I couldn't have a day off in the week so for one of the few times I can remember I went to a commercial on a Saturday. I'd been told that people are turned away from Stubpond so it was another trip to Gabriel's Fishery for me on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far.
I arrived at 7:10 to find about a dozen cars in the car park. I checked the notices on the gate and there was nothing regarding Silver Lake which is the complex's match lake. The complex has 5 lakes, so on average that was about 2 cars per lake. Not too bad so far.
I'd decided before arrival that if possible I would select a swim at the deep end of the lake as I hadn't tried that area before. As can be seen from the photo above I was successful. I decided to fish straight in front of me and along the reeds to the right, near the lily pads.
The set up I used was 5lb main line to a size 16 wide gape hook with 5lb hooklength. A highly visible 3bb waggler was the float of the day. I plumbed up and found that it was around 4 feet deep 2 rod lengths out and half of that by the lily pads.
I groundbaited both swims genorously with brown crumb, hemp, corn and a few maggots. I'd seen small fish activity ever since I'd arrived at the swim so my first cast was with a single red maggot and sure enough in came a small roach.
I had a decision to make at this point - do I stay on the small baits and be assured of a days Roach bashing or up the size of the bait for the chance of a bigger prize?
I decided to go for it and put a big piece of bread flake on the size 16 hook. The first piece was attacked by the roach but the second was more successful. The float began to move away very slowly and so I struck. The bend in the rod told me in was a good fish however it never moved more than a couple of feet from where I hooked it. I suspected a bream but then for no apparent reason it decided it was hooked and made a bolt for freedom. I played the fish for what seemed like an age - never seeing it until almost the last minute. Once I saw it I knew it was a good one. I netted it quite easily however my scales proved to small (they only go to 8lb). My larger ones put it between 8 and 9 pound - absolutely marvelous. See photo below:
There was good luck and bad luck regarding this capture, the good luck was that a passing angler was kind enough to take the above shot and the bad luck was that my landing net handle broke whilst I was putting the fish back.
At 8:45 the float again slid away and despite trying to bury itself in the reed bed I managed to land this 4.5lb common. A little roach also took a fancy to a big bit of bread!
Less than 20 minutes later I'd landed another common to 4.5lb, two 2lb commons, 1 Skimmer Bream and 1 Rudd all on bread.
The next 4 hours, I think because of the heat were pretty hard going. I did manage 1 Skimmer, 1 Roach, 1 Gudgeon and this 5.5lb common. All but the Gudgeon on bread.
I did lose another nice one. I was only using 5lb line so am very wary of using too much pressure when playing a fish. This leads sometimes to the fish getting into the snags, in this case the reeds next to me. I did walk behind the reeds to the next swim as the fish was up that end but couldn't get it out. Another angler from his swim could see the fish and came round to suggest that we net it through the weeds. Just as we were getting the net into position (it was a bit of a stretch) the fish spat the hook. I must have had it on for a good 20 minutes or so.
That was it for the day as far as the big action went. I did throw some bread into the lily pads around 5:30 to see if they would take it off the surface and sure enough they did. I put a large flake on and lowered it in - within seconds the float dipped and in came a 2lb common.
The picture below was taken as I packed up around 6:30. I was doing a great impression of a lobster! It was the hottest weekend of the year so far.
I will be going back.
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