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Today or to be accurate this afternoon I decided to have another crack at getting peg 3 at the club's premier fishery, Nursery Fields.
I took a leisurely drive through the Kent/Surrey countryside before arriving at the fishery around 14:30. The car park had cars in but wasn't busy. At first glance the bottom of the lake where peg 3 is looked full but I decided to check it out anyway.
After the short walk to the lake I could plainly see that peg 3 was free. My luck was in, albeit at the third attempt. I had anglers either side of me but hey you can't have everything in this life.
Usual set up for Nursery Fields today, one waggler rod and another feeder rod. This time with a small feeder rather than a small leger.
I mixed a healthy amount of ground bait containing brown crumb, sweetcorn, maggots, meat and some small halibut pellets. I threw a couple of large balls in by the pads where I intended to fish. Almost immediately I saw signs of fish activity. A positive sign indeed.
I made my first casts at 15:30 and then retreated to my comfy chair to await the start of the action. Well, I waited and waited but despite all the obvious fish activity in the swim I could only land a solitary tench. The feeder rod also chipped in with one small tench.
I switched to meat for the next hour but didn't fare any better. It was getting very frustrating. Only one tench made the virtual net! Two bream was the contribution from the feeder rod this time.
Another change of hook bait followed, this time I went for bread. It was successful in the sense that it doubled the take of the previous hour (2) and it did attract another species, bream. The feeder rod was quiet for the entire hour.
I was well into the evening session now and things were not looking too great. I switched back to meat and was rewarded with another tench. The feeder rod had got into a tangle so taking the time into consideration I decided to retire it for the session.
On peg three there is a tree on the left hand side which has it's roots partially overhanging the water. I took the decision to place a few pieces of meat there and then gently lower my float on top of them. Less than a minute later the float shot away and I was in. This was no tench. Eventually it came to the surface and then my net where it revealed itself to be a 3lb common!
I fished without success for another 20 minutes or so in my original swim before I decided to have another go under the tree. Sure enough the same thing happened only this time this fish ploughed off towards the lilys on the far bank. I couldn't let it get there so I started to tighten the clutch. It still kept going until finally it broke the hook length. I was gutted.
That was it for me, the final straw as they say. As I packed up I reflected on the fact that I had thought the swim looked very fishy but in reality it was a bit of a letdown. Was it a bad swim, an off day or my skills that were to blame. I don't know but I will try it again.
This season I'd decided to try a few of the club's lesser known ponds. This Sunday afternoon I decided to visit Leppards Pond.
Now I don't live in Edenbridge so for directions I had to rely on the handbook and the club's forum. Surprisingly these got me to the main gates on the first attempt.
And that's where the trouble started.
According to the handbook your supposed to enter the normal number preceded by a zero. I did that and ............. nothing.
I checked and double-checked the number, still nothing. I decided that my next course of action would be to ring a committee member for advice. As I was heading back to the car another vehicle turned up and parked behind me.
He wasn't a member however he did know that the owner had reversed the zero! After entering the correct number and opening the gate, despite the best efforts of the tricky lock mechanism I was in. Now to find the pond.
The next set of gates were open (lucky me). I then set off down the track. After 100 yards or so I thought I had changed sports. I was now in the World Rally Championship! The track was awful. If you value your car please drive extremely carefully down the track.
After what seemed like an age but in actual fact could have only have been a few minutes the track brought me to a locked gate. I unlocked the gate, confirming I was heading in the right direction and carried on.
Further on down I arrived at a large field. By this point I was worried about the car and if i'd ever find the pond. I decided to get out of the car and have a walk. At the bottom of the field I looked right and saw a parked SUV. I'd found it! I returned to my car and drove to the pond. As my car was facing the opposite way to the other one I realised I must have gone wrong somehow.
There were two other members fishing the small pond. I must admit that on first impression it did look rather fishy.
The two anglers already present had two of the sides of the pond covered so I chose to go down the right hand side. There was plenty of clear water in a sort of bay area. I chose to fish midway between the near and far banks.
I had gained some prior knowledge of the pond from Bill's forum entry. Based on this knowledge I decided to initially target the roach and hope that with correct feeding the carp will move into the swim in the evening.
I placed a healthy amount of ground bait in the swim along with some maggots and corn. For rod set up I decided to use my match rod as I didn't expect the pond to hold any monsters.
With corn as my chosen hook bait I made my first cast at around 2:30. The action started almost immediately with 7 roach with a liking for corn coming to the net. They were all around 2 or 3 ounces.
I stayed on corn for the next hour but could only manage one rudd. I kept getting bites but couldn't connect with any. I think the fish were just very small.
The next hour followed a similar pattern to the previous one, plenty of knocks on the corn but only 2 roach caught. It was beginning to get a bit frustrating.
I gave it another hour on the corn. Sadly for me it only produced another roach. Due to the fact that I was worried about the car and that deadly track I decided to pack up at 5:30 and head off home.
I went out the way the other two had came in and to be fair it was a lot easier on the car. The middle gate this time was locked so I had to open it. The gate at the front was of course locked and yet again it proved difficult to open but I managed to get out and head home.
So a short session full of small roach. I did see carp jumping so I think I will go back at some point and try again.
