Her indoors had got a shopping trip arranged so I thought it only fair to slope off to the lake, though due to a poorly head (cough cough) I was a bit later than expected and didn't arrive till 2.30pm, not too bad a thing as the weekend crowds were much thinned out by then. I spoke to a lad as I arrived and apparently there had been four fish out since mine of Thursday though it had been busy, seven on for Saturday night and others on Friday.
I fished just around the corner from my new spot for some reason that escapes me, probably my fuddled head, but fished back across to the same area. Just after casting out I saw my first fish proper since November crash out just past where my last take came from, how very kind of it! It was a cracking afternoon, warm and sunny though it did cloud over a bit later on, unfortunately with the weather comes Joe Public and Joe Public usually brings his varmints with him. Within an hour I was staring in amazement as two little darlings threw stones directly over my margin rod, now how the hell did they pick that spot with the whole lake to choose from?
At 5pm a group of lads arrived complete with beer and bugger me if they didn't park up right next to my other margin rod, the banker one too, noisy as you like and stopped there for a good hour, bleeding wonderful.
It got stranger, now please explain this one
That'll be a 6ft odd log on that lads back, he was running, he did three laps, he was grunting like a pig all of the way and looked in agony and of course he was merrily pounding away past my margins, words really did fail me at this point
Packed up at 7.30pm and heading off for some hangover food after giving the fish them a good helping of boilies to be getting on with.
Tuesday the 23rd of March2010
Back to the ressy after work to find a couple of lads on and in spots that didn't really do me any favours, not fishing my baited area but across it a bit. Neither were on for the night and so I dropped in next door and chucked 'em out for a couple of hours till they cleared off, didn't bother sticking the brolly up so it soon started raining as says the law of sod and I got a good soaking before I could get straight. Once again it was a bit of an unusual wind, s/se i'd say, and was the same as the one I didn't like last week when I abandoned my margin area, I just couldn't make my mind up but eventually decided I was off to the opposite bank as soon as it became free and so at 6pm I was on my way, still getting pee'd on.
From this swim a walk around the margins gets you back out to where I wanted to be but I also had plenty of open water and loads of options.
7.40pm - Just had a nice scaley 18lb mirror from the spot, ten minutes later than Thursdays fish, coincidence? I don't know but I wasn't complaining, that would do nicely, things were starting to come together.
10.30pm - Open water rod was away resulting in another mirror of about 15lb odd
5.00am - The banker rod is off again and this one ran me ragged, you know when you wake up and really need a pee? Well this git obviously knew the score because it kept me waiting for ages and just kept flying off on silly runs again and again, when I managed to bundle it into the net first thing I did was secure it and make a dash for the hedge!
Another nice looking fish of 20lb 10z
It was once again peeing it down as it had been for most of the night and there wasn't much chance of me going to work first thing as planned so I got the rod back out with a handful of baits scattered over it and jumped back in the sack. I was just nodding off about an hour later and the same rod's off again, another pretty mid double, I gave up on the kip, mooched about for an hour or so and packed up
Thursday the 25th of March 2010
I managed to get up to the lake by about 4.30 and got set up as comfortably as is possible on the dam wall only to have the wind swing into the brolly and it start lagging it down within half an hour, not a great deal you can do about it you have to put your brolly at the angle the bank allows, which is nice! Yet again i've got the place to myself, considering it closes in less than a weeks time i'm amazed.
I'm fishing to the areas I caught from on Tuesday but from much closer to the spot due to expecting a few to turn up and it to become impossible to cut across the bay without intefering with someone else, its not a problem when there's not a soul here I have sat in the middle swims before now and had baits at both ends of the lake!
Nice view!
6pm - I'm really not comfortable here at all its bloody horrible, i've had to shove the bedchair right back down the slope of the bank to keep it half dry and i've had a sore throat for three days which seems to have suddenly decided to turn into a stinking cold, i'm feeling drained.
6.10pm - A fish just crashed out just to my left in the margins, re-positioned a bait on it straight away
6.30pm - Enough's enough, just re-positioned the brolly across the path, your not supposed to block it but its almost dark so sod it, I need comfort
Thats better
7.10pm - Nearly bite time
Is your cup a health hazard?
7.15pm - Its just gone wild thank god I moved the brolly the winds hammering it with rain driving across the water in sheets, I don't want a bite JUST yet!
The path was becoming a tad damp
I gave up at 9pm and got in the bag feeling rough, woke up at 10.30 for a leak and the fish were going mad, one was crashing at least every ten minutes or so and I couldn't get back off to sleep, some were only a couple of rods lengths from me. Got up and recast a couple of rods with a sprinkling of moonfruit over them and tried to get back off but was still lying there in limbo at 2am, horrible, felt crap but just could not get off, the fish were still showing well and i'd had a couple of liners but no takes.
6.30am - Crawled from my pit very bleary eyed and fishless, there was still the odd one showing as I packed up for the last time this season, wound the left hand rod in to find an old rig tangled around the hooklink and bugger me if the right hander wasn't also snagged around someones old leader, ah well I think I can safely put it all down to one of "those" nights.
And so ended the season, and in fact my time fishing the water, I caught my first carp from there back in 1989 and have fished it on and off ever since more as a thing of convenience than anything else, it's close to home and is good fun fishing but in all honesty it was time to call it a day. I more or less grew up on the place and it holds a lot of very fond memories of good times and good friends.
Back to the ressy after work to find a couple of lads on and in spots that didn't really do me any favours, not fishing my baited area but across it a bit. Neither were on for the night and so I dropped in next door and chucked 'em out for a couple of hours till they cleared off, didn't bother sticking the brolly up so it soon started raining as says the law of sod and I got a good soaking before I could get straight. Once again it was a bit of an unusual wind, s/se i'd say, and was the same as the one I didn't like last week when I abandoned my margin area, I just couldn't make my mind up but eventually decided I was off to the opposite bank as soon as it became free and so at 6pm I was on my way, still getting pee'd on.
From this swim a walk around the margins gets you back out to where I wanted to be but I also had plenty of open water and loads of options.
7.40pm - Just had a nice scaley 18lb mirror from the spot, ten minutes later than Thursdays fish, coincidence? I don't know but I wasn't complaining, that would do nicely, things were starting to come together.
10.30pm - Open water rod was away resulting in another mirror of about 15lb odd
5.00am - The banker rod is off again and this one ran me ragged, you know when you wake up and really need a pee? Well this git obviously knew the score because it kept me waiting for ages and just kept flying off on silly runs again and again, when I managed to bundle it into the net first thing I did was secure it and make a dash for the hedge!
Another nice looking fish of 20lb 10z
It was once again peeing it down as it had been for most of the night and there wasn't much chance of me going to work first thing as planned so I got the rod back out with a handful of baits scattered over it and jumped back in the sack. I was just nodding off about an hour later and the same rod's off again, another pretty mid double, I gave up on the kip, mooched about for an hour or so and packed up
Thursday the 25th of March 2010
I managed to get up to the lake by about 4.30 and got set up as comfortably as is possible on the dam wall only to have the wind swing into the brolly and it start lagging it down within half an hour, not a great deal you can do about it you have to put your brolly at the angle the bank allows, which is nice! Yet again i've got the place to myself, considering it closes in less than a weeks time i'm amazed.
I'm fishing to the areas I caught from on Tuesday but from much closer to the spot due to expecting a few to turn up and it to become impossible to cut across the bay without intefering with someone else, its not a problem when there's not a soul here I have sat in the middle swims before now and had baits at both ends of the lake!
Nice view!
6pm - I'm really not comfortable here at all its bloody horrible, i've had to shove the bedchair right back down the slope of the bank to keep it half dry and i've had a sore throat for three days which seems to have suddenly decided to turn into a stinking cold, i'm feeling drained.
6.10pm - A fish just crashed out just to my left in the margins, re-positioned a bait on it straight away
6.30pm - Enough's enough, just re-positioned the brolly across the path, your not supposed to block it but its almost dark so sod it, I need comfort
Thats better
7.10pm - Nearly bite time
Is your cup a health hazard?
7.15pm - Its just gone wild thank god I moved the brolly the winds hammering it with rain driving across the water in sheets, I don't want a bite JUST yet!
The path was becoming a tad damp
I gave up at 9pm and got in the bag feeling rough, woke up at 10.30 for a leak and the fish were going mad, one was crashing at least every ten minutes or so and I couldn't get back off to sleep, some were only a couple of rods lengths from me. Got up and recast a couple of rods with a sprinkling of moonfruit over them and tried to get back off but was still lying there in limbo at 2am, horrible, felt crap but just could not get off, the fish were still showing well and i'd had a couple of liners but no takes.
6.30am - Crawled from my pit very bleary eyed and fishless, there was still the odd one showing as I packed up for the last time this season, wound the left hand rod in to find an old rig tangled around the hooklink and bugger me if the right hander wasn't also snagged around someones old leader, ah well I think I can safely put it all down to one of "those" nights.
And so ended the season, and in fact my time fishing the water, I caught my first carp from there back in 1989 and have fished it on and off ever since more as a thing of convenience than anything else, it's close to home and is good fun fishing but in all honesty it was time to call it a day. I more or less grew up on the place and it holds a lot of very fond memories of good times and good friends.
Great flashback post! Just stumbled across your blog and now following. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyable read, Rob. Have often driven past there, seen people fishing and wondered what was in it. Amazing that you can pick out productive spots in what on the face of it is a featureless bowl, but hate to think what it's like when it's busy! Cheers, Ian.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly an acquired taste Ian, I dread to think how much of my life I spent at 45 degrees on those banks! You should see it when its windy...
ReplyDeleteI might have come across wrong in talking about fishing spots, I don't think there's a square metre on the lake where there isn't a chance of a fish. I was just fishing to an area I'd been baiting up for a start and when I had to move I went for the bits that weren't likely to be too busy, not many enjoy spending a night perched on the dam wall. Come to think of it neither did I!