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.
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