2014 02 March 14th Private Lake, Holland nr Hurst Green, Surrey

I had a Friday off work and as this coincided with the last day of the season for Holland A.C. I decided to head down to Hurst Green and fish their Private Pond.   

The weather forecast was yet again brilliant for the time of year and so anticipating a large turn out, I was out of the house by 6:30. Shock number one, I had to scrap the ice off the car! Shock number two, it was -2.5 when I finally set off.

I arrived at the pond just before 7am to find no one there. I was quite surprised, then again it was quite early.

On the way down I had decided to fish peg 12 which is the peg directly opposite the gate and the last of the available pegs. I unloaded the car and made my way round to the swim. As the sun was gathering strength, mist could be seen rising off the pond. 

I quickly set up and fed the swim. I made my first cast at 7:45.

I started the day alternating between maggot and castor. As normal, the usual suspects turned up first. I had 5 small roach in the first hour.

The next hour I tried sweetcorn but with little success. All I had to show for my efforts was another small roach.

By this time (9:45) the swim was showing signs of fish feeding on the bottom. So, I determined that now would be a good time to switch to corn full time. I was rewarded with 2 small carp and a little roach.

The next hour followed the pattern of the previous one, only this time it was 2 small carp and no roach.

Lunch time came so I thought, with fish activity in the swim but still no great results I would give meat a go. Bad move, I didn't get a sniff of a bite. Mind you, the oxtail soup was very nice.

Another hour, another change of tactics. This time I tried bread flake. Yes you've guessed it, two more small carp. By the way when I say small carp I mean from 0.5 to 1lb. 

I stayed on the bread for another hour however I might as well not bothered as I failed to add to my total! Still it was a very nice day.

My ground bait mix contained some small halibut pellets so for the next hour to decided to try small hookers. I fed three or four pellets every cast. Although I could see fish activity in the swim I only managed to catch one small carp.  

With about 90 minutes to go before I had to leave and with a fair variety of bait left I decided that as I hadn't caught consistently throughout the day on any one bait I would alternate between them all. To my surprise this seemed to work as I caught 8 carp and roach in addition to a surprise crucian!

I finished the day with a haul of 22 fish, nothing large though. The larger carp in this pond eluded me again today. 

In the words of Arnie, "I'll be back".

Tackle used

Rod	Reel	Mainline	Hook Size	Bait
1	12' Shakespeare Match Rod	4lb	18	Maggots Corn Bread Hooker Pellets

2014 01 March 8th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge

After a longer than usual break, today was the day when I kick started the 2014 season.

For the past 4 weeks or so I had been preparing for this day. This meant ensuring all existing tackle was clean, any broken or worn out tackle was replaced and any terminal tackle that needed acquiring was bought. Luckily my birthday was only a few weeks previous so the cost to me wasn't too great!

The weather forecast leading up to today was good, sunshine with no wind or rain. Also the temperature was going to above the seasonal average.

With all the gear packed into the car I set off at 6:30 for the 20 mile or so trip to Edenbridge. With the temperature at 7.5 and the Eagles blasting through the speakers, could life be any better?  

I arrived at the fishery at around 7am to find another car parked in front of me with the occupant opening the gate. It must have been my lucky day. I followed the car into the car park and loaded up my gear ready for the longish walk to the top of the lake.

When I arrived at the peg, the lake looked great. I couldn't wait to get started. As normal, today was going to be a two rod attack. The feeder rod to the island and the waggler rod about half way across.

Having set up and baited the swims I cast out at 8am. The new season had started. I only had to wait 15 minutes for the first bite. The surprise was, it wasn't on the waggler rod but on the feeder. As soon as I struck the fish (a carp) jumped out of the lake. After a brief if not rusty struggle I had the fish in the net. A common carp of around 4lb.

It was thirty minutes or so before the waggler went down and in came the first roach of the season. 

As the morning drew on the fishing could not be described as anything but slow. My initial optimism had all but vanished. I was still catching though, a perch, a bream and a mighty gudgeon made it 5 species in the first 5 fish caught. That has to be some sort of feat.

I started the day on single maggot whilst feeding a few pieces of corn every now and again. When I felt the time was right I tried corn on the hook. I waited nearly an hour for the float to dip, when it did I was rewarded with a skimmer of about a 1lb. 

The pattern for the day was set, each hour produced one or two fish. These were a mixture of the usual suspects, roach, gudgeon and bream (who were in the majority).

All through the day I'd been feeding the reed area on my right with one or two pieces of corn every 15 minutes or so. As the day drew to a close I dropped the float next to the reeds. Almost immediately the float went away and I was into what turned out to be a crucian carp of around a 1lb.

The feeder rod was silent for most of the day after the explosive start. It did spring into action once more. It was a carp but not a common or a mirror but another crucian of about a 1lb.

One of the roach (or whatever it is) that I caught had a very distinctive coloring (see below):

I decided to pack up at 4:30 having had a good enjoyable day. As the season progresses so hopefully will my catches.

Tackle used

Rod	Reel	Mainline	Hook Size	Bait
1	12' Shakespeare Match Rod	4lb	20 18	Maggots Corn Bread
2	12' Maver Abyss Feeder Rod	6lb	16	Monster Crab 10ml Boillie