Newbie Mistake On Newbie Pond.

8th July.

We decided that the next pond we should visit and do a video on would be Jim’s Pond at Hazel Court, where it all started on August twentieth, last year. Back then, it was two chairs, two rods, waggler floats and a tub of maggots, and if anyone is thinking about starting up fishing or introducing youngsters, this, Jim’s pond, is an ideal place to start.

The only problem that we had was that our four rods were not made up with floats and maggots in mind, and we had prepared for method feeders and dry PVA bags. The decision was made to not change the rods after a discussion with Debbie, the fishery owner, who told us that the carp went up to ten pound in this pond.

I'd tied so many PVA bags in case we did an overnighter, that the tub of feed had gone low. I topped it up with 600g of brown groundbait and the rest of the bloodworm, about a kilo. We (Wil) decided on one day only rather than the overnighter and we pulled up at Hazel Court at ten thirty in the morning. Walking down to Jim’s pond, we found Debbie there, scooping out some harmless but quickly spreading algae with a landing net.

To cut a long story short, Wil’s rod caught one fish all day, my rod caught one fish all day. On the tenth of June, so around a month ago, we’d witnessed the stocking of all the ponds with small tench and carp, all the fish being six to eight inches long. The fish were still there and Wil’s only fish was a pretty little stock mirror carp, mine was an equally handsome stock tench of the same size. To be fair to these fish, they both gave us a decent fight and it was probably the first time that either of them had been caught.

I’d circled the pond, describing the various pegs, and had set up my pole on the next peg to the rods on alarmed pods, for some small-fish angling on pre-baited swims in front and in two margins. This captured a roach and a rudd, both under a pound and then disaster struck.

I was sat fishing a top-two and one section, just in front of me when an alarm went off on Wil’s peg, he shouted that it was on my rod, and he struck into a fish for me. I had to ship in my pole quickly, left the three sections intact, but stupidly left the end gear in the water, the float dangling in the air but the pellet and hook still in the water. By the time I got to Wil and the rod he'd told me, “it’s okay, the fish has slipped the hook.”

While I was tying another dry bag to the missed-fish rod, I said to Wil, “what’s that strange noise,” then looked over at my pole to see that the noise was that of pole sections slipping across grass. A dive for the landing net with its four-metre handle did not stop the pole sections in their tracks as they slid across the pond, looking like a straightened-out grass snake, where they finally wedged themselves into an area of lily pads.

First thought was that I’d lost a top-two costing around forty pounds, second thought was that it was also the number three section, the pole was useless, and I’d lost two hundred pounds.

Much casting of weights and hooks over the sections followed but no accurate casting could attach itself to the lost sections. We were both contemplating wading out into the pond, but I decided to consult Debbie first on possible depths and maybe sudden dips in the lake bed. Coincidentally, as I was on my way to find her, Debbie was on her way down to us while doing one of her tours of all the ponds. She quickly surveyed the situation, announced that the water was just over waist deep, told me correctly that I had no dry clothes with me, and told me to wait until she’d brought her waders down from the farm house.

When Debbie returned, she shocked me by saying that she would wade out because she’d done it so many times that she was used to it. She borrowed a sturdy top-two case to use as a depth gauge in front of her, waded out to my sections and announced “the fish is still on, a small carp.”

We had a bit of banter about whether the fish could be claimed or not but it didn’t really matter because the fish came off the hook. With my sections back on dry land and Debbie too on dry land and off to complete her rounds, Wil and I discussed ways in which we could say thank-you. Wil’s idea was brilliant as a starter. Because Debbie had been scooping out algae with a landing net, he carried on the job and gave her an hour’s labour and seemed to enjoy the task.

With all the commotion of the wading and the algae scooping, fishing should really have been over as far as the fish were concerned. Instead, my recently reunited pole brought out two common carp, a roach, a rudd and another stock tench, all under a pound and determined to make it a weird day of fishing.

As we were packing up Debbie and her husband along with the dogs were doing another round. I thanked Debbie again for rescuing my pole, she thanked Wil for his algae scooping efforts and his heron scaring duties. All in all, a weird but adventurous day.