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
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