CAPTURING THE MOMENT - PART II
By Martin French
I look back on my Tip Lake year as the most influential year of my fishing career. Not only did I meet lots of anglers that I respected and enjoyed fishing with (cheers Barry, how's the hangover??) but it was the year that I was officially well and truly bitten by the carp fishing bug.
Up to that point, I had caught a good number of carp from Cemex Sutton-at-Hone's lakes 1, 2 & 3 but Darenth's Tip Lake was a new challenge to me and a challenge that I relished. To me it was the real thing. At that time it was a lake that received very little pressure, but had lots of nice catchable carp. A lake with gin clear water, dense weed, islands, back channels and bays. A lake where carp behaved naturally, fed normally and most importantly, I loved the solitude.
Having endured the disappointment of Steve Wonder's shots of 'The Apprentice' earlier on in the season (see part 1), I headed back to the Tip Lake with my new prized possession.
Was its a revolutionary wonder rig? An undiscovered super bait? No, its was my brand new self portrait set-up which consisted of a Minolta SLR and tripod from Jessops. Come on you carp!!!
‘THE MEETING OF AN OLD FRIEND’ - MID SEPTEMBER 1999
I had up to this point spent most of my summer creeping through the bushes of the back bays and had taken a good number of fish up to 34lb from the margins of 'The Rats', 'The Midges' and 'The Gap'. But as the summer drew to an end, I was finding that the bites were beginning to wind down. Not sure weather this was because of the heavy pressure the small bay areas had received from my rigs or whether it was just the conditions, I decided it was time for a change and new spots were required.
I had been keeping an eye on a few areas around the southern end of the lake that I new held fish but I needed a spot that was going to be left alone by the other anglers, an area that could be prepped and made my own.
After a couple of weeks introducing a small amount of pellets and boilie chops to an overhanging tree to the right of a swim called 'The Hinge', I felt sure this area had the potential to be my new hot spot. I walked the lake and baited twice a day, both before and after work and had already seen plenty of carp visiting. If I'm honest, I was thankful that not only was Steve Wonder and co. terrible at photography, they were also shocking at fish spotting as over the next few weeks I saw numerous tails waving at me and shouting 'We're under here, put a bait on us, we're hungry!!!'.
I tried my hardest to keep the spot secret by pulling a large broken branch across the 'viewing window' of the tree and it seemed to be working. As far as I knew, the area had been totally unfished for years. The only problem that I now faced was that it was practically impossible to present a bait under the overhang and up onto the shelf without entering the water. So if that's what it takes I thought, so be it!!!
That Sunday evening I had a spare hour, so I headed for the 'The Hinge' confident my plans would all come together and not being one to blatantly bend the rules, I waited at least until the cover of darkness before entering the water. What a bailiff doesn't know surely doesn't hurt!!! Does it???
Wading along that edge I knew this was the spot. The margins around the overhang were 4ft feet but right under the tree itself, a small gravel plateaux rose to no more than 18 inches deep. Whilst in the water, I trimmed the tree line with scissors so that any hooked fish could just kite straight out with minimum disturbance, then sprinkled a few more pellets on the shelf and climbed back out to dry land. The area was ideal, a perfect little dinner plate, now I just had to set my traps!!
Next evening saw me back with my tackle and once set up, with my wet shorts hanging on the fence and my traps set, I crept into bed knowing that if nothing else happened at least I would get a good night sleep before having to pack up for work the next morning. No chance!!!
By 10.30pm my 'banker' rod was away and after a short scrap all my efforts were rewarded with a 21lb mirror. Well pleased and with the self portrait shots taken, I released her back 50 yards up the bank, then slipped on my wet shorts and waded back into the darkness to reset my trap.
By 8am I was absolutely shattered. I had not only taken another 4 fish off the spot, but I had also met up with an old friend and this time 'The Apprentice' weighed a monstrous 38lb. Absolutely over the moon with another Tip Lake PB, this time I made sure to get the trophy shot she deserved... by taking the shot myself!
Over the next 6 weeks I continued to fish my two nights a week in 'The Hinge' and during this period took another 18 more fish from the small plateaux area, including the big common at 31lb. All the hard effort had paid off. Other anglers had fished the swim but without success and until now, I've never let on about the secret plateaux. With October came a change in weather and the shallow hotspot was now gone for winter.
The following year I packed away the rods to travel the world with the missus. But, a few seasons later I was walking through the centre path and when I got to 'The Hinge' two guys were working in the boat to remove the overhanging tree. I heard one guy call to the other as he prodded the bottom with his oar "Paul, there's a lovely little plateaux here, would have been a great place to put your bait".
If only you knew I thought, but now my secret plateaux was gone forever.
SELF POTRAITS - MAKING THE EXTRA EFFORT
There is of course a big downfall of sneaking about on your own. Yes, you catch more carp, but all those captures are wasted if you cannot look back in your album some 10 years later and tell your children that there was once a time when daddy was a legendary carp angler (my son Bailey's only 2 and he totally falls for this type of thing!!). And that's the point of this article, to try to convince you that a little extra effort to take your own photos is well worth it in the long run.
I have at times, and I'm sure you have too, had to take a picture of a fish on my matt because there is nobody about to help me out. As carp anglers we spend hours behind motionless bobbins just waiting for that special fish and the most memorable part of that capture is holding your prize up for the camera.
I am not saying take self portraits all the time because generally there is somebody close at hand who can help. But just in case, slip a small tripod into your rucksack for when you are alone, they are not expensive but there will be a time when it will definitely save you in an emergency.
HOT TO SET UP YOUR SELF POTRAITS
I cannot tell you exactly how to do this because all cameras are different, but with my EOS 500, this is the method I have found most reliable. I have used it many times and after a while it becomes second nature.
STEP 1 When your fish is safely in the net, firmly secure the net with a bank stick at the front of your swim.
STEP 2 Find the best place to take your shot, taking into account all last months tips (See part 1) and position your unhooking matt.
STEP 3 Neal on your unhooking matt in exactly the same position as you plan to with the fish and mark the fishes position using a storm pole and a t-shirt.
STEP 4 Set up your camera and tripod. Looking through the viewfinder, use the t-shirt marker to crop to your estimated position. Be care full not to get to close or you may cut off vital parts.
NOTE: If you are using a compact camera skip to STEP 5
STEP 5 Focus the camera on the t-shirt. If you are using a digital SLR camera, the real issue is that the camera will automatically try to re-focus when you set the self timer and obviously you will not be in the shot yet, so it will focus on the bushes in the background leaving the foreground (ie you and the fish) all blurred when you actually try to take your shot.
To get over this, when you have focused on the t-shirt, just switch the camera to manual focus. This means when you remove the marker, your camera is already perfectly focused on where you and the fish will be.
STEP 6 Take the fish out of the water and place it on the matt. Remove your t-shirt marker and hold your prize in the same position for the shot. Take the shot using one of three shutter release options, whatever suits your camera best:
Option A - Set the timer to 10 seconds, press the shutter, then rush to pick-up the fish and get in position. This is extremely awkward with a lively fish.
Option B - Buy a remote control, which once waterproofed in a old hook packet, allows you to press the shutter release whenever you are ready. This can also be awkward to hold the fish as well but you do get used to it.
Option C - This is the kiddy, if your camera allows it!!! Set your camera on a 10 second timer but also to shoot 10 shots continuously. Admittedly, the camera does fire off the first 3 or 4 shots really quickly but you will find that after a while it starts to struggle to write the images to the disk quickly enough, so in reality the camera takes the next 6 or 7 shots are over a 30 second period. This is of course absolutely ideal for your self portraits as you will you even have time to adjust the fish to various other angles. You get a few wasted shots as you pick the fish up but that's the beauty of digital, just delete what is not required.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Well I hope you have enjoyed reading my articles as much as I have enjoyed writing them. Part 1 did get a little technical but If there is anything that you would like to know, please do not hesitate to ask me via my Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=710818331
Cheers & Tight Lines
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