Carp fishing at Lake Szavanna — working the far bank

Two September days at Lake Szavanna, on a stretch the channel had not filmed before. The swim was picked off a satellite map: a point in the bank, on the reasoning that a feature like that interrupts the route of fish moving along the margin. Geri came along for the session, and Norbi, the keyboard player of the band Margaret Island, joined for a day.

It was also the first session with a bait boat, arrived through a collaboration and used essentially straight out of the box. It carried rig and bait to the reeds on the far bank and produced immediately: a 9 kg grass carp on tiger nut with a banana Feedermania pop-up.

The water as read on the day: a steep drop runs down to about four metres in front of the platform, with reeds ahead of it. In daylight he fished the near reeds on the slope of that drop; for the evening he moved the rig to the bottom of it. The near-bank bait was C1 throughout, while C2 went across to the far side.

The standout bait was a C1 boilie with a lemon-orange pop-up — it took a 15.5 kg long-framed scaly common and another over 11 kg, both close in. The far bank gave its fish to a 24 mm C2, with or without a pineapple pop-up, and it produced the largest of the trip, a common over 16 kg.

The baiting was deliberately sparing: 8 mm halibut pellets and a few boilies. The reasoning is stated in the video — a fish can pick at 8 mm pellets for a long time, whereas two 20 mm boilies fill it up, so the smaller particle holds it in the swim longer.

A separate tactic for the night: a corked 24 mm boilie with no pop-up and seven 20 mm baits around it, so that only the genuinely big fish would move it and there was no getting up for the small ones. When the usual rig stopped producing during the day, he switched to a spinner rig on Geri's advice.

Two days came to 22 fish. For comparison, one of the lake's favourite swims, 6 and 7, gave 20 in the same time at a slightly higher average weight. The fishery warden, Dani, advised dropping the rigs 5–6 m short of the far reeds, since the bank itself is snaggy — plenty of fish there, catchable at night, but a smaller average. That is how it played out: the far bank gave the numbers, the near reeds gave the size.

The closing verdict on the swim is honest about its drawbacks. In its favour: grassy, roomy ground, more comfortable to pitch on than the other side. Against it: you fish from a platform, so you cannot wade in in chest waders and cannot release a fish from the bank — more than once he ended up lying on the boards to unhook one, or detaching the hooklink when he could not, and lifting the fish in the sling.