Haven`t been able to do much fishing recently so I was looking forward to a day with a couple of mates at the local day ticket pond.
Arrived at around 8am and quickly tackled up a waggler rod. Plumbed up, cast out and set the rod in the rests and unusually for the pond it resulted in a small bream first cast. Great I thought, we could be in for a bonanza day!
About 2 hours later that thought had definitely left my head. I`d had a few bites on maggot corn and wheat but nothing that resulted in a fish. Dave was catching the odd bream on feeder tactics and Keith had caught a hard fighting tench of about 2lbs early on and then hooked something that was giving him quite the runaround on his relatively light tackle. I went over to help and after about 5 minutes managed to slip the net under a feisty 4.5lb carp.
Sitting back down I decided on a change of tactics and quickly set up a method feeder. The first cast, the rod went into the rests and I turned to do something only to have the rod almost jump out of the rests. I thought for sure the fish had hooked itself but when I began to reel in there was nothing there. After that it was mostly annoying little plucks and pulls with only one more proper wrenching method feeder bite where I connected with something for a fraction of a second.
Despite enjoying the day it was starting to become a little frustrating. My two companions weren`t exactly emptying the pond but they were catching the odd fish. Ok I thought, back to the waggler, a change of bait and go for broke. Off came the 18 hook and on with a size 8 and a big piece of flake.
The float had barely had time to settle before it twitched and then slid away. Strike and I was into something that definitely wasn`t happy about being caught, it didn`t feel big but it was a scrapper. After a short but satisfying fight a very solid tench with huge paddles for fins surprised us all when it weighed in at only 1.5lbs, all of us thought it would make 2lbs.
The next Warburton`s victim was an ambitious roach that must have struggled to fit the bait in it`s mouth. Then it went quiet again.
After some time I noticed a few ripples under some overhanging nettles just to my right. Suspecting they were being caused by a fish and having nothing to lose I stuck a new piece of flake on the hook and dropped it as close to the nettles as I dare. It wasn`t long before the float shot under and after a spirited fight a carp of just under 4.5lbs was resting in the net. Score one for observation!
By now it was early evening and the occasional fish was showing on the surface. I`d been periodically throwing a few dog biscuits out but they were mostly being attacked by fry. I went to chat with Dave and we both saw a ghosty that had made a few appearances during the day passing through his swim towards mine.
"I`m gonna catch that" I said to Dave.
I headed back to my peg and as I didn`t have a floater rod set up I decided to improvise. I slid all the shot up under the float, hooked on a piece of flake and lobbed it out a few feet in front of the approaching carp. The carp headed directly for the bread, ignored it completely, snaffled a couple of dog biscuits and then turned, took a moment to size up the bread and then slurped it down! A solid strike to set the hook and a few minutes later a very lively 5.5lb ghost carp was in the net. It proved to be a very uncooperative subject for photography but I managed to grab this shot.
Far from the best days fishing I`ve had up there but enjoyable nonetheless and the two carp were very satisfying catches, not so much for their size but because I set out to catch them.