First trip away this month was a day session with Jase on
the ‘Runs’ water, I had decided to use my long range rods as had a match coming up where I would have to
use them so getting used to playing fish on them seemed like a good idea. It was an eventful day with plenty of banter
and fish, I ended up with 10 carp to 13lb and Jase had a few less, again method
feeders seemed to be the better tactic on the day.
My next trip out was with another mate, Dave, to a small
group of lakes called the retreat just north of Romsey, they are small and were
ornamental ponds now open on a day ticket, I was hoping for some tench or the
like but my plans were scuppered very quickly, I started on the float against a
tree where I had seen some bubbling as I walked around and within a minute of
my treble maggot hitting the bottom I was attached to a small carp. This continued throughout most of the day, I
moved lakes and swims a few times to try and start again and it wasn’t until
just on dusk that I managed a double figure carp from in the margins over what
groundbait I had left. I had seen a few
better fish throughout the evening as I was floater fishing but it transpired
that there had been people fishing for them all weekend before (hence bread in
all the margins) and the owner doesn’t understand skylining….. Dave also had
quite a few carp and rudd but his biggest was probably 7lb, still it was a fun
day out.
It was now mid april and I still had not seen hide nor hair
of a tench, I started putting feelers out on some of the club waters to try and
get a hint and I was told about a small pond next door to the runs water. I went out on a Friday night for a look and
to be fair with the small size of it I really did not fancy it for a tench of
any size so I went bream fishing on the runs water instead. I started on open end feeders with worm and
maggot hookbaits but it was a slower start than I was expecting even with the cracking weather we were experiencing (read strong winds and rain). Up until 11pm I had had a small carp on
double dead maggot and that was it, so I decided to try a switch to the method
feeder, I think the line angle was wrong for the paternoster, anyway within 10
minutes I had a 19lb common on the bank and this pattern continued with a
steady run of carp until about 3am when I wound the rods in.
 |
| 19lb 'Runs water' common |
Come the morning I fed with a big bait up feeder a small
amount of bait and then went straight back over the top and at last some bream
started to make an appearance through the carp.
I ended up with 10 carp and a handful of bream to 4lb ish, so not a complete
failure.
I was back on the tench hunt the following week again on a
water I have fished a few times in the past but has apparently been ottered,
long story short I caught some nice rudd on maggot feeders in the afternoon and
that was about it, bites stopped when it got dark and the fish never returned,
but I did have a pike eat a feeder so that may have had something to do with
it.
My last trip out was
again an Army match this time to the Quarry Lake at Baden hall fishery, I had
been looking forward to this match for a while as the chances of a big fish are
very good providing you can draw on them, unfortunately for me I failed on that first
job. Andy and I ended up pegged in the
bay pegs 17 and 18, over the 48 hours we had a couple of chances and had a few
fish on us but it never felt like we came close to be honest, I had a massive
liner wipe out a margin rod that saw me wish that I had set it up washing line
style even though I was not supposed to.
Oh well sometime rules are sent to try us when we are fishing venues
like that.
