2015 03 March 22nd Nursery Fields, Edenbridge

For once this week's trip was on a Sunday. That was different but the poor March weather wasn't.

It was about 2.5 degrees when I loaded the car around 6.30 am. It had been very cold as well when I last visited the venue two weeks previously and the fishing had been very hard. Still today was another day things may be better.

First piece of luck of the day occurred when I arrived at the gate, someone was there before me which meant all I had to do was close and lock it - result. As it turned out we were the first two arrivals.

As usual I headed up the lake to the top swims as these had always been kind to me at this time of the year. To add to the good omens the wind would be blowing in my face, perfect. What could go wrong?

After last week's one rod attack I decided to revert back to my favorite tactic, a swim feeder placed close to the far reed bed and a waggler set up fished about half way across. I used a size 16 hair rig on the feeder and a size 20 on the waggler.

I fed the swims and made my first casts at 8:10. I then sat down and waited for the action to begin.

Unlike my previous visit I could at least see the movement of small fish. None of them however showed any interest in my solitary red maggot. I had to wait nearly two hours for my first bite. When it arrived the culprit was a tiny roach (See below).

By 11 am I was beginning to get cold despite wearing several layers of clothes. The fishing had improved, 2 more small roach had made the net.

Same thing happened the next hour, another two roach. So the morning session was over, 5 roach on the waggler and nothing on the feeder.

Another hour another roach. The next was my most productive by far, three roach! Had all the other species flown south for the winter and hadn't yet returned? The buzzer on the feeder rod remained silent,

Between 2 pm and 3 pm I had another roach and my first bream of the season albeit a very small skimmer.

The next hour brought another small skimmer bream. I was now getting very cold. Only an hour to go before I could head home for a warm bath.

Can you believe it? In the context of the day the fishing went mad in the last hour. Five roach made the virtual net bringing my total for the day to 17. Fifteen roach and two bream.

One strange thing happened today. In the middle of the afternoon two members, one with a saw came and begun to cut some old sticks from the trees directly behind me. It turned out they needed them for their runner beans!

2015 02 March 13th Private Lake, Holland nr Hurst Green, Surrey

Holland Angling Society closes it's ponds from March 15th until June 1st so today would be my last chance to visit the Private Pond.

I left home around 6:30 for the drive to Oxted. The weather relative to the time of year had been good leading up to today so I wasn't surprised to see that the thermometer in the car read 5 degrees.

When I arrived at the pond there were no other cars there. Strange I thought being so close to the seasons end. I unloaded the car and then had a look around. The top end of the pond is usually covered in lily pads but none as yet had broken the surface.

Peg 8 is my favourite so that was my choice of swim for today. My Set up was a 12 foot match rod, 4 lb main line to a size 20 hook. First line of attack would be single maggot.

I mixed a relatively small amount of ground bait which consisted of brown crumb, red silver fish attractor and hemp. Before I cast in I fed about half a bait box of hemp, a couple of small balls of ground bait and a few handfuls of the maggots I had left over from last week. I made my first cast at 7:45.

I didn't have to wait long for the float to disappear. The culprit was a roach of about an ounce. I fed a few more maggots and re-cast. Yet again the float went away and yet again it was another small roach.

It carried on this way for about 50 minutes. I decided at that time to give sweetcorn a go. Withing 10 minutes I'd caught another roach which brought my total for the first hour to 10.

I followed the same tactics for the second hour and was rewarded with seven roach and the season's first carp (small) and tench (also small) making my total for the day 19. This was six more than last week's grand total.

For hour three I think the pond's head of small carp had bullied the roach away as I didn't manage to catch a single one. I did manage two more small carp on single maggot though.

Sixty minutes later a combination of maggot and corn as bait saw me land a further three small carp. I actually had to use the landing net for the first time this season!

After consuming my Oxtail soup I went straight into the lunchtime session. I landed eight fish, 2 small carp, 3 roach and 2 very nice crucians. My total for the day was now 31.

It was now that I started to hit trouble. The weather was still reasonably clear and dry but the temperature had dropped drastically. I wasn't sure if it would affect the fishing but it did as by 14:00 I'd only caught three more small carp.

During the day I'd been feeding some pellets into the swim and so as the fishing was slow I decided to have a change of tactics. I went for a banded 6 mm pellet set up. I was rewarded almost straight away with another small carp.

By the time I'd packed up at 17:00 I'd landed three more small carp on the pellet.

I finished the day on 38 from four different species. I shall have to return when the pond re-opens in June.

2015 01 March 6th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge

At long last the 2015 season had arrived. As with previous years I decided to make my first session at the club's mixed fishery at Nursery Fields.

The temperature was cold (2.5) but still when I loaded the car prior to making the 30 minute or so drive to the lake in Edenbridge.

When I arrived about 7:15 there was already one car in the car park. I unloaded my gear and made my way up the lake, stopping only to have a few polite words with the other angler.

It took me a bit longer than usual to set up as I was a bit rusty! Anyway by 8:30 I'd set up and cast a feeder rod with a 10mm halibut boillie to the island. I'd also set up another rod with a standard waggler rig with a size 20 hook on a 3.8 lb hook length to 4lb mainline.

As there was no wind to speak of so seeing any bites wouldn't be a major problem. 

On the waggler I used a single maggot as this was, in my opinion the best chance of getting some bites this early in the season.

I waited for most of the first hour for a bite, when it came it was from a small roach. 

I was loose feeding 3 or 4 maggots a cast and a handful of hemp every 30 minutes or so. I was rewarded in the second hour with another small roach.

By 11:30 I'd only bagged another small roach. By now I'd worked out that today was going to be a struggle. There was no action what so ever on the feeder rod. 

By the time I got to my Oxtail Soup lunch break I'd only added another small roach. Peter, the bailiff had been round and he told me that everyone else was struggling for bites. That made me feel a whole lot better.

Then, as if someone had thrown a magic switch the roach turned up to feed! In the next 60 minutes I caught eight of them. Could I have turned a corner?

Then inexplicably just as they suddenly turned up they suddenly vanished. Perhaps something bigger had bullied them away? I decided to give a piece of sweetcorn a go but after 30 minutes of inactivity I decided that wasn't going to be anymore successful. I did get another small roach on a single maggot bring my total to a dozen for the day.

At this time of year I always take a few slices of bread because I've had some good fish on it especially late in the day. Because of this I switched to bread around 15:30. Almost immediately I was rewarded with my first Rudd of the season.

That I'm afraid to say was the end of the days action. I packed up at 17:00.

The feeder remained inactive all day however when the small roach started feeding I did start to get a lot of beeps indicating line bites which showed there was fish activity. They however died away when the roach went off again.

All day I'd been feeding a few pieces of corn by the rushes to my left and so for the last hour or so I changed the depth of the float and gave it a go. Nothing, not a sausage.

So the first session of the season was over, 13 fish in the net, 12 small roach and a small rudd.