Friday 23rd September 2016 and again I headed to the pool (GH) that I’ve been fishing the most recently but this time with a guest alongside with me … Liz’s parents are ex-pats and are visiting us from Cyprus where they moved to 12 or more years ago, and so Phil, who recently retired and now fishes regularly over there, accompanied me as a guest for the day as he did when they visited us last year … and we’re hoping to fish another of my clubs’s pools next week when Liz and her Mum may join us…

A pleasant day, both weather and enjoyment wise – mostly calm and bright although we did experience a short (3 minute) shower in the afternoon, but we didn’t need brollies as we were sheltered enough that such a short and light spell of rain failed to penetrate the overhead foliage and, personally, I didn’t even feel one drop fall… only knew it was happening via the spotted surface of the waters in front of me.

Anyway, we both managed to catch well albeit a bit slower sport than the previous weeks – maybe the heavy rain of a couple of days previously had cooled the waters or possibly materials had been washed into the waters after a long’ish dry spell…

Over the day we both caught bream – mine were all small (1lb upper) but seems that Phil had a shoal of bigger fish enter his swim for a short time and had a few to the 3lb-4lb mark. Phil also had the largest carp – a mirror of 4lb 8oz against my best common of 3lb 14oz … and a few roach were also taken.

Phil found that sweetcorn was his ‘killing’ bait for the day with meat failing to produce at all seemingly… myself, I had fish on worm, maggot, meat, butterscotch paste as well as sweetcorn –  I found that switching bait when things went a bit quiet produced a quick response…

Steve – 3lb 14oz Common Carp

Phil – 3lb Common Carp

Phil – 3lb 8oz Common Carp

{SORRY ABOUT THE ROTATED PICTURES – THEY WERE TAKEN WITH CAMERA ROTATED BUT HAVE BEEN EDITED AND NOW ON MY PC THEY ARE SHOWN CORRECTLY ORIENTATED BUT WHEN COPIED ACROSS TO WORDPRESS THEY SHOW INCORRECTLY – AND EVEN THE ORIGINAL UNEDITED PHOTOS ARE SHOWN THE SAME. IF ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO RECTIFY THIS PROBLEM THEN PLEASE LET ME KNOW, TA!}

Friday 16th September and again its a trip to the carp and bream pool (GH) … I had intended to go to a non-carp pool after tench and perch (and barbel, chub, crucians, etc, etc) but with the recent wet weather and the 3/4 mile trip down a deep potholed dusty/muddy farm track to the water and given the fact I’d just put the car through a car wash I didn’t fancy getting it dirty again so soon! LOL!

Anyway, I arrived at the venue at 0700 – unsurprisingly the first to arrive as usual – although unusually the next arrival wasn’t after midday… maybe the forecast of rain with lightning, etc in the morning put people off but although there was a short spell of rain there was no flashing or banging and I didn’t use the brolly even and with it being a warm day the little dampness I’d acquired soon dried out.

My current usual tactics for this water were employed again – floatfishing with sliding float (water depth 12′ at one rod length out) with maggot, worm and butterscotch flavoured paste, and floating baits (mainly bread) for cruising carp.

First fish of the day was soon landed – a 4lb 2oz mirror carp taken on the first cast of the day succumbed to floatfished worm…

4lb 2oz Mirror Carp

… and shortly followed by, after a couple of missed bites, a 1lb 3oz bream again to floatfished worm…

1lb 3oz Bream

… a smaller, 8oz, bream followed and then again on worm, I hooked into my biggest fish of the day, a decent, possible double figure, common carp – however, despite managing to extricate it three times from submerged bankside roots on the fourth visit into there it managed to wrap me up and I could only pull for a break 😦  At this point I switched to a butterscotch flavoured paste as bait which saw a 12oz bream, a 4oz bream and a common carp of 4lb 7oz arrive on the bank. Then all went a bit quiet on the bottom baits but a few carp were swirling in the area so I put away the float rod and cast out a crust on the floater rod…. and quickly hooked into what was to be my best (landed) fish of day, a mirror carp of 5lb 12oz…

5lb 12oz Mirror Carp

… however, that was the only surface fish to be fooled over the next hour or so and so I switched back to the float rod for the rest of the session catching common carp of 2lb 14oz and 3lb 4oz and a small bream of around 4oz, all on butterscotch paste – and a change back to worm brought several roach of up to 8oz, a small rudd, 3 bream of around the 12oz-1lb mark and another common carp of 2lb 3oz.

Over the next couple of weeks we have Liz’s parents visiting us from Cyprus so there are fishing days planned for the next two Fridays – the first, I think, will be a return to this pool with Liz’s Dad as the pool I’d intended us to fish (and which we fished last year) is not fishing very well I was told and there are problems there – and on this pool you’re almost guaranteed to catch decent fish anyway… and the following Friday, which may also include Liz and her Mum fishing, will be a visit to one of our other club’s pools… Well, weather permitting and all that!! 🙂

Thursday 9th September and Liz and I headed off to a club members only pool (WL2) in search of whatever turned up per usual arriving at around 0800…

I elected to floatfish as I have done on the last few sessions – enjoying it at the moment and can’t even remember when I got the alarms and leads out 🙂 whilst Liz decided to ledger with swimfeeder on 2 rods.

A most enjoyable day – raining when we arrived but that passed after 30 minutes or so whilst we sat in the car and then after setting up there were a couple of showers but after those passed by it was was bright and hot.

Over the day I had a load (100+) of small perch and rudd of <4oz, a few others of up to 8oz, one perch of about 12oz … and lost the best fish of the day as the hook pulled free after it rolled on the surface, a perch of at least 1.5lb I reckon and possibly a good 2lb…. all on maggots and/or worm.

Liz had a quieter day – she had the biggest fish of the day early on – a 2lb 8oz tench – but then apart from a few nudges all was quiet apart from a really good fish that snapped her late in the day….

And then at 1630 it was packing up and home via a stop off at the local hostelry for some beer and scratchings 🙂

Tuesday 6th September 2016 and at 0800 I’m back at the pool (GH) of my previous few sessions as I’m currently enjoying my time there with the float rod after bream and whatever else (which means as its a carp pool then its mainly carp) comes along…. interspersed with spells on my surface bait rod for carp off the top…

Again I’m on the 13′ float rod with 6lb Diawa Hyper Sensor mainline straight through to a size 10 Kamasan Animal barbless hook with a 5AAA antenna float –  usually referred to as bodied wagglers these days but I suppose a rose by any other name is still a rose – but such things can make a big difference in sales…

[I was told by a tackle dealer when I enquired about the differences between a ledger rod and a feeder rod many moons ago that ‘there’s no difference at all but label as a ledger rod and it won’t sell, label as a feeder rod and they fly out the door’… and similarly with pilchard sales which plummeted to almost zero so they renamed them as ‘Cornish Sardines’ (but usually just labelled ‘sardines’ at the fishmongers) and the sales figures just rocketed…]

And I also set up my 11′ floating bait rod – 12lb mono mainline, 2′ hooklength of 15lb braid and size 4 hook – ready for action whenever it was needed.

Anyway, first fish of the day was a 3lb 4oz common carp on a small meat cube… which was followed by …

(FF = float fished, FB = floating bait)

4lb 5oz common carp (FF meat), 1lb 1oz bream (FF meat), and a small roach and a small bream (<4oz each, again on FF meat) … and then a good sized mirror carp (est 12lb+) on FB was literally lost over the net as the hook pulled free and I was unable to lift the net quick enough – due to breakage of one of the net arms on the 36″ wide mesh net I usually use I had to take my 42″ net which is not only heavier anyway but has a smaller mesh meaning its harder to raise through the water. Anyway, I continued with the FB to take a rudd of approx 4oz, common carp of 4lb 13oz, bream of 2lb 1oz, mirror carp of 5lb 4oz, common carp of 3lb 10oz – and then switching back to (FF meat) I had 2 small bream, 2 bream of approx 1lb, and bream of 1lb 12oz and 1lb 8oz.

By the way, who said bream don’t fight? I had one this session and one on the previous session both which were leaping in a way that a trout (or maybe even a marlin!) would have been proud of! 🙂

3lb 4oz Common Carp

4lb 5oz Common Carp

1lb 1oz Bream

4lb 13oz Common Carp

2lb 1oz Bream

AND then …. I’ve fished this pool for 5 years or more now using maggot and worm baits predominantly and I also took a video of several hours with my WaterWolf underwater camera… and couldn’t recall ever catching, or seen caught or captured on video, a single perch from there – and I mentioned this to Liz over the previous weekend – and don’t you know it, after netting one of the hooked fish but what should be in the net too… the tiniest of fish but it was most definitely a perch!!

Weird how these happen isn’t it? Last year on another pool I’d said in conversation to an angler fishing the next swim to mine that I’d not caught a perch from there in 18 months and they’d been really prolific there before … and then if I didn’t within the hour not only catch one but it was also, and still is, my PB of 2lb 8oz. 🙂

A few comments arising on my floating bait fishing of the day…

1. DON’T use Sainsbury’s own brand sliced bread! Used it before, hated it – falls off the hook even after just a quick dunk to add weight before casting and often even if not dunked! My big mistake was to text Liz the day before to pick me up ‘the cheapest thick sliced white loaf’ on leaving work … and as she works for Sainsbury’s …DOH!!!
   Breads I do like and recommend are Aldi’s own brand Toastie (47p) and Morrison’s own brand ‘White Super Toastie’ (50p) … and the thick/doorstep/etc sliced Roberts, Hovis and Kingsmill loaves are good.
2. I tried large marshmallows – they do float extremely well and are easily visible and do attract the carp – BUT I find that in places where the carp have seen it all before and very cagey about surface baits (like this pool) that they will initially ‘play with/test’ the baits by sucking and tail smacking and once they find that they cannot cause the bait to break up and take the smaller/sinking pieces that ensue that they soon tire and move on… Small marshmallows are slightly more successful but (a) lack weight for casting and need to be used with a casting aid (controller float/bubble float/etc) and (b) soon ‘melt’ in the water

Friday 2nd September and I set off for a day at a local club pool (GH) for a day’s fishing after what seemed an age. Last trip was almost two weeks ago (Tues 23rd August) as I’d missed my usual next two sessions on the following Friday and Tuesday due to going to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival over the weekend intervening…

So I set off at 0645 planning to float fish and to fish surface baits for which I’d bought a new lot of dog biscuits (not a great success – some floated, some didn’t and of those that did float a lot sank with the weight of the inserted size 2 hook – so destined now to be ground down for paste/groundbait use. BUT I did take a loaf of bread too so I was able to surface fish without problem).

I arrived at the water, the first there, settled in my swim and after the usual preliminaries, including baiting up and putting out floating freebies, I cast out onto the sloping 12′-10′ of water in front of me with worm on a size 12 hook, 6lb line, 5AAA antenna float but due to a plethora of fish on the surface I quickly switched to the floating rod rod.

First fish landed at 0945 was a mirror carp of 2lb 11oz on floating bread. And over the day I switched between floatfishing and surface catching in chronological order (FB=Floating Bread, FF=Floatfished)…

Mirror Carp 2lb 11oz (FB), Common Carp 5lb 1oz (FF worm), 8oz Bream  (FF worm), 4oz Bream (FF worm), 7lb 4oz Common Carp (FB), 2lb 15oz Common Carp (FB), 4lb 4oz Common Carp (FB), 2lb 0oz Common Carp (FB), 1lb 4oz Bream (FF worm), 2lb 13oz Mirror Carp (FF meat), 4lb 8oz Common Carp (FF meat), 2lb 8oz Common Carp (FF meat), 3lb 7oz Common Carp (FF meat), 3lb 2oz Common Carp (FB), 5lb 0oz Common Carp (FB), 4lb 0oz Common Carp (FB)…

So plenty of action over the day even if nothing spectacular in size – and I suffered several hook pulls resulting in lost fish too :).

Disasters of the day:

1. One of the arms of my landing net snapped off just above the metal spigot that fitted into the poles ‘Y’ connector. It was OK though as I just pushed the remaining end into the connector and it gripped OK for the rest of the session…
2. I trod on and tipped over the container of my 2 pints of fresh maggots – I didn’t immediately notice and ended up digging into the gravel of the pitch to try to recover as many as I could – so a job to be done today is to sieve the maggots from the gravel….

2lb 11oz Mirror Carp

5lb 1oz Common Carp

7lb 4oz Common Carp

2lb 13oz Mirror Carp

4lb 8oz Common Carp