At last I had a free day and was able to go fishing. The sun was shining, it was warm and there was a strong breeze and it was a great day to be out. I had in mind to go to a lake that I had not fished this year and which held both silverfish and carp so I loaded up the car with all my gear and set off. I hadn’t gone far when my car displayed an error code, it had been jerky yesterday but was running fine today and as I didn’t have far to go I decided to carry on and deal with it when I got home. When I arrived at the water there was a notice on the gate saying that the water was closed due to a match. My own fault, I should have read the club handbook!
So, where else could I go? A quick think and I was soon on the way to another water which was not too far away and was actually on my way home. It too had a variety of fish so I could put a carp rod out and float fish for silvers. The first thing I did was have a walk round to see what was what and I had a chat with a guy who had been fishing for a while without much luck. There were a couple of swims that looked promising, both opposite an island and I chose the one which had some bushes which would shelter me from the sun for most of the day. Having had three operations for basal cell carcinoma I am aware of the damage that sun can do to your skin and always use sun cream during the summer.
Having got all my gear to the swim I tackled up and put out the carp rod with a method feeder and boilie then got my float rod rigged, put in some groundbait and maggots, plumbed the depth and sat in my chair ready for a bit of a rest. Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, the float dipped and I was into a fish, a nice little rudd who was soon back in the water. That is how it carried on for a while with rudd and roach taking red maggots almost as soon as I cast out. Having mastered the art of catching small fish I decided to vary my tactics by varying the depth and trying two, three or four maggots but without much luck as I still kept catching small ones although for a change I got a nice little perch. All this time I was re-casting the carp rod after filling up the method feeder but was getting nothing to indicate that there were any fish about, not even line bites.
I decided to change my bait on the float rod in the hope of catching something bigger and put a piece of sweetcorn on the hook and then sat quietly while nothing happened! Still, at least it gave me the chance to get my flask out and have a cup of tea in peace. I decided that if there is one thing worse than catching little roach and rudd all the time it is catching nothing so I changed bait again, this time pinching on a small piece of bread. This didn’t do any good either so I went back to maggots and was soon into the fish again. It seemed that this was the bait of the day! I decided to ring the changes and rigged up my quiver tip rod with a method feeder to fish right on the bottom. I also decided to change the flavour and size of boilie on the carp rod to see if that would work any better.
I still haven’t got the hang of a quiver tip rod. I started using an inline method feeder as I was getting in a tangle with a conventional cage feeder but was wondering if that was the wrong thing to do. When the tip started quivering and I struck I would miss the bite and often if I waited a while until the take developed it would taper off. I decided to persevere and putting several maggots on the hook and filling up the feeder I cast out into the same part of the swim which I had been feeding with groundbait and maggots and fishing with the float. True to form the tip started quivering and lifting the rod I could tell that I had missed the bite. Deciding to wait a bit longer I was more successful and brought in a decent size skimmer of about a pound in weight. A little while later I hooked another one of about the same size and brought it into the net. All the while I was bringing in the method feeder on the carp rod filling it and re-casting. There was a stiff cross-wind and on one of my casts the wind took the line across a reed bed, much to my annoyance. I decided to leave the feeder where it was and hoped that if I got a bite the fish would swim away from the reeds and free the line. It was not to be and I reconciled myself to losing my feeder and wound the line in. When I got to the reeds I gave the rod a jerk and the feeder flew over the top and landed in the reeds near to me and I was able to retrieve it!
I had no luck on the carp rod at all although I was still catching on the quiver. I thought I had another bream but it was a perch which was followed by another perch. By now it was mid-afternoon and I thought that it was time to pack up. I would get home in time to phone up about the error code before having my dinner. So, not a bad session, I must have caught about twenty fish or more, mostly roach and rudd but with bream and perch as well. I was well pleased with four different species but not so pleased that I had blanked on the carp rod as I had previously caught there. On the way back to the car I passed the guy who I had chatted with at the start of the day, he was moaning about not catching much and asked about my day so I told him. There is something wickedly satisfying about doing better than the guy in the swim next door and trust me, it doesn’t happen very often! As for the car the RAC came out and cleared the fault code and it has been running fine since then. It ought to, it’s only three months old!
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