stevetheangler

Monday, July 31st, saw me arrive at around 0700, on a beautiful morning, at a club pool (KF-WL2) in a swim I’d not fished for over 18 months although it had always been my favourite peg previously…

… the reason for the long time absence was that the trees on either side had grown out and the large tree to the right had drooped out over the water on that side thus preventing casting in that direction at all, and the left hand bush had grown in and that left only a narrow clear passage but even that was inaccessible as the mantle of the right hand tree had also covered over the peg about 8’-10’ up meaning that there was no way that you could cast…

However, as you see from the picture the problem has now been resolved after a visit of the club’s maintenance team and helpers who had a busy day a few weeks ago resolving not only this swim’s problems but also doing sterling work on others,,,

As you see it’s a glorious view from this swim down the length of the pool. The pool itself has ‘two halves’ – the ‘old’ half and the ‘new’ half, the ‘old’ half being the original (circular) pool and the ‘new’ half being a recent extension which gives the elongated look you see above. If you draw an imaginary line across the water between where the dark green trees on left and right meet the brown vegetation then the near water is ‘old’, the far water is ‘new’. And the water is intended to be predominantly a specimen carp water but other species do inhabit it – and those are what interest me.

There are also two pools on site – this pool which is members’ only and a small pool (pond really) down on the far tree line which is available on day ticket and holds all the usual species as well as ide…

As for the day’s fishing … a bit disappointing really! Previously I used to catch a range of species of a mixture of sizes from an ounce or two up to reasonable size but on this trip, although I had quantity – didn’t count but must have had 60-70, probably more, small roach, rudd and perch (with rudd in dominance in a ratio of probably 4:1) – and all but two fish of around 3oz or less and the two larger ones were around 4oz (rudd) and 6oz (perch). And none of the hoped for tench or bream turned up at all – and not even an eel.

During the session I baited up 2 areas – my main one to my right by an overhanging and partially submerged willow branch, and a changeover one to my right on the edge of an overhanging bush – and these were fed with small balls of crumb groundbait with added hemp/wheat particles and catapulted maggots over the day and both brought into play at intervals.

I started off float fishing with 6lb mainline with a quick change link holding 6in of 6lb braid hooklength to size 10 hook baited with worm and maggot fished laying-on/lift-method with a sliding (as water depth here is approx 9’) 5AAA bodied antenna float shotted with 2 SSG shot at 4’ deep and a further SSG shot (sunk the float to 1mm of tip showing) with a further AAA shot tight against the quick change link and the float stopped at 6” deeper than the water’s depth. This resulted in a few of the small perch coming ashore… The bait was changed to try meat and prawns in the hope of enticing any larger fish that happened to be around from time to time but only resulted in tentative dips and lifts as the smaller fish played about with them.

Then, about noon, I decided to change tactics from laying-on to more of a fishing on the drop approach… basically, I just changed my shot pattern by removing the bottom SSG and AAA shots and replacing them with a BB, a few No 4s and a No 6 shot spaced fairly evenly down the line to the hook length, the top 2 SSG were retained and moved to about 30” from the hook in order to quickly pull the bait down the top four feet of water (remember water depth = 9’) and past the small rudd and then for the tail end to sink more slowly for the last 60” (5’) under the influence of the smaller shot… and bait was maggot and worm on a size 16 hook to 6lb braid. However, it wasn’t a great success with evading the rudd as often the float never even managed to start to settle and on hitting the water it just started ‘travelling’… and at this point it was probably 4 fish every 5 casts being caught for the next three and a half hours before I packed in despite playing with the lower shotting to increase the drop rate in the lower levels and changing baits to meat and prawn to no good effect.

I’m thinking that, as the swim has been unfishable – well, the only way to have fished that corner would have meant making a 40 yard cast across from the nearest possible position – for so long and that as bait hasn’t be going in there that the fish have temporarily moved from the area to areas with richer pickings? Oh well, won’t be the last time I fish that swim … view’s good if nothing else!! LOL.

SO… that was that … and I’ve now planned my next trip for on Friday. I had intended to go to a club tench pool but looks like that will be Monday’s destination as Liz will be fishing with me and that’s where we’ll likely head to then so now decided to head to another tench (mixed fishery really) pool of another of my clubs. The pool is the one where on my last couple of trips I’ve caught 60+ small perch with a few rudd each time but as I say it holds tench … and bream, barbel, chub, roach, rudd, crucian carp, etc … well, almost everything else with the exception of ‘king carp’ (ie common, leather and mirror) but I’ve seen a few of those in there too – possible escapees of the adjacent ‘carp&chub only’ pool that lies adjacent…. As I said, last couple of times there I had a lot of small perch by the usual floatfishing I do there … not really the best water for ledgering as its narrow (Google Earth shows as 30 yards wide) and most of it has ropes across from side to side between swims – an attempt to keep cormorants at bay as they need a lot of space in order to be able to take off and this is limited by the ropes…

So its either ledgering or stick with the float and just change the hook size and use larger/different baits possibly … might be a case of putting both into operation by either trying one then switching to the other if results are not good or floatfishing with a ‘sleeper’ ledger out if a suitable swim is selected. As the roped section is from the top of the pool as pictured down to the start of the island then I’ll possibly fish right on the bottom of the pool facing up to the island and put two rods on alarms out with one close to the island and one mid-distance – and, although they don’t show on the picture there are extensive lily pad patches all around the banks too that can be baited for switching to as necessary… AND … there’s a chub that I’ve spotted cruising round the island over the years that I’d put at over 6lb and potentially over 7lb… and I’ve seen very few people fishing at that end except on the occasional monthly match for which this is the venue twice a year… so…. :)