stevetheangler

8th May 2016 – Session 23 – Tregoad Park, Cornwall

On our week’s late Easter holiday camping at Tregoad Park, near Looe, in Cornwall I took the fishing rods as the description of the site said that there were ‘carp lakes’ and on Sunday 8th I headed off down (‘down’ being very operative, as was ‘up’ on the return journey) to the lakes…

There were actually 3 ‘lakes’ – well, I’d describe them better as ‘ponds’ – the first pond being very small and shallow (ca 12″), the middle one (as per photos above) was larger and nice looking and was the pond I fished, and the third pond was bigger and with an island but there appeared to be only one space on the bank that was at all fishable from and that was tight…

I selected a nice looking swim at the end of the pool and baited up per usual before setting up the tackle and casting out with maggot and worm baits. First cast I discovered a problem – due to wearing a peaked cap I failed to spot the overhanging foliage about 8′ from the ground and over my head which made overhead casting difficult but luckily the swim was quite wide and I was able to sidecast without too much problem…

Anyway, I fished there for about 5 hours without a single touch and, given it was a bright and warm day, there was very little signs of any fish activity and I would have expected some signs of basking carp, etc… In fact the only sign of any life was a branch of a tree dipped into the water about 10 yards to my right that every now and then shuddered and rippled the water… thinking that it may be a decent fish there I catapulted a few maggots to the edge of this branch followed by a baited hook but even after an hour or so and despite the branch still getting disturbed I hadn’t a touch… so I crept down to see what was happening and saw a HUGE shoal of 3″-4″ silvers swimming around there – and another shoal a bit further along of slightly smaller fish.

And so, I ended the day on a blank and had to endure the ‘hill’ to get back up to the tent … a hill that would have tested even Sir Edmund Hillary or Brian Blessed even! In fact, I got halfway back up the climb on a flint path with effort but the for the final half – the steepest and up the edge of a grassed field – I had to ring Liz to come help me with the tackle… and even with Liz’s help it took us 3-4 stops for breathers before we got to the top.

SO… with the lack of success, that hill and the fact that it was £5 a day to fish all plans to fish again there were soon shelved!

11th May 2016 – Session 24 – Padstow

So with the lack of fishing for the rest of the week we went back to something we always used to do on our holiday trips but not done for the past 3-4 years – the anual crabline competition.

Crablines were purchased and baited with bacon strips in the mesh bait bags – and we fished/lined in the quay. Crabs were aplenty BUT only counted if they were ‘landed’, ie taken into hand, but as the lift from water to hand was probably 15′ or so, many crabs let go before getting pulled up to the top of the wall and so were uncounted in the final result of 4-3 in Liz’s favour after an hour’s lining.

And then it was off for a proper Cornish Cream Tea at a local cafe…. :)