stevetheangler

Sunday 19th June 2016, Liz and I set out at the, what is to Liz anyway, the ungodly hour, especially on a Sunday, of 0615… which meant rising at 0500… Myself, its the ‘normal’ start time of a fishing day albeit that I don’t very often fish on Sundays – as retired I don’t have to and mid-week is quieter on the waters. However, the day was meant to be a ‘special occasion’, as we had booked places to fish a water on a private estate that is normally unfished except for five weekends of the year when the owner, leading up to his ‘Open Day’ charity fundraiser, invites members of my club to fish there far a donation of £10 towards the local church’s funds. Further only 6 anglers are allowed each of the  Saturdays and Sundays, fishing 0700-1900. So, as I say it was the day that Liz and I had booked places on the water and off we headed arriving at the gate to the field in which the pool is situated at 0630… fishing is 0700 onwards but it takes time to tackle up, etc and we’ve always arrived at that time in order to prep, bait up, etc before casting in at 0700… And previous years there has been no problem as although the gate was secured by chain’n’padlock it was just a matter of slipping the chain up, over and off the gatepost as it wasn’t secured in any way…. but this year the chain had been shortened AND fastened to both sides of the post with several hefty staples so that sliding up’n’over was no longer possible – and the padlock holding it was a keyed padlock and so needed someone with a physical key to open it… So we bided our time until 0720 hoping someone would appear with the key but not a single sole appeared – but even in this area’s ‘rush hour’ there’s usually only the occasional person passing by… so I wandered to the gates of the lodge where an intercom was situated but there was no response to that when I tried it… so we sat in the car until almost 0800, still no-one appeared and so we decided to go on elsewhere…. Since then it appears that I may be able to get a place on one of the remaining weekends although Liz will miss out – two remaining weekends of the invitation period remain and she’s off to Spain on next Sunday (26th), returning home on Sunday (3rd July) which is the last of the available dates…

Anyway, that being the case, we decided to head to the water’s of another club that we are members of – to a mixed fishery (VV) that was about an half hour’s drive away which we did and had a reasonable day there… Arrived about 0830 to find only two other anglers on the water – but as normal set up in the swims we would have gone for! :) So, as we were well loaded with tackle – at the pool we were going to fish you park at your swim so literally the car is within 20′ of your fishing spot so taking extra bait quantities/types, the reclining chairs, etc wouldn’t have been a problem with transport from car to water – we decided to fish the dam wall (ie the nearest area to the car), both of us in one wide’ish swim.

Tackled up and baited up the swim per usual – Liz elected to fish a single ledger rod with open-end feeder using sweetcorn and luncheon meat baits, myself used two ledger rods with frame feeders – one rod with bread flake on a size 6 barbless hook and the other with a size 12 barbless baited originally with worm/maggot cocktail but later switched to bread as the worm/maggot seemed to be getting the attractions of small (<2oz perch) with the bait being taken deeper than I’d have liked – and one was was throat hooked and despite seemingly getting the hook out OK and swimming away it seemed it appeared back on the surface a couple of minutes later and then became breakfast for a passing seagull…. so not attracted to catching small perch in the first place and the fact of the deeper than preferred hookings I went over to the bread…

And so we fished until we packed in around 1530 – when the forecasted rain for the day seemed to start bang on time… and then we headed to a local pub for a pint before heading home. BTW – you dark beer drinkers – a recommendation to be tried before you die – King Korvak’s Saga, a 5.4% ABV Porter, brewed by the Fownes’ Brewery at the back of the Jolly Crispin pub in Sedgley (and about 1.5 miles from my house :)). A superb beer that lies at the top of my beers list alongside beers like  ‘Slater’s Mud City Stout’, ‘Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild’, and ‘Enville Gothic’….

Anyway, back to the fishing… what did we have? Well, nothing ground breaking but had a few…

Liz: 14oz bream and a 2lb 2oz common carp
Me: 5lb 0oz common carp, 3 small perch, 3lb 4oz mirror carp, 1lb 10oz tench, and a 2lb 14oz mirror carp.