stevetheangler

The blog of a chug-a-long angler enjoying his life at the water side…

Session 18 – A Small Water…..

Thursday, May 11th, and I set off at 0615 for another club water (KF-WL1) – this being the smaller of two pools on the same site intending to do a spot float fishing.

The pool contains many species of fish – carp, roach, rudd, ide, tench, perch, etc – and is an ideal venue for float fishing with the water depth at around 6’ where I was sat. However, it is prone to water weed growth (pomatogens) as the water warms up and does reach a point that it becomes unfishable due to total weed cover … and it appeared that this was due to happen as the weed could be seen in large patches – and seemed to be growing in front of my eyes as the day wore on – but that could, and probably was, due to the changing depth and angle of light.

Due to this weed I had a bit of difficulty setting the float originally (had intended to fish ‘lift method’) – it seemed to be doing strange things but why became clear when the light allowed me to see the weed – some clear areas, some well weeded up to 18” or more off the bottom and so the bottom weight wasn’t reaching bottom in those places … anyway, I soon discerned that an area about 15’ from bank outwards and about 6’ wide directly in front of me was relatively clear and so I fished and baited this area without problem once the situation was known.

Tackle was my 13’ Hardy ‘Matchmaker’ clone rod, fished with 6lb main line, 6” 6lb braid hook length to size 16 hook and a bodied antenna loaded waggler (load + 1 AAA + 3 x No 1 shot) set to full depth but fished on-the-drop style with the shotting staggered shirt button style down the line.

Bait was 2 or 3 maggots. I tried a small piece of meat several times too but with no takes.

Catch: 50+ of mixed perch (to 7oz) and rudd (to 6oz) plus 5 tench all being around the 6oz mark and tip-top condition.

Also at the start of the day a common carp of 5lb+, possibly 7lb, was hooked and played for a short period but, unfortunately, when extra pressure was needed to be applied to try to prevent the fish gaining sanctuary under overhanging bushes the hook pulled free….

There was a very cool and lively breeze over most of the day and I left for home at around 1445.

Next trip out on Monday 14th – to a club pool I’ve only fished once before – in 2016 or possibly even 2015… nice pool though. And then Tuesday to my other club’s mixed but non-carp (although reported that they’re planning on adding them) pool.

manwithrod

6 responses to “Session 18 – A Small Water…..”

  1. manwithrod avatar
    manwithrod

    Only just come across this – seems my ’email rules’ are misbehaving and putting the posts in the wrong folder! Sorting now! :)

    No problems! :)

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  2. sidestreambob avatar
    sidestreambob

    Well thanks Steve this has given me some reading over my afternoon cup of tea and saved me two quid or whatever an Anglers Mail is nowadays.
    On balance a good three days then? Unless you are an out and out big carp man, I’d say that was a nice run of singles.
    Are any of these venues near enough to your home for you to knock off and go home for the afternoon and rock back up in the evening? Given unlimited time I’d favour that approach, but I wonder if concentration is an issue with me!
    Down south the weather is up and down – hope it settles for the final legs of your epic.

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    1. manwithrod avatar
      manwithrod

      Well, my week has been enjoyable so far :)
      I’m not a ‘carper’ – I rarely set out to target carp but due to most waters having them these days its usually a fact of life that you’ll catch them whatever you do. I much prefer the ‘more natural species’ eg bream, perch, tench, etc even crucian carp – and much against what I’ve just said – I love grass carp. But ‘king’ carp are pretty way down on my list (bottom) of desireable species most of the time.

      The problem with arrive-go-return for me is too much hassle having to set up, pack down, leave, return, set up and pack down even if I lived at the water’s edge. And most waters are a 30-60 mins each way trip. And, in fact, if I’m not going to be on the water for at least 6 hours then I regard it not worth the bother sorting baits, etc – the only exception to that is if I go lure fishing when after three hours my legs and back are ‘done in’ even with a coffee break or two.

      Weather here ‘OK’ which is being viewed with rose coloured glasses if anything – when calm and the sun out its as it should be but when the breezes pick up – and generally from N, NE, E – they are very cool indeed. The last trip I was wishing I’d taken my mitts and had to sit on my hands as they were going numb!

      Anyway, today is sorting stuff for tomorrow – basically just bait/feed as same actual tackle will be in use as per the last 3 trips – I carry 2 ledger rods, 1 float rod, 1 floater (bread/dog biscuit) rod, and a heavy spinning rod which is used multi-purpose – spomb, underwater cameras, sonar sounder – and even for spinning for pike in winter!

      Changed tomorrow’s plans too – off floatfishing for tench to another local water than having a longer trip out to one of my lesser fished waters as I’d intended to do – and then next day will be a carp session for a change but bream in the pool too so hopefully a few of those will show up too…

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      1. sidestreambob avatar
        sidestreambob

        I’m quite interested in the 6 hour session. My attention does wander after 3-4 hours, but am I missing out on reaping the benefits of my ground baiting, or am I just avoiding the slow hottest part of the day? So does your catch rate increase or decrease in the second half of your longer sessions? I guess we are in to fishing’s equivalent of a marathon runner’s negative splits …

        Clive

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        1. manwithrod avatar
          manwithrod

          Hi, Clive!
          In reference to your comments on the 6 hour fishing sessions. Firstly that applies to winter fishing in the main for me (something like 8am-2pm EXCEPT when lure fishing when the walking and the constant cast/retrieve gets to my back and hips and I can only manage 3 hour spells at a time on a good day, which includes coffee breaks).

          Summer fishing trips can often be 8 to 12 hour ones! Especially ones on the Warks Avon where driving to and from the venue involves a lengthy trip on the M5 – and going post-7am or returning pre-7pm usually involves sitting or travelling at 30mph in queues for long periods.

          Usually I aim to have the rods out by 7am – except when fishing with Liz when I can’t get her out the house before 7am usually LOL – and usually fish until 4pm-5pm sometimes later if the fish are ‘having it’ :).

          The ratio of prep/travel to actual fishing for me is much to high on shorter spells – no sooner there than time to come home again! Comparable to the thought of doing day trips to Australia to me in effect! :) But then again my usual method of fishing is to fish the one swim all day even on rivers. Many others will fish up to 6 or 7 swims, even more sometimes, in a 3 hour session moving every 20 mins or so if there are no bites trying to locate fish… but I go the opposite route and try to draw the fish to me.

          Regarding catching – and this applies on 95% of my trips regardless of species I’d say – I generally catch well from the start of the day (say 7am) until around 11am when there tends to be a 2 hour lull when bites slow or even stop altogether – and then between 1pm-2pm the action starts up again and becomes as eventful as at the start… and generally remains so until the end of the session.

          As for pre-feeding this depends on how I’m going to fish – and I mainly fish stillwaters, the only river I tend to fish is the Warks Avon with possibly 2-3 sessions on the Severn per year albeit the Severn being a lot closer than the Avon. If ledgering then I usually spomb/spod out most of my feed (crumb, particles, etc) at the start of the day and then fish 1 rod inside the baited area and another rod on the periphery. I may rarely catapult, or spomb depending on distance, extra small quantities of particle/maggots to top up. If float fishing, I generally put out 2-3 cricket sized balls of crumb/particles/maggots into each area I think may be of interest in front of me at the start of the day and then every cast I catapult a small quantity of particles/maggots into the currently fished area with top-ups to the others every now and then and also possibly small (golf ball) groundbait balls if bites start to dry up. Of course, this is all ‘general’ and quantities and intervals, etc can differ to suit different situations and conditions but these are the starting points from which variations are made to suit.

          Regards…

          Steve

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          1. sidestreambob avatar
            sidestreambob

            I’m not ignoring you Mr. MwR, but it may take me a while to marshal all my thoughts (you’ve given me a lot to think about) – meantime good luck bankside.

            Clive

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