Friday, June 8th, I was again back to the mixed fishery of my last session (AA-B) but I decided to try another peg – another favourite, peg 11 – which is situated opposite an island with a bed of water lilies to the left…. arriving at around 0630…
… and I was planning to start my Catch-22 campaign….
‘Catch-22’ is an informal challenge published and promoted by the Angling Times – the idea being to catch the 22 listed species… Catches can be photographed and sent to AT for publication too… Details and joining up at https://www.anglingtimes.co.uk/catch-22/.
So, as usual, before starting to sort out the tackle and accessories, the swim was baited up with 3 orange sized balls of my groundbait mix (coloured yellow) and few small catapults of maggots and stewed hemp, corn, and wheat seeds. Two swims were baited, one over by the island’s overhanging vegetation (where the float is in the photo) and the other just in the opening in those lily pads. Over the day extra groundbait was added and every cast a few (6-10) maggots were catapulted into the swims
Tackle for the day – 13’ float rod, 6lb main line, 4” of 6lb braid hook length to a size 12 hook and a 5BB driftbeater float (set as described in my previous posting) and fished lift method. Baits over the day were maggot (bunches of 3-4), worm and prawn. Today I used cooked small prawns BUT I do find that uncooked jumbo prawn, or bits of, are noticeably far better than cooked prawns but as I was getting bites on the cooked ones I was a bit lazy on the day…
Discovery of the day was made as I tackled up – I’d left all my split shot and its dispenser at home… DAMN! Luckily, I set up, and hence pre-shot, my tackle at home so I’d a working set up but if I’d had a breakage then that could have been a problem … but even then I had some tungsten putty in my bag that I could have fashioned shotting out of, or switched to ledger tactics as I’d my ledger rod and weights with me.
So my first cast was made around 0715 – and I was immediately into my first fish of the day – and the first of my first Catch-22 list – which was a small perch. And bites were frequent over the day – virtually every cast….
And by the time I packed in at 1530 I’d four species ticked off from my Catch-22 list – mirror carp (caught 10, best 2lb 1oz), perch (16, up to around 6oz), rudd (3, 2-3oz), and a tench of 2lb 3oz. And all baits were catching.
Excitement – and annoyance – of the day came at the end of my session as I was driving back to the gate to leave the pool. The pools are within a paddock which is within a cow/bullock field and there is a gate at the entrance to keep the cows away from the pools… HOWEVER, on leaving someone had left the gate latched open and about a dozen bullocks had wandered through and were feasting on the grass on the edge of the pool just inside the gate – luckily they’d not spread about – and I was able to herd all-but-one straight back into their field within a minute – however, the other one side stepped past the gate opening and headed off round the pool … and it was only after 45 MINUTES, and after enlisting the help of another angler, that I was able to coerce the errant creature back into its proper area….
SO… if there are gates on your waters … ensure you know your rules and CLOSE THEM IMMEDIATELY YOU’VE PASSED THROUGH – and re-lock them to if they are padlocked – EACH AND EVERY TIME YOU PASS THROUGH REGARDLESS OF OTHERS BEING ON THE SITE.
OPEN – ENTER – CLOSE ….. OPEN – EXIT – CLOSE – not rocket science!!
stevetheangler 
Leave a Reply