Big Water!!!

Went out for a day out on the boat with the lads from the Lure Anglers Society, of which I'm a member.

The day was spend afloat on a vast sheet of water on a trout fishery in pursuit of pike, zander and perch.

I arrive in plenty of time and after some car park capers, I finally met the lads in the fishing lodge to pay and get our boat number.
My boat partner (BP) was on the drag, but soon arrived and we eagerly loading the boat with rods, tackle, lunch and fishfinders. Once we had gotten the tackle stowed, the outboard was spring into life and we left for the moorings onto the water. But where to start?

After a brief chat with BP, whilst bopping about we decided to head in the direction of the other boat and become a sheep (baa!!!)
We set anchor in 30ft of water and I decided to start with the pike gear whilst BP did some vertical jigging for the zander and perch.
After an hour of nothing (well to our boat) we lifted the anchor and decided to do some pioneering of our own (to infinity and beyond) we motored to the southern end to try and locate some fishing.

This end of the water was quite different, slightly shallower, but with some weed and undulating bottom. We decided to drift with the wind whilst casting the lure about so we could cover as much water as possible.

For a number of hours we had nothing, not a sniff, but all of a sudden BP was into a fish. Acting as gillie, I soon slipped the net under a good sized perch.

Nice fish to start with, so we sort of marked the spot and started another drift.

After countless drifts and venturing into bays without even the hint of a fish, we decided to head back to the tower to try our luck.

We must have tried every lure in the box (well in my box) but still nothing, so we upped anchor and tried a new area of water beyond the tower. We made three of four drift and I did manage a follow by a pike and a hit from a trout, but nether were hooked.

We started the last drift of the day and with the sun starting to set, I had another follow from another pike and another hit from a trout. It just wasn't meant to be.

So with the sun setting, and time running out we head for home.

We later found out that the day had been hard for our party and appart from a large pike and a couple  of decent perch, most boats returned empty handed.

But we will be back!!!