Being a Saturday for first day's opening I thought there would be a mad rush of members new and old eager to getting the season going. So to this end I decided to get out of bed early and be on the road by 4:30 in the morning. As it turns out miracles do happen as I was indeed on the road at this ungodly hour!
When I arrived at the fishery I wasn't too shocked to discover that I was the third one in the car park. It would seem that my initial fears of millions turning up might just be proving to be correct.
I loaded up my trolley and headed to the far side of the lake where in my opinion the best summer time swims are. After a good look (no one else had opted for this area as yet) I selected peg number 12.
My plan was to fish by the side of lily pads to my right with a waggler set up on my match rod and straight across the lake to the island on a feeder set up with my feeder rod.
I mixed a healthy amount of ground bait and then put the rods together. Size 18 hook to 4lb mainline on the waggler and size 14 hook to 6lb mainline on the feeder. I intended to switch to a size 16 sometime during the late afternoon as I knew that was when the carp were likely come out to play.
I made my first casts at 6:15. I initially used single maggot on the hook for the float rod and 15mm pineapple boillie on the leger rod. It wasn't long before the action started with the first of the day's small roach.
At the end of the first hour I had accumulated 10 fish all of them roach plus a 2lb carp on the feeder rod. I then made the decision to switch the feeder rod from the island to the reed bed on my left because to be honest it just looked very fishy!
The roach to be honest were small even by my standards so for the next hour I decided to swap to corn to see if anything of any size was lurking around. To my dismay only a solitary bream took the bait. The time was now 8:15 so the benefit of the early morning start was now over. I was into 'normal' time.
Back to the maggots then for the next hour and back to the usual suspects, roach (5) and rudd (2), none of them netbusters.
With maggots only attracting small roach and rudd and corn just the one bream I decided to try meat. Usually I go on meat late in the day when the carp show however today I thought I would try something different. I was rewarded with my first tench and perch of the day. Still only two fish in an hour though.
Another hour another throw of the dice, this time I was back on the corn. This change achieved slightly better results, 2 bream and a roach. Still not the first day stampede that I was expecting. Still it wasn't lunchtime yet.
Just before lunch I had another hour on the maggot which proved to be the most productive of the day so far. Nine roach and for the first time three perch, one of which was quite a few ounces.
While I was having lunch I went back on the meat. I only caught one fish but what a fish. A personal best Barbel of 2.5lb which I initially mistook for a carp because of the intensity of the fight! Very satisfactory indeed.
The next hour was a barren one on the corn. I began to hope that the afternoon and evening sessions might be the ones.
Back to the maggots for the hour which brought me up to 15:15. It was relatively fruitful, 4 roach and one each of barbel and perch.
For the evening session I decided to stop changing hook baits and stick with meat until the bitter end. A tench and a barbel started the ball rolling but what made it a good decision was this 9.5lb carp!
The meat kept attracting the fish until I packed up at 17:30. A perch, 2 tench and another barbel was joined in the net by an 8lb carp. Not a bad end to a very strange first day.
I managed to get two bites on the feeder rod late on in the day but unfortunately I lost both. The first spat the hook and the second buried itself on a snag on the far bank. Here is the swim:
So at the end of the day my tally was 50 fish exactly, not bad for a day that I thought wasn't going too well.
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