Tuesday, May 22nd, I set off at 0600 for a return visit to the club pool (AA-B) that I visited last Monday (14th May) to see if, in fact, the warmer weather had kick started the tench and other species into action.

The pool looked glorious on arrival at 0630…

… and I was surprised to find that two others were already there and fishing … on the pole… on pegs 5 (where I fished last week) and peg 7. And another arrived about half an hour later and elected to fish peg 4…. but apart from another two people who arrived early afternoon, just walked along the bank and then left again, that was the full complement of people I saw.

Peg 7 man moved around 1100 over to the carp pool alongside this pool. Due to this move I assume he wasn’t catching but as he was hidden from my view by trees I can’t be certain about that. Peg 5 man was catching well it seemed – nothing mega and not sure of the species as he was unhooking the larger fish whilst still inside the landing net and then releasing directly but it looked like all perch and carp from my position, possibly small roach/rudd too – and he left around 1130. Peg 4 man I didn’t see catch anything and he moved to the carp pool around midday where he remained, and still was when I left for home at 1530.

As for myself … I elected to fish peg 25 (an old favourite that I’d not fished for a season or so). This is on the east bank and the bank has tall trees behind the pegs as well as lining the pool – thus this side of the pool remains in shade until mid/late afternoon and, as seen in the photo, this peg also features a patch of lilies off to the right hand side.

As usual the first thing I did on arrival was to prefeed the swim so that it would allow the water to settle and be working to attract whilst I was setting up my gear and arranging my area. This feed consisted of about 0.5Kg of liquidised bread, coloured yellow, with hemp, maggot, wheat, maize and small feed pellets added and was placed at the outer corner of the lilies (basically where the rod is pointing in the photo)….

Method for the day was float fishing using the ‘lift method’ …. basically, a bodied antenna float is set slightly (6” or so overdepth – varies slightly depending on the actual depth of water) and overshotted slightly so that if the float is set underdepth it will be completely pulled under by the shotting. The shotting is arranged so that the bulk shot matches the body of the float (ie the float stands upright with the antenna completely out of the water) and the bulk placed anywhere on the line between the float itself and half the water depth. Finally the ‘working’ shot is added about 4”-6” from the hook – this is the shot (one shot is best but often you’ll find that you may need 2 or more shot tight against each other) that is applied to make the antenna completely submerge if the depth of the float is set too shallow and ideally needs to be ‘just sufficient’ – you do need to allow for the tow of the water when doing this as it can make quite a difference to the weighting needed – a very static water may let you use 1BB but the same water in a breeze could  possibly require 2SSG in some cases, a case of experimenting and changing until you get it right. So, in action, say the water is 4’ deep, you’d set the depth between the ‘working’ shot and the float to be around 4’6” – cast out and then place your rod in 2 rod rests (needs to be held still, can’t do that by holding in the hand) – at his point, with slack line from the rod tip to the float the antenna will be standing fully proud of the water – you then slowly tighten the line – and as the line tightens then the float will sink lower into the water – tighten until the float is as you would like it in respect of amount of tip showing. Now, you get a bite… one of two things will happen … (1) as the fish takes the bait it may lift the ‘working’ shot off the bottom and thus take weighting off the float – and the float rises in the water (hence ‘lift method’) and you should strike if possible while the float is rising or (2) if the fish swims away from you then the float will disappear under the water as per usual …. of course, you may find the float rises and then dives under as the fish lifts the bait and then swims away… Anyway, YouTube (eg YOUTUBE VIDEO contains a good explanation towards the end using a drift/windbeater type float) and Google are good sources for further info, just search for ‘lift method’ – or ‘laying on’ of which ‘lift method’ is a form of.

My float was a light loaded bodied antenna of which the float’s own loading dealt with the ‘bulk shotting’ aspect and a 1SSG shot along with an AAA shot supplied the ‘working’ shot. The water depth on this particular pool is around 4’ all over so by the time I’d made adjustments to ‘fine tune’ my set up I had the float set at around 4’6”.

Line was 6lb mono, and I used hooks to 6” hooklengths of 6lb braid – starting the day off with size 16 baited with 2-3 maggots, but then varied over the day and I used size 12 (worm and bunches of maggots) and size 8 (luncheon meat, bread and prawn).

Over the day I loose fed (catapulted) a few maggots every few minutes and added small balls (golf ball) of the liquidised bread (red coloured) with a few particles added.

Bites were made on all baits except the bread – but by the time I tried bread the bites had dried up appreciably on the other baits anyway… and the best bait of the day was definitely worm (most bites, least time between cast and bite)…

Bites were frequent from the start of the session until around 1130 when they died down – then a bit of a flurry for 15 minutes around 1330 – and then spurious between until I packed in at 1530.

In the end I caught probably 12-15 small perch to around 3oz plus 1 common carp (ca 1.75lb) and 2 mirror carp (ca 1.75lb and 1.25lb) – and had a few hook pulls and a snap-off but don’t think anything lost was much bigger than anything landed.

SO… I didn’t get any of the tench, bream or barbel I was hoping for but we’ll see how the pool fishes over the next few weeks – as I’ve said before its generally a late ‘awakener’ and with the earlier cold weather through Easter, etc it may be that its ‘delayed’ a bit. AND, if you’re not  going to catch, then its just a nice quiet and scenic place to be anyway …

Common Carp

Mirror Carp

Friday, May 18^th, in ANOTHER change of plans I headed out to a different pool (AA-GH) to the one had had planned to return to…. however, the ‘return’ is now planned, and WILL REMAIN as the destination, on Monday 21^st.

[Well, due to ‘places to be and people to see’, ANOTHER change of plans has had to occur regarding the outing planned for Monday 21st May. Monday, Liz and I have some shopping to do, arrangements for holiday pet care to make and a couple of other things to sort too. One of those involves a visit to the local market which is only open on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays – and Liz’s days off work are Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays and thus the only matching days between the two lists are Mondays. Hence, the day for the planned trip to the pool has now changed to TUESDAY 22nd MAY but the destination remains the same]

The pool actually visited this trip holds predominantly carp but does have numbers of bream, chub, pike, roach and rudd, plus the occasional perch and I’ve heard tench too although in 5-6 years of being in the club and fishing this pool I’ve never heard of, let alone seen a tench caught. BUT a couple of years ago I remarked to Liz that I’d never seen perch on this water even when on a 3 hour underwater video I’d made which captured roach/rudd, chub, bream and pike all swimming around – and as usual when you say things like this the inevitable happens and, in that case, the next trip I had to this water I’d stood my landing net up in the water after landing a fish and at the end of the day, when I lifted it out to dry it out, lo and behold, in the bottom was a minnow sized perch! And subsequently mentioning this to someone else I was told of a 3lb’er that had been caught a few times … so it appears they are there but not in great number … and could also be true of the tench, I suppose.

So arriving at 0630 I’d planned my tactics for the day … fishing for bream … set up the float rod for lift method/laying on in 12’ of water from peg 5 … cast out to ascertain a suitable casting distance for the day … spomb out 1Kg of liquidised bread coloured ‘electric green’ loaded with hemp, wheat, maize and maggot … and then fish 2-3 maggots on a size 16 hook to 6lb main line – and the plan was carried out to the letter.

I quickly had my first fish of the day – a small skimmer bream of a few ounces…

However, although I was getting lifts and dives of the float I was unable to hook anything else for a while – one of the problems of fishing a sliding float in 12’ of water, the angle of the line at the float meaning that a long strike is necessary to straighten the line from rod tip to hook in order to get enough force to the hook point to penetrate. Obviously I may have been better to have ledgered – thus removing any major angles and resulting in better contact – but I WANTED to float fish and I was quite happy with what I was doing. Eventually I did have another skimmer bream of similar size to the first.

I did make some changes over the day though – I changed hook size up to a 12, and increased bait size and type to try to lure any bigger fish that may have been around and tried bread, prawn, BS paste and meat, as well as bigger bunches of maggots and various ‘cocktail’ combinations of baits. The paste didn’t work at all – temperatures were too hot and fell off the hook on the cast!

Later in the day I had a 2lb’ish common carp – and a worse bedraggled specimen I’ve yet to see with ragged fins, missing scales and a ‘parrot mouth’… needless to say I didn’t weigh or photograph it.

A few large fish were cruising on top and I did try throwing out crust and fishing a floating bread bait but they didn’t seem to want it – at best they came and nudged and tail flapped at it – however, a guy came and fished the next peg to me fishing floaters at range with a marker float and had several good carp including a very nice mid-double common….

And in may last hour I noticed a few large tail swirls just in front of me about 3’-4’ out so I fed in some loose maggots which brought more swirls – so hoping to emulate Liz’s ‘Sherman’ (18lb 1oz carp) that she caught in similar style a few years ago I set my float with all the shotting just below the float and the depth to about 4’ (just over depth at the pool’s edge) and continued at flick in a few maggots from time to time … and I caught probably 10 small (1oz-3oz) roach before tackling down for the day.

OK – now you’re wondering what’s all this to do with the title of this posting?? Well……. besides about 6 other anglers on the water, there were also 5 fishers … a kingfisher, a heron and 3 common terns (I thought originally there was 1 tern having a good day but later saw 3 of them so possibly….) And those fishers were doing reasonably well – I saw the heron with one fish, the kingfisher managed to get two, but the tern(s) had 5… I tried to photo the terns but IMPOSSIBLE!! So far that I needed the camera at its full 40x to get a decent sized pic – as I did the kingfisher but the kingfisher was sitting and the terns were tearing around at a rate of knots LOL so impossible to get in the screen long enough to fire the shutter!

Monday, May 14^th, and I set off at 0545 …. but not for the pool I’d originally intended as I decided to go closer to home to a mixed pool (AA-B) – in fact to the pool I’d intended for Tuesday’s outing. And then on my return home, it having been a hot and very sunny day which had ‘done me in’ I decided that an early rise the next day, fishing, and then having to drive to the airport to collect Liz at 0200 wasn’t the safest thing to do given how tired I was likely to be… so I cancelled thoughts completely for that second planned trip out. And hence I’m now writing the blog for Monday instead!

Anyway, as said previously it was a beautiful day – bright sunshine and calm and the pool looked far better than my previous trip there when, after a long bout of rainy days, it looked like chocolate soup – now a lot clearer with just the right amount of colour.

I had intended to fish the far bank but decided, based on the previous few outings, that although sunny and bright it may still be a little chilly in the shade especially if a breeze picked up. WRONG!! Blazingly hot all day… but I may return on Friday and fish that swim… As it was, I mainly fished just off a nearside swim with a patch of lily pads out to my left, pre-feeding the swim per usual with crumb, hemp, wheat, 2mm pellets and dead maggots and fed with a few maggots every cast but I also had a ‘switch’ swim out to my right that I occasionally switched across to.

I float fished, initially ‘on the drop’ with the float set to fish the bait at full depth once it had settled but later I switched to the ‘lift method’ ……

Bait throughout the day, all but for an hour in fact, was mainly 2-3 maggots on a size 16 barbless hook – and the hour was spent using a yellow flavoured (BS) paste for 30 mins (with no interest shown in it at all) and bacon grill for 30 mins (small nudges but when wound in after 30 mins there were no ‘nibbles’ evident on the bait at all.

From the first cast, I had bites virtually every cast on maggot – and I was landing perch in the 3oz-6oz bracket – and had 40+ over the day with only 5-6 under the 3oz mark. Not huge but certainly bigger than the average ‘smallies’ used to be – a good sign. I switched over to the paste/meat to see if I could entice anything bigger – the pool holds good sized tench (normal and golden), bream, barbel, chub, crucian carp, etc but I it seemed only perch were around – or at least interested in feeding. The pool is very moody at times and can be a ‘warm weather pool’ with little caught in colder periods…

Anyway, around midday, the club secretary arrived on the site with a number of fish for stocking into the pools – there are two pools on this site, the pool I was fishing which ‘was’ a non-carp mixed fishery and alongside is a ‘carp and chub only’ pool. I say ‘was non-carp’ about the pool I was fishing but we have had a lot of trouble with cormorants decimating the pool (despite ropes across to make landing/takeoff harder for them) and the EA advised that we add ‘cormorant resistant carp’ meaning carp of around 3lb so now the pool will no longer be carp free… however, there have always been a few carp in the mixed pool and a few non-carp in the carp pool probably due to the fry from each pool passing through the pipe and filter grids that connect the two pools … In essence the non-carp pool water is fed by a pipe from a brook that passes by, at the other end of the pool another pipe connects across into the carp pool and at the far side of the carp pool the water flows back out into the original brook. Also there are overflow pipes set just above the desired water levels so water goes straight back to the brook in case the pipe between the pools gets impeded. Anyway, the fish being stocked were ghost carp, all mirrors, of 2lb-3lb – and absolutely gorgeous looking! About 20 or so were released into the carp pool and the secretary said that the greater bulk had already been put in the non-carp pool before he spotted me to show them to me…

And …. after returning back from the release into the carp to my spot to continue my fishing … first cast, maggot, I had a nice tench of 3lb 12oz…

3lb 12oz Tench

… and shortly later a rudd of about 4oz came to hand just to add another species…

And there the tale ends – but with a bit of a sad ending – got into a tangle, spent 10-15 minutes trying to unravel it before succumbing and cutting the tangle out and re-tackling up – only to immediately get in a knot again… at which point, and time was getting too close to re-start tackling, I decided to pack up and sort out the mess at home – which I did – and already for the next outing now – which will probably be a return to this pool on Friday 18th…

Thursday, May 11^th, and I set off at 0615 for another club water (KF-WL1) – this being the smaller of two pools on the same site intending to do a spot float fishing.

The pool contains many species of fish – carp, roach, rudd, ide, tench, perch, etc – and is an ideal venue for float fishing with the water depth at around 6’ where I was sat. However, it is prone to water weed growth (pomatogens) as the water warms up and does reach a point that it becomes unfishable due to total weed cover … and it appeared that this was due to happen as the weed could be seen in large patches – and seemed to be growing in front of my eyes as the day wore on – but that could, and probably was, due to the changing depth and angle of light.

Due to this weed I had a bit of difficulty setting the float originally (had intended to fish ‘lift method’) – it seemed to be doing strange things but why became clear when the light allowed me to see the weed – some clear areas, some well weeded up to 18” or more off the bottom and so the bottom weight wasn’t reaching bottom in those places … anyway, I soon discerned that an area about 15’ from bank outwards and about 6’ wide directly in front of me was relatively clear and so I fished and baited this area without problem once the situation was known.

Tackle was my 13’ Hardy ‘Matchmaker’ clone rod, fished with 6lb main line, 6” 6lb braid hook length to size 16 hook and a bodied antenna loaded waggler (load + 1 AAA + 3 x No 1 shot) set to full depth but fished on-the-drop style with the shotting staggered shirt button style down the line.

Bait was 2 or 3 maggots. I tried a small piece of meat several times too but with no takes.

Catch: 50+ of mixed perch (to 7oz) and rudd (to 6oz) plus 5 tench all being around the 6oz mark and tip-top condition.

Also at the start of the day a common carp of 5lb+, possibly 7lb, was hooked and played for a short period but, unfortunately, when extra pressure was needed to be applied to try to prevent the fish gaining sanctuary under overhanging bushes the hook pulled free….

There was a very cool and lively breeze over most of the day and I left for home at around 1445.

Next trip out on Monday 14th – to a club pool I’ve only fished once before – in 2016 or possibly even 2015… nice pool though. And then Tuesday to my other club’s mixed but non-carp (although reported that they’re planning on adding them) pool.

Thursday, May 10^th, and I was on the road at 0615 heading to another club pool (AA-LA1), arriving at around 0700.

After sorting out my swim, baiting up and setting up my ‘station’ to my satisfaction I was fishing at 0800 with 2 rods out, both ledgered, 8lb line with 1/2oz leads but with one bread baited on a size 4 hook over a spomb baited area in open water (I’d replaced the broken reel on the spomb rod the previous evening) and the other with a size 14 hook baited with worm fished under a willow tree to my left which had been maggot fed (and extra added over the day).

I also catapulted out over the day a number of floating freebies to see if I could get interest in those over the day – and again the dog biscuits were taken – mostly by the Canada Geese, though – whilst not even the geese or ducks showed even the slightest interest in marshmallows – so I think the ‘marshies’ will no longer find a place in my bait bag! The few dog biscuits taken by fish were such few in number and over such a large area so as to make fishing floaters not really worthwhile and so I just stuck to the two ledger rods all day long….

Only had one piece of action on the bread rod when I had a good long slow take – but when struck it was discovered a diving coot had been enticed by my bait or had caught the line underwater as it had a foot entangled in my line. And it was quite a calm little fellow – just sat there without a flinch while I wound it in backwards but didn’t like the net – netted it three times but each time it managed to jump back out, and the third time the line freed itself and the coot just leisurely swam off up the pool as if nothing had happened and then 15 minutes swam back down. SO different to a moorhen I also ‘caught’ several years ago when that took a bait off the bottom … fought like billy-ho, 95% of it in the air while screaming obscenities (I assume it wasn’t just saying ‘Way-hay’ and singing), battled hard whilst I and another struggled to free it from the line … and then, when released, flew at the rates of knots to the far of the pool screaming continuously and continued to complain, loudly, for the next hour or more!

The worm rod saw a little more action – with 4 perch, best 11oz, with others of 10oz, 7oz and a couple of ounces captured. And a snapped handle on the reel when I stepped on it – second reel broken in two days! Luckily, it was a reel with a double paddled handle (Okuma CBF-340) so it was still perfectly usable as only one half of the handle was snapped off – and, as I had a couple of spare twin-paddled handles at home, it was replaced overnight and back in full action again.

11oz Perch

So, although it may seem a poor day – 4 small perch – to me it was a red letter day…. The pool in question is a ‘hard’ water… as although there are millions of fish – and large carp (its the club’s ‘premiere’ carp lake) it is naturally a ‘food rich’ water with myriads of daphnia and other small food items in great abundance. Basically a fish just needs to open its mouth and it intakes enough food for a week type of thing …  and what is needed is for anglers’ baits to become a part of their diet by weaning them over to it BUT … Catch 22 … as its so hard to catch there then hardly any anglers, other than carpers and large boilies are not going to wean roach, perch, etc – visit and hence suitable baits like maggots, small pellets, bread, etc are not being fed in sufficient quantity – people don’t catch because people don’t go, people don’t go as they don’t catch basically. Usually, I think of the water as 1 bite per 5 trips on average – and as most bites are from carp then more like 1 non-carp bite per 10 trips. So 4 non-carp in one session is basically like winning the lottery to me especially as anything non-carp is all the better to me!

OK …. a few preliminary comments before the actual fishing ‘report’…

Liz has gone to Cyprus for a week from Tuesday 8th … which means I’ve got unhindered access to the car. Normally Liz needs the car for work so I only have easy access on either Mondays or Tuesdays when its her day off and often fish together and on Fridays when she goes into work late and I take the car as she catches the bus into work and then I go and pick her up when she finishes at 2000/2030. But as I say, over the course of her holiday I get the car full time… and so far I’ve had three sessions out on the banks of the waters with another two planned for Monday and Tuesday next week. Tuesday night Liz flies back, landing at around 0200 on Wednesday morning and I’ll be back to my normal days from then on…ie the following session will be on Friday 18^th May…

SO… this is my session of Wednesday 9^th May 2018.

I visited a club pool (AA-KP) I’d not been to for a couple of years… 22^nd April 2016 in fact, and reading my blog entry for that session that was also 2 years after the previous visit there!

To save re-stating the reasons why I’m cutting and pasting my relevant comments from that blog here:

“The reason I’d not fished it for that length of time is due to the fact of a massive successful carp spawning season in 2012 – plus the pool is used by the farmer for abstraction to water his crops in dry spells – and in 2012 he drew out between 5,000,000 – 8,000,000 gallons which meant that the water level dropped by around 8 feet (and was almost the same in summer of 2015) – no problem for the fish as the water is saucer shaped with around 11’-14’ in the centre and at the dam end of the pool it is 28’+ although the other, shallow, end of the pool is only 3’ deep when the pool is full… Anyway, 2012 seemed to provide excellent spawning for the carp as in 2013 it was impossible NOT to catch 6oz carp of all varieties. In fact, so impossible that it became annoying because ALL you could catch were 6oz carp… even soft baits (luncheon meat, paste, etc), ledgered, never reached with the bait being attacked as it hit the water and being taken, or stolen, as it sank WHEREVER and WHENEVER you cast – edge of pool, channel, to left, to right,… and even 16mm boilies were whittled down to a bare hook well inside 5 minutes… and come 2014 it was basically the same but, of course, the size of fish had increased to 10-12oz… Anyway, as it was impossible to get to the better level of fish I stopped visiting the pool – and yesterday was the first return since then…”

UPDATE: Reading the rest of that blog entry it seemed that the 2016 session was not too bad actually with better quality of fish being caught  – and if I’d remembered that perhaps I’d have returned sooner – but as it was it was that earlier ‘tiddler’ session that I recalled… DOH!!

SO…

Leaving the house just before 0550 I arrived at the pool at around 0615 and made my first casts at around 0700 fishing 2 rods.

I had intended to ‘spomb’ out a carpet of groundbait and particles but discovered on arrival that the handle to the ‘spomb’ rod had snapped off in transit so g’bait had to sent out with my ‘flinger’ (actually one of those tennis ball launchers for dogs) and particles by catapult. Both rods were set up for ledgering, one with 8lb main line, 1/2oz lead and size 4 hook baited with bread fished over the groundbaited area in open water, the other rod was also with 8lb main line but with a 1/8 lead and size 10 hook baited with worm over a maggot fed area in the margins…. and first fish of the day came from this marginal area at around 0730 – a tench of a couple of ounces… A little later, after a period of small plucks on the margin rod I changed the weight to 1/2oz and the hook to a size 4 and fished both rods out in the open water with butterscotch flavoured paste on this rod…

Over the course of the day four common carp were captured of 5-15, 6-02, 6-08 and 7-00. All bar the 6-08, which was caught on the paste, were caught on bread.

I also catapulted out, over the day, a number of floating freebies as there are a number of grass carp in this pool with weight in the upper teens but any sign of rising fish were few pre-8am and after non-existant. I did note that any freebies taken were dog biscuits and not a thing touched the marshmallows also sent out.

I packed in fishing at 1430 in order to get home to unpack and to prepare baits, etc ready for another early morning session the next day, Thursday 10^th…

5lb 14oz Common Carp

7lb 0oz Common Carp

6lb 8oz Common Carp

6lb 2oz Common Carp

5lb 14oz Common Carp

7lb 0oz Common Carp

The previous session I’d actually been out with the rods in hand was April 5^th and so it was May 4^th that – a month but a day later – that I finally managed to get back out again. Holidays and weather taking their toll of the available time…

So … I decided to have a float fishing day at one of my club’s mixed fisheries – KF-VV – and set off at 0615, arriving at 0645. I’d pre-decided my swim – if it was free, and as I was the first to arrive I got it – although maybe not the best choice it seems as witnessed by other’s catches – but after a month it was just great being back on the banks – in good weather too J. Anyway, the swim faced on to a small island and usually a good spot for perch and bream – and the inevitable carp or two.

First 45 mins or so were spent setting up my ‘station’, scales, mats, nets, etc and feeding my swim with particle laced (stewed hemp, stewed wheat, stewed maize, ground hemp, ground wheat and ground bird seed), yellow coloured, groundbait (3 cricket ball sized lumps), 2mm pellets and floating fish food (idea is as the groundbait balls break up the the floating pellets rise from the bottom adding attraction) and dead maggots (well, I thought they were dead – had been in the freezer for several weeks in an airtight bag with air squeezed out and then been moved to the fridge for the month I’d not fished, still in the unopened bag, but by mid-afternoon they were starting to revive … Lazarus Maggots!).

So, first cast was made at around 0815. I fished ‘lift method’ style with a loaded, bodied, 1 SSG waggler using approx 1AAA worth of over-shot to hold securely against the water drift and with 1BB worth of the ‘cocking’ shot used about 15” above float in order to aid sinking of the line. Line was my usual Daiwa Hyper Sensor, 6lb BS with a 6” hooklength of 6lb Dyneema braid to size 16 or 12 hook (maggot = 16, worm = 12).

First casts and I was getting knocks and bobs every cast with maggot which boded well it seemed for the day – and that continued virtually throughout the day but I was unable to covert to those bobs into connections – and it was after midday – and a change from maggot to worm – that I had my first fish of the day – a 4lb 4oz mirror carp, small but feisty! In fact, I’ve landed fish two/three times the size in less than half the time… at first it felt like a good sized perch, then it seemed to suddenly become a big pondering weight – first thought was that a pike had taken it BUT there are NO pike in the pool – then it went for boring runs – then into the reed beds at the pool edge – and it was ages until I could get its head up to see what it actually was….

4lb 4oz Mirror Carp

Over the rest of the day I had 1 small gudgeon, 2 perch (together would struggle to make 1oz), a rudd (3oz) and a roach (4oz)….

Still, it was a nice day to be out…

As I was just about ready to make my first cast another angler arrived and set himself up at the end of the pool to my right – and seemed to be catching a few. Around 11am another arrived – think he was a new club member as he came to speak about the pool, best swims, etc – and I pointed him to an area called ‘chub alley’ where he did go and fish, and seemed to be catching OK (I saw 5-6 chub being landed)… 2 others arrived later, pals of the ‘chub alley’ man I think as they set up close by him but were out of my view due to the island in front of me, and assume they were catching as ‘CA’ guy moved to fish alongside them a little later.

So… that was my day… but I’ve a fair bit of fishing due over the next 10 days or so… Liz is going to Cyprus on the 8^th May for a week which means I get the car 24/7 and free to go wherever and whenever…. and I’m planning to have 5, maybe 6, outings in that time.

First outing on Wednesday 9^th will be to a local pool that contains grass carp to high double figures and which I’ve not fished in a long time (probably 12-18 months) – means that I can get a decent session in and still get home early as I have to attend the AGM of one of my clubs the same evening. Thursday 10^th off to a club carp pool but in search of perch and tench mainly. Friday 11^th, another small club pool… Sat/Sun probably rest and restock days… Monday 14^th, visit a large reservoir that a club has but which I’ve not yet visited. Tuesday 15^th either carping or not-carping ie either a particular carp pool or a particular non-carp pool depending on weather and whim. Wednesday 16^th Liz lands back home at 0200 so I’ll be off to collect her… And then decide where to go on Friday 18^th…..