stevetheangler

Sunday 11th June, after having had to cancel a trip out on the previous Tuesday due to inclement weather I headed out a mixed-but-mainly-carp club water (AA-GH).

Weather was reasonable bright, slightly overcast and the breeze came from the south-west as forecast but less severe than the forecast had said – a good day actually.

As first on the water – arrived at around 0635 – as usual I had my choice of swims and I had three in mind – one fishing into open water sheltered from the breeze, one fishing into the breeze, and one fishing on the bank that was parallel to the breeze’s direction and thus sheltered by the line of trees that run down the edge of that bank. In the end the breeze wasn’t that bad as I said so any of the options would have been OK but I opted for the third one….

This swim has an interesting set of contours – directly under your feet the water depth is around 6’, sloping to around 11’ a couple of rod lengths out and then a gentle sloping to 14’ … and then it gets interesting… from about halfway to the island to the island itself (see second pic) there a number of sudden depth changes where the depths step to 14’, 28’ and 40’ – it’s almost as if there used to be a series of cellars as the ‘edges’ of the changes are seemingly vertical according to my fish/depth finder – so drawing a line back from the island to the bank the depths along it go something like…

11’ – 14’ – 28’ – 40’ – 14’ – 28’ – 40’ – 28’ – 14’ then slopes slowly up to 11’ and then up to 6’ at the bank.

…and seems to happen only in this actual peg … no indication of this behaviour at the pegs at either side of this one albeit that there’s less than 10 yards between the pegs…

I started by fishing two ledger rods (8lb line, 1/2oz sliding bomb weights on both), one with a size 12 hook baited with worm/maggot fished out off the edge of the overhanging bush seen in the left of the second photo and the other out in front about halfway across to the island with a size hook baited with bread. I also catapulted out a few loose dog biscuits to check on ‘cruisers’ as this is a water on which the carp are quite floater friendly.

Due to the sharp drops I get a bit anxious about straight ledgering further across than halfway at this peg as I visualise the line catching the edges of the drops. I have thought of trying a Polaris or LocSlide float system to fish those drops but have not done so yet – perhaps in the future –By 0900 I’d had a few twitches on both rods but nothing substantial enough to strike at – and as a number of carp were now rising the free floaters I packed in the two ledger rods and set up my floater rod and spent the next 2-3 hours trying to entice these fish. However, they are not very innocent these carp, because as I say they do like a floating meal and because of this they do get offered baits in this way very frequently – and have learnt to trust nothing without a good testing which includes tail smashing the baits, sucking’n’pulling, etc. So it was hard work and I had to use all my ‘tricks of the trade’ but even then only one carp succumbed to my offerings before they moved off… a nice mirror carp of 6lb 8oz though…

So, around 1230, I switched back to the ledger rods and managed to pick up a small 4oz’ish bream and an 8oz roach on the worm/maggot rod..

.. and just before packing up, although I had already packed up the floater rod, the top feeding carp returned in the area and a few pieces of floating bread were thrown out to hold their attention whilst I removed the ledger weight from the line of my size 6 hook rod… and a piece of crust was fastened on and flicked out … and was taken… however a few minutes later the hook pulled and the fish was gone. So at that point it was time to tackle down and head home…

Well, its now less than a week to the start of the new river season … and I’m planning to be on the Warks Avon on the day (Friday 16th) :) but before then I’m off on another outing …

Tuesday (13th) – to a mixed fishery which I aim to use as a practice session for an upcoming club event … ‘The Golden Maggot’. Its based loosely on Matt Hayes’ TV ‘Rod Race’ series (which I believe was influenced by a TV series back in the 50’s/60’s actually called ‘Golden Maggot’) whereby a timed target is set (eg catch 100lb of roach in 24 hours, etc)… and our club’s version is to catch as many different species (by fair angling, no kiddy nets, etc! :)) from any of the club’s waters (river, pool or canal) between 0745 on Saturday 8th July and 1800 on Sunday 9th July. So… 0745 Saturday head to the meeting point (pub car park) to collect a placard that has to appear in all the photos of the claimed fish .. then immediately set out to fish as/when/how you wish .. returning to the meeting place between 1600- 1800 on Sunday to have photos examined and claims counted – and every 15 minutes late back after 1800 you get one species deducted and in event of a tie then the first back at the meeting point wins… The club’s been doing it for a few years now but this will be the first time for me. Could be good fun – and I’ve already got a provisional plan for my modus operandi! :)

And on Sunday (18th), as part of its charity event (open house/garden, etc) a local Hall invites one of my clubs access to fish their waters which otherwise are unfished the rest of the year. For six weekends they allow 6 members per day on the waters for a £10 charity donation each. And Liz and I have booked for the first Sunday that the fishing becomes available. A lovely pool with good tench and carp along with other species too … including good perch I hear although to date (and Liz and I have fished the pool for the past 4-5 year on the invites) we’ve not yet encountered any.

Right! A busy week ahead for us!!