Oakham match lake

What a great day, one of the best so far this year, well for commercial carping anyway.

Had a day on the match lake at Oakham and believe it or not, had the whole lake to myself, everyone seems more interested in the top pool, why, because there are bigger fish supposedly but ive found that this pool as large fish of its own and its not to far to walk, last wek was a killer.

Started the session at 6 metres in about 3 foot of water, you dont have to go to far out here, the fish come right under your feet, i have had them to 9lb, in 6 inch of water.

I had a few on the soft expander, but was missing a lot of bites , i bannded the pellet and began to catch steadily but a lot of fish were boiling on the surface , time for the shallow rig . I kept the pellets going in and was catching well but im sure the float was spooking them, so tried something i have never before, a rig with no float, this was great and the fish hooked themselves.

Through out the day im also tried the margin rig with catmeat and had a few but a spectater walked right up to where i was fishing and spooked the fish .

I ended the day back on the surface and had a lot of foul hookers , i think the fish were turning at the last minute, maybe spooked by the pole over their heads?

At the end i had a nice bag of 91lb but with the fish i lost it should have been 140lb easily.

I was on my own so the picture of the net was all i could take and there are no bricks in there hehe.

Oak ham top pool

We

Fished the top pool at Oak ham, its the 2nd time i have fished this pool we thought the ton up was on, but it was not to be.

We fished the east bank using pellet , paste, meat and bread ,but could not settle for one method, it was trial and error and i am sure if we had stuck to one bait , maybe the ton+ would have been possible.

John Dale weighed 79lb , John Telling 73lb and me 67lb 8oz.

The next time we fish this pool it will be winter for the Roach , i couldn't do that walk again this summer phewwww .

  Johns second weigh                My second weigh

  We both used two keepnets these are the 2nd lot.

2 weekends of contrasting weather.

 

What a difference a week makes, i mean, last weekend we fished in temperatures above 20c and this weekend it did not go into double figures, last week the sun was out , this week , we got soaked.

Me and John Dale had a trip to the reservoir and even though sport was not hectic ,i really enjoyed it. I fished peg 3 and John peg 2 , my favourite on the lake. I gave floating crust ago but the wind was making presentation awkward, so that went out the window, John meanwhile was having a few shallow and even fished beyond the weed bed but the fish were smaller here. I started having a few close in and with constant feeding had Roach right into the edge in about a foot of water and because it was so clear i could see the fish taking the bait .

  By the end of the day John weighed 21lb 10oz and i had 13lb dead so all in all not a bad day and Johns net was excellent.

  The following weekend , well yesterday to be exact me and John Telling had a trip to Jubilee pools , we fished the large speci lake  as i wanted to target those large Bream but as is common the weather had took a turn for the worst and it was hammering it down , it had since yesterday and it did not look to good.

 I started at 10 metres , looking to catch some of those large Bream that go well into double figures but after 2 hours i knew it would be hard. The angler next to me was also struggling , he was after the Bream and a couple of days ago he had 160lb of them of the same peg but all he had today was one carp close to double figures.

John was bagging again on the waggler, so i set up a Roach rig shallow and began to feed half a dozen maggots every few seconds , it did not take long for the Roach to arrive . In-between the Roach line, every now and then i gave the Bream line ago but it was empty.  John finished with a cracking 22lb 2oz bag of Roach i weighed 15lb 13oz . If i had stuck to this line 30lb would have been easy, but i like to try different things, thats the enjoyment i get ,experimenting with flavours , rigs etc. You never know what can happen thats why i love fishing.

Worse weather Wednesdays !

 

Why is it that whenever i have a Wednesday off, the weather always changes?. They did a study once and found on average Wednesdays were more likely to be the worst day of the week weather wise, something to do with people not working Saturdays and Sunday , the earths temp slowly decreases  and by Wednesday it is lower, just my luck this is the only day the  wife does not work , so i usually book it off, have a day fishing , no need to rush back.

Any way yesterday was one of those bad weather Wednesdays. It started ok ,but as always as i was setting up it began to rain and by the time my rig hit the water it was pissing it down and blowing a gale . The brolly went up for the first time this year, i hate fishing under brollys .

I was on the bird nest peg , i have always fancied this peg but have never fished it before, it is always out of bounds due to , birds nesting in the tree that hangs in the water.

I potted some ground bait laced with pellet at 8 metres, left this line to settle and fished 5 metres with red maggot dusted in atomic cloud  strawberry red. The fishing was slow , when it rains here combined with a temperature drop its always the same. Anyway the Roach line was slow but i could see the fish taking the free offerings but not the one with the hook , so frustrating. It was time to concentrate on the Bream line. I fished with pellet on the hook over Silver x Bream ground bait, which is a deep red and my hands looked like i had been in a slaughter house, thankfully most of it washed off. Anyway i had 4 Bream on this line and funnily some nice Roach too 6mm pellet.

My final weight was 11lb 8oz and John fishing waggler weighed 11lb 13oz, yet again a great performance on the wag.

Snitterfield 23 may 2009

  Well i had another trip to Snitterfield reservoir today, i felt i had too after the disappointment of last weekend.

I settled for peg 2 , one of my favourites , i like this peg because you can drop your tackle right in but more importantly, its got some nice weed features within easy reach of the pole, i am always more confident when i can reach such features comfortably.

The plan was to try and catch shallow and with the weather looking warm it was looking good. Started by potting in 3 caster and pellet laced ground bait near the weed bed, this was for later , my Bream and Crucian line. The other line was at 5 metres with maggot and caster, the maggot to start off the swim , caster if i start to get pestered by small fish. Pestered by small fish i was, little Perch, lots of them, i do not recall there being this many over the last few seasons. As i was feeding half a dozen maggot every 30 secs i began to notice boils and swirls with the occasional flash of large Rudd  and Roach. I put on my shallow rig , about 18 inch deep but could not get a bite , i noticed the swirls were less frequent, the pole was casting a shadow on the water , so on with a rig similar to hand to line , this did the trick and i started to catch some quality Rudd and Roach but those little perch still got there first this was the signal to change to caster and it worked, i still had a few perch but not as many.

So i had a great days fishing and ended up with 21lb of Roach , Rudd and small perch great stuff, the only downer on the day, was  when a message came through on my phone, it was Jades football coach , as i  held the phone my top 3 was pulled from between my legs i managed to grab it , but in panic threw my phone on my side tray, straight into my water soaked casters, SHIT ……! and i lost what ever was on the end.

Snitterfield reservoir

At last summer is nearly upon us but we still are having unsettled weather and it was just like that, on my second visit to the reservoir this year, but who cares, its great to be there, whatever the weather.

The day started well enough weather wise but the wind was a bit blustery and like a fool i fished straight into it ,with no cover .

Pete James, who came with me and John , was on the nice corner peg ,where he could reach the weed bed and was sheltered from the wind , John settled just around from him and i next to John.

By the time we set up the showers started and this coupled with the wind made presentation difficult. Fished red maggot at 5 metres but sport was slow and small perch were becoming a nuisance , for me and John but Pete was catching well to white maggot , quality Roach.

The long Bream line only produced one fish, but lost a carp on the flake. John had a couple of Bream and a good net of Roach along with Pete's quality net of silvers it was a great day. I weighed 9 lb and Pete and John 17 lb 10 oz dead, great nets between them.

canal match

Last weekend i was luckily enough to be a guest on a canal match, on the grand union at catherine de barnes and tio say i enjoyed it would be an understatement. The last canal match i had a couple of years ago was a disaster to say the least, but this time i stuck my head down , i even ignored a phone call off the mrs and thats a big no no.

I caught four Roach down the track to punch until it died, where i went far across to a lovely looking reed bed where i continued to catch small roach, perch and the darkest chunky gudgeon i have seen in ages.

Any way finished 3rd out of 14 and John dale finishing 4th . A few ounces seperated us yet again and this time i was at the top end for once.

My beautiful teenage daughter.

Self portrait and edited by me.