As I fished Silver Lake last time I thought today I would try Hare Lake.
This lake is fairly long with an island about a third of the way up. Also the first third is in woodland and the remainder is in open ground. As this day was reportedly going to be a sorcher I chose to fish at the end in the woods purely for the benefit of the shade.
The pond is quite narrow at the end so I was hoping that I would have the end area to myself. After setting up with the usual tackle I fed the swim with groundbait, hemp and a few grains of corn.
Just before I cast in another angler turned up. Although not in my immediate vicinity he was on the narrow channel between the island and myself. From where I was I could easily see what he was doing and what, if anything he was catching.
I had fished this swim a couple of seasons previous when I first visited Gabriels. I seemed to remember that the lake was full of small roach, rudd and bream. I had been told that there were carp in there but I had never caught or seen any.
I decided for once not to use maggots on the hook and go straight for the corn. I know numerically that I wouldn't get so many fish but hopefully what I did get would be of a better quality.
I settled down for the wait. After about 10 minutes I heard the other fella curse and having seen me look up said "I've just been broken, on 5lb line too". A good omen for the day I thought.
For the next hour I kept hearing the splashing of fish as he was catching however they looked like small roach to me. I later found out that he was on maggots. He couldn't catch anything on pellet or corn.
Eventually my float went under and in came a roach of around 3 ounces! I re-cast and the same thing happened - the bed of bait had obviously drawn them in.
Sadly to say that was the pattern for the rest of the day. There were a few skimmer bream caught but they were all of the very small variety.
There was a reed bed to the left of me at the very end of the lake. As the day progressed I could see the reeds moving in such a way as to tell me that there was life in there - what is was I had no idea. To this end I began to feed the edge of the reeds with bread. On the hour throughtout the session I would drop the float next to the reed bed with a large piece of flake on the hook.
Every time the bait was taken but I was having one of those days where the fish seemingly were always on top. The bites were either missed or when I did hook them I couldn't get them out of the reed bed before they spat the hook.
All day long this game of cat and mouse continued between me and my watery foe.
Towards the end of the day I was given a large lump of luncheon meat by a Holland AS member that I had spoken to on my previous visit who was also fishing the lake. Straight away I caught a gudgeon, a skimmer, a rudd and a small perch.
For the last cast of the day I thought I would try the reed bed again this time with a lump of meat. Sure enough almost immediately the float disappearred and battle was rejoined. This time the fish came out and was landed. A nice three pound common.
I decided at that point to call it a day and go home.
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