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  1. For those who don't have a Newbury AA ticket, Willows is a small, shallow lake without enough vegetation but with a central island that the carp, typically 6-12lbs like to swim around. It has also recently stocked been stocked up with bream and also tench of around 6lbs. Totting up, I've had around 260 commons and 150 mirrors since joining the club in 2021 with the odd decent crucian between them. You can see that it's what they call I a 'runs water' (I'd not heard of this phrase until recently) which means that you cant really go wrong. But I can. Yesterday I completed a hat trick of blanks. OK, I lost a couple on the way, but this is an epic failures as even one blank is unlikely. Can I blame the hot weather or the fish feeding on the large number of fry? Why not. More this while I've tried method feeder, PVA bags, pole and float, the carp at least, have been on the surface, and call it one of my blind spots, but I'm not really in to surface fishing. For one I hate the thought of hooking a bird, but to me the joyous mystery of fishing is catching what you cannot see, and plucking them off the top - and it's my loss - just isn't me. I'll get there in my own way.
  2. A start to the season in two parts. Firstly, I thought I'd spend several hours on the lakeside eager to catch a few tench before the sun rose and ruined everything. Needless to say the olive green beauts thought otherwise and bites were limited to 3 small roach and a pound-and-a-bit bream. Made it late morning to the hot and sunny syndicate at Marsh Benham where I was happy to bump into CP of this parish who'd caught his quota and was now headed home to watch the test match. Rumour elsewhere was that there weren't so many trout escapees into the carrier this year. Perhaps there wasn't as I 'only' had 3 of around 3lbs each, but a 2lb 7 chub squeezed in which more or less saved the day.
  3. OK, OK, so I've been remiss in keeping this up to date. Hope you haven't missed me too much. A number of reasons - the main one being the preparation for our move to South Wales taking up so much of my fishing time, my getting together the Newbury Angling Association's latest quarterly newsletter and a rubbish set of catches when I have been. The meagre summary for May was: 2nd May and 29th April - Treoes lake, Bridgend - on the Glamorgan Anglers Club ticket. A lovely, very well presented lake, maybe a similar size to Alders, with two central islands that can be reached pretty much from any swim. My first Welsh fish was a 7oz skimmer, the lake being heavily populated with them and also roach and carp. Totalled 15 bream (to 1lb 4), 21 roach (to a decent 10oz) and a feisty 6lb 4 Common. A decent start, though the locals (as ever) caught so much more than me. 16th - a single (gnarled but highly appreciated) 5lb 2 tench just before dark 23rd - Willows - a Common - 11lb 7 on the float during an evening of many bites but few connections 27th - Half Round ponds - Llanshamlet - 2 small semi-circular lakes, one packed with silvers, the other larger carp as well as small tench (had 5 to 12 oz). Float fishing with expander pellet, the one decent fish turned out to be an eel! Probably the first I've caught since the 80's and a pretty good thunker at 3lbs 1. Lip hooked too. Very happy. A terrible picture I'm afraid as it was a devil in the net and was so sunny that I couldn't see what I was doing!
  4. Life is getting in the way of fishing at the moment. Don't get me wrong, it's all good stuff, but it's leaving me just a short ate afternoon/early evening session on Tuesdays at the mo. Last week, given a spell of warmer weather, I risked Willows, checking to see if the shallow water had warmed to bring the carp out. Not really. It was a fun evening, I really enjoyed stargazing at Orion, but with carp of 4lb 3 and 6lb 12 plus a beaten-up bream of 3lb 2 it wasn't a huge success. This evening, with the river season closing in I plumped for the syndicate water in Marsh Benham. No rain in weeks has brought the levels back low, and though I was after chub, in 45 minutes I'd banked 5 Brownies around the 3 - 3.5lb mark, lost a few more and even I was getting bored of them. Went to the end of the stretch to find the water flowing off the weir was running to hard for my heaviest lead to cope with, so returned to the carrier to fish swims i'd not tried before in the hope that the trout hadn't found them either. Do you know what - they hadn't! Had two stonking chub of 4lb and 3lb 12 from exactly the same spot. The last hour in darkness brought no more fish, but constant jingly knocks making me think the crays might have woken up.
  5. Friday. Piking at Dobsons. Deadbait out on rod 1, with a feeder and tiny bait/hook out on rod 2 hoping to find the odd roach or bream. Changed swims, baits, depths, but apart from one pike run (missed) at 8:30, had nothing all day. Had hoped that given a week of warmer temperatures that the fish might be waking up hungry, but not today. Then again, it was forecast for 11 degrees this afternoon, but in a stiffish wind it felt far from that. Saturday. Grey and windless. Much better. Had commons of 9lbs (a real beauty), 6lb 8 and 5lb 4 and a mirror of 9lb 4. A fun morning. The water wasn't as cold to the touch as i'd imagined.
  6. The re-arrival of freezing temperatures after a week of stormy winds and rain led to my morning customer cancelling my gardening services giving me a bonus couple of hours fishing. I grabbed my spinning rod and a box of traces and lures then headed for the canal. Lure fishing ain't my favourite style - possibly because I've never really done well with it. To be fair, I've only really tried it on short, deep winter sessions like today when I wouldn't blame any fish for not wanting to chase a piece of plastic and metalwork. Perhaps drop-shotting is the way on days like this, but I've not got around to trying this. Anyway, I snapped on a rubbery shad and off I went. Not a touch on the canal, Bulls Lock or Knotts lake and my hands were feeling cold. I swapped lures and at Dobsons on a slow retrieve I thought I might have had a nudge, but not being very experienced, perhaps I just dragged through some weed. I made a few more casts in the same area and this time when I contacted the patch it pulled back, but only for a few seconds. I couldn't connect again, so moved round a few more swims but to no effect. With time running out, I moved back to that swim and three casts in, I had an unmistakable take and a tail-walking pike. OK, at 5lb 10 it wasn't the biggest in the lake, but on a horrible cold day, and with my limited faith in lures waning further, it was an inspiring fish.
  7. I've been threatening to go evening chubbing for a number of Tuesdays now, and tonight was the night. With heavy rain on Sunday/Monday, the river was travelling faster than last when I came and scouted swims last week, and with no weights over 3/4 oz I could only fish with those with near bank slacks and eddies. I travelled up and down them in turn, spending about half an hour in each, prebaiting the next swim to come with balls of mashed bread as I went before walking back and settling down. Hadn't had a touch all evening when at 6:30 I picked up the rod to wind and a fish pulled away on the end - a good one too. It was a typically subdued night time fight - I'm sure it's because the fish cant see where they're swimming so keep the afterburners off. At 3lb 10 it was shamefully but excitedly an equal p.b. for me. Later I had a couple of trembles that did not connect, but apart from that it had been a pretty quiet evening, but was great fun. Mars glowed throughout and it barely felt the 2 degrees it had dropped to by 8pm when I packed up.
  8. Almost a week of consecutive frozen days have put a literal cap on the lakes and canal so I took my deadbaits for a chilly couple of hours on the Kennet. Rather expecting a session of feeding the crayfish, they were pleasantly absent. An hour in the rod tip trembled, making me wonder if my shivering had knocked into it. But then it did it again, quite subtlety. On the third tremble I struck and was into a fish. It didn't feel big, but as a blank-buster I wasn't going to argue, when it woke up to what was happening and roared off down river, heating the clutch up. It made three such excursions before it gave up the ghost and came up to the surface. Wow. Not huge in Essox terms, but for me 14lbs was a personal best and I was thrilled. Half an hour later the same sort of bite. If it had been at all breezyIi might not have noticed it. Again I struck on the third tremble. It was on for a few seconds, but the hooks hadn't set. I was quite calm - two would have been greedy.
  9. Pulled on my snowman suit for the first time this winter, a prudent decision with the beautiful afternoon sun becoming a chilly moonlit evening, 3-degrees when I left. Not a touch before dusk, though the glow of the trees in the evening sunlight was beautiful - my photo has not been filtered. A 9lb 10 Common came in as the last of the light failed, followed by an old friend - Blinky, the one-eyed Common who I've caught a good 6 times. He's become a real pal and has put on 8 ounces since I last saw him at 6lb in October. While I listened to World Cup footy on the tranny (I'm not sure we can still call radios that?), I had a stunning, if small, fully-scaled Mirror of 4lb 7 and ended an enjoyable session with a floppy 6lb 10 Bream, that made sure I went home with a sodden, slimy net.
  10. (1) My usual Tuesday evening session. With the rivers so low, I've stuck to the lakes, particularly as the temperatures have been mild. Arriving to find no one fishing but two cormorants, I managed a par two carp. The first, just before dark was a mirror of 6lb 8 was 'orange spot'. My pal Steve who surface feeds in this swim regularly in the summer says he catches it every session. Do you recognise him? He certainly didn't put up much of a fight, adopting a 'come on then, let's get this over with' attitude to the landing process. It took two hours for my next bite to come, a real rod-yanker from far down along the margin. Strangely for Willows, I lost this to a snag a moment before the second rod tip trembled and this time a very pretty common. I guessed it's weight at 12lb, but it only came in at 11lb 14. (2) Friday. After a week of moody cloud, mild temperatures and on/off moisture in the air, I plumped for another shot of piking at Dixons. Woke up to find it cold, clear and still - not great conditions, but by this time the car was packed and the mackerel thawed, so i followed through. One solitary run leading to a 5lb 7 fish. Swapped swims every 40 mins, fished by overhanging cover and out in the open, but nothing would inspire a second take.
  11. I was planning to go chub fishing this evening at a syndicate water, but was put off by (1) talk from another member of crayfish, combined with the view of a professional crayfish trapper that they are most active under full moons combined with (2) a second consecutive Tuesday of winds and threatened sharp showers had me thinking it would be slightly less unpleasant under a brolly in relatively sheltered Willows, than roving across open country casting between swaying branches over a narrow river. Maybe next week. The moon rose just after dark at 5 and lit the whole lake. It was beautiful. I sat watching the clouds scud past it as it slowly rose towards the bright light oof Jupiter. With it a very comfortable ten degrees, it really didn't matter that the fish weren't around, but then I was testing the cheesepaste I'd originally planned for chub, and mussels that were cheap in Sainsburys the other day. In the end I reverted to a more traditional bait and was rewarded with a mirror of 4lb 12 and 2 ugly commons of 7lb 8 and 5lb 2. Not the greatest haul, admittedly, but it was a really enjoyable session.
  12. When my Monday morning gardening customer cancelled at short notice, I was delighted to get a bonus 3-hours fishing in. With no maggots to fish the Lamborne or Hambridge, I pulled out some mackerel I had in the freezer from last winter, grabbed a couple of heavy rods and made for Dixons. Warm for November, dank and with light rain, it seemed perfect and I cast out a leger 20 yards to my left, and a bung a similar distance to my right. After about half an hour, the buzzer sounded a couple of times and I struck early to avoid deep hooking as they say. Fish on, it made for the far bank, but I managed to turn it whereupon it turned right and powered at some pace to the snags the other side of where my bung was floating. I've spent all day trying to work out what happened next to no avail... Inevitably the bung started to drag as the lines inevitably crossed and the pike reached the snags a few yards further on where it jammed solid. Unable to pull the fish out, I put the rod down to allow it to swim off when it thought the coast was clear, and in the meantime, I started winding in the bung to at least get it out of the way. But that line immediately met with the resistance of a swimming fish, just as the leger rod with the snagged fish on, now on the ground next to me, started bouncing. Did I now have a pike on both lines? I had to play the fish on the bung line and netted it, along with a tangle of hooks and wire traces about a foot up the wire from the fish's nose. On quick inspection this tangle was made up of both of my rigs - so none of my hooks were in the fish! But instead, there was a large, alien swivel in the birds nest attached to some previous angler's wire which was connected to pike through the edge of its gill plate. I turned the fish on its back to find the hooks from this mystery rig swallowed beyond sight through the gill rakers. Not wanting to damage them, I snipped the wire trace as far down as I could and released it. I was left to disentangle my two traces and cast both rods out again. I've absolutely no idea what happened. All I can say is that the initial fight seemed to be from a fish much bigger than the 8lb 12oz pike I landed. Had I lost this one, but implausibly snagged another? Who knows - but it still counts! The pike I did land was in perfect condition despite the swallowed tackle. In the remaining couple of hours, I missed two more runs (possibly striking too early, but I hate the prospect of deep hooking) and landed a 3lb 15 jack.
  13. A change of circumstances meant I grabbed some roving tackle and pinched 3 hours on a wet and windy afternoon at my nearest venue. I'd bought waders a few months ago and not got them out the box, so a short trip seemed the perfect opportunity to give them a go. Wading out, I realised how uneven the bottom is and what power water has at even at knee height. It opened up the swims behind the clothing warehouse and made me more aware of the comparative water speeds. I trotted along the crease that would not have been possible from the bank and soon had three trout. Not bad, but then the biggest was only 7 ounces. With not much happening after that, i moved downstream towards the bridge. Here I hooked two decent fish. I was wary of the current adding pressure to the fight of the fish so played them as gently as I could, one for a little over a minute, the other maybe three. Neither broke the surface so I'd been hoping they weren't trout. - but on both occasions the hook pulled! This happens to me on rivers soooo much. I'm still not sure what I'm doing wrong (barbed hook and keeping line tight - maybe the braid mainline having no stretch is putting too much strain on the fish? Any thoughts, readers?) I changed from a 14 hook in case I was asking too much of a 16. But I didn't get the chance to test it as all I connected with was a nice dace and a beautiful gudgeon (Yay!). A snag pinched my tackle, and I realised I hadn't brought any spare mono to attach to the braid mainline. Realising I had a box of pole rigs in the boot, I crossed the road to the canal and used my 15ft rod effectively as a whip, looking to see if the shoal of roach I found last winter had balled-up yet. Hmm. Mixed. I had 7, including three around the 4oz mark, plus 8 small dace. A fun stint as ever, the waders will definitely get used again, but will I ever overcome this lost fish business?
  14. A strange evening, my first Tuesday evening after the clocks went back. I'd intended to do some evening chub fishing on the river, but with strong winds and yet more heavy rain due, I felt an evening huddled under the brolly would be a slightly less uncomfortable than roving the banks. Naturally, I was the only one on the lake as I was blown down the bank. With the two-rod winter allowance now in place, I cast one to the island, the other along in the margins. I made friends with a mallard who was to be my companion, for the whole evening, it's heart set on munching my method mix I'd imagine rather than being mates, before the main rain started. There was distant thunder too before suddenly the clouds parted and a bright first quarter moon appeared from nowhere and illuminated the whole lake. Beautiful. Even the wind dropped for a few minutes during which time the margin rod was virtually pulled in by a fair fighting 6lb 8 common. Nothing for a further 45 minutes, apart from hooting owls and the occasional passing satellite before a good take on the island rod. Odd - though I'd cast 30 yards or so out, a fish immediately surfaced and started splashing on the surface just a rod length or two out. Had something picked up the bait and swum undetected toward me? No - but the flapping fish in front of me had somehow got my line wrapped around a fin. I netted it, a 5lb 2 common, then reeled in, half expecting another fish on the end, but no. I've no idea how the carp had tangled itself on what was a taut line, but hey ho, I wasn't complaining. A 5lb 4 common followed later on by more traditional means, and I packed up at 8 thinking three fish to be a pretty good return in the conditions. I started winding in the island rod to find some resistance on the end. This was strange as there is little if any debris in the lake, but I wound the weight in until 10 yards from the bank when it started moving back the other way pretty quickly. Turned out to be a 6lb 2 mirror.
  15. Tuesday - My usual evening session. it took me three rubbish casts to realise I'd wrapped the line round the rod when putting the sections together. An odd evening with many trembles on the rod tip that refused to develop into proper bites. I swapped baits to try and encourage some positive takes and in the end was happy to settle for mirrors of 5lb 4 and 6lb 4 plus commons of 5lb 10, 4lb 5 and 6lb. I'm delighted to report that the last fish was Blinky, the one-eyed common, who I last caught on 4th October, and have had four times overall. Friday - With low air pressure and rain sweeping in, I took my brolly to Dobsons. Spent most of the day huddling underneath it, stepping out only to address bites. I had a few. Bream of 3lb 10, 1lb 6 and 2lb 2, commons of 6lb and 5lb 15 (this one having curious patches of goldfish on each side) plus a stonking fat tench of 5lb 1. There was one much larger fish that powered me into the snags and never came out. Home and dried, the rain got worse and teemed down for hours, so next morning fearing swollen water levels, I forwent a planned river trip to the calm waters of Willows. I hear my fears were unfounded as other bloggers caught well on the Kennet, while I enjoyed a pleasant sit in the sun for just three carp of 5lb 8. 6lb 10 and 3lb 10. I lost another fish to a submerged snag in a lake when I've never previously encountered a snag in open water.
  16. With the rivers running low and the temperatures up and down for the lakes, I stuck to the canals. Last night was warmer than of late, and with it overcast with no wind, I fancied a crack at the perch. I set up in the coloured water below Guyers Bridge for a second session on the recently built platforms. 5 seconds into the first cast of the day, something grabbed the worm and took the pole tip round hard. It was on for 30 seconds or so before the 4lb hooklength snapped. I'd seen a big flash of silver as it turned - it had been pretty big. Perhaps the culprit came a couple of casts later, this time it was a pike, maybe around 5lb or so when the hook pinged as it approached the net. Ten minutes in and I could have had two good un's, but there I was blanking. My state of indignation remained through the biteless next 30 minutes or so I switched to maggots and never looked back. Nine perch, including fish of 2lbs, 1lb 12, 1lb 4 and 1lb 8, 10 roach and 7 bleak. The rain started to fall which kept the level of pedestrians walking immediately behind me down, and had me huddling under a small brolly, with just two sections of pole out in the water. I only had one fish during that30 minutes or so, but it was a ruffe, my first 'snottie' possibly since circa 1978. The skimmers I'd hoped to find never showed and it was a fun session, but I left cursing that first few minutes.
  17. Trip 1 - Tuesday evening. With the evenings closing in, it's lakes only on a Tuesday as I don't like fishing into the dark on rivers. Had some maggots left over from Sunday's match, so started on the pole at Willows. However, one roach in, a gusty wind got up which gave the surface a chop. I felt that a bobbing float wouldn't be conducive to good bait presentation so I switched to the method feeder and aimed for the island. Others seemed to be struggling to catch so I was happy with three carp in the just over 5lb mark and losing a bigger one at the net in the dark. Trip 2 - Started at a chilly first light on the river at Bulls Lock. Had 15 dace, largest a good 8 ounces before the sun climbed too high and all went quiet. Followed my plan and walked to Knotts. Fished the pole, but it was tough going. Two perch, either of the 2lb mark were the highlight, the larger one I had to unhook twice as it was trailing the line and pole float I'd lost on a snag half an hour earlier! Bonkers. Another small perch and a solitary, if 14oz roach, just about made it an acceptable day. Trip 3 - Clear and cold overnight, I didn't head for a river as the sun threatened to be bright all day over shallow water which i thought would keep the fish hiding. I fished a small bait on the pole at the corner of the lake that the sun had hit first, thinking I'd have the best chance in what might be the warmest water in the lake. A few small roach a perch and a skimmer was all that came. I switched to method feeder right in that sunny corner for the last hour and bingo - the most perfect pristine and feisty common of 13lb 8 making it suddenly a very profitable morning.
  18. A not fishing conducive scorching 18 degrees and millpond conditions when I set up at 3:30 in an unusual swim for me, but thinking it was where the last of the evening sun disappeared and the air would chill fast. Plumbing the depth with my pole, I snagged and brought in a weighing sling in the margin; the one I lost at this swim the evening I caught a 13lb Mirror on 3.3.21. That was the only excitement until dusk having barely had a bite. Just before dark at 6:30 and having switched to method feeder and hurriedly donned thick jumper, jacket and scarf, I managed a blank-bustin' 6lb common. I stuck it out until 8:30, watching the massive full moon rising through the trees behind me, Ursa Major and occasional satellite in the sky and the bats, one of which flew into my line. Two more runs with two mirrors of 5lb 2 and 4lb 1 making it an almost par evening for the time of year. Back at the car, i found that the temperature had fallen to a cool 5 degrees and that my team were 2-ut at AC Milan. AC who?
  19. With temperatures crumbling as autumn starts to get in gear, I started my migration from lakes to the canals and rivers. The morning could have been perfect for perch at first light- misty and still, but overnight it had dropped to four degrees, the coldest since spring, and maybe that turned them off. I managed to get some pole practise in prior to the match at Enborne on Sunday, presenting and jiggling a worm right in front of their reedbed ambush points, but only managed one of about half a pound. By the time the sun was climbing and the mist gone, I'd had just 2 more bites, a 5oz roach and having swapped to maggot, a bleak even small by bleak standards. Sticking to the plan, I upped-gear and stepped it out to a remote swim at Speen Moors. 4-foot deep, not too weedy, far bank vegetation and a good 50 yards+ to trot, it screamed chub and perch, and I'd been excited to fish it since discovering it by accident the other day. But disaster struck. Twice. In assembling the float rod, I managed to snap the tip off - don't ask me how. (Can anyone recommend a 14 or 15ft trotting rod that doesn't have a tip the width and strength of cocktail stick?). Then, though I'd replaced the line last week, I quickly discovered it was as brittle as a witch's hair estimating it about half of its alleged 5lb breaking strain remaining. This would be fine for roach, but if a chub came along, I knew I'd have to be very gentle as any sort of lunge would inevitably cause a snap. Third cast in, a chub (I'm guessing) did come along. i gave it as much pressure as I dared and had it on for 30 seconds or so before I could no longer keep it out of the snags it was determined to take me to. There it did that inexplicable fishy thing of swapping hook from mouth to snag, and I gingerly landed a section of tree. And that was the end of the excitement. I managed a chublet and maybe half a dozen roach between 3 and 6 ounces, but any hopes that I'd somehow developed any running water fishing skills while on the lakes in summer proved unfounded. The rain brought an almost welcome end to a largely disappointing session.
  20. Monday - Day off for my Auntie Jackie's funeral (don't be sad, it was her time) allowing me a bonus 3 hours fishing beforehand. I'd planned a river trip, but with brisk winds and showers forecast, decided instead to huddle under the brolly in the comparative shelter of Willows. As I sat biteless and without a puff of breeze (WHY do i ever follow the forecasts?), a guy set up to my left and had soon caught two carp, while a chap arrived to my right and caught three. I eventually had just the one, a 6lb 2 Mirror, and that was that. Tuesday - my usual afternoon/evening escape. Yesterday's wind finally arrived and was now making up for lost time. All the books say to fish into a new wind, so I bravely took seat on the east bank and took what it blew at me. However, once again this didn't work, and though the unexpected half hour rain took the wind away with it, I didn't get a single bite on 2 rods that I could be certain wasn't the work of crayfish. So, no fishy picture for you to enjoy, but this one of my auntie, uncle and cousins taken by me circa 1973 with my Kodak Box Brownie. RIP Auntie
  21. Arrived in the rain to find my preferred swim was closed for repairs, so with the whole lake to myself, as it was all day, I took myself to a new swim for me on the opposite bank. After a biteless hour I was losing faith and was strongly considering a move to the generally more reliable Willows. I'd packed up one rod when I noticed that the line on the other was not pointing in the direction that I'd cast it. I picked it up to find a fish on the end. Although this dropped off unseen, it encouraged me to give it another half an hour. Five minutes later, a 1lb 7lb bream came in, so I stayed and was rewarded by others of 1lb 13, 1lb 7, 2lb 4, 2lb 8, 4lb 10, 2lb 6, 4lb 6 (the haggard, fin-pecked one pictured above), 2lb, 1lb 12, 4lb 3, 2lb 4 and 5lb. And a 6lb 10 common, plus 12 roach between 2 and 6 ounces. OK, so none of Dobsons' big 'uns came my way, but it was one of the most enjoyable trips I'd had for a while - and I love them all.
  22. I'd intended to try chase the bream at Dobsons again, but parking up, was told by a dog-walker that it was bivvy-city over there given Her Majesty's funeral day, so I defaulted to Willows. Pretty pedestrian session, I landed every bite and after mirrors of 4lb 10 & 8lb 10 plus commons of 3lb 4, 7lb 13 and 7lb 14, a par evening was boosted by a slab of a 14lb 15 common soon after dark. The other highlight: a splash in my swim turned out to be made by a kingfisher which immediately flew up and sat in a shrub opposite me.
  23. I dug out the first jumper of autumn as we begin the approach the end of the lake season. Friday had 15mph northerly winds forecast at Willows, so I thought I'd be a clever so and so, and fished into the teeth of it, casting at the sheltered side of the island in front of me. At first it worked like a dream. In the only area of calm water on the lake, while others appeared to struggle, in 90 minutes I had mirrors of 5lb, 4lb 10, & 4lb 6 plus commons of 4lb 8 10lb 2 &5lb 2. I suppose I might have sat beaming to brightly at those lesser mortals on the west bank who didn't seem to be catching much, because suddenly the fish gods decided I'd had my quota, and though I mixed it up constantly, the final four hours were fish-free. The only other excitement of seeing a kingfisher was more than expunged by a large mink swimming across my swim. Saturday brought a colder 4-degree start though gentler, westerly winds and I headed to the deeper water at the easterly end of Dobsons. Allowed two rods here, I had jangly bites on both, though all I brought in were sticks. I'm always amazed how branches can give such good indications! It was a bit of a struggle tbh until the bream appeared in the last hour, with two around a pound and one of 4lb 4 to save my blushes. I think I could have gone on to have a few more but alas, we can only fish when we can fish, and not always when the silvery fellers are hungry. Compounded an average day by crunching my car nastily on the way home on an unseen low barrier at Sainsburys buying of all things. a pack of Apple & mango J2Os.
  24. A slightly better than par day at the Willows. With the air as still as can be and at a lower pressure after heavy rain most of yesterday, I had hoped for better. With nothing happening on float, I defaulted to the method feeder and through the day found pulses of fish at different ranges - commons of 4lb 8, 6lb 5, 5lb 15, 6lb 9, 5lb 9 & 6lb 5, with mirrors of 6lb 6, 7lb 12 and two bream, both under a pound. I've caught plenty of feisty carp here in recent times, but no doubles for aaaages. Highlight of the day was this elegant 2lb 12 crucian. On a tactical note, I swapped rods for a much softer, whippier rod with lower strength line and found not a single fish pulled, nor hooklink snapped. Yay!
  25. OK, so the heatwave has definitely gone. This evening the SW wind was blowing grey and black clouds hard and fast overhead making it look more Mordor than Berkshire. The chop on the water meant float fishing was out and pinging the method feeder out towards the island brought only phantom bites as the wind caught the bobbin. I chanced that the carp may be sheltering so came back to a rod length or two out near the cover of the lake's lone overhanging willow. A bite soon ensued. Winding in, it was twigs that first surfaced, followed by what at distance I thought was a tench. Turned out to be a beautiful 2lb 10 crucian - so whatever else happened this evening, it was going to be a good one. Turned out to be the right attitude to have as it was slow going. A common of 7lb 12 and mirror of 4lb 14 kept me interested, but it was hard. Then just as it got properly dark, the rain that had threatened all afternoon absolutely crashed down for quarter of an hour. I huddled under the brolly, willing the fish to leave my bait alone - I'd have got soaked trying to play one. Then it stopped, and a huge waxing gibbous of a moon appeared between the clouds for twenty seconds before disappearing, not to be seen again. But in that magic moment, the rod made a lurch for the water and I slid across the bank to grab it. This was as big a fish as I've hooked for some weeks, stripping plenty of line. When it turned back to the willow, I feared for the snags behind it, and increased the side strain. Bah! I was nowhere near maximum and the hook length snapped. That was the 9th of 10 Guru hooklinks that have snapped in the last 3 trips. They're meant to be 9lb BS, but no way. I've had problems with them before, but fell for them again as I love the QM1 hook that comes on them, being strong and less prone to bump fish. That's the problem with Drennan links - so many drop off, while I find he hook straightens out very easily on the Preston ones. I packed up in a huff. Hmm. I know the answer is to tie my own, but when tying knots i seem to have more thumbs than a platoon of hitch hikers. I find the loop tyers fiddly too, especially when dealing with short 4-inch lengths. Ideas anyone?
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