2016 02 March 20th Chittenden, Edenbridge

My second trip of the year was to the club's carp lake at Chittenden, just outside Edenbridge in Kent.

I was up at 5:45 am. The view, in what light there was, from the window said to me that today was going to be a chilly one. Still it's March so can't expect miracles.

When I arrived at the car park there was one other brave soul there. I scanned the lake but couldn't see where he was set up even though at this time of the year the trees were bare and I could almost see the entire lake.

I unloaded the car and made my way down the path to the bottom end of the lake. As I rounded the slight dog leg I couldn't see anyone o at least for the start of the day I would have the section to myself.

Today's set up was as follows, a Shimano float rod, 6 lb main line to a size 18 hook with a 3 lb hook length. Light enough for the bream and strong enough for any reasonable size carp that came along.

I fed the swim with a couple of big balls of ground bait along with some free offerrings of hemp, maggots, corn and pellets. I intended to start with a single maggot on the hook.

I was set up and ready to make my first cast at 7:40. After about 30 minutes my hook got stuck on a reed. I went down the bank to free it and as I was leaning over the bank gave way and my left leg went in. Luckily I fell on my backside so no more of my body went in!

Lucky for me I don't drive in my fishing boots so I went back to the car to take off my boot and sock and put a trainer on. So for the rest of the day I had a trainer with no sock on my left foot and a boot and sock on my right - charming.

I did notice that in the 2 hours or so since I arrived quite a few more cars had turned up. "Hardy souls" I thought to myself.

When I returned to my swim and resumed fishing I could quite clearly hear their chatter. It turns outs it was a match! I was a bit worried that they would come and throw me out but luckily that never happened.

There wasn't a great deal of action in the first two hours. The bream hadn't shown up yet but the small roach had, three of them to be exact.

The next hour yielded just another small roach. By now I was also fishing a feeder line using maize as the bait. There was no action on that either.

As the maggots were not working I thought for the next hour or so I would try corn and bread. Alas I was no more successful with them and it was cold!

I had to wait until 15:00 hours before I had another bite, it was no surprise that it was another small roach. You don't normally see these during the summer months. I suppose the bigger fish bully them away.

That was it for the day, five small roach, a soaking wet foot and a freezing body. I called it a day at 16:30 and when I got back to the car I was the only one left. That told me that no one could have been doing all that great,

2016 01 March 11th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge

Today was going to be my session of 2016. The venue was the club's mixed fishery at Nursery Fields in Edenbridge, Kent.

Being March and pretty cold (1.5 degrees) when I set out about 7:20 and coupled with the fact that the venue hadn't fished very well last year I wasn't all that optimistic.

There was a heavy mist as I made my way through the country lanes, across the M25 at Limpsfield Village and then down through the Surrey Hills to Edenbridge.

When I arrived at the fishery's car park I discovered there was aleardy three cars there, a good sign the lake was fishing well? I hoped so.

I unloaded the car and put on my winter warmer gear as you never know how cold it is going to be sitting still all day. Better to be safe than sorry. I then quickly made my round to the top of the lake.

When I arrived at the swim I took in the new landscape, no trees! All the trees on the bank had been heavily pruned. At least I wouldn't have any casting difficulties today.

The mist was still very much in evidence as I set up my match rod. Today my terminal tackle would be a 2AA float, 4lb line and to start, a size 20 hook.

Single maggot was going to be the bait of the day as I thought that being early March it would be the roach that would turn up to feed first, if anything did of course.

After I fed some maggots and hemp I set my seat and was ready to make my first cast. The time was 8:40.

I knew it would be slow to start with and I was proved right as for most of the first hour the float never moved. I did keep feeding little and often and was finally rewarded with a small roach. I wasn't going to blank today.

The next two hours were a struggle. I kept plugging away though. I maanged to winkle out another small roach and my first skimmer bream of the season.

During the session I'd assembled my feeder rod and loaded it with a small crab boillie.  I'd then cast it to the far bank. I'd fed the swim with a generous helping of these boillies in the hope of maybe tempting a carp later on in the day.

At 11:30 after adding another small roach to the virtual net, the tip of the feeder rod went round and I was into something that definitely wasn't a 2 oz roach. It turned out not to be a carp but was one of the lake's tench. I would say it was about 1.5 lb. That lifted my spirits.

It was now lunchtime and the day had warmed up somewhat and so had the fish. By 13:40 I'd added another two roach to the net, almost a rush!

The next hour was even better, three roach and my first rudd of the season.

All day I'd been feeding the reed bed to my right with one or two pieces of corn. At 16:00 I gave up on my float line to concentrate on that swim. I switched from maggot to bread flake and was immediately rewarded with a carp of around 2 lb!

Thirty minutes later the tip went round on the feeder rod and I was into another carp, this one with a liking for crab. When it made the net I estimated it at around 4 lb.

As it was getting near to packing up time I dismantled the feeder rod and concentrated on the reed bed to my left. Again it was with bread flake on the hook.

I had to wait about ten minutes before the float dipped and I was into a 'biggie'. It took me all over the swim before I began to get on top of it. Alas it was not to be as it broke the hook length. At that point I decided to call it a day.

So the tally at the end of the day was thirteen fish, two carp, one each of tench, rudd, and bream plus eight very small roach. Not a bad start to the season.