Blankety blank....again
I really enjoy the social side of these events even though I was the only Englishman there and couldn't understand what the South Africans were talking about 90% of the time, what is that language they speak ?
As a "social" venue it was perfect, comfortable area to fish, plenty of space and on site facility's, We attracted a bit of attention most of which was positive. The main downside was we were fishing in an area that the locals use to feed the ducks and swans, remember this is their domain and we were the visitors, yes we would have hoped for a bit more consideration and forethought. We had to free one swan which was attracted by one of our friendly local bird feeders and got tangled in a fishing line, no harm was done.
We were also paid a visit by a few members of the public that were interested in what we were doing which was good and one English guy had been fishing there for years and knew "Smithy" very well, Smithy was the guy that spread most of the illegal fish around New Zealand, he died a few years back and left a few million NZ$ in trust to be used "for the good of NZ angling". I can't recollect his name and he didn't stop that long that I could have a good chat with him, he did mention that crucian carp had been introduced many years ago to feed the Maori's. Are these the strange goldfish that I catch ?
The other thing I noticed yesterday was how I seem to attract the local nutters, I must be a magnet for the majority of odd ball that frequent this glorious country, especially the Huntly area.
A few ideas got exchanged during the day and I enjoyed the bbq although only 3 of us made the effort.
The "Asian" guy was very friendly and was a wealth of information and bait for Nico.
A few fish would have been nice and it wasn't for the want of trying, I had two rods out, one was a conventional carp set up which I was hoping to attract the resident lumps with and the other was a feeder rod rigged match style and fished at around 15m to 20m hoping to attract some bites. We could see fish activity on the surface for most of the day, but it was all at range, a range that Marius couldn't even reach although he had a very good try at attracting them into his swim using his "SPOMB", my rendition of the dam busters theme tune and imitation of a bomber fell on deaf ears, The SA's didn't even know what world war 2 was.
All in all a very enjoyable day, tho I must admit getting up at 5 o'clock and catching no fish for the third time is waring a bit thin, but like Arnie "I'll be back" for more punishment.
One question I do have, How long can a venue like this survive when all the fish that are caught are taken out ? Food for thought.
The lack of me catching fish has also got me thinking, is it time to go back to basics ? do I change back to simple basic rigs, smaller hooks, bait on the hook or am I simply getting the fundamentals wrong ?
Yesterday looked perfect for float fishing, a waggler and constantly trickling in some grains of corn, but that's really not what the carp club is about, or at least I don't think it is.
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