How did everyone get on then?

Another weekend of low overnight temperatures and strong daytime winds, did anyone brave it again?

I managed to nick a few hours early on Saturday morning from five 'till around eight thirty and covered a couple of miles of water roving for pike and perch around our local lakes without a sniff, it was only two degrees to start with and a belter of a sleet storm around six o'clock pretty much put paid to things.

Slightly better on Sunday whilst out with a mate, managed one jack of around five pounds and got frustrated by losing two more with one of them a nice fish and plenty of missed snatches right under the rod tip.

So then, how did you get on?

I fished Sunday 5 -8:30 -

I ended up catching 8 carp , 3 chub, a couple of roach and a bream
The carp and chub were caught on pineapple flavoured meat, at one point I'd caught a carp on the meat and just recast and had a take straight away - another carp

As last week, looking forward to another tench session tomorrow (Tuesday) on the club estate lake (hope more of the pads are up - very late this year) and some up in the water carp from a gravel pit on Thursday.
Jerry
PS Took a first last Tuesday, a large perch on a soggy pumped up 6mm expander (flavoured with some fishy stuff I mix with the water) over hemp among the tench.

On Satuday evening, I had the first carp out of my syndicate lake since October last year (unless one of our number is playing secret squirrel).
It wasn't particularly big at around the 7.5lb mark. It was fairly unusual in that it was a mirror rather than common (we seem to have 4 or 5:1 commons to mirrors). However, I doubt most people would believe just how welcome it was.

Saturday I fished a match on a windy West Midlands commie.
Due to the wind I fished top 2+2 with 11m punched meat over dampened micros. Presentation was tricky and I was missing bites. Decided my 4x16 float was too light and changed to a 0.50g rig with an olivette and finally hit some bites. 2 lumps and some small carp and skimmers in the last 2 hours. Weighed in 21lb 8 for 5th overall. Kicked myself as I should have changed earlier...mg:
22 fished...

Another disappointing weekend on Bawburgh, just a single tench of 7-04 to show for two nights on the bank with the carp rods out. Not what I’m there for, I’d like to put a couple of 20s on the bank before I dust off the tench rods in a couple of weeks’ time. I think a change in venue is called for.
On the plus side I did produce a mighty fine red thai curry and enjoy a very nice bottle of red.

I had a shed load of carp and roach from the farm pond one evening whilst fishing in shirt sleeves. Then, the following afternoon I was wrapped up in a fleece, waterproof trousers and two coats under a brolly in driving rain. Managed a land few bream that managed to hook themselves despite the boilies being bigger than their gobs.

It is still quiet on the carp front on the big lakes whereas the ones in our little farm pond are throwing themselves about all over the place. They run to about 10lb although 3 - 5lb is more common along with the bait sized ones. So I took my little quiver rod up to see how it fared against fish of this size. It is only 4' 6" long and made out of what seems to be the upper part of a fibreglass fly rod spigotted to an 18" fine fibreglass quiver tip, and a very short cork handle at the other end. It had been especially made by Dawsons of Sheffield for fishing small river such as the Don in Sheffield and I brought it for the smaller overgrown rivers over here that mainly hold chub and carp averaging 2 - 4 lb. As some of the carp or barbel I might encounter could go considerably bigger than this I was looking to see whether the tiny rod and reel combo' would handle fish over 5lb.

I needn't have worried. The little rod will bend evenly right to the handle and the Daiwa Regal 1500 gives line very smoothly from the clutch. I had 6lb mainline onto 4lb fluoro' hook length and had carp of 3 - 7lb streaming yards of line off whilst still being able to put enough pressure on to turn them. It was good fun - carp fishing in miniature. The only downside is that I need to keep the hook sizes quite small to ensure that the hook penetrates as the rod tip is so soft and forgiving.

It is forecast to get warmer and with thunderstorms on Wednesday so I'll be taking the catfish tackle for an afternoon out.

I went on the friday last to a trout fishery in Notts. I managed four rainbow trout to 8-6 and a small blue trout.:w