Churn Pool – by Ben Szyczak

Chris Michael and I joined KARPER consultant Keith Attfield at Churn Pool Cirencester for a Friday through to Sunday fishing session. Keith kindly invited us following two drop outs from his original booking, and with an 18 month waiting list for this venue we jumped at the chance to join!!

Chris is renowned for being late, but not surprisingly when fishing Chris was on time, picking me up at 3:45am, ensuring we arrived at the lake by 7:30am on the dot.

Not long after our arrival and after a quick walk around the venue with Keith we spotted some fish in the margins feeding, so without a second thought we rushed back to the van to grab some stalking gear. We hastily arrived back at the spot and got a stalking rod on the spot, Keith managed to hook and land a fish within 30 minutes of being on the lake. The new Dispersion Sweetcornz Wafter fished in conjunction with a PVA mesh bag of Streamerz Pellets meant getting him a quick fish on the bank!

It was then time to do the peg draw and I was first out of the hat, which is a novelty as I’m normally last out. Being first out also added pressure with the whole lake to pick from……..where to go, anyway I decided to pick the right hand bay where we had been stalking earlier on our arrival. This also gave Chris the chance to pick a peg next to me so we could do some vlog filming and it also gave us plenty of water to go at.

The first day went quietly by with not much action and not many signs of fish in our bay! Tiredness did kick in and eventually take its toll, which made finding spots more difficult, but we got there in the end, even if it was a little longer than expected.

Then as the early evening and nightfall set in, fish started to move into our area. They started showing themselves over our spots, which was really encouraging.

My first bite came at about 6am the next day unfortunately, I lost the fish, managing to cut the fluorocarbon D rig on some rocks near the spot I was fishing. I was gutted to lose a fish but had to keep going and at least I knew the spot was right for a bite. Once again, the new Dispersion Sweetcornz Wafter tempting the bite.

As morning bite time came and went with no action, the rest of the day was also quiet with plenty of fish cruising around, but not interested in any methods or bait put their way.

Going into the afternoon I decided to change spots with one of my rods and change to a RS Snowman rig topped with an Ultra-Fluro Pink Coconut Pop-Up (coming soon), and put a good helping of RS over the spot, which was on the opposite margin. The RS had been lightly glugged with the RS Energiser Syrup giving it that lovely dark glazed look.

I have found that if I soak my RS 16mm boilies in the RS Energiser they preserve the bait due to the natural sugar content. I do this in a spare Pop-Up tub and they last for weeks and also slowly harden, which makes them a super boosted hook bait. This idea was initially passed on by one of our good customers and it works brilliantly.

Before I knew it, it was time for our BBQ. Chrurn Pool has a fantastic BBQ area outside the main lodge which is a great area for a social, after consuming a ton of meat it was back to the rods.

Rods were placed back out on the spots, with one positioned on the new spot. Not long after casting out the new spot produced a run, initially thinking it was a Coot as they were all over the spot, but then I pulled into it and felt strong resistance. It was clearly a decent fish, after a good scrap where it managed to weed me up; it was finally in the net.  The fish pulled the scales around to 24lb 6oz and made the long trip worth it for me as this year’s fishing has been hard to say the least, with minimal sessions.

Chris earlier had decided to go with the same approach RS Snowman, but chose the Ultra-Fluro Pink Shrimp and Garlic Pop-Up as a topper. Chris also chose a spot on the far margin under a tree to place his bait. At about 1:30am he was into his first fish a nice 27lb 4oz Mirror which managed to take out one of his other rods before getting it in the net. Due to the horrific midges at night we took some quick pictures and filming, before getting the rods back out on the spots.

The rest of the night was quiet for the both of us. I think I was done on one spot not long after Chris had his fish. The bobbin hit the rod and took the line briefly before stopping. I decided to leave it hoping the rig had re-set.

The morning came and I decided to go off and do a bit of stalking, I had been gone about 20 minutes when Chris called to say he had a Zip Linear in the net and what a fish it was. I had seen the same fish the day before and tried to stalk but to no avail! Weighing in at 25lb 7oz he was over the moon and rightly so!

This one again had fallen to the RS Snowman but with an Ultra-Fluro Pink Coconut as a topper and a good helping of RS.

That was the last fish for us, Keith stayed on and managed another two fish later that afternoon when we had all left.

I really enjoyed my session and what an awesome venue, I shall definitely be returning. A big thank you to the owner Tom for making the trip very relaxed and enjoyable, the venue really is a credit to him.