I don’t know why but it seems like Monday is turning into my fishing day. This Monday I went to a club water that I had fished a couple of times before with varying success. The first time I had a couple of carp and tench and the second time I blanked!
It was a pleasant enough day in my part of the world, it had stopped raining early in the morning and the sun had come out. I arrived later than I wanted but that’s always the case! I decided to have a carp rod out and also float fish so it was my first chance to try out my cheapo barrow bought second hand off Facebook. Marketplace. It seemed to work well and was a lot easier than trying to carry all my gear. There were a couple of other anglers so there was plenty of room and I was able to find a swim that I liked. No trees, which was good for casting but also no shade from the sun, good job I remembered to put my sunscreen on! What I didn’t remember was my big landing mat and as I already had my carp rod in the water I decided that I would have to make do with my small one which lives in my rucksack and if that wasn’t good enough fold up my jacket and use that. I was fishing a method feeder with method feeder mix with some pellets added and an old pineapple boilie on the hook.
I set up the float rod, plumbed the depth and got fishing. Immediately I was into a fish and yes, it was a rudd! After my last couple of sessions I was hoping for something else but the rudd are really on it at the moment so I occupied myself with pulling them out a fish a chuck. I noticed that I was not losing as many fish as last time and wondered if that was because I had changed the hook after losing so many. I kept this up for a while and after a dozen or so decided to try the feeder rod again. A new hook was needed on this rod too and I was puzzling out how to tie a twizzle boom, it is so easy when you are watching Youtube, when the carp alarm started sounding. I hastily put the rod down and picked up the carp rod which was bouncing up and down, I was definitely into a fish! It fooled me into thinking that it wasn’t resisting as it swam towards me and straight into the reeds where it stuck solid. Pulling wasn’t getting me anywhere and neither was moving about the bank so I tried giving the fish some slack. It must have moved as when I pulled again it started to come and eventually came clear and into the net. I was trembling when I lifted it, a nice tench, which weighed in at three and a half pounds. After the photos I put it back into the net and lowered it into the water where it took a few moments to sort itself out before swimming away. My first decent fish for a while made me very happy!
Carp rod out again and back to the feeder rod and very shortly a bite, it was another rudd! This was quickly followed by a small perch who had swallowed the bait all the way down and no amount of prodding with the disgorger would free the hook so I cut the line and put him back. I hate it when that happens and it seems that small perch are the worst culprits, they don’t seem to take any time to savour their food jus swallow it straight down! Then the carp alarm sounded again and I was into another fish, it didn’t seem to fight as hard as the first one although that may have been me not giving it as much chance to get into the reeds as the first fish! Pretty soon I had it in the net, another nice tench, slightly bigger at four and a half pounds. This one was a bit more lively on the bank though and quickly swam away when I put him back in the water. I got to wondering about fish personalities later in the afternoon as I went back to the float rod and pulled out rudd after rudd. None of them were enormous but some were bigger than others and you couldn’t tell until you saw them as some bigger ones didn’t put up much of a fight while some smaller ones did. I also tried using different baits as I had read that this would help get better fish. I tried sweet corn and casters then a bit of bread flake, crust and bread pinched on the hook and they all caught fish but there was no increase in size. As they were biting so eagerly I even tried just an empty hook but they didn’t go for it! I even tried a small hemp boilie and could see from the way that the float was rocking that they were having a go at it but it was too big to swallow. I brought it in and cut it in half with the same result so I reduced it even further and was successful!
After playing around with baits that was it really, it all went a bit dead in the afternoon, apart from the rudd that is and towards the end of the session I caught another couple of perch, hooked in the lip this time, and a nice roach which I didn’t take a picture of as he jumped out of my hand into the dirt and spoilt his good looks! I would have liked a carp or another decent tench but there you go, always wanting more! I did catch a couple of decent ones and the rudd stopped me from being bored so all in all a good day and one to make me want to come back and catch more fish but not rudd!
On the way back to the car the barrow folded up, that will teach me to buy cheap stuff of Facebook! I will have a look at it in the morning as it is raining again this evening!
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