A day at Boddington
I haven’t fished there for a while, I used to be a regular, and I’m not used to documenting my fishing expeditions so please excuse me where necessary (or completely), I thought it would be helpful for someone hoping to fish there to give some tips on how not to fish it!
The weather was generally windy with bouts of cloud and sun in equal measure, the temperature was very mild (I think my car said 17°C) inspite of the wind and cloudy spells.
Well you can’t grumble about the scenery facing you:
I fished peg 30 something, there were two or three matches on the preferred carp pegs (road wall and around the beaches), but I like the pegs along the first straight from the car park anyway as the trees save you from the sun later on in the day. I’d had a look around before getting my gear out and there were a few carp showing on the surface around 50 metres out, the ducks and coots were further out keeping a keen eye on the match along the road end, and the wind wasn’t too bad - this looked promising.
I got my tackle and made my way further along the path looking with anticipation at the water; the further up I went, a green slick became more and more obvious:
Sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s St. Paddy’s Day when arriving at Boddington.
Whilst tackling up, the waterfowl decided to take an interest in what I was doing, they hovered closer at around 50 metres out, so I decided to take my time setting up so as not to incite any more interest in my antics. Eventually, they lost a bit of interest and moved another 20 metres or so further out to keenly observe the match once more, but still hovered a bit to close for comfort. So my plans to fish 40 – 50 metres out were thwarted as I knew it would only pique their interest, so decide to fish around 2 - 3 rod lengths out which I could feed by hand (I think that ducks etc. respond to the sound of a catapult) and there were signs of fish up near the top. Plumbing up, the water was around 1.6 – 1.7m deep.
Float rod in hand, 3bb insert waggler, hook-bait set around 300mm deep, I decide to see if anything would respond to pellet, cast out and had trouble sinking the line due to that green stuff so had to cast much further out and draw the line back to sink it.
Sure enough there was some interest with the float bobbing about; change of depth, bait, shotting etc.; but no fish. I tied a new hook length, an 18s spade hook and wrapped dead red enticingly around the bend of the hook:
Ah, that explains it. A few more later, I decided to see if anything was hovering deeper in the water. There was a bit of tow taking my float to my left so it suited moving the shot further down to try and compensate, besides, with all the palaver sinking the line, there would be no slow and attractive descent amongst the feed. Eventually I was on the deck catching some nice roach:
With the tow picking up, I laid on around 150mm which kept the float still and started to produce lift bites and a better stamp of roach:
Occasionally the swim would go quiet and I would pluck out a small perch or two, and then back to roach. In my experience, when the swim goes quiet like this it generally means pike (and there are some big ones coming out regularly on boilie), so I decided to keep changing depth and shotting to try and keep in contact with the fish (tow allowing) if they indeed were there. Moving the bait up and down in the swim, this turned up:
A very welcome sight!
I really enjoyed my day, even though I had intended catching a few carp to put a bend in my rod, I much preferred catching some nice silvers. While I was set at the right depth, it was virtually a fish a chuck. Changing from 1 to 3 maggots seemed favourite on the day, I didn’t get a proper sniff on pellet.
I don’t know how many fish I caught as I hold the rod in one hand and turn the handle with the other which often leads to me losing count, I know it was more than one, but it really didn’t matter. I would prefer to have had what I caught rather than 100lb of carp.
In hindsight, I wish that I’d taken some hemp and or worms (tumeric munga???) I normally do, it’s just me and my blasted trials at taking only what I need. One day I’ll learn - you never know what you need until you get there, so take everything. I’m sure there will be bait shelves before long available for boxes and chairs to put it all on.
Whilst I’m not claiming to be the best angler, I’ve found Boddy can have its moods. It’s been hammered since headmaster allowed us back on the bank (imagine Brighton beach). Even before all the lock-down, Boddington had spates of being hammered with big matches taking place there or multiple matches taking place on the same day, mid-week matches as well as the weekend and all year round.
Today I managed to catch a few silverfish, maybe not to the standard of a regular angler at the venue, but a day I will remember none-the-less.
) but he nags me all day, what are you eating, are you looking after yourself; on and on it goes so seeing this bass come up was a welcome diversion.
??
