March 30th Mill Lake - Stubpond Again

Last chance to get out before the big return to work on Wednesday.

The weather forecast was for a much better day (no rain, warmer) than on the previous Friday so I left the house in high spirits.

So imagine my disappoinment when the car was covered in ice! To be fair the skies were clear and there was no wind.

Undettered I made my way to the fishery arriving at 8am.

Spent a few minutes chatting to the owner and then made my way to the swim.

I was very hopeful of a good day as I set up.

I baited the swim with 4 balls of groundbait and a layer of hemp.

Started on a size 16 hook as I expected just silver fish to start with.

Usually I can get a bite straight away as the roach and rudd would move in over the bait very quickly however today things were very different.

It took the best part of an hour before the first roach arrived. I begun to suspect something was wrong as it took another hour or so before I had a second bite which turned out to be a small rudd.

Obviously things were not going to plan - I suspected the early morning frost coupled with the hour earlier start (clocks went forward the previous day) were to blame so I alternated hook baits between bread, meat, sweetcorn and maggott until I found something that worked.

Around 12:30 I had 3 bites in quick succession on maggot, 2 roach and a skimmer bream. No interest at all on the larger baits.

I kept feeding the swim with small pieces of meat, a ball of groundbait every hour and a few maggots every cast in the hope of attracting fish. I was still getting no sign that there was fish in the swim.

Finally at 3pm the float disappeared and I hooked a nice fish which took line at an incredible rate of knots. Normally after an initial burst I can control the fish, not this time though. After getting it out of the first reed bed it dived into another. I kept the pressure on until the inevitable happened and the hook link broke. By this time it was 3:20 - 20 minutes of struggle with no result. It certainly was not my day.

No further action for the rest of the day. I packed up about 4:30.

So what had gone wrong? I hadn't changed tactics or approach from the trips made over the previous fortnight. Was the weather to blame? Maybe, but for the most part I didn't have a coat on as it was quite warm after the initial frost. There was no wind and no rain.

Any comments would be welcome.

Tight Lines

March 27th Eden Pond Beaver Farm - New Chapel, Surrey

Change of venue brought new goals and different tactics. I had fancied a day targetting tench and knew that this pond on the Beaver Farm complex was predominately stocked with tench. So Friday I gave it a go.


Arrived at the fishery around 8am and drove straight to the pond which is the furthest one from the entrance at the bottom of the grounds. Yet again no one was there so walked around the pond looking for a likely looking tench spot. The pond is only about half an acre but has 2 islands in it - I chose a swim facing the smaller of the two.

As I was setting up the fastest bailiff in the west came and liberated £10 from my pocket!


Set up was nice and light. 13' match rod, 4lb mainline and size 18 hook on 3lb hooklength.


Groundbait was a mixture of brown crumb and tench attactor with some sweetcorn. I also laid down a nice bed of hemp.


No interest for the first hour, then I caught a small rudd. I persisted with the tactics above but to no avail. The weather was the worst of the week, I was fishing into a strong head wind which made it feel colder than it was.


Around 11AM the float disappeared and out came a nice tench around the pound mark.



The heavens opened at 12:30 for about an hour and I sat under the umbrella shivering and considering whether or not this was a good idea.

The small rudd kept coming, along with a single skimmer bream until 15:30 when I landed my first ever chub - it was only about 3 ounces or so but it still was a chub! Quickly followed by a second.

At 6 o'clock I was cold and tired so decided to pack up for the day.

In conclusion I caught 16 fish, no monsters but I did get a tench which was my target species and my first two chub, so in one respect the day was a success. I shall return to Eden Pond in the future but certainly not until the weather warms up.

Out again Monday, last trip before I return to work on Wednesday.

Tight Lines.

March 25th Mill Lake - Stubpond Again

The strong wind of the last few days was showing no sign of abating as I set off at 7:10 for Fellbridge for another session at Stubpond's Mill Lake.

Based on the experience gained from the last few outings I formulated a plan to target the silver fish until about noon when I would swtch tactics because I believed the carp would move into the swim around then.

I arrived at 8am on the dot only to find that the gates were still shut. "Good start", I thought. Anyway a few minutes later someone arrived and the we were let in. Yes another car was there - almost a rush by Stubpond standards. After parking the car I went over to pay my day ticket and was met by the owner and the bailiff looking not to happy. Turned out the place had been broken into overnight. A fair amount of damage was done but the biggest loss as far as I could see was the quad bike. They had broken into the shed and stolen it. Not a lot I could do other than offer my sympathy so I got out of the way and went to the swim.

I chose the same swim and tactics as the previous Monday.

2 balls of goroundbait and 4 handfuls of hemp were placed in the swim. The tactics were to throw half a dozen maggots in with every cast to compliment the single maggot on the hook. Plus every hour I would feed another ball of groundbait and a handful or two of hemp to keep the swim alive.

First cast yielded a roach. Until 11:45 I caught a good head of fish on the maggot including roach, rudd, bream, crucian carp, perch and the wonderful gudgeon. Highlight of the morning was this 2lb bream.

At noon I switched to meat as the hook bait but kept the same feeding pattern, the only difference being I loose fed some cubes of meat. I caught several carp the best of which were these 2: a nice 4lb mirror and a 3lb common.

The weather was very windy all day with the occasional light shower and a couple of heavy ones although to be fair when the sun came out and the wind died down it was quite comfortable.

Packed up at 16:30 after catch 28 fish. Not a bad day at all.

Tight lines.

March 23rd Mill Lake, Stubpond - Fellbridge Surrey

Another Monday another day off.

After the glorious weather of the preceeding Sunday I decided to use my club concession again at Stubpond. £1 a day ticket for members of South Norwood Angling Club. Not a bad deal as a normal day ticket price is a tenner!

Traffic wasn't too bad yesterday so I managed to arrive at the fishery just after opening, around 8 am or so. Unloaded the car and selected my swim just as the bailiff come round after a clearing up litter exercise. Had a brief chat, paid my money and then preceeded to tackle up.

Here is my swim - I intended to fish at the from the middle of the reed bed to the furthest tip because the weather conditions were totally against fishing the island using a rod and waggler set up. This was taken at 9am in terms of the wind, it was the best time of the day.

The previous outing I had used my 13ft match rod, 4lb main line and size 18 to 3lb hook for the silver fish but with the arrival of the carp I'd had to increase the hook size to 14 via 16. This time I decided to use my 12ft commercial carp float rod, 4lb main line and size 16 hook to start with. I still intended to target the silver fish early on as I didn't think the carp would arrive until the water temprature had risen a bit. For bait I started on a single maggot. I groundbaited the swim every hour with a ball of brown crumb and groundbait mix with some sweetcorn and the odd cube of meat plus a handful of hemp whilst feeding a few maggots every cast.

Now at Stubpond there is this pride (!) of wild cats who keep creeping up on unsuspecting anglers like something out of the Omen!

This was taken at 9:30 - there are normally about 6 of them. Sorry about the quality of the photo.

Around 10:30 this strange fellow turned up. According to the experts on the Maggotdrowning.com forum it's a carp hybrid of some sort (possibly carrying spawn possibly not), a brown goldfish or even a cross between a rudd and a crucian. Make your own mind up I think. Nice size fish though.

Around midday I switched from maggot to a small piece of meat. At 12:40 this lovely 2lb perch came to the net! I was gobsmacked - I'd never seen a perch this big, let alone caught one. This made the whole trip worthwhile. I was pleased as punch.

Meat and sweetcorn were now the baits to use, so I moved up to a size 14 and caught carp steadily for the rest of the afternoon. At 15:20 I landed this lovely crucian on sweetcorn.

At 4 o'clock the heavens opened and that signalled the end for me. All in all I caught 23 fish, roach, rudd, personal best perch, crucian, common and mirror carp plus a mysterious zoo creature so I think I can put that down a successful day out especially for March.

I wish I could have some photos of me holding the fish but that is one of the drawbacks of having the lake to yourself!

Tight lines.

March 13th Mill Lake Stubpond, Felbridge,Surrey

What a difference 48 hours makes at this time of year. The weather was sunny and warm when I loaded the car up for the return visit to Mill Lake.

First problem was a traffic jam at Whyteleafe which delayed me 20 minutes or so, not a good omen I thought.

I finally arrived around 9am and set up in the same swim as the Wednesday with exactly the same setup.

Single maggot and size 18 hook.

After groundbaiting with a ball of brown crumb, hemp, maggots and sweetcorn and even more maggots I cast out to the edge of the reed bed (about a rod length or so).

Here's a view of Mill Lake looking away from the car park.

Within minutes the float disappearred and out came a 2lb carp! I was expecting a roach or something similar. The rise in temprature obviously had brought them to life.

The morning followed the pattern of the Wednesday with some silver fish (roach and perch) plus the occasional carp, the majority all on single maggot. No action at all on meat or sweetcorn.

Unlike Wednesday there was a lot more activity from the carp however I did manage to lose 6 good ones, 4 shook the hook and 2 dived into the reed bed before I could turn them!

I moved up from size 18 to size 14 hooks via size 16 as the silver fish disappeared and the carp took over.

Meat seemed to work well in the afternoon.

By 4pm it was time to go which coincided with the largest fish of the day coming to the net. A shade under 5lb!

The weather was great all day apart from a 10 minute shower around 11am.

Incident of the day was having the reel fall into the pond whilst playing a carp. Luckily for me the line tangled on the reel so I was able to retrieve it, untangle the line, put the reel back on the rod and land the fish! Another lesson learned - check the reel fastening every now and then.

Back to work Monday.

Looking forward to fishing some commercials during the forthcoming months until the 16th June.

Line Deterioration - Problem For You?

On my latest session I attempted to use a reel with 4lb line that I had loaded onto it around June last year.

When I came to knot it the line snapped. I tried to pull it and it snapped so easily a slightly over sized gudgeon would have got free.

I think it was Maxima line as all the rest of my lines are.

Is this normal behaviour?

Here are some comments I've received on the subject:

"I'm afraid that as far as I am concerned this is now normal behaviour for Maxima line although some people say they don't have a problem with it. I find it lasts just a few sessions then has a catastrophic failure in strength. Just search on the forums and you will see many threads with similar comments."

"Ive used maxima for a couple of years with no problems.Bear in mind (sorry if you already know this) that mono will degrade in UV light and with exposure to heat so be careful how you store it. I would always discard the last few metres after a session too - it might just be that the last bit was weakened."

Anyone care to add to this?

March 11th Mill Lake, Stubpond, Felbridge, Surrey

After Monday's trip I decided to give Mill Lake at Stubpond a try.

There was a sharp overnight frost so I had to scrap the ice off the car before setting off on the 40 minute journey down the A22.

I arrived around 8:30 and had a chat with the bailiff who told me that the carp would show as the ponds arn't deep and don't take long to warm up.

I wasn't totally convinced so set up my 13' match rod with 5lb mainline and size 18 hook on 3lb hooklength and a single maggot to target the silver fish until later in the day when I hoped the carp would come on.




A good start brought 7 fish in the first hour including a nice roach which required the landing net. I then rotated hook bait between sweetcorn, bread and meat with only bread being successful (a very nice roach/bream hybrid of about 1lb).

By now the time was about 2:30 so decided to concentrate on the maggots and caught steadily for the rest of the day. The haul included roach, perch, gudgeon and bream.

Highlight of the day was 3 bream around the 2lb mark.


At 4pm the bailiff signalled pack up time.

Now comes mistake of the day.

The first thing I did was dismantle the landing net! Yes you've guessed it halfway through packing up I heard the reel scream and the rod was pointing at the sky with line flying off it.

I played the fish until it was tired and then walked back until I could use the landing net (minus handle) to land a 3lb carp on single maggot.

Lesson learned!

Hemp

At my local tackle shop a pint of prepared (cooked) hemp cost £1 a pint.

Now I, like the rest of the world it seems have to watch the pennies. To this end I decided to investigate the possibility of buying hemp in bulk and preparing it myself.

I went online to WWW.NSABAITS.COM and for £13 bought 20kg of hemp.

To prepare the hemp I cooked what I required for Friday's trip for 40 minutes and left it cool for an hour or so. The liquid I drained off and used in the groundbait mix instead of water.

The remainder of the hemp I didn't use yesterday I've frozen.

I think the hemp should last all of the summer.

March 9th Boulthurst Farm - Limpsfield Surrey

This pond is controlled by Holland & District Anglers Society but South Norwood Angling Club have an exchange ticket deal with them so I can fish it!

Anyway the pond is not that large, about half to three quarters of an acre I would say.

It has a good head of carp ranging to about 15lb but I've only had a best of 7lb out. There is also a lot of roach and bream plus some lovely crucians.

Anyway I arrived at the pond around 8:30 or so to find that the number on the lock number had changed! Panic ensued. Luckily for me the lady who must own the pond saw me in distress and gave me the contact number of the man who knew the number. Good news for me he was in and told me the number.

Having finally got in I made my way to the swim at the end by the incoming stream. The pond has no real depth and is pretty much the same all over as far as I can tell. Around 2 to 3 feet.

Mixed up some groundbait consisting of brown crumb, some red groundbait mix, pieces of sweetcorn and some magotts.

Threw a ball or 2 a couple of rod lengths out and then set up my rod.

As the weather was just warming up I didn't expect much action on the carp front so set my sights on the roach etc.

To this end I used my 13' match rod, 5lb main line and size 18 to 3lb hook length with single magott on the hook.

By 9:15 I was off.

10:30 the first roach turned up - barely an ounce.

Fed another ball of groundbait every hour and rotated the hookbait between sweetcorn, bread and magott. By 12:30 I only added a further 2 roach.

By 14:30 the action for the day peaked because I had caught 3 carp, 2 on sweetcorn and the last on a piece of bread. The largest was 3lb.

I would have included a photo but the batteries on the camera went dead.

No other interest for the day so at 17:00 I decided to call it a day.

Good to get back on the bank though.

Tight Lines.

Introduction

I've just started this blog to record my fishing exploits for the coming year (2009).

I'm not expert but will honestly record tactics and success achieved if anything!