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 told me the fact that at the moment, the carp are active feeders in the morning, go bye-byes (my words not his) around lunchtime, and come to dine again in the later afternoon. Having used the club key to gain entry, I parked up and made three trips to my chosen peg on the left-hand pond on entering. I say the left-hand pond but the ponds are joined by a small causeway so are one huge pond really. My last trip to this venue was to the right-hand pond, the one with the island, where I was plagued by Canada geese pairing up, or trying to while fighting over it. Unbeknown to me, that island pond was later fished by three anglers that I didn’t hear, so my peg on the left-hand pond gave me solitary fishing all day. Is it just me or do other anglers sit on a pond on their own and imagine themselves owning it?
My method feeder rod was first to go out, giving me time, because of the bait-runner, to make up two float rods to be used one at a time, because of the two-rod limit. The first float rod was made up with a waggler down to a sixteen hook, carrying single corn, fished shallow to see if anything was about. The reason for fishing shallow was because of the large number of carp seen cruising about around twelve inches below the surface (polarising glasses are essential in the sun and today was cloudless) with them even patrolling up the margins and passing me inches from the edge of my peg.
The carp that I tried to reach shallow didn’t seem to be interested in my corn a foot below the surface, and more catapulted in, so that rod came in and I made up the other rod, again with a waggler, but no shot, and a bright orange, fifteen millimetre, tutti-fruiti pop-up on a fourteen hook sporting a hair and quick-stop some four feet from the waggler. With a tiny breeze from right to left, I cast right, let the pop-up float past me, and as it reached its journey to my left it completed an arc and headed for the reeds in the margin. Watching a pop-up takes total concentration because it’s easy to miss a bite from a carp taking it in, feeling it’s odd and spitting it out again. I had no fears of that happening though because the take, when it came. was fast, triggering a strike, and a five-and-a-half-pound common carp then took me on a merry dance around the lake, decimating any baited swims I’d prepared.
Maybe it’s my imagination, and I’d love to hear from others on the subject, but I believe that smaller carp, pound for pound, put up more of a fight on club waters than they do on a commercial. Maybe it’s because on commercials, they’ve been caught so many times before.
Nothing happened for around an hour, not on the pop-up or the method feeder, so the pop-up rod was kept the same but the bait changed to a twelve millimetre, pink, bucho-berry pop-up which the carp swam up to, looked at, ignored and went about their day. With both rods retired for now, I decided it was carp siesta time and grabbed the other waggler rod (with two droppers and a sixteen hook taking single corn) cast just in front, say fifteen feet or so, to where I’d been catapulting sweetcorn soaked in salted caramel, and adjusted the float rubbers on the line, up and down, until I was confident that I was fishing on the bottom.
This gives you two chances of a bite. Once on the drop, again on the bottom, and it keeps you busy re-casting if the bottom does not produce. The results of this exercise were a respectable sixteen rudd which I have to admit, if weighed in total during a competition may have just reached the two-pound mark. However, as many older anglers have stated, it’s not always about the weight but about sitting on the bank, working out what to do, and the thrill of the float going under.
Talking of the enjoyment and relaxation side of fishing, I have to admit to being distracted by my first swallow of the summer, flying low over the water surface, and taking a drink, four common buzzards (maybe an early brood? Mum, Dad and two young?) calling while enjoying thermals and one pretending to be a hovering kestrel, and the sound of a woodpecker drumming on a tree.
Back to the fishing and the change from rudd to carp was announced by a ‘rudd’ bite turning out to be a four-pound carp which again was a fighter. This signalled a change again, but I kept the ‘rudd rod’ setup except for changing the hook-length to a size fourteen with a hair and quick-stop, then using a needle in the quick-stop it went through two pieces of corn. The pop-up rod was kept close to hand in case the fish started feeding on the top again and the method feeder rod was now back in its case.
During the next hour or so, I kept feeding corn over the area I was fishing, but was amazed to see carp coming in really close. Really close means around two feet from the bank, all looking about three or four pound in weight, heads down, and feeding on sweetcorn in the clear-water shallows, sweetcorn that had not made it to my swim. Carefully I reeled in, keeping the waggler above the water surface, and dropped it in again about a foot from the bank. I knew that my double-corn hook-bait was still three or four feet from the bank and I was fishing well over depth. One wise carp was maybe watching these youngsters in the shallows, knew he was too big to be there, and stood off, feeding on a smaller amount of sweetcorn maybe, but it included my double corn hook-bait. My float did not go under, it merely headed for the centre of the pond at pace, ripping line off my bait runner reel until one wind stopped it and a finger on the spool then slowed down the spool’s spinning.
The fish that eventually came to the landing net was a strong looking, dark skinned, common carp of exactly eight pounds. The best of the day and a beautiful looking thing that had given a huge fight. When I slipped him back in, from the weighing sling, he sort-of wiggled off nonchalantly as if to say, “no big deal.”
With the swim so close in front of me being so decimated again. I cast the double corn out as far as I could, started packing up as I kept one eye on the float, and contemplated the fact that large and small, I’d caught nineteen fish that day and enjoyed a day in the sun, in a tee shirt. With everything almost packed away, the float dipped again, and a greedy rudd came in that had somehow got two pieces of corn and a fourteen hook into his mouth. “Can I be number twenty?” he said.
Three trips to the car got all the equipment on board and a quick filling in of my score card at the bungalow finished off the day with a pleasant drive home with a smile on my face.