Didn't intend to go fishing on this day as I had already made plans to go on the Sunday afternoon. My daughter however decided to go on holiday on the Sunday and wanted a lift to Gatwick so that scuppered my weekend plans.
I then decided that if I took the Friday off I would go to the club's Private pond for an afternoon/evening session in another attempt to get one of their fabled good size tench.
The day started badly in that my PC's hardrive decided to give up the ghost (the second time in 2 years). I was not happy to say the least and even less so after being sent to PC WORLD by the TECH GUYS to get my data recovered (which I pay for monthly) only to discover that the store in Croydon doesn't do it anymore.
Anyway I left for the pond around noon armed with half a loaf of bread, a tin of corn and a tin of luncheon meat. I also had my Shimano float rod with it's new end piece (see previous post for that story).
It was raining when I left home but by the time I arrived at the pond 30 minutes later it had disappated. I wanted if I could, to fish peg 8 which I had been told by my scouse (sorry don't know your name) mate that that was the hot spot for the tench.
I was fortunate in that when I arrived the only other angler there was on peg 3 so I made was way to peg 8.
The peg had a definite 'fishy' feel about it. There was a large bank of lily pads directly in front of me (about a rod length out) which meant that I wouldn't have to cast the bait - just flick it out. See photo below.
Prior to setting up I threw in a couple of handfuls of corn.
My setup was 6lb mainline (because of the lillies), size16 hook to 4lb hooklength with a 2bb crystal waggler.
I flicked the bait out as near to the lillies as possible and settled back in my chair. A few minutes later the float went under and in came a carp off about half a pound.
This was followed in the first hour or so by 2 more small carp and a small rudd. I kept feeding the corn after each fish as I wanted to build up the swim as I hoped that as the day wore on the bigger fish would come and investigate.
I had brought bread with me but to be honest on this pond the very small fish are such a nusiance that I just get frustrated when I use it and tend to stay on the corn. However in this swim things were different. The bites were positive and although early on the takers were small carp I was not pestered by the small stuff.
The bread was working well - at one stage I was on a fish a cast!
The tench finally began to show around mid-afternoon. The first one barely made a pound but the next 2 were in the 2lb range.
Throughout the session I had been feeding the margins swim which because the swim was on a bend in the lake, was almost at my feet!
From time to time I had a dabble but it wasn't until around 5pm that I got a bite - it wasn't a carp but a nice tench of around a pound.
The pattern was now set for the remainder of the session - fish the main swim for 20 minutes or so and than try the margins swim.
Oh I forgot to mention that from 3pm onwards the heavens had opened and I had to camp out under my umbrella and don my waterproofs!
The rain seemed to galvanise the fish into feeding as whatever bait I used, be it corn, bread or meat they responded with very positive bites.
My main swim producing mainly small carp but occasionally the odd larger one of between 1 and 3 pounds. I also managed to bag a nice tench of around 3.5lb which if I hadn't have had my scales nicked recently I could have confirmed.
The margins swim was also still producing, I must have had 6 or 7 nice carp from there over the remainder of the session. All of them were between 2 and 6 pound.
By the time I packed up (7:45) I'd had 35 or so fish, mainly small common and mirror carp but also 3 roach, a rudd, a crucian and 8 tench (the most I've ever caught in a session).
I will be returning to swim 8 possibly for a full days session later on in the season.
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