A MAJESTIC RETURN

4th January 2021

Shane Picken revisits an old stomping ground, Majestic Pool in East Yorkshire where he enjoys a red-letter session after six years away from the venue.

Seeing in the new year whilst doing what you enjoy is what life’s all about and for many anglers, the start of the year is the perfect time to get out on the bank. This year saw especially mild conditions, akin to that of early spring in fact. This saw even more anglers wetting a line than ever, and with some great success too. Shane Picken was one of the fortunate ones to time a trip to Majestic Pool on the turn of the year and having already paid the lake a visit earlier in the festive period, he was confident of building a hit of fish with the favourable conditions.

The unique blend of powders means the Active boilies constantly releases particles upwards from your baited area. This helps catch the carp’s attention and entices them to investigate.

Shane revealed:

“I got down to Majestic after losing one a couple of days prior, I was eager to get back in the swim I’d been baiting up after my sessions had finished. I knew the spots and the clips it was just a case of clipping the rods up and firing them out with as little disturbance as possible. This session coincided with a strong, mild south-west wind pushing into my corner, so I decided to put a rod just off the marginal reed line, which couldn’t have worked out any better! Within the first hour of the rods being out that marginal rod was away with the first Majestic carp that I’d caught in over six years! I finally put that curse to bed with a mega cool looking 25lb mirror.

“Going into the first night with my confidence sky high, I didn’t have to wait long for one of the open water spots produced a twitchy take, so twitchy I was unsure if I should pick the rod up! The bobbin soon pulled up tight to the buzzer though and we were in! It turned out to be one my friends and I were only just talking about a couple of hours before, Baby Exocet at 31lb 8oz, a mega cool carp.

“With the lake not doing a bite since late October and now being two carp in, we were all just stood in my swim waiting for another rod to go off, but it did seem to die off a little after that last bite. That was until around midnight when the other open water rod one noted! And after a bit of a hairy battle trying to find the left margin snags, I had a mid-double fully scaled in the net, one that Majestic had home grown on, so it was cool to see it doing well in the main lake.

“The next 48 hours of my session were pretty bleak with not a lot happening. Liners had stopped, and I hadn’t seen any signs of carp. It was time to make a decision to either stay put or move swims and try and make something happen on the final night. With nothing to really lose, I decided to pack my gear down and move into a swim at the other end of the lake on the back of the wind for the last night. I put the rods out in likely areas with a couple of handfuls of 12mm Manila Active over the top of matching wafter hookbaits, the rods were set.

“Just like the first night, a couple of hours into dark one of the rods was away again with a mid-double common, but it was a start in the new swim. I redid the rod and added a couple more pouches of boilies, before retiring to bed, but it wasn’t too long after that the other rod was away! With the bobbin smashing the blank of the rod, I knew it was going to be a better one! Sure enough, after a few good lunges in the deep margins it came up to the net, a clean, slate grey mirror going 27lb. At this point I was absolutely buzzing after sitting it out in the corner for two nights with nothing happening, to making a quick move for the final night and I managed two quick bites whilst the rest of the lake was very quiet. Finally after sorting all my gear and getting everything packed away I got my head down for the last night and in the early hours one of the rods was away just before first light, with another big mirror that was just shy of the thirty pound mark at 29lb 12oz. What a result and what a session to have in winter.”