I made my first visits to Blackroot pool - a twelve acre estate lake located in Sutton park in the West Midlands, in the early nineties, when a couple of friends of mine (Wayne Dunn & Lee Evans) had been targeting the 30lb mirror that resided in there at the time. I never had any real desire to fish there, as it was considered to be very hard & the stock of carp was believed to be around just a dozen fish. This, coupled with the rumours of tackle thefts, discouraged a lot of anglers! Wayne had already had the original thirty on his very first visit to the lake in the mid 80’s, but had returned some years later to catch the old 28lb fish at just over 30lb. I made a lot of visits, but only to look around, & to get my head around what a ‘hard’ water was really like. To my knowledge, Lee didn’t catch anything, & he was a talented carp angler – that was enough to keep me away! 

A chance conversation with a friend then asked me whether Blackroot was worth fishing these days, to which I replied it really wasn’t worth much consideration. Later, the more I thought about what he had asked me, the more I thought about how feasible it might be to have a go at Blackroot. I got to work, doing some research on the internet & enquiring on the grapevine as to what was happening there these days. The information was sketchy, but it seemed that the lake’s biggest resident had been as big as 35lb, & it held a few twenties too. Night fishing was not allowed, but was not enforced by the park ranger service. With the information I had from Wayne & Lee, & the belief that I was capable of catching carp from even the hardest of waters, convinced me that it was worth a go. I also knew that I had to make a move away from the Swag, as I had serious plans for the lake, but they’d have to wait until next spring, as location was getting harder as the weather turned colder. I had to find another venue to target for the winter, & Blackroot was half the size of the Swag, & had the size of carp I was after.

I quickly arranged a visit after work one Wednesday evening, late September to familiarise myself with the lake again, & to brush up on any new rules that may have been introduced. I proceeded to have a look around. There were no anglers on the lake, which was a good sign – as I’d made up my mind that if there were loads of guys on there, then I wouldn’t bother. Many of the swims had been tidied up & had flat areas to fish from which would make life comfortable. The fence – from where Wayne had last caught the thirty from, had been removed, & there was no weed visible. I planned my first session on the Friday following that visit, heading straight down after work at 1:00pm.

I arrived that afternoon to find a cool wind pushing into the swamp area of the lake, so I decided to set up in the main swamp peg itself (now known as 'simons peg'). After twenty minutes or so of casting around with a marker, I located a couple of slightly firmer areas around forty yards out in 4ft of water. The rods were soon cast out to these spots, & received twenty baits round the left rig followed by a good amount of tigers around the right rig. Then I settled back to make myself a drink. I noticed a guy bivvied up in the 'middle sandys' swim & he was soon up for a natter. His name was Nick & he'd been there since Friday morning, & hadn't caught or seen anything. His session was planned for the entire weekend, & he wasn't too confident of catching! To cut a long story short, neither of us caught, & no fish were seen, but he filled me in on the lake's current form. There were now approximately fifty to sixty fish in here a the moment, with a lot of them over 20lb (including a few commons!), with the biggest fish a long common that was normally around the 29 - 30lb mark. I eventually hauled myself off the lake, bidding Nick farewell, & returned the next day. On Saturday morning, I dropped in on Nick, who hadn't caught during the night, but had a fish crash over his right hand rig in the early hours. I settled into a swim 3 down from him on 'sandy's', & we spent much of the day chatting. Around 3:30pm Nick had a pick-up on his middle rod, & he duly played out & landed a very odd looking, sandy coloured 22lb 4oz mirror. The fish had a small stumpy tail, & a small cluster of scales on its left side, & I noticed that he was using 15mm Dynamite Spicy Chicken baits fished snowman style on a combi-link & a size 8 longshank hook. After a few pictures, he recast the rod to the same spot, around 80yds out with a six bait stringer & we carried on chatting. All too soon, my time was up & I was heading home again, fishless, but a little bit wiser about the methods & techniques I'd need to employ to crack this difficult water.

I did another two sessions following the capture of Nick's fish, fishing the ‘hole’ swim & the near corner of the dam, & although I didn't have any action, I felt as if was starting to put the pieces of the jigsaw together. It seemed, from talking to the guys that knew the place, that the majority of the lakes residents would spend most of their time in the brook, where in places it opened out into small pools, as it flows down from Bracebridge Pool. The brook provides a constant source of natural food, so why should these sought after fish bother coming out into the main body of the lake to feed on these uniformly shaped baits that they get caught on? It increasingly seemed that the key to catching these carp was not only location & using the right bait & rig, but being fortunate enough to be fishing when the fish entered the main body of the lake to feed.

My next session was planned for Saturday 14th October, where I arrived at 8:00am sharp for the gate to open. I raced down to 'simons peg', which was the one swim that allowed the shortest cast to the brook entrance. Fortunately, the swim was free, so I hurled three maggot rigs toward the entrance of the brook, & sat back, anticipating some form of action. After around twenty minutes, I had a drop-back on the left hand rod, which turned out to be a bream! I put the rig straight back out, but nothing else happened until early afternoon. Around 3:00pm, a carp launched itself out along the far bank tree line, so I quickly reeled in the rigs, & swapped two of them over to snowman rigs (as I knew I couldn't get the range with the PVA bags), & cast them out as far as I could. I also reeled in the right hand rod & swapped it over to a pop up fished directly off the lead & whacked it straight out towards the mouth of the brook. Within minutes, the right hand rod dropped back. Stunned, I hit it straight away, & was somewhat amused when it turned out to be a small 'jack' pike that had decided that it liked 18mm Dynamite Tiger nut floaters! Nothing else happened that afternoon, but I left with a little bit more confidence that what I was doing was along the right lines. I decided to go lighter with the leads, & had come up with my own style of 'silt leads'. These I had modified from FOX 4oz 'elevator' leads, & they now weighed 1.75oz each, & are similar to the old 'trilobe' leads that I used to use, years ago. The other change I had employed was to remove the 45lb Kryston Quicksilver snag leaders, & spool up my spare spools, with 10lb FOX Warrior mono (replacing the 15lb GR60 that I'd been using through the summer months), & added 15lb mono shockleaders. This enabled me to cast much further distances, should it be required, while still keeping everything pinned to the deck. My next session found me set up in the 'middle sandys' swim, early Saturday morning, of the 28th October. It was overcast & reasonably warm, so I was reasonably confident of action. I used the new silt leads on Nashy lead clips, & they casted beautifully, & could be feathered down onto the surface of the water with ease, & I could even feel them landing on the silt - perfect! After placing all three rigs around 40yds out in 5ft of water, I put a couple of small spods of hemp, micro pellets & Fusion baits right on top of each spot, & sat back, anticipating some kind of action. After a couple of hours, one 'boshed out', right in the corner of the brook, in front of 'simons'. I spent a couple of minutes weighing up the options of whether to move or not...I then gathered up my gear & frantically ran to 'simons'. As quickly as I could, I cast a single Mainline Pineapple juice pop up as close to the spot where the fish crashed out as I could. I then hit the other two rods out at slightly shorter range, where I could catapult a few freebies out. Quick as a flash, the sky was amass of seagulls, waiting for the next tasty Mainline Fusion bait to be fired out. At nearly twelve quid a kilo, I decided feeding the gulls was not a good idea, so I sat down & waited for them to clear off, but worse was to follow. The gulls could see every bait on the bottom, & promptly formed an unorderly queue, & began diving from great height into the water to get the baits off the bottom - including my pop ups, & especially the bright yellow pineapple one! This made me realise, just how shallow this area of the lake was, & I went home feeling gutted, having been battered by the gulls. They should stick to the seaside, & robbing the chips off old women on the promenade!!!

The end of October arrived, & along with clocks going back, the arrival of the first frosts made the lake go gin clear. I walked around it one Sunday afternoon with the wife, just to see what was happening now the cold weather had really taken hold. Apart from a couple of pike anglers on the dam, & three noddys crammed into 'simons', no carp anglers had ventured out to have a go at it. The lake seemed completely lifeless. This had been my first weekend off from fishing here, but had made plans to return the following weekend. I concentrated on the dam wall for my next session, on the first weekend of December. The weather was unusually warm – 10°c in the daytime, & a total of ten anglers were fishing; three on the ‘sandys’, four on the grassy bank area, & three on the far side. On arrival, I paid a visit to Nick on the grassy bank, who said that a 27lb fish had been caught by one of the guys on the ‘sandys’ at around 4:00am. Nothing else was caught, but Nick & I spent much of the time musing as to which was the best way to approach this difficult lake. We’d come to realise there were two obvious factors about the few fish that had been caught so far this winter: they had all come out after dark, & they’d been taken at extreme range, over very little bait. Due to the fact that Nick was consistently getting action on the ‘spicy chicken’, I decided it was time I reluctantly got on it, especially as Nick reckoned that most of the fish had been ‘done’ on ‘fusion’. As I had progressed on this winter campaign, I had made many changes, in an attempt to make something happen…which had all failed! I therefore decided to sit on one approach, with only minor deviation, until it began to reap rewards, or required some fine adjustment. I settled on simple 8" long hooklinks of 15lb ESP ‘sinklink’, dotted down with 2 small wraps of lead wire, with a single 15mm bottom bait mounted on a standard length hair from a size 8 ESP big-T raptor hook. The only issue I had with this rig was that due to the suppleness of the braided hooklink, the hair could wrap around the back of the hook. I have now come up with a unique way to get around this problem. Using the Korda boilie funnel web system, I cover the hookpoint to avoid snagging on the PVA & pull the hair through the PVA using a long stringer needle passed through the tube. I then attach the bait as normal then pull the hooklink back though the tube – this then leaves the hookbait inside the PVA sock. Fill up & compact the stick mix as normal, then tie off the bag, & nick the hookpoint into the top of the bag. Because the hookbait is encased within the stick, it cannot twist around the back of the hook, giving excellent presentation. This also allowed me to fish much shorter hooklinks as the hookbait doesn’t get pulled down into the silt. The sticks consisted of method mix & ‘indulgence liquid’. I returned again for a typical Saturday day session, to find Nick & his mate bivvied up on the grassy bank area. He’d had five bream & a 19lb carp in the early hours of the morning. As usual, nothing happened that day, & again proved my theory that they weren’t feeding in the daylight hours. It also backed up a theory that wherever the bream were, the carp weren’t far behind. Somehow, I needed to trigger these fish into feeding. The sticks were employed to keep the feed in close proximity to the hookbait, as the fish won’t want to move too far between food items. My initial stick mix just lay there in an uninteresting pile, which I wasn’t too excited about. I’ve experimented further by adding dry crushed hemp to the mix at the very last stage. This made the mix 'explode' from the PVA, & helped to spread the mix over a wider area. I'd also added some chopped baits too, to provide some food items, & also included salmon oil, as it remained reasonably thin, even in the very coldest of water.

With the passing of Christmas, & the availability of few days holiday over the festive period, I kept a close eye on the weather forecasts. The last days of December saw a marked increase in air temperature – up to 9° at night, & I planned a 24 hour session for the 29th December. I arrived at around 9am, to find no-one else on the lake. It was raining heavily, & the wind was increasingly steadily. I settled into a swim, one up from the ‘middle sandys’, as the wind was blowing into the shallows, & the swim had a nice firm base to peg the bivvy down. Within an hour of casting out, I had a drop-back on the right hand rod. This turned out to be a bream – not what I’d hoped for, but encouraging nevertheless. This set the tone for the rest of the session…I had ten of them & lost one in a session where the indicators were rarely ever still. In the morning I lay there, staring at the rods, absolutely amazed that I hadn’t had a carp. So much for my theory! As I made my way home, I evaluated the session. Although I hadn’t caught carp, the revised rig, bait & presentation were clearly working fine, as the only guys catching carp, were also catching bream, conversely, the guys who weren’t catching bream, weren’t catching anything! I therefore reasoned that the carp simply hadn’t been in front of me. I wasn’t despondent. I just needed to apply this approach to the correct areas of the lake.

I managed to get another three 24 hour sessions in before the end of January, & apart from plenty of bream, the carp continued to elude my capture. The few carp that were being caught were mainly coming from the centre of the lake, by casting towards the raft, & despite my best efforts, I left each session feeling somewhat deluded. I’d now reached a stage whereby if I could get bait into the lake during the hours of daylight without the gulls getting it, then the tufties would move in & eat it all. If any bait remained uneaten, then the bream would almost certainly beat any carp to the bait. The bream seemed to feed exclusively at night, which was the only time the bait was safe from waterfowl. The closed season was only six or seven weeks away, & I had to come up with a new plan of action.

I decided to fish glugged three bait stringers for several reasons:

1) By not catapulting bait, I wouldn’t be attracting the gulls attentions.

2) I could still achieve the required casting range with stringers.

3) A small group of baits would hopefully go unnoticed by the tufties.

4) The loading of natural attractors would hopefully be enough to attract any carp to the area, without using lots of free offerings.

I carried out some tests to check that the PVA didn’t dissolve when I added the glugged baits, & this proved to be okay. The stringers were coupled with standard bottom baits on 10" braided links, used simply because of the ‘confidence factor’ - this would hopefully offer a more natural presentation. The only remaining problem regarded bait selection. The bream loved the Active-8 & spicy chicken, & I’d been tempted to use good old tutti’s, in a bid to avoid them. I eventually settled on sticking exclusively to the spicy chicken, as it was the only bait that I knew for certain, that the carp were happy to eat.

The next available weekend was ruined by the worst snowstorms to hit the region in nearly ten years. I managed a quick overnight session the following weekend, fishing in the 'swamp' swim, hoping that the excess water that was flowing from the brook, following recent heavy rainfall, might hold some carp in the area. Apart from one bream & losing two, the night was largely uneventful. At least I didn't encounter any tufties! Early that Saturday morning, Preston Turley, a Blackroot regular, paid me a visit before settling into the 35 swim for the day. I noticed he was using pop-ups & 12" braided hooklinks - totally the opposite to me, & he wasn't catching either! Neither of us caught & I later found out that a 19lb fish had come out from the middle sandys the night prior to my arrival.

With only three weeks left of the season, I arrived for my session on Friday afternoon, to find three anglers on the lake. One guy was set up in the pads, & another in the 35 swim. Preston had also arrived & he was set up on the block, but hadn’t caught or seen anything. I decided on a move back to the middle sandy’s; my theory being that the water was slowly warming up, & if the fish were moving to & from the shallows, then this area was the ideal place to be situated. I opted to fish at around 60yds range, in 4½ ft of water & fish pop-ups on combi-links around 8" in length, putting around twenty freebies around each rig. The forecast was good for the next 24 hours – less than 1000mb air pressure, 11°C in the daytime & 6°C at night with light rain & a south westerly wind pushing steadily into the sandys. The rods were all in position by around 4:00pm, & Nick arrived to fish just down from me on the sandys. Around 9:30pm, a cheer was heard over the far side of the lake, & after a few minutes, the flash of a camera could be seen. Apart from Nick catching the obligatory bream, neither of us had any action, & I woke to the news that the fish caught that night had been an 18lb linear by the guy on the pads. Nick commented that he knew the guy that had caught it, & that usually, he didn't use much bait. I had to leave early, so I bid Nick farewell, & made my way home. Later that evening I received a text from Preston saying that he'd had a 14lb 9oz mirror just as he was packing away, on a three bait stringer cast towards the middle sandy's. I figured that perhaps the reason why they had caught was that they were using such frugal amounts of bait. Closer inspection of my winter campaign had also led me to believe that I may have been approaching the lake totally wrong all the time, as it appeared that the guys that were putting plenty of bait in, weren't catching carp, but having plenty of bream. I now believe that the carp were spooking off large areas of bait, but were willing to inspect small quantities of lightly coloured food items. I'd been putting bait in all the time I'd been there, & although I'd not used loads, I'd still put twenty baits per rod out. Preston further backed up this theory by phoning me the following weekend to ask me to take some pictures of a 16lb fish that he'd caught from the 35 swim, caught using a four bait stringer.

With only one more session available to me before Blackroot closed for the season, I resorted to fishing my all time 'get-out-of-jail-method' - Richworth tutti's & three bait stringers fished at long range. I arrived at Blackroot on Friday 9th March for the last 24 hour session of the winter to find three anglers already bivvied up on the grass bank. I decided to fish the 35 swim as it seemed that most of the latest captures were coming from this area of the lake. As I made my way round the lake, I bumped into Nick's mate, who had just come off the block, & he told me that Nick had fished the 35 swim the night before & had taken a 29lb mirror. He wasn't too sure whether it was the biggun', but from the description he gave me, it certainly sounded like it. I knew that Nick wouldn't have used loads of bait, so was I still happy to fish the swim. Another change I employed on this session was to use lighter butt indicators to minimise tension on the lines, & to ensure they didn't rise off the bottom. I lost one bream & netted another around 7:00pm, & I retired to the sleeping bag around 9:30pm. I was woken in the early hours by a single bleep on the left hand rod. I leaned out of the bivvy & shone the torch at the indicator, which had risen to the rod butt & stopped. Convinced that it was a bream, I put on my boots & got out of the bivvy, by which time the spool had started to pay off a bit of line. I picked up the rod & leaned into the fish which felt like a big bream that was just plodding around at range. It wasn't until it got to around 30yds out that it started to take line from me & I realised it was indeed a carp! From here I played the fish gingerly making sure that it didn't snag me up, & the hook didn't pull. It went into the net first time, & on first impressions it was only a small fish, but when I tried to lift the fish out, I realised it was much bigger. I put it on the mat & realised immediately that it was the same fish that Nick had caught back in September. It weighed 22lb 4oz then, & the needle of the scales settled on 22lb 8oz this time. I was over the moon with the capture, & I sacked the fish in the margins for pictures in the morning. Preston arrived for a session at 8:00am that morning & I informed him of the news. He duly helped me take the pictures in the early morning sunshine, & I returned it to the water. Nothing else happened during my session & I left 'the root' for the last time that winter, satisfied I'd eventually succeeded on this head-banger water.

 22lb 8oz mirror