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Another first of the season, a session at the club's beautiful Xmas Mill lake.
With only five swims available on the four acre lake, I had to make sure I was up and out early to ensure that I got one of them.
When I arrived at the very small car park there were no other cars there so my plan had clearly worked. I unloaded the car, and started to make my way through the dense swampy woodland to the lake.
I selected Botany Bay as my swim for today as it is the only swim where you can fish alongside the lily pads. Casting wasn't going to be far today and with the knowledge that I was only likely to catch small roach I chose my match rod and a very small waggler and size 18 hook.
Today's assault was going to be spearheaded by maggots and sweetcorn. Of course ground bait would come into it as an attracter, especially for any passing bream.
With a single maggot on the hook I made my first cast at 8:20 and true enough I discovered that the swim was full of small roach. Twenty two of them made the net in the first hour alone.
Buoyed by this success I switched hook bait to corn. Only three roach but they were of a better quality.
I switched back to maggot for the next hour. The roach hadn't moved or lost their appetite as it proved when my haul read 26 roach, 1 rudd and a bream!
Another hour on corn followed, the roach had no taste for it but two bream did. The time was around 11:30 and the weather had turned for the worse. Rain was falling quite heavy now so I had to put up the umbrella.
Just before lunch I went back to the maggot and normal service was resumed, 16 roach and a solitary rudd.
After lunch, I went back on the corn but they were still not having it with just two roach making the virtual net. Every hour I was topping up the swim with ground bait and every cast I was either feeding a few maggots or a couple of grains of corn.
A return to maggots brought 16 roach and another bream. A definite pattern was emerging here!
The next hour, which brought the time to 15:20 was the most successful for the corn. It yielded 4 roach and a bream. The roach on corn were generally bigger than those caught on the maggot.
I had another throw of the dice left, bread. Could a passing tench take a fancy to it? The short answer was no but in the sixty minutes that followed two bream did.
Here's one of them:
From 16:30 until I packed up at 18:00 I returned to maggots. Eight more roach made the net but sadly for me nothing of any quality.
So with 106 fish in the net I cannot say I had a bad day. It would have been nice to have got one of the lakes larger inhabitants or even a day without rain but hey that's fishing!
For this week's outing I decided to pay a return visit to the club's premier water, Nursery Fields.
When I arose from bed and looked out of the window I saw that yet again there was rain in the air. It was the fine stuff but rain all the same.
Undeterred I set off for the fishery around 6:30am. The car park was empty was I arrived so my plan to fish the first swim on the back stretch (peg 3 I think) was a go. I unloaded my gear, and started to make my way to the peg. As I got to the club noticeboard I happened to notice that swims 1 to 12 were booked for a juniors match! Drat foiled again. If juniors were at the bottom pegs I'd go for the top ones then.
It was still raining when I arrived at the swim so setting up was interesting to say the least. Normal tactics today for this swim, waggler rod about 1.5 lengths out and a small leger set up, fished by the island slightly to the left of centre.
Using single red maggot on the waggler rod and 15mm pineapple boillies on the leger rod I made my first casts at 7:55.
I had a cracking start on the waggler rod - the first hour seemed to be non stop fish, 8 roach, 1 perch, 1 crucian carp, 1 tench and a gudgeon all made it safely out of the water and back in again. The leger set up produced a tench as well.
Feeling optimistic I switched hook bait to sweetcorn for the next hour. I cast out and watched the float and continued to watch it not, except for the occasional re-cast move an inch! Total failure.
So I returned to the maggot. It seems to me that the lake always stalls mid to late morning and this was borne out by the fact that I only caught a couple of bream.
Back on the corn for the last hour of the morning resulted in a further 3 bream and a roach. The feeder rod also sprang into life, yielding one of the lakes barbel.
After I had my lunch I gave some meat a try. Sadly this only attracted a lonesome barbel. There was some decent action on the feeder rod though, a tench and a very nice 7lb common carp.
By 2pm I had chalked up another hour on the corn with the result that another bream and tench had made the virtual net. The feeder rod had also produced another carp, this time one of 2lb. By now the junior match had finished and there was only a handful left on the lake. The rain hadn't gone though.
Not much change in the next hour, corn for meat, that was just about it. The fish kept coming albeit at a trickle. One bream and another barbel. The feeder rod obliged with a tench and another carp of around 5lb.
The period between 3pm and 4pm we could call carp hour as both lines produced a carp. The waggler, a 2.5lb specimen on corn and the feeder another common, this one about 4lb.
Between 4pm and 5:30 when I packed up I thought I would try something different, bread. I really had no idea what would occur. As it happens I got a bream, a barbel and my one and only crucian carp of the day. The feeder rod went bananas too, four tench and a barbel.
So another rain filled day of the early summer comes to an end. In truth not a bad day, 41 fish of varying quality despite the weather.
Today was going to be yet another first for the season. My first visit to Holland Angling Society's lake in Holland near Oxted in Surrey.
I arrived at the pond around 6:20 to find that I had as usual got there first so would have choice of swims again. When I first started going to this pond about 4 years ago I always fished peg 1 in the corner but recently I'd left it alone in favour of peg 8. Today Imy intention was to revisit my old favourite.
Peg one is near enough to the gate that I didn't need the trolley so I unloaded the car and set off to the peg. It's quite tight in the corner so tactics today would be just the float rod with a small waggler.
It was about 7:20 when I made my first cast. I know from previous experience that this pond is full of small carp with a liking for maggots so today it was a single maggot on a size 18 hook as the starting line up!
The ground bait and loose feed I had thrown in prior to casting seemed to have done the trick as the fish were immediately onto the hook bait. Roach led the way initially, 6 of them to be exact, along with 3 rudd, 1 perch and one of the pond's small carp.
Buoyed by the success of the first hour I decided to up the ante by switching hook bait to corn to see if anything of quality had been attracted into the swim. The short answer was no. I did get six carp but they were all in the range 0.5lb to a 1lb. Good fighters on a match rod but not really quality.
I didn't really want to revert back to catching the small roach so I switched hook bait again for the next hour, this time to meat. Five carp followed, again the same stamp as before. I did capture the first tench of the day though.
Back on the corn for the next hour and back on the roach. Just the two plus another of the carp. It was at this time that the temperature picked up and I started to notice the larger carp begin to come and bask on the top.
For the hour before lunch I changed back to meat. Same as before, almost. Four carp and another tench. No change in the quality but I was having fun.
Had a cuppa and my lunch before switching back to corn. The pace slowed somewhat as only two carp made the virtual net. The next hour on meat was exactly the same except that the catch was halved. This time only 1 carp.
Mid-afternoon came and with a switch to corn so did the fish. One roach and six carp. I wonder where they had disappeared to? Still things were looking good for the late afternoon session.
The time was now 16:20 and a change of hook bait hadn't brought out the big stuff that I was anticipating. I did bag another 3 carp and a rudd with a liking for meat but they were still in the aforementioned weight range.
The next hour wasn't any better, 4 more carp on the meat but still no change in the quality.
I had one throw of the dice left for the last hour, bread. I opened my box and took out a slice. The 'heat' of the day had caused it to harden somewhat however I did find enough to use. The result another small carp and another small tench. I decided at 18:20 that enough was enough and packed up for the day.
All in all not a bad day. The small carp have obviously grown from the average of 3 or 4 ounces of a few seasons ago so that was pleasing as was the haul of 49 fish for the day.
