stevetheangler

Well, on the morning of Sunday 2nd June 2013, I awoke to the alarm’s bleeping, crawled out of bed, looked out of the window … and no snow!! 

So it was down for breakfast and coffee and the last bits of bait packing, and by 4:30am I was on my way to the club’s tench pool (well, we call it the tench pool as that is usually the main target but it contains virtually everything except common carp, catfish, sturgeon and alligator gar  ).

There is actually a  ’common’ carp and chub pool alongside too (called, unbelievably, ‘the carp pool’).

However, there appears to have been some crossover of species – probably fry from each pool migrating across the via a connecting pipe (water from a stream runs into the tench pool, then exits through a pipe of of domestic drainpipe proportions into the carp pool, and then excess water exits via another pipe back into the stream… there is also a bypass pipe in the tench pool that allows water to overflow to the stream from there in ecvent of the connecting pipe blocking… Anyway, there are a few carp in ‘Tench’ and a lot of 2-3oz roach in ‘Carp’.

OK… back to the session…

Arrived at the pool, baited up my swim with Dynamite Bait’s ‘Frenzied Particle Mix’ with a few maggots and casters added. Usually I prepare my own particles but I hadn’t got round to doing fresh and the previous batch had reached the end of its life… but it was the beginning of June and so I’d my monthly ’20% off one item of bait’ offer from Go Outdoors to take up. So I got the particle mix for this month… Also during the whole session I made frequent additions of maggots into the swim via catapult.

At 0545 I made my first cast… I fished with a 13′  Hardy Matchmaker copy float rod (built using the same materials – blanks, rings, fittings, etc – as Hardy themselves used but cost £17 instead of £30 IIRC at the time)… line was 6lb Berkelely Tri-Lene… straight through to a size 16 B981 Kamasan barbless hook… for a float I chose a 2SSG+ driftbeater which was fished overshotted, with all the shots (1 x 2SSG, 1 x AAA, and 1x BB) bunched 3″ from the hook and with the heaviest closest to the hook and the depth between float and shot was set at 3″ overdepth – the pool has an almost perfect flat bottom and a depth of 4’6″, so the bottom shot to float distance was set at 4’9″).

At 0630 I had my first fish of the day – a small roach of 2-3oz taken on double maggot. For the next 30 mins then I had not a touch and so decided to try a brandling and at 0710 I was into a good fish, but unfortunately it was lost when it managed to gain sanctuary in the adjacent patch of lily pads and the hook pulled free.

And this was the start of worm baits including worm/maggot cocktail throughout the rest of the session with only_maggot tried but seemingly ignored as not the slightest bite indication was observed. I also tried cockles (good for tench) and prawns (good for perch) but despite having minor nudges/aborted takes nothing actually resulted from their use.

At 0715, another bite ensued on the worm bait, and it was that surprise capture – a barbel of 2-3oz! Now, although the species list of this pool does say barbel are present (and have been on that list since at least 2011 when I joined the club), I’ve not heard of any being captured… or being recently stocked come to that. Which makes for wondering on where this fish came from? There was a big restocking undertaken on our pools in the winter of 2011-2012 but I’d not heard of any plans to stock barbel – but maybe a ‘rogue’ in a batch of chub that were added? Other possibility would be that against all the perceived wisdom that says that barbel can’t spawn/breed in stillwater this is the result of an ‘exception’? Whatever, it was a pleasant surprise and I hope to renew our acquaintance when its a bit bigger!! 

At 0730, a 2lb 5oz tench was lead into the landing net… again on worm…

0800 – and a 2lb 15 tench graces the net…. and again on worm…

1025 – and a golden tench of 2lb 11oz is landed … on worm/maggot cocktail…

1100 – 2lb 5oz tench on worm…

1305 – 1lb 15oz tench… worm…

1325 – 1lb 4oz crucian carp … worm/maggot cocktail…

1345 – A perch of similar size to the crucian carp was lost when it rolled on the surface and managed to throw the hook … worm/maggot cocktail.

1505 – 3lb tench … worm/maggot cocktail

1555 – perch of approx 12-14oz

Packed in, ready for home, at this point.

Was a very good day – interesting catches – but at times it could have been a little warmer. White cloud overcasted mainly – and a chilly north wind in the face added a cooling effect – when the sun broke through it got quite warm but quickly chilled again when clouds passed.

Pics of the day:

   THE BARBEL

      GOLDEN TENCH