2014 21 August 1st Chittenden, Edenbridge

Another Friday summer visit to Chittenden. After the carp losing disaster of my most recent trip to Nursery Fields I was keen to see if I could land a few without any of the problems I'd experienced there.

Up at 5 am and on the road by 5:45 meant that I got to the fishery just before 6:30. Just the one car in the car park so I knew I would be able to have a good choice of swims.

I loaded the trolley up and headed off down the lake. On the way I passed the new stock pond. The plants are coming on well. Also I did see a fish or two on the surface. There is something in there then! I also spotted an empty can of luncheon meat, will people never learn?

I was set up and the swim fed by 7:23. In the time between arriving and being ready to start fishing a few other anglers had arrived and were set up on the near side by the islands.

A usual for Chittenden I started off using a single piece of corn on the hook. Seven fish in the first hour was a fast start. There was 5 bream, a roach (rare for Chittenden) and a carp of  8.5 lb.

I'd had some meat left over from my previous trip which I had frozen when I got home. This meant that it was in a condition which I could use on the hook. I switched to meat for the second hour. The bream wern't interested but a carp of 5 lb 6  oz was.

I switched back to corn for the next hour. Again the bream didn't play ball. A carp of 7 lb 14 oz did though.

Another change for the fourth hour, this time it was back to the meat. Still no bream, perhaps they had gone on their summer holidays? I did get two more carp though, one of 8 lb 12 oz and a slightly smaller one of 5 lb 14 oz.

Around 12:30 I changed hook baits again, this time to soft hook able pellets. Again no bream and again a solitary carp of 5 lb 10 oz.

For the lunch break period I switched back to corn. Again no bream but another carp, this one 6 lb 14 oz. I definitely wasn't complaining about the lack of bream as the carp were all putting up a good fight. I was really enjoying myself.

As the afternoon session started I was back on the meat. This time I caught my best carp of the day a 9 lb 14 oz specimen. As a bonus I also nabbed a bream, they were back!

My last fish of the day was caught at 15:47 and was also a carp. This one had a liking for pellets and weighed 6 lb 9 oz.

I lost very few fish during the day so the problems I had with the carp on my previous outing must just have been down to one of those days. In the end I caught 16 fish, most of them carp. A good and enjoyable day.