stevetheangler

Friday, August 4th, and I head to the pool as said in the previous posting leaving the house at 0550 and arriving at the day’s intended swim – not actually the one I’d said in the posting as I’d had a reconsider –

– at just before 0630 after a long walk of about 5 feet from the car’s boot… :D

The swim I had originally decided upon would have been the one above the patch of lilies you can see across the water underneath the car boot which would have been facing down the pool towards the end of the island but I changed my mind as from the newly chosen position it gave me access to the same water as if I’d fished from the originally planned spot and also to the side/edge of the island directly in front of me ie 2 separate areas.

So, after baiting up both those areas plus another area out to the right towards the near corner between the bush and lilies with crumb/particle/dead maggot/small meat cubes/maize, I set up my two ledger rods, on alarms, and cast out into the two island locations. The end-of-island rod was set up with a size 6 hook with luncheon meat as bait, the other rod with a size 12 hook baited with worm and maggot was cast to the side/edge swim. HOWEVER, I had intended to fish with prawn on the second rod originally BUT discovered that the prawns, and my sweetcorn, were still in the freezer at home… hence the smaller bait than originally intended…

And so, first fish was landed at around 0730 – a small perch on the worm/maggot rod. A few other small perch also came along … and then the ‘promising’ fish … not big, perhaps 2-3oz, but definitely a bit of an eye-opener … a crucian carp…

NOW … why the surprise? Well, four years ago they were a regular catch and larger too – usually well over 8oz and up to around the 1lb 8oz area – but its got to have been 3 years since I caught one, or heard of anyone catching one there and others have asked about them… and I don’t think this is a recent ‘stockee’ as the club tends to stock with larger fish so I suspect that this may be a product of in-pool breeding which would indicate a breeding population? So fingers crossed that this is correct …. but even if stocked an appreciable number will have been added so that possibly the species will appear in catches more often so good news any which way… Just need to find out what’s happened to the bream/chub/tench now!! But they ARE being caught by others – think I’m just in the wrong area at the moment but the area has been very good in previous years…

I stayed with the ledger rods until 1130, catching a few more small perch on the worm/maggot rod, but had not had a touch on the meat/maize rod (meat was switched to maize at about 1000), and then packed in those rods and set up my float rod in an if-you-can’t-beat-them-then-join-them rest of the day and I caught a fair few more small perch and possibly had a hook pull on a larger fish although that could have been a perch finding a safe haven or snagging a twig and shaking the hook … biggest fish probably just over 4oz and as I said a fair number were caught although not counted and I estimate probably 30’ish… and I packed in for the day at 1530 as I needed to get home to collect Liz from work earlier than usual… however, it took me some time to escape from the ‘pool’ and then some time in ‘recovery’ when I got home but managed to get to Liz on time…

AS REPORTED ON A CLUB’S FACEBOOK PAGE:

Coming off the pool you pass out of a latched gate into a cow field and go 40 yards up track in the field to a padlocked gate… well, I say ‘cow field’ but ‘bullock field’ really – and all 15 bullocks were leaning on, or standing and lying in front of, the gate – and really didn’t want to move (and also seemed to be suffering loose bowels and endless pee’ing). Waving arms and pushing them only got them to move as little as possible and even then they sidled back at the earliest opportunity – even beeping the horn had almost zero effect and, in fact, just made them more interested in licking the car! In the end I just drove slowly at them and literally had to physically push a few out of the way … and then ended with the car against the gate which wasn’t at all useful as the gate opened inwards … so had to reverse to get enough space to open the gate, then unbolt and unpadlock the gate whilst keeping bullocks from re-entering the space, open the gate, chase bullocks heading towards open gate, run to car, race it through the gate, leap out of car and run round to chase bullocks back from gate so I could close it…..

Got home, boots all covered in loose bull motions and urine as were bottom of trousers – and the car mats too – all stinking to high heaven … had to clean mats/trousers/boots during which scrubbing brush spray covered my top and all clothing had to go in the washer…. car upholstery got ‘Febrezed’, car itself ‘Oust’ed…