There’s got to be fish about on a day like today. I haven’t seen this lake for a good ten years, so it’ll be really interesting to see how it’s matured.

Things are a little tense, only because there are about five or six fish in this corner. I’ve walked all the way around and they’re right on the end of the wind, textbook stuff. I’m frantically trying to get a little mixer ready to pop amongst them, and I’ll put a couple of freebaits out as well. I’ve got a quick hour, so not long, but it doesn’t get more exciting than this.

Rig tip: mounting a pop-up hook bait flush

Mark: These are my trusty 18mm pop-ups. We’ll just take the edges off. I’m taking this down as small as I need to, because of the decreasing casting weight, but generally if the fish are a bit naive you can use a bigger bait. That’s about spot on.

Really simply, you take the hook and fix it on there. Where these fish haven’t been fished for much, I’ll make a little score line just here, so the hook sits in nice and flush. Then the old trusty superglue. It’s really important to get the hook flush to the bait. If it’s a hair rig, the hook can hang down like that, and that’s no good, because the fish can see it, and on sunny days it catches the sunlight. By doing this it keeps everything aligned and keeps the hook out of the silhouette of the sun, because it’ll be shaded by the hook bait. One thing carp are very aware of, when they come up from underneath, is the silhouette of the hook. They do tend to be a little shiny, but we’re negating that. Another little edge is you can just push the point out, breaking up that line.

So there’s the hook nicely hidden. Really importantly, when it sits like that, a fish looking up can’t see the outline of the hook, and there’s no glint off it, or very limited glint. I’ll show you that in the margin before I cast. Drop it in and see how it looks. Pretty tempting to a fish.

First cast, instant carp on the floaters

Mark: There he is, just out on the ripple in the dark water. That was a hell of a cast. Happy, that’ll do. There we go. That didn’t take too long, did it, on the old floaters. I’m just going to try and hook this fish in the net if I can. Come on. Nice and safe in there.

Just a quick little walk around, spotted a few fish in the corner, and this one obliged on the old floaters. Lovely jubbly. They’re still quite warm and would have only spawned a few weeks ago, so we’re not going to hang about, get this fish straight back. Thank you very much, Mr Carp. That was awesome. In fact, the longest part was walking from the car to this end of the lake. First cast on a lake I haven’t fished for a long, long time, and to catch one within seconds of coming back was quite special, a lovely fish too. Who knows about more opportunities over the next few weeks. For now I’ll pack away, I’m a little drenched, and go and pick up my little dog. Good fun to come back and catch a little cracker.

Lake reopening, the social side, and stung legs

Mark: I really look forward to this time of year, when the lake reopens. It’s been shut for about six weeks now. I like to give the fish a good break, as guys who watched the previous diaries will know. They’ve had a lovely break from being caught, and they’re looking spectacular in this clear water. The lake opens today, and although it’s a little bit about the fishing, it’s more about the social side. Everything’s set up, so I’m keen to get over there.

This brings my fishing to an end for a little bit, over on the lake, but I did manage to go back and catch another nice one off the top, obviously a big fish that’s well spawned out. Nice to get amongst it. But I tell you what, my legs are being stung over there relentlessly. Is it all part of the stalking journey? My legs are on fire. This is just another one of a million stings at the moment. That’s quite nice on the old ankle there. This is hardcore floater fishing.

Mike: You can actually take it out now.

Mark: Is it going to hurt more taking it out? Off a bloody carp. It was hell, but well worth it in the end. I managed to talk myself out of the way. I was drawn down in the shallows again, but lo and behold, the south-westerly’s now a northerly, and lucky for me, Tom Pollard of Cotswold Rods fame was meant to be in this swim, but he had to pull out. So I’ve shot in here like a rat up a drainpipe. There are loads of fish about, a wind trickling up here, so I’ll get this rod set up, one rod in the margins really close, and go back to see the rest of the guys and have a couple of beers. I’ll pick some mint on the way back, because I’ve got a little mojito bar going, a bit of chopped ice, a bit of Bacardi. Lovely jubbly. Enjoy the social scene and try not to melt in this heat.

Footwear and a much-maligned PVA bag

Mike: Stop press, couldn’t not record. You’ve replaced your footwear for some that can only be described as Birkenstocks.

Mark: They are Birkenstocks, yeah.

Mike: What’s happened to the broken Crocs?

Mark: I’ve been flying about today doing loads of stuff and totally forgot my footwear. This is what I had on this morning going into Lidl and Tesco. I’ve got to wear these fishing.

Mike: Fashion statement again. And they’re not that durable.

Mark: I’m going to batter them, but who cares. Hope you enjoyed the diary, guys. I’ll bring you everything that happens on the next one and look forward to seeing you then. For now, let me get this bag tied up and go and enjoy the social scene.

Mike: That is officially the worst PVA bag I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’m going to report you to the PVA bag headmaster, Jake Taylor, when I see him in a minute, because he will literally turn in his grave when he sees that. How dare you. It looks like a baggy wet sock.

Mark: Beautiful, mate. It’s only being cast literally two yards. We’re not casting it to the moon, are we.

Mike: No, I’ll give you that.