The sun was shining for once as I loaded up the car. I had a feeling that today was going to be a good one - mind you I always feel like that!
Surprisingly there was no one in car park as I entered the fishery just before 7am. As I have done three times already this season I unloaded the car and made my way up the lake to my swim. As I left the car park a second car turned up. Today I was not going to be alone.
As I did at Chittenden last week I started setting up by mixing some ground bait. This consisted of brown crumb, some red attracter, corn, meat, maggots and about half a pint of hemp. I then left it for 20 minutes to settle. In the meantime I began to set up my waggler rod.
For the waggler set up I used my new Shakespeare 12' match rod, 4lb main line tied to a size 18 hook with a 2lb hook length. After plumbing the depth I fed the swim with three handfuls of ground bait and then while it settled I turned my attention to the leger set up.
The leger rod due to my 'accident' at Chittenden was now my Shimano float rod. For this set up I used 6lb main line, 1/4 ounce leger, size 16 hook to a 4lb hook length. For bait it was the trusty old 10mm Monster Crab flavoured boillie.
I made my first casts at 7:50 and then settled back for the action to begin. Up until today I'd always got off to a slow start but this was not the case on this occasion. By the end of the first hour the float rod had yielded 4 roach, 1 chub, 2 gudgeon and a crucian. Not to be out done the leger rod swim gave up 3 tench! At this rate I felt I was going to empty the pond!
I got a bit over confident in the second hour as I switched from single maggot to corn. The result was a barren net. The leger rod gave me another tench to stop it being a complete disaster.
For the next hour I switched back to single maggot although I did catch some fish, 2 roach, 1 rudd and a perch the action had slowed dramatically. Had I missed the boat? Even the leger rod had a barren hour.
Here's a visitor to my swim.
I rang the changes again for the last hour before noon. The swim appeared to have died so really I had nothing to lose. Yet again the float swim produced nothing however the leger rod sprang back into action with 2 tench and a very nice crucian of about 1.5lb.
The first hour of the lunch period was no better, 1 gudgeon and a perch to maggot on the float rod and 2 more tench on the leger rod.
Those tench seemed to be loving the monster crab boillies.
Perhaps these fish were just early morning and afternoon fish. This was seemed to be the case because by 3pm the float road had added 2 roach, 2 rudd, 2 perch and for the first time today 2 bream. Not to be out done the leger rod yielded three more tench.
Another quiet hour followed, just one other tench with a taste for crab came to the net.
As the evening session started I switched the hook bait to meat. This proved to be a successful tactic as I got the day's first tench on the float rod and the first carp! Strangely I also caught a rudd on meat! Three more tench came in on the leger rod.
I started to pack up at 6:30 but not before I'd added 2 more tench and a carp on the float road and 3 tench on the leger rod. My decision to end the session was for two reasons, I lost the only carp that fancied monster crab and my face was burnt to a frazzle. Where's that sunscreen when you need it!
In conclusion I think I had a fantastic day. I caught 18 tench on monster crab boillies which I truly did not expect and a further 29 other fish making a grand total of 47 fish!
I can't wait for June to arrive.
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