I got my rods and pod set up and then went for a brew with Jon and the bailiffs , can honestly say they are 2 of the best I have encountered and a good laugh even though they are carpers lol.
I returned to my rods and got them out in position and set about waiting for the action .
Now what became evident was that the carp were preoccupied and looking in the margins it was hard to see why !!!!!!
The black things are tadpoles and there were thousands everywhere . On dusk the liners started and were continuous for most of the night and other than one aborted take nothing hittable happened til 5am the following morning when I positive take resulted in a nice bend in the rod and the usual nod and plod of a good bream which when I placed on the unhooking mat and weighed was a lovely 8lb 2oz at this point I realised I hadnt set my camera up so placed the bream back in the landing net and secured it in the deep margin , now I have done this countless times with numerous species and never had a problem ,as you will see below there is something missing from the pic because as I was getting the self take ready the bream somehow managed to flip out of the landing net and returned itself just as the practice self take took. This has been a source of amusement to everyone who has heard the story .
You will notice that I am well wrapped up as it was a little cool which didnt last long !!!!!!!
An hour later I had my second bream which this time I photo'd without incident and weighed 5lb 12oz
You will tell from this pic the sun had come out and made pics a little difficult , within half an hour I had another bream of 5lb 8oz.
Suddenly the temperature went through the roof . I reeled my rods in and went for a chat and discovered that everyone had struggled though the night , in fact no on had a fish during dark and even Jon who had had 19 bream and a small common carp over the previous 36 hours couldnt buy a bite .Jon went up to the shops to pick a few things up and I asked him to get me a bottle of cold drink as hadnt expected the weather to be so hot , when he got in his car the temp gauge showed 32 degrees !!!!!!!!!!! The rest of the day the carp started getting ready to spawn and you could sense the bream were not far behind .
My rigs as you will see below were different on both rods , one was a method feeder with balanced fake corn and the other was 15mm boillies with a stringer attached .
Other than fish crashing and the odd liner nothing happened , so tea time we treated ourselves , rods were reeled in and we gathered and had a chinese takeaway and had a chat . I returned to my swim and put some more bait in , more in hope than anticipation and so it proved as other than constant liners and one fish that fell off nothing happened and I awoke to the sight and sound of bream and carp crashing through the reeds and it became obvious that carrying on was pointless so I had a leisurely pack up and a quick chat before heading home and have spent the last week preparing my tackle and bait for the glorious 16th which I will be spending on a different stretch of the Trent for the first time in 2 years but thats for next time .
Tight lines everybody
