Tench , carp and skyliners

Well I intended on staying on top of my sessions but somehow its over a month since my last up date , were is time going ?
On 4th April I attempted a short 3 hour session before work on the specimen lake but it proved fruitless and I suffered my first ever blank on the venue and other than one strange dropped take nothing much happened .
My next time out turned into something much different  friday the 19th April was my first 4 days off since my shift pattern change that come the river season will see me doing over nighter's on the Trent but today was to be one last attempt on the Specimen lake . The weather was supposed to be light showers from early morning til midday , it was spitting when I arrived and my pet hate of setting up under a brolly in the rain was a reality , within minutes of getting brolly up the heavens opened properly .

While its hardly the ideal weather it didnt seem to bother  the fish who went on a proper munch through the day resulting in me landing 24 roach only 7 of which were under 1lb and the others ranged from 1lb to 1lb 6oz , these were also backed up with 3 hybrids all aroud the 1lb mark , 3 bream between 1lb and 1lb 10oz ,  1 small perch around 6oz and to top it off an unexpected eel of 1lb 15oz . The rain well other than the odd 10 minute spell it kept up right up until I packed up at 4pm plus the wind swung round and I had to rapidly move everything to the opposite side of the swim and repostion the brolly.

My next session saw me change target as the following monday 22nd April I switched to the match lake in search of the tench , now this lake is alleged to have them to 11lb but my biggest is just short of 6lb off here .

My set up due to weather conditions and need to fish under the tree on the right of the picture was to be method feeder and a back up of the float .

Now this swim has a depth of 12 feet inches from the bank and under the tree it drops to 16 feet , so the float was set for the inside and method dropped into the deeper water , another problem on this lake is that a few years back the then new owner stocked all 5 of the lakes with carp which has made it a little tricky to catch anything else consistently , so small amounts of bait was the order of the day . Hook bait choice was maggot on the float and sweetcorn and mini boillies on the method rod . Within 15 mins my first tench of the campaign was in the net at 3lb 2oz it wasnt a monster but as you can see from the picture it had no lips !!!

Baits for the day.

This fish fell to the method rod and the float due to the wind was put to one side then the skimmers moved in and I had 6 one after the other small fish between 12oz and 2lb , I decided to leave the method for a while and try the float again but after 6 or 7 roach 6oz - 1lb I decided to sit it out on the method . I then had 4 common carp of 4lb 1oz , 4lb 10oz , 4lb 12oz and 5lb 12oz which is pictured below  in the space of half an hour .

Just as I was thinking of calling it a day I had 2 tench of 3lb 11oz and 3lb 14oz in space of 10 mins

My following session was an after worker for 3 hours on 25th April , I tried a new swim and again the depths were similar and again the spot was under the end of the tree branches.

Been a short after work session I went straight in with the method rod and managed just 3 carp 2 mirrors of 7lb 10oz pictured below  , 6lb 10oz and a common of 6lb 3oz the 2nd fish down

Short after work sessions have become the order of the day at the moment so with that on the 7th may I returned and decided to fish the same swim as the previous session and also tried a new rig pictured below it is similar to the KD rig  I had also invested in a method mould which has made baiting the feeder much quicker and cleaner.

I felt confident today as it was a little warmer and the carp were on or near the surface so maybe a tench or 2 was possible and so it proved as in the first half hour I landed 2 of 3lb 8oz and 3lb 9oz pictured below .

I then had a bream of 2lb 10oz and it went dead , one of the locals came round who had been fishing all day and had told me he had only had a couple of small roach and he came round to complain he couldnt catch the carp he was after , I then decided to show him something which afterwards had him walking away mumbling to himself . I dropped a satsuma size ball of ground bait 3 or 4 feet from the bank into 3 feet of water and within 5 minutes 4 carp were tails up sifting it , the guy commented that they couldnt be caught while they were like that , so I removed my method feeder and lowered 2 grains of freelined corn into the area and within 10 seconds or so the line tightened and I landed a mirror of 7lb 4oz , obviously this scattered the others but just to rove it wasnt a fluke I repeated the ball of groundbait and even changed bait to a mini boillie and with 5 minutes landed another hard fighting mirror of 8lb 12oz seen below.

I called it a day and called for a chippy tea of chips , haddock and curry sauce .

My final write up of this post is very frustrating for a number of reasons . This was supposed to be a full day session but turned into a 6 hour session for a couple of reasons , firstly my mother in law had to go to hospital for a check up on her eye which it seems she had now lost her sight in permanently so while mrs took her I sorted the dog out for the day and so arrived at just after 11am and was surprised to find only one person on the match lake though that might have something to do with the howling gale that was blowing . since I am not keen on having some of the guys on this venue near me I settled into a swim with the wind straight in my face so obviously the float was out within 10mins of casting out I hooked and landed a mirror of 7lb 7oz seen below , you will notice it only had one eye .

Heres a close up of it

I then landed another mirror of 4lb 10oz . At this point the session started going down hill , first the guy who was already there and fishing a good 100 yards away turned up telling me how he had just had his rod pulled in , now thats fair enough to have a look and see if you can see it but what he didnt next made my blood boil , now I'm fishing quite close in and sat well back from the edge and this numpty not once but twice walked up to the edge of my swim kicked the front staging and stared over the edge . When I pointed out what he had done he just looked at me and said wont hurt anything , now I'm afraid that I couldnt possibly print my reply as I had a really good rant at him and he quickly disappeared and other than seeing him in his swim that was it !!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . Anyway I then got the bream back and after landing 4 between 1lb and 4lb I reeled the rod in and left it a while . Now here comes incident number 2 this guy turns up with a carp barrow and the barrow bag full of bait and a pole with a baiting spoon and he goes round 4 or 5 swims dumping bait with the spoon right under all the over hanging trees and sets up 5 swims away from me . I decided to have another half hour as it was getting silly now but worse was still to come , I hear a voice behind me and spooning man is wandering up and down the path behind me chatting on his mobile !!!!! when he does return to his rods he casts out and sets his alarms , I manage to hook and land another mirror of 6lb 11oz and yet again only 1 eye !!!!! Now this is were I make a mistake as I think lets give it another half hour , oh dear !!!! the wind which had dropped starts picking up and gusting and spoon man appears to have no idea how to use his alarms as with every gust they go off and boy has he got the volume up !!!!!!!!! Thats it I have had enough and start to pack up just as it starts to rain and I mean RAIN !!!!!!!!!!!!! only took me 10 minutes to pack up and get back to van but I was drenched .

6lb 11oz mirror

So as I write this up i have decided to pull of this venue until the winter when I will chase the roach and perch again . I have today joined the Tenchfishers and hopefully by next spring will have made some friends who are local and can point me towards a venue with a chance of a decent tench and some more sensible anglers . Tomorow I am planning on doing a session on a club lake that is out of the way and will be trying for some of the big bream , roach and rudd that live there .