I had never been to the venue and wasn't all that sure where it was, so I decided to use the car's satnav. The fishery was found very easily and that's when it started to go wrong!
I had checked the opening time on the website and had arrived about 5 minutes after the published time. The gates were locked and there wasn't another soul in sight!
Luckily for me there was a phone number on the notice board. I gave it a ring and the owner told me the combination so that I could let myself in.
Obviously as the first one in I had the opportunity to walk around the pond to determine the most fishy looking swims. I decided to fish against the only set of lily pads in the pond.
All was going well until I plumbed the depth. The pond was very shallow and so I would have to fish at the top of lily pads not down the side as I intended. The depth was 2 foot.
It was just the one rod today as two on an unknown water might have proved too difficult. I was set up and ready to make my first cast at 7:10.
for bait and terminal tackle I had a waggler set up to a size 16 hook on 4lb hook length which was big enough to take a grain of corn.
The first hour was a bit of a disappointment, as although I was getting bites, I couldn't connect with any of them.
By 9:40 I'd actually caught two rudd and lost a carp which, although disappointing, gave me hope.
For the next hour I alternated between corn and meat. The fish were still there as I caught another four however they were all rudd.
At 11am the owner came round and advised me to up the size of my hook as he felt a size 16 was too small to hook the fish. I changed to a 14 and by 12:40 I'd added another 4 to the net, 2 rudd and my first two small carp of the day.
Between 12:40 and 14:00 my total for the day rose from 10 to 21. The bad news was that the fish were all rudd. I couldn't seem to get the pond's other inhabitants.
Fifty minutes later and another five rudd had made the virtual net. I was beginning to get a bit frustrated.
Three more rudd came into the net over the next hour. It looked like that was it for the day unless the early evening brought a change.
Alas, that was a bit of pie in the sky as by the time I packed up the net had reached 34 fish with the inclusion of 4 more rudd and a solitary carp.
The owner had left about an hour before. Prior to leaving he'd left me instructions on how to lock up!
