stevetheangler

With the weather as it is – warm and with little air movement – on Thursday 28th March 2019 I decided to re-visit a club pool (AA-KW) that I’d last visited in May 2018 although I seem to think I’d gone there once but due to weather conditions (which weren’t actually too bad in general) I’d left without even getting out of the car and went elsewhere. Yep, this pool on a calm and warm day is delightful BUT get a stiff cooling breeze and it becomes something else, the problem being that it is quite open with little shelter available and it can become quite bleak in the wrong conditions.

The pool has a good head of fish of multi-species, the main one’s being king carp and grass carp which both go to around 20lb in weight.

So, I arrived at the waterside at around 0730, cast out a few spombs loaded with hemp/maize/sweetcorn wheat and dead maggot towards the dam wall (Pic 1 above) and then tackled up my two ledger rods with the usual frame feeders, both with size 6 hooks on 8lb main line and cast out with bread on one rod, meat on the other.

After an hour or so of inactivity I set up the Deeper Sonar and mapped the area around my peg – and was pleased to see a fair few fish in the area of my feed. However, by 1100 I’d still not had a single twitch and changed my meat rod over to worm … and a little later a carp splashed about 6 feet out in front of me at a piece of bread that the angler next to me had been feeding to induce surface feeding, so I quickly got out my ‘surface’ rod – 11’ Winfield Specialist Angler rod with 12lb greased line and a size 4 hook – and flicked out a crust but the fish did not return and so after a while I went back to my ledgering.

So, I spent the next hour or so flicking out dog biscuits and bits of bread, perusing water looking for further signs of fish on the top and noticed that maintenance was being carried out on the nearby pylon wires with 3 cradles crawling along and seemingly the occupants giving the cables a good clout with a hammer now and then… :)

So, around 1400, with nothing having even shown the slightest of interest in my ledgered baits all day long, I noticed movement off to my right with a fish playing with bits of my floating bread freebies … and the ‘surface’ rod once again found itself in play with a large piece of crust attached and cast to the area of activity with a few extra freebie pieces added around it… Soon, a fish appeared, and for 5-10 minutes just played with my bait, nudging it a few times, moving away, returning back and repeated this several times before finally sucking it in … a firm pull to set the hook and …’FISH ON!’ …. and landed after a spirited fight – during which it seemed to have a companion following it around as several distinct tail swirls were discernible during the play – it was landed and weighed and photo’d before returning… a 6lb 10oz common carp…

I continued feeding bread and biscuit out for another half an hour or so with no further interest apparent and then I had to pack in for the day and head for home…

Plans for next week … not sure yet… Monday depends on Liz, who currently has a really bad cough and is feeling ‘lousy’ – she had a few sick days off at the end of last week followed by her usual days off (Sun, Mon, Tues) and went into work on Wednesday only to have to leave early … had an unpaid day’s leave yesterday (can’t go back on sick so soon after previous absence) … but planning to go back today – so we’ll have to see if she’ll take up her rods for that day … Thursday I have a couple of thoughts about but nothing decided yet….

WATER TEMPS:

9.5’C rising to 11.7’C over the day…