Another plan, with a very unexpected result - 6th May
Entry posted by Paulg
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The plan on Tuesday didn’t start off too well. Rather than setting the alarm clock I left it for our two cats to wake me, as they always do at around 5:30 every morning. Only on Tuesday both of them decided to have a lie-in, so when I got up at 6.15, they were still fast asleep!
Still managed to get to my chosen venue, Richardsons Lake on the Marsh Farm complex, without getting snarled up in the morning rush hour, and was fishing by 8am. So, the plan for today, one rod setup to float fish close in, and the “sleeper rod”, rigged with a small pellet feeder, a short cast out towards the island that runs down the middle of the lake.
For seventy minutes the float only moved when I reeled in to try another bait offering, of which I had a few options…sweetcorn, prawns, luncheon meat, bread, and four types of soft pellets, plus some bloodworm paste. At least the ducklings enjoyed dipping their beaks into the groundbait bucket.
And for seventy minutes, the tip of the feeder rod moved four times, three recasts and once, when a young grebe on his swimming lesson clipped the line.
On seventy one minutes or thereabouts, the tip of the feeder rod showed a slow bite, which I struck, and whatever I had hooked shot off down the lake with me not able to stop it! After five minutes I thought it must be a foul hooked tench as I could nothing to get it to come back up the lake. After ten minutes I was able to get it close enough to see it wasn’t a tench, but one of the very few carp in the lake, and a decent one at that. After fifteen minutes I was very pleased to finally get the fish into the landing net, and even more pleased when I saw the scales read 15lb 8oz, a new pb carp from the last place I thought I would catch one from!
I was very fortunate to have a couple of friends fishing Harris lake…..thanks Dave and Rob, for coming round to take some pictures, and notifying the guys in the on-site shop that there was a fish that needed moving. The controlling club, Godalming Angling Society, stock Richardsons as a match lake, with the members only lake, Johnsons, being the home of the bigger carp. As such they have a permanent Section 30 to allow them to move any carp into Johnsons. This one was soon off on its travels, via a carp sack to a new home a couple of hundred yards away.
The rest of the session passed quickly, with the pellet feeder rod being far more successful than the float fishing! By the time I packed up around 13:30, I had caught seven tench and two crucians, all on the feeder! Life was made much harder for me when the clutch mechanism on the reel broke, so I could only reel in when I had near enough slack line…..you try doing it with a fish on the other end, it’s not difficult, but it takes ages to bring anything in! I was using a centrepin on the float rod so couldn’t swap, and my spare reel was in….the garage at home. The two crucians were like peas in a pod, both around 12-14oz,
and the tench were all around the 2lb mark, with the largest at 3lb 4oz, no monsters but a nice catch, and a lovely day to be out.
Must make a note in future to check how much shadow I am casting on the target of a photograph....doh !!
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