20/21 June
Harris Lake, Marsh Farm Fishery, Nr Godalming.
1530 - 0930
Overcast and muggy becoming cooler am. (And DRY despite the forecasts for days beforehand forecasting rain!)
14 Tench; 7 over 4lb, best 3 - 6lb 2oz, 5lb 7oz, 5lb 5oz. 6 Crucians; 3lb 1oz, 2lb 13oz, 2lb 3oz*, 2lb 1oz*, 1lb 15oz, 1lb 10oz. 4 Roach - 3 over 1lb (!) best 1lb 6oz. 3 Rudd - all 10-12oz.
3rd time Paul and I have done a night here and this cracking session was following on from last season's successful experiment which also copied the same pattern of not a lot happening until it got dark and then steady action during the night. Though all the roach and rudd were caught within the first couple of hours of arriving; a rather unexpected and very pleasant 'Welcome to Marsh Farm'! The feeding switched was flicked around 2230 - and the fish came out in 'bursts' through out the night - often 2 or 3 in quick succession followed by up to an hour staring at a stationary float.
There were some notable differences to previous trips - one was bait de jour. Last time out we eeked out a precious few prawns between the 2 of us as bait (they were meant to be Paul's lunch) - as that was all we could catch on - so this time we came armed with tonnes of them - so of course - I didn't get a bite to them - and Paul hardly any better.
Nearly all my fish came to good old maggot (I had 4 tench on meat - the only exceptions). Fished float fishing the margins lift method (as per usual!) I think all of Paul's float caught fish also fell to maggot or meat - and he also had a lot of tench on corn - though these were caught ledgering out by the island (the cad!)
Another curiosity was in the difference of catch returns - Paul ended with 10 tench and 10 crucians - but the vast majority of his tench (8 I think) fell to the ledger rod - his float rig caught mainly crucians - whereas my float approach - some 20m away in the next swim - using the same tactics (and bait) produced mainly tench.
*These 2, 2lb crucians were shamelessly poached from Paul's swim. We were packing up and I was chatting to Paul in his peg and looked into the water to see a group of crucians right close to the bank in no more than a foot of water mopping up some bait that Paul had thrown away. Watching them, they would scoot in, feed for around 20 seconds and then leave - to return a minute later to repeat the process. Simply waiting for them to return and lower a bait in front of your chosen fish resulted in an instant take - 1st time I've ever 'stalked' crucians! Paul wasn't too amused though!
All in all a great night's fishing - though the lack of any breakfast (the onsite tackle shop have stopped selling bacon butties ) was a bit of a let down. Plumby's stove will be packed for our next trip here!
A couple of the roach...
Crucians - my 3...
Paul's biggest (2½)
Tench - my 6 and a 5½ for Paul.
- 1
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