It was just before 7am when I pulled into the empty car park. Great I thought, this gives me an opportunity to take my time and maybe fish a swim I hadn't, as yet, fished previously.
I loaded up the trolley and starting from the bottom of the lake on the far side I examined all the swims until I came to the one almost opposite the two islands. This gave me a good swim to fish to on the far bank with a feeder rod and some lily pads to fish to with the waggler. Excellent, I thought.
I set up both rods and was ready to make my first casts at 8am. On the feeder rod I was using 10mm tutti fruitti boillies and on the waggler rod I stated with 6mm halibut pellets.
Sometimes when you start a session early and have fed the swim with a fair amount of food it shouldn't be a shock if a biggish fish is attracted into your swim. Basically what I'm saying is, don't be caught off guard when you encounter a decent bite early on. That's my advice, pity I didn't take it. I lost three good fish in the first hour.
It wasn't a complete disaster though as I managed to catch an Ide first cast and a carp of about 2lb a short time later.
I then decided to switch to another flavoured pellet - this time I chose crab. I only caught one with it in the next hour but it was a nice crucian.
For the next two hours I switched back to halibut pellets but only managed to get 1 solitary roach. It wasn't a total disaster though as the feeder rod came to life with a tench and a bream.
A mixture of flavoured pellets brought me another Ide and two tench in the next hour. The feeder rod chipped in with another bream and a reasonable carp.
Another hour passed and I'd added another 6 fish to the virtual net, a crucian, a roach and four scrappy tench.
Here's how my set up looked:
It was back to crab flavoured pellets for the next hour. As always seems to happen here the fishing died at lunchtime. Proof of this was the fact that I only caught a roach and a crucian. The feeder rod hadn't obviously heard of this rule as it produced another four tench.
As I reached mid afternoon (15:00) things had slowed right down, A 2lb carp came in on the feeder rod and a single Ide joined it in the virtual net having shown a liking for tangerine dream pellets.
It was at 16:00 that the action began in earnest, the waggler rod produced absolutely nothing however the feeder produced a tench and 2 carp, one of which went 12lb 8oz. Another double! I must be close to a personal best on the number of doubles for a season.
By 17:20 which the time I decided to call it a day, the tangerine dream pellets had accounted for a bream and a tench. The feeder rod had gone mad again. A carp of 13lb took the boillie which was significant in that it was the first time I'd ever had two doubles in one session.
Where the good carp came from:
I'd hardly settled down again when the buzzer went off and I was into another good fish. I could tell it wasn't a carp, barbel or tench by the way it fought or rather didn't. I was proved right when it broke the surface to reveal itself as a very good bream. This was confirmed by the scales, 3.5lb, which equalled my personal best.
So that was it for the day, 26 fish caught, two doubles and a near personal best bream. I went home a very happy man.
