2015 05 April 4th Nursery Fields, Edenbridge

For my first outing of April I thought I would pay a return visit to the club's mixed fishery at Nursery Fields. It hadn't been a spectacular start to the year so far, due in the main to the weather. I hoped things would be different today as the temperature had risen a degree or two of late.

I arrived at the pond at exactly 7 am to find there was not another soul there. Strange for Easter weekend I thought. As I was loading up the trolley another angler turned up.

I made my way up the lake to my intended swim at the top. The reed beds which surround the island had grown a bit in the 2 weeks since I'd last been there. A sign that spring had indeed started.

It was going to be the usual two rod attack again today. The only change was the flavor of boillie. Today it was going to be pineapple.

I made my first casts at 8 am and then settled back to await the day's action to begin.

As usual for this time of year I started my day using single maggot on a size 20 hook. It seemed that the pond's roach were hungry today as in the first hour I landed three small ones. A good start.

The next hour was even better than the first, eight roach made the virtual net. Also the feeder rod sprang into action for the first time of the year. The culprit was one of the pond's small tench.

The next hour was even better than the last, I still caught 8 roach but this tally was augmented by a small rudd. The feeder rod produced as well, this time it was a bream.

The last hour of the morning came and the feeder rod decided to have a rest. The float rod did not. Ten more roach and another rudd made the net. One of the roach was a stamp above the others, I landed this one using a single castor.

The fish and I decided to have a rest and in my case some lunch. The result was that the next hour brought me only two more roach.

I was back on it for the next hour, five roach and a rudd. The feeder rod was still silent.

How many small roach does this pond contain? My tactics of a single maggot on the hook and loose feeding hemp every cast was certainly paying off. This hour four more roach made the net.

By 16:00 five more roach had been added to the total and for good measure another tench fell victim to a pineapple boillie on the feeder rod.

All day I'd been feeding the area close to the reed bed to my right with sweetcorn every time I caught a fish. At 16:00 I decided to abandon my first swim and for the remainder of the day I would concentrate my efforts on the reed bed swim. I also switched baits to corn and bread (alternately not together!).

I didn't have long to wait for the action to begin. After a roach of about 3 ounces I caught this good one (see below). That was followed by my first crucian of the day (also see below).

The next hour brought a roach and a rudd. I was seriously thinking about packing up as it was 18:00 and I was tired. Before I could make my mind up the buzzer went off and the rod headed for the water. I managed to get it and a very lively carp onto the bank. The carp fought much harder than the one from Chittenden the previous week despite only weighing 4 lb 7 ounces. My mind was now made up - I was going home.

My day was not over however as when I was putting away the feeder rod the float went under and I landed my only tench of the day on the float rod. It fell to a piece of bread flake.

Finally after a slow start to the season I'd had a good day. I'd caught 57 fish (mostly roach). I will be back.