The weather was reasonable as I started the drive to Edenbridge. Because of this I was feeling optimistic for the day ahead. I'd had too many cold days recently.
I arrived at the fishery dead on 7 am. I unloaded the car and made my way round to Hare lake, It isn't very wide and the swim I chose is where the lake is the narrowest. It's perfect for flicking a float out in front of the opposite reed bed.
Bait wise today's attack was maggots and sweetcorn because from previous experience it was going to be roach and bream all day with a few small (less than a pound) carp.
As I was only going to use one rod again today I was easily set up and ready to make my first cast at 8 am.
Here is the swim in question:
And here is my set up!
With a single maggot on the hook I didn't have to wait long before the action started. True to the script the first three fish in were very and I do mean very small roach. I decided at that point to switch full time to corn to avoid being pestered by these roach all day. I was rewarded with a small carp.
Here is the carp:
The next sixty minutes produced only another of the lake's small carp. They are about a 1 lb but do pull when you use a match rod so I did have some fun.
The next hour was as slow as the previous one. Just the one fish, this time it was a bream.
Did I say the weather was lovely? Well it was. The sun was shining and it really was quite pleasant. Did it affect the fishing? I think so as I only caught one small carp in the next hour. It was noon now and I'd only caught seven fish.
After lunch the clouds came and began to deposit their content. Just what I needed. It didn't affect the fishing though, another hour another small carp.
The rain seemed to galvanise the fish, by 15:00 I'd added another four fish to the virtual net, three carp and just for a change a small roach. Here's one of them:
I then decided to have a complete change of tactics. I set up my Shimano float rod with 6 lb main line and a size 16 banded pellet hook with the view that I would go for the lake's larger carp. I had nothing to lose I wasn't catching much anyway.
The plan sort of worked as in the last three hours before I packed up I caught eight carp, problem was they were all of the small variety. Yet again I was beaten by the lake's bigger inhabitants.
In conclusion I caught 20 fish all but four were carp. Where were the roach, spawning I guess. I shall be back to have another go at this lake.
Here's a view of the lake from my left side:
No comments:
Post a Comment