Having given the club ponds a hammering over the last few weeks I thought it would be a good idea to pay Stubpond a visit today.
The previous 4 days had been the hottest of the year so far but the forecast for today was for a drop of some 7 degrees so I thought if the fish had become sluggish in the heat they may now come back to life and feed.
I arrived at the fishery dead on the opening time of 8am to see a change to the notice which notified anglers that the fishery will now close at 6 rather than 5 - great an extra hours fishing for my quid!
Had the pick of the swims again as I was the first on the lake - only just though as another fella was only 2 or 3 three minutes behind me. What struck me about the swim that was different from this time last year was the absence of the lily pads to my right. There were replaced not by clear water but by the type of thick weed that grows under the water. Not to complain too much thougn as the swim was one of the more weed free on the lake. The further you walk away from the car park the weedier it becomes.
I decided to start by fishing as tight as I could to the weed bed that had replaced the lily pads. It wasn't difficult as a good underarm cast did the job wonderfully. I had groundbaited the swim and thrown in a handful or 2 of maggots to get them going. For set up my comercial float rod with 5lb line plus a size 16 carp wide gap hook was used. I knew if I was lucky that the carp here could be anything from 1lb up to around 15 pounds so I wanted to be prepared for anything. Also the set up had to be able to cope with a fish getting in the weeds (the visible and the invisible).
I decided to start with a single maggot to see if the silver fish were active in the swim and to ensure I didn't blank! Ten minutes later I had 3 rudd and a roach, the last of which had swallowed the hook deep and it was an effort to get it out. That made my mind up to change. Off came the maggot and on went normal sweetcorn. To be honest I'd been using scopex flavoured corn a lot lately and only using the 'normal' corn in the groundbait mix. Immediately there were indications on the float that something was interested. Down it went and in came a small tench of just under a pound.
Even though it wasn't yet 9:30 the big yellowish ghost carp that live in Mill Lake began to patrol the surface. They are big. The odd mirror could also be seen feeding on the surface weed. Sometimes they would literally swim beneath my feet!
Back to the action and I began to realise that the swim was alive with fish. Carp up to 2lb and 5 tench up to a pound found their way into the 'net' by lunchtime on corn, bread and scopex flavoured corn. So far I had only lost one fish which judging by it's run, I thought was another small tench.
If you are a regular reader of my reports you will know that 9 times out of 10 I tend to be the only person on the lake/pond. Now something very wierd happened in the morning. Another angler turned up and started to fish in the swim nearest the car park. First off he set up the biggest umbrella I've ever seen (which I mistook for a bivvy at first), complete with one of those beds that carpers use. Ten minutes later the umbrella was down, 10 minutes or so after that he was gone! Very strange.
Around 11 a father and son turned up who told me they hadn't fished there before and wanted the local info! What they did know came from the woefully out of date website which still stated that there were 5 lakes on the complex when in actual fact there was only 4. They decided to set up to my right in the 2 swims nearest the car park. They talked to each other all the rest of the day but it wasn't affecting my fishing so I didn't pay it no mind.
At noon I was feeling confident enough to make the switch to meat. I began to feed the swim to my immediate left which was against a reed bed about a rod length away. I decided to attack the swim at 1pm.
First drop into the swim and almost immediately the float went away and I had a good size carp on. As I said before the pond has a lot of weed in it and as the fish fought the line gathered more and more of it making the whole job slightly more difficult. Anyway I managed to get it in - a nice one of around 4 pound. See below:
For the rest of the afternoon I alternated between the two swims. The only difference being that the swim on the left I fed exclusively with meat and the other I fed the same way as in the morning except for a few cubes of meat. The fish kept coming in. All good fighters but none bigger than 4 pound. This was probably the best of the lot.
I did however break one of my personal bests - in fact I caught a species of fish I've never caught before. A nice goldfish of about 6 ounces!
I packed up about 5:30. I caught steadily all day for a total of 35 fish, the best being a 4lb carp. The weather as predicted was a lot cooler (although not uncomfortable) than the previous few days and I think this accounted as much for my catch as my skill!
In the words of Arnie - I'll be back.
Tight Lines.
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