stevetheangler

So it was on Friday, 26th May, that I set off to return to the banks of the large 19 acre reservoir (BPAS – CHR)  that had I recently acquired fishing membership cards for … (see Session 22) … on my second venture to that pool having suffered a blank on that first outing…

I decided to set up in another swim further round the pool this time – previous session was in peg 34, this one in peg 57 … and there are 80 pegs on the pool…

… as I suspected the water may be deeper towards the dam end of the pool, and it was seemingly but only around 6” deeper (7’6” as opposed to 7’) at this peg.

Walking around the pool there was a fair bit of carp activity going on as they were grouping in the shallows to start spawning … and, when I reached my peg, in the reeds on the right hand side they were thrashing well and at the start of my session those reeds were standing vertical in the main but by the end of my session they were 70-80% flattened…

Anyway, after preliminaries of setting up nets and pre-baiting I tackled up 2 x 1.75lb TC ledger rods with 8lb line straight through to a size 10 worm/maggot baited hook on one, a size 6 bread baited on the other and fished with 1/2oz flat penny leads just further out than the outer line of reeds, making first casts around 0745… and at one point I switched over the bread to meat.

As I say, the carp were spawning, and so I was not expecting great results as, although I was hoping more for bream, tench and perch than carp, from experience carp spawning and their vigorous procedures in doing so unsettle the other species … more so in smaller pools with high carp concentrations to which is added the nuisance of ‘carp liners’ as they speed and bash their way around the water catching the line as they go and giving false bite indications. And I really think that the few nudges and short pulls I had were ‘liners’ and so, again, I blanked – as did three other anglers in my area it must be said.

And I’ve had had a few equipment losses over the last two sessions – seemingly I left my new ‘Wychwood Pocket Pod’ with buzz bars fitted at the water on the previous session and currently have fingers crossed they’ll be found and returned … and on this session I lost 2 Spombs (one large, one midi) when the 30lb braid line snagged on the reel whilst casting… so changing the spomb rod line to mono for the future!!