I arrived nice and early and had the chance to have a walk about the lake in search of any tinca's that might be showing.
The morning was warm and still. The sun was on the rise and it glowed over the river and I was breathing in the rich clean air that surrounds this gravel pit. My peace was broken with a couple of splashes, followed my more splashes. Upon look to the source of the commotion, I spied a reed bed that was being twisted and turned by some amorous carp. So much for quiet tinca time. After a walk about and a chat to a fellow tenchfisher, I got the rods out and headed for the point swim. This swim is fairly shallow, but has a decent gravel bar on it that the carp and tench like to visit. Problem is that you have to rake it quite a bit before you can fish, but of late I've replaced the normal double rake head arrangement for a Gardener castable weed rake. I use this in conjunction with the 5.5lbtc spod rod. The reel is loaded with 65lb braid and allows me to pull in the weed or snag.
After about an 1/2 hours raking, I had sufficient space to fish two rods. One was one a method feeder and the second was a bottom fished float rig, but before I setup the rods, baited the areas with hemp, corn and red maggot. The hemp and maggot was used in order to fill up some of the smaller fish and get them to stir up the bottom for the tench.
Rod were setup up, method mix sorted and bait were cast out. The method rod was baited with hair rigged double corn fake corn and the float rod double red maggot.
It didn't take long for both rods to come to life and soon was into a fish on the float gear. A small rudd was soon unhooked and returned. Float was back in and it didn't even settle before a rudd had hit it on the drop.This happened about every cast for the first hour and soon I had caught about 20 2-8oz rudd.
The fake corn was attracting attention, but nothing that really lifted the bobbin enough to hit.
With the sun getting hotter, it was starting to become apparent that the rudd were well on the feed. So I changed the rig and started to target the mid water rudd.
Once the float rig was shallowed up the bites became very intense and it was a fish a chuck. This was providing the entertainment for the day as the method feeder setup wasn't getting the attention I wanted from the tench. It seems like the tench, had other things on there mind like the carp.
By 13:00, I had caught my fill of small rudd and a solitary perch for good measures, but none of the better fish were showing. I decided enough was enough. The gear was packed up and put back in the car and I spied that the lure gear was still in there from the previous mid week outing. I have a cast of two with that.
So for the next couple of hours I trundle every lure in the box across the whole lake, and whilst lots of small fish were jumping, the pike failed to show. by 15:00 I had enough and headed for home. Still no tench.
Guest of Honour
Sunday saw me going out with members of the Lure Anglers Society for the first time. I had been invite to the event as it was local to me and a water I do fish.
We met up at 10:00 and introduce myself to the gathering band of anglers and after a long chat re lures etc, we headed of in search of pike. Now I not really a fan of spring/summer pike fishing, but after I had taken advice from the regular lure anglers and tackle up with heavy braid to ensure that any pike caught would be brought in a quickly as possible I was happier. The braid I was using was 65lb on a medium weight rod setup. The rod can cast up to 45grams and is perfect for this water, as it can chuck decent sizes lures a good distance over the marginal weed.
I was also wearing a new pair of hip waders made by Ocean. These provide to be a valuable addition to my attire as it allowed me to get further out from the bank beyond the weed and let me cast parrell to the weed/lily beds.
Within a couple of casts I had a hit and after a short, but energetic fight, a pike of about 5-6lb was gloved out.
Now I must stress that the some LAS guys prefer to land pike in a net due to the possibilities of the visable hooks getting caught in you hand when gloving them out, and after seeing this pike with the hooks showing, i can see why they prefer netting over gloving.
After a quick photo, the pike was returned and swam away strongly.
I walked the bank for another couple of hours and didn't have any further action, so it was time to returned to the designated meet area for lunch. Whilst waiting for lunch to get cooked by Keith and Dave, I had a chuck with a Rapala X subwalk lure in an area that has shown to hold pike during the winter.
The Subwalk is a great lure that as an angler you have to put the effort in to get a dying fish action out of it. On the right rod, it simple and you can do it all day.
After the inital cast, a pike darted out of cover but missed the lure. This was recast just behond it and soon the pike was anagin snapping at the lure but failed to connect. Third time lucky and the pike was hooked. at about a 1lb there was no scrap and the pike was soon in the hand unhooked and raced off back into the water.
Lunch was now ready and sausage in a roll was on the menu with either a chilled bottle of beer or a pepsi for the drivers. These were soon consumed and after a good chat, some of us went back to the fishing.
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| Largest of the three caught by me |
I ha done further small jack that took the Subwalk on they way back, but nothing else showed during the afternoon session. Between the 6-7 of us fishing we had about 9 or 10 fish with Tony fish of 10lbsih being the biggest.
Eventhough the day was nice and hot for us, the pike didn't seem that interested. I think some of that had to do with the hordes of people and dogs in and out of the water.
TL
TL
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