I left home at my usual time (6:30) to make my way to Edenbridge. When I arrived thirty minutes or so later I found the car park empty.
I loaded up my trolley and started to head off to my swim. As I reached the little bridge I heard a voice say "Morning". After regaining my composure I turned to see Peter the bailiff standing by a tree. He was apparently hunting the club's mink. So the camouflage jacket etc does work because I hadn't a clue he was there!
Today's swim was one I hadn't fished before. It was the top swim right on the corner of the near bank. It has open water directly in front of the platform however on the right there is a patch of lily's (when they surface) in front of a reed bed. It was here that I planned to fish the waggler. I intended to fish the feeder rod three quarters of the way across to the island.
I was set up and the swims fed by 8:05. As the weather was really cold I made my mind up to fish exclusively with maggots. This tactic seemed to work in the first hour as I caught 10 fish including 6 roach and 1 each of bream, gudgeon, perch and a surprise crucian.
The second hour was slower, producing only 5 fish. Two roach, a gudgeon, a 1.25lb cruian and a skimmer on corn. I was shivering but happy.
Down to four fish the next hour. They were all small and all on maggot. They were 2 bream, a perch and the first rudd of the season. God, it was cold when that wind blew.
As noon arrived I'd now slowed to two an hour. Both of them roach. Had I emptied the swim? The feeder rod showed no sign of movement either. Time to get the soup out.
During the lunch hour I bagged another crucian with a liking for a single red maggot.
After lunch I tried bread flake for an hour. It wasn't too successful however I did manage a solitary bream. The quality didn't increase but I held out hope that it would so I stayed on it for a while longer. I was rewarded with another skimmer bream.
I switched back to maggot and almost instantly the float dipped, I struck and off went the fish. I managed to stop it about 10 metres in front of me. I couldn't however get it off the bottom, so I let it run back and forth across the swim. I was being careful because of the light set up. Eventually though the fish surfaced and it was a barbel, my first of the season. When I weighed it I found it to be 3.25lbs, a personal best!
Buoyed by my success with the barbel I kept up the maggot attack until I packed up about 17.00. In that time I had my first tench, another 7 roach and another barbel, this one was 1lb 14ozs.
One last surprise awaited me, the feeder rod went off! I was dumbfounded. The reward for my patience was a tench of about a pound.
I ended the day with 37 fish, including a personal best barbel, so despite the cold weather I had an absolutely brilliant day.
Tackle used
| Rod | Reel | Mainline | Hook Size | Bait |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12' Shakespeare Match Rod |
4lb
| 18 |
Maggots
Corn
Bread
|
| 2 | 12' Maver Abyss Feeder Rod |
6lb
| 16 | Monster Crab 10ml Boillie |
No comments:
Post a Comment