Belated Update

I haven’t been out fishing much of late but I did manage a full day on Sunday. Prior to this I had only been out for one short unproductive session at the HRPs. Initially there were two of us that went down to the Fendrod Lake on Sunday but we were later joined by two others. The two that came later were quite inexperienced but fancied giving fishing a go. A lot of my time as therefore spent with them setting things up, explaining, demonstrating etc.

Through the course of the day we caught loads of perch on maggots both on a whip in close and with a swim feeder cast further. The perch were so easy to catch that they even stopped putting maggots in the feeder and were randomly casting anywhere into the pool and still bites were almost instant. We did get one or two other fish which I think were dace; and one bootlace eel. I did intent to get a photo of our catch when we emptied the keepnet but the batteries in my camera were completely dead.

I think they had an enjoyable time catching the small perch but decided to leave the two of us to it mid afternoon. We then decided to pack up and move to the HRPs for the evening. Baz my fishing partner missed a couple of bites on his float but other than that things were pretty quiet. As the light started to fade other anglers at the ponds began to pack up and head off until we were the last ones there. I sat in my chair wondering how long it would be before Baz came over and asked how much longer we should give it.

It wasn’t long after that he did come over to ask if I had a starlight thingy as he could no longer see his float properly. I had just said to him that I’d give it another ten minutes when we were alerted to the sound of a screaming clutch from his rod in the next swim. A quick dash and he was into a fish that proceeded to plough through a lily bed. The fish never got completely snagged and he could still feel it and occasionally I caught glimpses in the torchlight. After about a 15 minute struggle the fish was free from the lilies and shortly after I managed to net it. The fish was a mirror carp and weighed 14lb 8oz in my mat/weigh sling combo. Given that the wet mat weighs close to 2lb the actual weight was therefore closer to 12lb 8oz, unfortunately we have no evidence as we couldn’t photograph the fish as the batteries in my camera were dead. 99% of the time waiting that extra five or ten minutes makes no difference but on this occasion it did and it was good to finish off the session with a nice fish on the bank!

The final session I have to report was Tuesday evening after work at Singleton Boating Lake. I got down there at about 18:30 – 19:00 and set up a method feeder on one rod and a float on the other. As I was setting up I saw a carp of I’d guess about five pounds leap out of the water at about ¾ the distance to the island. I had read on the angling club website that they were in there but this was the first evidence I had actually seen. As I watched I saw a dark shadow of a fish moving about just under the surface which I’m certain was a carp if not the one I had seen earlier leap out of the water. I then spotted a shoal of about eight dark shadows under the water which I think were bream and I’d guess may have been in the 3 pound region.

Spotting these fish gave me a bit of confidence and I aimed the method feeder in there general direction. With the float I fished maggot in the margin in front of me and soon began to get some bites. I pulled out a few perch before switching to bread and sweetcorn to see if I could tempt anything else. The change of baits meant the bites dried up until I did eventually get a good bite on sweetcorn which I subsequently missed. I then had a really good knock on the feeder rod which I also missed.

I re-baited and re-cast the feeder rod and switched back to maggots on the float rod. After a while I started catching perch again and had literally just swung one into hand when I had a big knock on the feeder rod. I struck into a fish on the feeder rod with my right hand whilst holding the float rod and perch in the other. I then dropped the small perch back into the water to land the fish on the other rod. It didn’t feel a huge fish and as it broke the surface I saw that it was a damn eel that had taken my hair rigged pellet. After unhooking and returning the perch on the other rod I decided to pack up as the light was beginning to fade.