I had booked a few days off work at the beginning of September with the intention of heading towards the Cotswolds, however a few friends had enjoyed time on Thorney Weir so we set our focus on researching the venue for a couple of weeks before we were due to go. Thorney had been featured on Thinking Tackle – along with a fair amount of info online; I decided to take plenty of hemp, corn and a load of Odyssey XXX with a good selection of Hellraisers and Northern Specials.
The night before we set off was restless, I just couldn’t sleep and the thought that the next morning at 3am I would be heading off 220 miles down south to by all accounts a stunning lake with big beautiful Carp was just too much to handle. The van was half loaded the night before; I just had to put my Rods and the other expensive stuff in there when I set off. After what felt like forever passed my alarm clock went off, normally it means time for work and the snooze function gets abused. No, it was time to go fishing! So I was up in seconds, quick cup of tea and the rest of the gear in the van! I picked Vince up at about 3.15am and the van was packed to the rafters, we headed to Thorney Weir with a view to arriving at the venue by about 7.30am, hopefully missing the M25 madness.
You have to use £1 and £2 coins in the ticket machine, get these from the Post Office before you go – we didn’t and it was a serious head ache finding somewhere to change £120!
We eventually got to the lake at around 9am; following the bumpy track down to the car park you’ll eventually meet the lake on your left hand side. This very narrow part of the lake almost looks canal like; following the road further down you’ll meet the main body of the lake. We spent an hour or 2 walking around and struggled to spot any fish, which made swim choice very difficult on a new water. I ended up choosing a swim called the ‘Horse Shoe’ which I chose because no one could really interfere with my water, the swim to my right was virtually unfishable due to the amount of weed and my left had an island with another overgrown swim to my left. Out in front I had a large weed bed coming off the right of the island along with a massive area of open water.
A few casts around with the Marker found a lot of weed, however with some perseverance I found 3 lovely clear but silty spots. One a rod length off the island to my left, one at approximately 100 Yards and the last on the edge of the weed bed to my right. My left and middle rods were baited tight with a fair helping of hempseed, corn and whole, chopped and crumbed Odyssey XXX. My all-time favourite and 100% confidence bait Odyssey XXX/Northern Special snowman configurations were deployed on these rods with 8” supple hook-links. My right hand rod was baited with only boilie and another Odyssey XXX/Optical Illusion Hellraiser snowman configuration.
All of my runs were coming on the left and middle rod which had been baited with particle, a Mirror, 2 mid 20lb Commons and a 30lb 4oz Common which was bizarre really as all of my bigger fish came in the early part of the week. Stepping up the baiting as the swims were producing more fish, after 2 nights I decided to add particle to my right hand rod. The following morning proved to me that the fish really wanted a bit of particle and took 3 stunning Mirrors to 22lb 8oz, the hemp was definitely triggering the fish into feeding and they were all excreting a combination of Odyssey XXX, Hempseed and sweet corn eventually ending on a 12 fish catch. A steady 4 night session with consistent results throughout it really was a shame to pack up; the great company, the weather, barbeques and this water full of stunning fish would be memories to treasure until the next time I could get the time away.
