stevetheangler

May 8th to May 15th Liz and I partook of our nominal ‘Easter’ week’s vacation (ooh! All American now am I?). Usually we would have been camping in the big tent (an Outwell Drummond 7 – a 7-man tent which allows the two of us a comfortable week’s camping with most mod-cons) for this break but in the aftermath of the pandemic and the rise in staycationing the cost of camping has risen such that a week under canvas is not far less than the cost of a caravan park stay especially when ‘early bird’ and other deals are made use of… and, of course, a caravan/lodge doesn’t need an hour or more to ‘put up’/’take down’ at each end of the stay … and this year with the far cooler than usual temperatures a ‘van’s gas fire is not such much a luxury as a requirement.

So, Monday 8th May, with Mollie the puss safely deposited in her holiday home for the week, we set off heading for the Haven camp at Burnham-on-Sea where we had had a week’s stay back in October 2022 – and enjoyed it so much then that whilst there, and actually on the banks of one of the fishing pools there at the time, we booked up for this current break.

The journey down was good and free flowing. Mainly on the M5 about three hours including a stop for coffee at the Michaelwood Services and, having left home at 1330 we arrived at the site bang in the middle of our allotted check-in time of 1600-1700 to be met at the barrier with our arrival package of key, site map and information sheets. From there it was a quick drive down to our previously allotted abode which was in a good place, not far from our October one albeit this time there was no surprise complementary upgrade this time … last time we found we’d been upgraded to a larger private van with 50″ TV and dishwasher. But all good anyway – bar the bed that is, not too bad but the mattress was too soft really for both of us and the home bed was a much desired object after the first few nights.

The site has two pools or rather had two pools at one time … a narrow and short connecting bridged channel now connects them albeit there is a screen/grid across the channel to stop fish moving between the pools … so it still works as two pools to all intents and purposes. In a YouTube video that someone has made the chap refers to the pools as ‘specimen’ and ‘match’ although the park people say that they both are similarly stocked. The stock are mainly carp (as usual these days) with bream, tench, silvers and eels listed on the bank side notice boards – the carp go into the mid-20’s.

Anyway … it had been my intention to have a fishing session early on Tuesday morning (9th) but Monday had been very wet, rain all trip down and the forecast was for more rain and so I cancelled the plan – however as it happened it was not too bad a day after all… Wednesday (10th) was forecast good and so I prepped myself for a few hours fishing early morning (0600-1130) followed by breakfast back at the van and an afternoon out. So, 0600 I set off for the pools and on arrival there was one other angler already there on the ‘match’ pool but due to a map reading error I’d ended up going down the wrong path and ended up on the ‘specimen’ lake … but not to worry.. :) So, headed to a swim I’d not fished before but had seen in a ramble around the pools in October – Peg 17 – a quiet corner which allowed casting close to the tree covered end bank that had no pegs along it and thus no problem with crossing lines with other anglers and little disturbance – and also the light breeze was blowing into this corner…..

As it was to be a short session I set up just one leger rod with 8lb mainline and 8lb braid hooklink with size 6 barbless hook and a frame feeder. The feeder was loaded with cereal laced with dead maggot, hemp, wheat, barley, etc and hook baits used were blackcurrant jelly bread, sweetcorn and worm. End result – a total blank, not one touch.

Next outing was with Liz on Friday 12th … this time fishing the ‘match’ lake’s peg 29 which allowed both to fish the same peg…

… a bit of a dodgy peg as the anti-slip chicken wire covering of the staging had seen better days and was rusting and breaking up leading usually to the line catching if the rod was laid down and untangling required and also caused a slight stumble when a raised piece snagged my boot … but there was also a nice point, for most of the day we had the company of a heron literally within 10′ of us… our peg was on one side of the inter-pool channel and Henry Heron was stood on the other side most of the time with occasional forays under the bridge where he was catching fry quite well…

We fished from around 0830-1600 – and both blanked again – with myself having the only decent bite which I missed due to messing in my bag as I recall…

This time I had fished two rods, same setup and baits as the Wednesday session and Liz fished one rod, legering with frame feeder and using maggot and sweetcorn hookbaits.

So, back home now, I’m planning a visit to the club tench and bream pool on Thursday 18th … but next week I won’t be able to fish on my usual Monday or Tuesday again due to a boiler service due on Monday and a colonoscopy on the Tuesday but hopefully be back out on the Thursday…

Today … a battle with the lawns that have seemingly turned into wildlife sanctuaries whilst we’ve been away … needed cutting admittedly before we left but rain prevented play … and also boosted growth too it seems!!