Today I decided to give Holland A.S’s Private Lake a go. It
had been a few months since I’d been there so I though the time was right.
According to the club rules you cannot enter either of the
ponds before 7am so I didn’t have to rush to leave the house, in fact I got up
about the same time I usually do for work. On the drive down I noticed that the
temperature was a couple of degrees up on the previous week. This was evident
when I arrived and saw that there was no mist on the pond.
My favourite swim is peg 8 but today I decided to try the
last accessible swim, peg 11. This swim has 2 rod lengths of clear water before
the large expanse of lily pads. There is also bed of pads on either side.
I loaded up the trolley to be ready for the longest walk at
the venue. When I arrived at the peg I noticed problem number one, the sun
although out, was shining straight in my eyes. “Never mind”, I thought “in a
few hours it would have moved position and I’ll be fine”.
I then went through my normal set up routine which takes
about 30 to 40 minutes. On completion, the swim had been fed, the waggler rod
had been set up and the peg laid out just how I like it. I made my first cast,
using single red maggot as bait at about 8am.
I didn’t have to wait long for the first bite, a small common
of about half a pound. A was very nice start indeed. In fact, by 9.20 I’d accumulated
5 more carp, a tench, a rudd and a crucian.
Confession time now, when I was making preparations for the
day’s session I’d forgotten to take the sweet corn out of the freezer. This would
have meant that I had to wait a few hours before I could use it if I hadn’t of
found some in the fridge. It wasn’t much but it was enough.
As the morning wore on I was still catching fish but the
rate dropped enough to concern me. Yes, I had swopped hook bait to corn but
based on previous experience at the venue that shouldn’t have caused this much
change. I do like to fish a tad over depth so the first thing I did was to take
3 inches off my depth. Straightaway I noticed a change. I was hitting more
bites! The problem was apparently sorted.
The rest of the day I caught steadily, even when during the
afternoon I switched baits to meat. By the time I packed up I’d added another
27 carp to the virtual net. There was nothing spectacular weight wise, the
largest being about 2 pounds. What was somewhat surprising was that no other
species got a look in.
Here's a view of the left hand side of the swim:
Here's a view of the left hand side of the swim:
In conclusion I really enjoyed my day. The sun shone all day
which meant that I didn’t have to wear 100 layers of clothing to keep warm.
Also, the carp seemed to have grown from very small (2 or 3 ounces in the main)
to around the half to three quarters of
a pound mark which is a good sign for the future. On the negative side the lack
of other species caught must have been down to the carp bullying them out of
the swim. I hope that this does not have any long term effect on the pond.
No comments:
Post a Comment