2015 16 June 20th Chittenden, Edenbridge

Today it was time to return to Chittenden in an attempt to correct the mistakes I made on my previous visit.

I was up at 5 am and on the road by 5:30. It's brilliant driving down to Edenbridge at that time of the morning, you hardly ever see another car.

I arrived around 6 am and quickly loaded the trolley and headed off down the lake to my favorite swim.

As usual I first mixed the ground bait so that I could get the swim fed. A change I did make was that for the leger rod instead of fishing directly in front of me I was going to try about 15 yards to my right and about 5 yards out. This swim I fed with handfuls of maize which I topped up every hour.

I had the two rods set up and ready to make my first casts at 7:10 am. Learning from last time I had both clutches set very tight so that only a really good fish would be able to take line.

I started with corn on the waggler and maize on the feeder. The first hour was quite productive, at least on the waggler as I caught one good skimmer bream and a 5lb 12 oz carp on the waggler. I did find that I was able to bully it away from the reeds quite confidently.

By the end of the second hour I'd added three more bream to the virtual net, one on corn and two on meat. A good start to the day.

At the close of hour three I'd managed to get another two on meat, one bream and a very small carp.

By 11:05 I'd only added another carp to the total, It did weight 5lb 13 oz and it did fall to meat again.

Leading up to my lunch I had another carp, this one was slightly bigger at 6 lb 7 oz. Again, this one fell to a cube of meat.

It must have been the smell of my lunch because another hour later a caught an even bigger carp, this one came in at 8 lb 15 oz. It also fell to a cube of meat. I was doing well. This carp was accompanied by a 2 lb 6  oz bream, very nice.

Here's the bream.

For the next three hours I went back on the corn as the bites seemed to dry up. Two bream were tempted by it. Close to 16:00 I switched back to meat again and almost straight away a carp of 4 lb 4 oz came in.

Thirty minutes later another carp weighing 4 lb 8 oz was in the net, Yes that one fell to meat as well.

At 17:00 the feeder rod went off and I caught my first Chittenden carp on maize. It was a good one as well, 9 lb 2 oz, almost my first double of the year.

Eight minutes later and the waggler rod was off again. The result was another carp. This one was smaller than the previous one, 8 lb 2 oz, nice all the same.

Was that it for the day? Absolutely not, there was one more card to play. It was 18:00 and I was thinking of packing up for the day when the float dipped and I struck. Very slowly the fish moved away. It took line quite easily despite the clutch being very tight. I began to have flashbacks of my previous visit however this time I managed to turn it, although by that time it was a good distance out. I played the fish for what seemed an eternity before I first got a glimpse of my quarry. By my standards it was huge. I struggled to get it off the bottom, finally when it did come up I saw it was a catfish! I prayed the hook would hold as it came nearer and nearer. Soon it was close enough for me to reach for the net. Don't panic, Ken I thought just relax and don't rush. How I did it I don't know but eventually it was in the net! It weighed, 14 lb 2 oz, needless to say it was a personal best!

At that point I thought it couldn't get any better so I packed up and went home. Eighteen fish caught in the day including a personal best catfish. I'll be back.