stevetheangler

Thursday 22nd April, I set off for a club pool (AA-H/IP) that I’ve only visited once before.

When I went out to the car at 0530 to load the items needed for the day there was a windscreen frost but by 0715 when I actually left the house to head off that had totally disappeared and the car’s external thermometer registered 3’C – but the direct radiated heat of the full sun made it feel much much warmer than that – in fact I suffered a bit later in the day as I’d put on my full thermals as the previous day had been quite a bit cooler.

So, on arrival I elected to fish a different swim to my previous visit moving 5 swims further along the pool.

I did the usual pre-baiting with balls of cereal groundbait plus particles before setting up my area and tackling up my rods … 2 rods, 8lb line, frame feeders loaded with the groundbait/particle mix and size 4 and 6 hooks.

First casts were made at 0845 with a large breadflake bait on one rod, pop-up butterscotch boilie on the other to try to lift baits over the potentially weedy bottom – but this swim seemed less weedy than the previous one although baits were lost on retrieval possibly by being ‘brushed’ off? The few bits of weed that were brought in on the hooks tended more towards sedge grasses…

Whilst awaiting first takes I decided to get the Deeper CHiRP out to do a sonar scan … which didn’t start well as first cast the CHiRP caught on some long vegetation behind me on the back cast and it sailed out onto the water unattached from the line! Luckily, the wind was in the right direction and 10 minutes later it had drifted back almost to my feet – 3’ to my left on the edge of the marginal sedges but was close enough to easily net :). Reconnected, and with the rear vegetation in mind, I then made several other cast around … and discovered a some useful info.

A video of my scans can be seen on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/YvrLwaJeIzU

As you’ll see there is no lack of fish in there! And although I knew the pool was deep there are areas far deeper than I expected – over 70’ deep in areas it seems!!

Anyway, I fished until around 1430 – and Liz says you can tell I caught the sun! – but despite changing baits from bread/pop-up to prawn/chilli sausage at 1130 and fishing out at distance and alongside the marginal sedges I had not one beep from the alarms all session. Hence the title – two trips, two blanks.

There were quite a few ‘sprat’ dimples around and at around 1330 a good sized carp (getting on for a double) cruised past my feet but wasn’t interested in the few bits of bread and boilies I fed in the area.

There was a match planned for the pool early July but I note that the fixture has now been switched to another pool. A shame really as I’d have liked to have seen how the match boys got on there and what they’d have caught. I suspect they’d have done well on the poles especially as back in the days being a day ticket venue good bags of rudd were being caught. I think the ‘rumours’ of being a deep pool have maybe put people off? I was told by one angler he’d not go there as it was too deep and he couldn’t swim BUT in fact the depth at 10m or so from the bank is less than than one of our well visited pools – the one to where that match fixture has been switched to actually. Rumours, eh!! Bet it won’t be long before old Nessie will have been spotted on holiday!! LOL!  

Anyway, I quite like the pool – quite scenic, definitely peaceful and serene – and a pool which needs to be investigated more and ’cracked’. Looking forward to a return in the near future!

PLANS:

Monday, 26th April … plan as it was announced in last posting has been revised and now intending to visit another club pool (AA-GH). Primary species in the pool are carp but also contains bream – and reputedly tench albeit I’ve never seen or heard of any being caught there in my 10 years of membership BUT until a couple of years ago I’d have said the same of perch, having never seen not heard of any being caught there, until on pulling my landing net from the water at the end of a session I found a minnow sized one in there! And then in October/November last year, whilst trying to catch some livebait, I was catching a fair few of them. So I’ll be hoping for bream and perch, with the hope of a tench, and undoubtedly a few carp.

TEMPS:

AIR:                  MIN:   9.6’C      MAX: 28.0’C (in direct sunlight)
WATER:            MIN:  12.1’C     MAX: 13.9’C

WATER TEMPS:

AIR TEMPS: