I was all packed and ready by 2pm. The sun was out but the clouds were looking ominous as I made my way down the lanes to Edenbridge.
When I arrived at the venue there was about a dozen or so cars in the car park. On the way down I'd made up my mind that if possible I would have a bash at one of the swims at the bottom as recently I'd either been fishing midway up the far bank or at the very top.
Before I unloaded the car I went and had a look to see what swims were free. I was in luck pegs 1 and 2 were both unoccupied. I've fished peg one before so today I chose to go with peg 2.
I returned to the car, loaded the trolley and headed off on the short walk to peg 2. This peg is unusual in that it is what I would call a right handed swim. Most of the swims at NF have lillies to fish to but the majority of these are on the left hand side of the swim hence you have to fish it 'the wrong way round'.
The left hand side of the swim has some very fishy looking reeds so after some thought I decided that on this occasion I would fish both swims and forego the sleeper feeder rod.
Next on the preparation front was the groundbait. Do I go for little and often or an initial large feed and a possible long wait for the diners to arrive? I decided on the latter. Into each swim went two generous balls of brown crumb, meat and corn along with a few handfuls of hemp and maggots.
My set up today was quite straight forward 5lb main line, size 16 to 4lb hook length and a 3BB waggler.
By 15:22 I was ready to make my first cast. I eyed up my spot and cast, nothing. I looked up only to see my line stuck in a tree! I not only lost the hook but valuable fishing time as I had to tie another hook on. This time before casting I moved all my stuff 2 feet to the left. I cast, bingo, straight over the feed.
As I suspected the bites did not come quickly although I could detect movement in the swim and surrounding lily pads. First up though was a 4 inch barbel with a liking for corn. By the end of the first hour it was joined by a couple of bream.
I fed the swims again before the start of hour two. The swim on the left I decided I wouldn't touch for a couple of hours. The second hour was slightly more productive, four fish, all of different species, crucian, bream, rudd and a very nice looking tench.
The first seven fish were all caught on corn. However for the remainder of the session I used small cubes of meat. The third hour showed that I might have been a little too early to do the switch as I only caught one solitary bream.
Things took a turn for the better in the last hour and forty minutes of the session. Three more bream and a roach with a liking for meat made the net. The highlight though was the three carp (2x3 and a 2) which also made the net. The carp at this venue do tend to leave it quite late before showing up.
I packed up at 20:00 when I hooked inot another carp and lost it in the lillies (with most of my teminal tackle).
In conclusion, fishing performance wise, this wasn't one of my better sessions. I never quite got into the rythmn. I'm going to put this down to the cough I'd been suffering with for the previous few days.
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