Mid-April, water still less than twelve degrees, dry but overcast all day. We decided to fish another of the Glamorgan Anglers Club’s waters, so researched and found that the two Cadoxton Ponds had five-gee internet and that was important. Wil is nearing completion of a Lego stop-motion he is making, using Star Wars Lego figures, and also using the Death Star that he constructed out of Lego as a backdrop. Maybe that seems irrelevant to angling but it means that Wil can set up his two method feeders and then work while waiting for a bite. Carol’s Pond, we learned, was a mixed fish pond, while Sue’s Pond was mainly carp. Following the decision to have fun fishing rather than chase bigger and bigger carp, we chose Carol’s with a visit to Sue’s planned for the near future. To say that the venue is weird and full of contrasts would be an understatement. Turning off the Barry road, (Near Barry Island for Gavin and Stacey fans,) we entered a long entrance road to Dow Corning, a huge industria

On reaching home after Wil and I’s trip to the commercial that is Hazel Court Ponds, there was no need to unload all the gear from the car because I was going to fish a Glamorgan Anglers Club water the following day on my own while Wil got stuck back into his latest stop motion movie. Normally, I would fish the water with a pole but the temptation to just go into the house that evening, shower, eat and relax, then just get in the car the following morning and drive off, was too enticing, so a three rod and reel attack it was with the pole and seat-box left in the garage. The weather forecast was for high pressure (the pond is not that deep, so no real affect) and temperatures reaching twenty-five Celsius making it the hottest day of the year so far. Arriving at Seven Oaks Fishery at a respectable, not-too-early time, I was pleased to find the owner at the gate. He is always worth a chat with and told me the pegs that had been producing lately, and that info is like gold dust, plus he t

Early April, warmest day this year so far (twenty-three Centigrade,) dry with a slight south-easterly breeze. Wil announced that he wanted to start fishing again, so we left early on Tuesday morning for Hazel Court Ponds, arrived at eight as the ponds opened, and set ourselves a packing-in-time of two in the afternoon, to ease Wil back into things slowly. To make the six hours more interesting we decided on a competition. A point each for first, fish, most fish, and heaviest fish with the loser buying MacDonalds on the way home. Peg number one on the Reed Pond had been good to us in the past, and it had Wi-Fi so we unloaded all the gear out of the car and dumped it at peg one. The umbrella went up with our two canvas chairs inside because I’d decided not to sit on my box, isolated, but to sit with Wil and have a chat, and chat we did for six hours because we couldn’t get the Wi-Fi to work. Wil had two rods with method feeders and pink wafters, while I had one method feeder rod with an

First visit to a new club pond, found it closed so ended up at the old faithful, Dragonfly Pond at Tri-Nant.

Mid-March, cold but dry with a slight easterly breeze. For those that have not read last week’s blog, which is still available, I am at a stage in my angling where I have decided to use my pole, also to be active between swapping swims and feeding them, and to abandon for now the search for larger and larger carp using method feeders or Ronnie rigs and pop-ups. With this in mind, Hazel Court had one of its winter weekends of opening, so on the Sunday I packed the car, headed there, and arrived at eight as the venue was opening. Around ten cars were in the car park with others arriving as I changed into wellies. There seemed to be a scramble to fill the pegs nearest to cars so I loaded my trolly and made the first of two visits to a peg I’d fished before at the far end of the pleasure pond, where I sat alone all day. In the past, I had not used the trolly and Wil and I had made a couple of journeys each, but with Wil taking a break from fishing to concentrate on his stop-motions, hoping

A philosophical couple of weeks for me, wondering which direction my fishing was going (two ways with a great split between them) and trying to work out where I was, where I was going, and where I wanted to go. It all started with a peaceful day’s fishing, on my local Dragonfly Pond, listening to the sheep in the next field, the birds in the trees behind me, and a one-sided conversation between two anglers on the next two pegs to me, the furthest angler being out of my hearing ability. Waggler floats hit the water in two distinct places, followed by catapulted loads of unrecognisable loose bait, this seeming to be in the wrong order, but whatever. “I cannot get my head around it,” one shouted to his mate. “They don’t even have to strike. They are not fishing really, just setting a trap and then sitting about doing nothing to do with fishing, waiting for an alarm to go off to tell them that a carp has hooked itself.” One waggler hit the water again, the bait sank to the bottom, and the