16 Days Later

I’m back, having moved and survived, albeit a little bruised and battered. As per my previous post I’m adamant that I’m never moving again, and if I do I’ll be selling everything and starting afresh. What a nightmare.

We’re a very small family and help is in short supply. My dad has really bad knees, my mum is 4ft nothing and my step-parents are poorly, out of the country or both. I have one reliable friend and he’s poorly too… so then there’s me and the wife with three kids in tow.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway, onto fishing and happier things.

16 days without a rod out and, as you can imagine I was game as a march hare in speedos tonight when an opportunity to pop down the lake arose. Lots of rainclouds were looming, but to be honest nothing was going to stop me getting some me time.

I raced to the tackle shop around 3 to find that it was (worryingly) closed, so I ended up having to drive to the next town to get some bait. Maggots and dendrobenas collected, I arrived at the lake around 4.00pm to find it bereft of kids, despite the summer holidays, and that my usual peg was free. All going according to plan so far. Now all I had to do was remember how to fish.

I started in my usual manner by little and often feeding off to the side of the lilies, feeding sparingly with maggots and using dendrobena on a size 12. I started picking up small F1s which for the first hour and a half was fun, but pretty much nothing else was making an appearance. The reeds at my feet, however, were buzzing with lots of movement and fry scattering everywhere.

I replumbed, doubled up on the dendrobena and popped the float out at the tip of the rod. Within a few seconds the float shot under and I had a handsome 2lb perch in the landing net.

After 30 minutes of no further takes, I began loose feeding next to the adjacent set of pads on the right of the swim and after a few minutes switched to that area. Within seconds of the worm dropping in, a huge carp surfaced and my float screamed straight through the pads, with little or no chance of me holding the fish back. Try as I might I couldn’t get the bugger to budge, and shortly thereafter it rose in the reeds next to the bank and flicked its head, snapping my line completely.

My favourite lucky float sat forlornly in the pads, bobbing the wake of the rising fish. Mercifully I could get a rod tip to it and gently tapped it back to within landing net distance.

Phew. Lucky float is now on life #612. I may have kissed it before sliding it back up the line.

Round 2.

Back to Plan A. I returned to the spot where I caught the perch and decided to give the last hour to that area, knowing that there were fish moving. I pulled in a few eels and a few skimmers but no further perch, then about 7.30 the float gently started travelling across the swim and I struck into a pretty mirror of around 3.5lb. Then the swim went crazy. Larger carp appeared to be descending on my groundbait and within an hour I’d taken the mirror, two 6lb commons and an 8.5lb common, as well as quite a few F1s and smaller commons.

And then I got a birds nest and I ran out of worms.

Time to go home. Great night though and lots of fun catching these hard fighting carp on relatively light gear.

Wet nets!

Matt.