stevetheangler

Monday, 31st March, I set off to the club’s tench and bream water (AA-B) for the first club water session of the year. To be honest I wasn’t expecting even a nudge all day long but wanted to be at the waterside on such a nice and actually warm day more than anything.

So, up at 0530, cereal and coffee (think I forgot my medications inc my insulin though in the excitement!) consumed and food bag and bait bags deposited in the car – all the rest having been already loaded up on Sunday – and I was enroute by 0615.

Surprisingly the roads seemed quite busy for that time especially around the city outskirts – more like I would have expected at 0815’ish – but travel was not impaired really, all flowing just a larger amount than I’d expected.

0715 I arrived at the Mike Day Fishery, as usual first there, although it seems a couple of others arrived during the day – one on the opposite bank on my pool and the other on the adjoining carp pool and so it was far from crowded.

The water was as expected C O L D … hence my initial low expectations … and so I set up in a swim on the west bank so that the sun rising over the far bank trees hit the pool first on my side hopefully raising the water temperature in front of me…

Given cold conditions I usually fish static large’ish baits and I kept to that regime by legering double/treble dendrobaena worms on a size 6 barbless hook … 8lb BS line … 21g bomb. Just a single rod, an 11’ Fladen Collateral feeder rod. No feeder as the pool is narrow enough to catapult feed the whole width…

Pre-fishing, the swim area was pre-fed with a couple of catapulted pouches of mixed particles and a couple of pouches of suffocated/drowsy maggots – a few extra pouches were added over the session.

First cast was made probably around 0800 … took a bit of setting up due to not having fished for over 4 months apart from the one holiday session a couple of weeks earlier and having to try to get back to the routine…

So, all was nice, calm and warm but with no action for the first few hours, and then a few bobs of the bobbin followed by a slow rise saw me strike and make a hooking… minutes later my first fish of 2025 was in the net, landed, weighed and released …. a tench of 3lb 5oz…

Continuing fishing again, a quiet spell with the odd single bleep of the alarm ensued for a few hours before another slow bobbin lift led to the landing of a second tench – one of 2lb 10oz.

Following that I fished on for a further hour and decided the heat was getting a bit too much for me and it was time to pack up and head home to unload, shower and pop out for a cheese and onion cob and a beer with Liz :)

PLANS

Well I had intended to get sorted out for a trip out on Thursday (3rd) but today had shopping to do, doctors appointments to make so lost a day plus decided I’ve too many jobs I need to attend to around the house and need to make a start on those … also I had a message from eBay to say a new (used) rod quiver I’ve ordered should arrive in the morning.. anyway, gives me a more leisurely approach to the tackle/bait sorting. So probably out next Monday now :)