Monday 19th Liz and I set off at the usual time for one of my club’s tench and bream waters (AA-B). A beautiful morning was evidenced by another angler in the inn the process of unlocking the padlocked gate in front of us on arrival around 0800! Usually there’s a good hour between our arrival and that of the next – if there is indeed a next… However, aforesaid gentleman did actually set himself up on the carp pool that is situated only 10 yards from our tench/bream pool and so we had a full choice of the 26 pegs that our pool holds – but we headed to the usual two pegs we’ve been fishing the past few visits. It seemed that the carp weren’t co-operating though as later he came on to the T&B pool – and had one tench that we saw.
Mid- afternoon another chap arrived and set up on the carp pool and just before we packed in another 2 anglers set up on our pool … and the club president arrived just after them and set up on the carp pool.
On Sunday I know one chap had 11 carp up to 11lb 5oz from the carp pool … but that pool has not really grabbed me. Notr a fan of carp, I’ve only fished it properly once and that was 10 years when I first joined the club and thought, mistakenly, that the T&B pool was closed for a work party day the following day. The only other times I’ve fished it are for an hour or so following a day on the T&B before heading home for the day – and then I was trying to entice the pool’s other official species, the chub. However, its been a long time since I’ve heard of a chub being caught in there but then again I don’t suppose the ‘carpers’ would deem them worthy – and too many carp to make chub fishing worthwhile. There are small roach/rudd, tiny bream and perch in there too but they are illegal immigrants which, I think, have passed through the grid over the connecting pipeline between the pools as fry.
The T&B pool is fed water via a pipe from a small passing brook at one end … at the other end a pipe, with grid to try to prevent exchange of fish twixt the pools, overflows into the carp pool and thus keeps that topped up … and, at the opposite side of the carp pool to the incoming pipe, the water overflows back into the brook. All very eco!! LOL
So, on to the day itself…
I decided initially to fish on-the-drop as I’d indicated I would in the ‘PLANS’ section of my previous posting – but as I anticipated that didn’t last long… 0915 I made my first cast on-the-drop and 0945 I changed to over my usual lift-method style. I didn’t seem to be having any attention whatsoever during the ‘drop’ period and all indications of interest were after the bait had been settled for several minutes… Liz started off using the lift-method.
Anyway, our swims were fed with a few small balls of cereal groundbait laced with hemp, turmeric rice, red/yellow maize, dead maggots and micropellets previous to tackling up – and additions of the same and catapulted dead maggots were made throughout the session.. and initially we both fished with maggot on size 16 hooks to 6lb main line.
As I took my rod out of my quiver the butt ring accidentally (well, wouldn’t do it on purpose!) looped itself over the stub of a trimmed off twig on the tree I’d leant my quiver against – and the ring’s lining came adrift. A bit of a sinking stomach time when I saw the damage … but I did manage to press the lining back into the ring firmly enough for it to hold out the day and this morning I’ve managed to glue it firmly back into place :)
At 0950 I had my first proper bite of the day and landed a tench of 4lb exactly… followed by Liz landing another tench, this time of 3lb 8oz…
A quiet spell then ensued and I decided to ring some slight changes and changed my hook to a size 12 baited with worm which didn’t even seem to attract any attention whatsoever … and the worm was switched to bread flake with the idea that it would ‘sit up and waft’ to attract attention … which it seemed to although waryingly (another late addition to the OED and now added to my local ‘Word’ dictionary LOL).
Around 1345 I did have a good take and struck into thin air … literally! In fact, as my float was lying flat on the water my first thought was that I’d left my reel’s bale arm open … but I hadn’t … and, in fact, on retrieval of the line it had snapped between the stop knots for some strange reason … as I say I never felt a milligram of resistance on the strike. Can only put it down to a line fault really, I did think that it could possibly have happened due to the broken butt ring but due to the location that would have been impossible.
[I always put two stop knots on my line with a sliding float – the usual one above the float that sets the depth to fish at plus another between the top shot and the float which allows a space between the float and the shot when casting, just seems to me to prevent line wrapping back on the cast. Actually, I often put 3 stop knots on … and place two above the float, the lower one of which is used to set the float’s fishing depth and the other is used as a marker to set the max depth I’d need/want, the actual ‘working’ knot can then be slid down to shallower depth for a while if searching a shallower area in your swim but is able to be quickly returned to the full depth by just sliding back up to the ‘reference’.]
So, I re-tackled – using an identical float as the original was last seen drifting down the pool, and although a few times it seemed to start to deviate towards one of the side banks, when checked again it had returned to its central line … so presume it ended somewhere in the overhanging branches of the bushes on the facing side of the pool’s island. However, I had nothing beyond that point bar small floats nudges that seemed more line wafts from tail fins…
However, Liz was able to win the ‘most fish’ and ‘most species awards’ of the day when, at 1515, she caught a barbel of around 8oz – but I retained the awards for ‘first fish’ and ‘biggest fish’ :D
1530 was time to pack in and head for celebration beers at the local – and one of my favourite beers (Titanic Plum Porter) was on tap but alas there were no scratchings to be had … albeit the cheese and onion cobs that were available did hit the right spot!
PLANS:
Thursday, 22nd April I’ve planned a second trip to the ‘deep’ pool (AA-H/IP). I’ve some special baits ready to try along with the usual and I’m intending to fish further along the pool into deeper water than I did on the first visit.
Monday, 26th April I’m intending to return to the tench and bream pool (AA-B) but to another favourite swim. Liz has indicated she won’t be fishing as she wants to catch up on jobs.
TEMPS:
AIR: MIN: 13.1’C MAX: 27.2’C (in direct sunlight)
WATER: MIN: 8.0’C MAX: 10.4’C
WATER TEMPS:
AIR TEMPS:
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