The day after fishing, a new bottle of pink haze arrived in the post because we were getting low, and although I had half a tall tub of eight-millimetre pellets in my pellet safe, I topped this up with eight-millimetre tiger-nuts pellets. I also had an idea about making things simpler and hopefully more effective with regard to the cupping out of oiled micro-pellets and ground-bait in layers, be it in an initial big cup to get fish interested or later small cups to keep them in the swim.
Into a gallon tub that once held fat balls for our bird feeder went a few handfuls of birdseed, then the tub of micro pellets soaked in fish oil, then the tub of what was left of the green and brown groundbait, followed by more fish oil, some ‘hot & spicy’ liquid fish attractant, and finally a couple of squeezes of mango extract and a squirt of krill oil. All was stirred vigorously and would be used for cupping out on my next pole venture.
A late start was ordered for hazel Court. Wil is working on a new method of stop-motion on his gaming PC that he needed to do on fishing morning, something that he could then refine on his phone at the bankside while waiting for a bite alarm. Allied to this was the eleven o’clock change over at the drive-through from breakfast to lunch, to stack him up with food for the day. This left us with a fishing window of eleven-thirty to seven, which ended up as eleven-thirty to six because it now takes us an hour to pack up.
We had all the lakes to ourselves, so it was a surprise to me when Wil chose peg one on Reed Lake. It seemed that more fish but smaller fish would be the order of the day. The setting up procedure is now standard with Wil setting up his own method feeder rods, me setting up mine, and while Wil settles under the umbrella to refine his stop-motions, I set up my three top-two kits and then finally my pole.
With regard to the method feeder rods, we tried an experiment, Wil winning as usual. He used the normal sticky pellets covered in pink haze, the pellets being straight out of the bag. The pellets on my method feeders were Big Carp Red Sticky Pellets and we were told to place them in a tub, cover them in water for two minutes, drain off the water and use them twenty minutes later.
To ensure no breach of fishery rules, once my pole is set up, I reel in one method feeder rod to give us the accepted two rods each. My top-twos were set up like this:- the first was set up with shot evenly spaced and plumbed up to be two inches over-depth immediately in front of me, banded with the new, tiger-nut pellets; the second was a float and no shot down to a size twelve hook and a stop and this stop held a drilled, floating, dog biscuit, pinched from Wil’s house; the third top two was for the edge, which was snaggy, and had two shot holding a small float, the shot just above the hook length to get the banded pellet down to the bottom as soon as possible.
In the first couple of hours, Wil had a common carp of around two and a half pound, the young, spirited, fighting type of carp, and a bream of around a pound who was neither spirited or a fighter. Whether the fish came up from the bottom or not, due to the warmth of the day, we don not know, but Wil had no more bites and I hadn’t had one bite all day on my new red sticky pellets.
Play was then interrupted.
Into the fishery, right in front of us, came a large van. Side doors were slid open and Debbie, the fishery owner, explained to Wil, that she had bought young tench to stock some of the ponds, that she used to have tench but nobody was now catching, and that the tench bought at the young size that they were actually cost more than carp do. Fishing stopped as we watched young, feisty looking tench, be transferred from tanks into large buckets and from there into the lakes.
I kept feeding the pole line out in front of me and the margin line under the tree and alternating my fishing between the two lines. I also tried the floating dog biscuit and this was hungrily savaged by tiny fish of around an inch long and nothing else. The dog biscuit line was ditched after spotting two large carp in the margin, sucking up items on the surface, and telling me in their own way that they weren’t dogfish so why would they be remotely interested in a dog biscuit.
Things changed slightly when I changed back to the old eight-millimetre pellets, bites came but were missed on both lines so a change from a size twelve hook to a size fourteen was made, possibly suiting the fish of this lake.
A missed margin bite that was struck too hard landed my end gear in the tree above the float, twice, losing me both sets. The first stretch of elastic, by hand not to put pressure on my pole, saw the elastic spring back onto a very red thumb. Being practiced in the art, the second elastic stretch hit my back which was now facing the tree. Despite the snag ups, something told me that the under-tree swim was a good one and to keep feeding it.
Fish came from that margin, and at one time they came from “one a chuck” the successful system being that having fed the margin swim with large cups of groundbait through the day, presumably laying a bed of bait on the bottom, it was now a case of a small cup every time I shipped out to keep the fish in the swim. The fish that came out were varied and were all under two pounds so not weighed and the young carp made their presence known immediately by taking eighteen to twenty elastic out into the middle of the lake. In order, what came out was, rudd, roach, bream common, common, roach, roach, common, common, roach.
No big fish but we didn’t expect them. I was having so much fun that I would have stayed on that swim until it got dark if we’d been doing an over-nighter. As it was, six o’clock arrived, it took us an hour to pack up. As we went through the inner gates Wil said “The dogs are back, can I say goodbye?” he stepped out of the car and said goodbye to Griff who he’d had a number of wrestling matches with through the day. This being tee-shirt weather, instead of dirty or pulled clothing, Wil was now covered in red scratch and teeth marks from his fights through the day. As we left to get onto the road, Debbie closed the main gates behind us and off we went.
A good days fishing with many questions asked, answers given, and more questions thrown up.