Dads and Lads

So this weekend I decided to have two days fishing at the little local water, hoping to fill my boots so to speak! The best laid plans of mice and men however....

I started off well on the Saturday with a low double coming quickly to the bank not too long after casting out. I rubbed my hands together thinking, yes I'm in for a decent day!
It soon became apparent that this was not going to be as easy as I had anticipated, as for the next two hours or so I sat twiddling my thumbs. A south easterly breeze had sprung up whilst I was sat there twiddling and so I decided to keep an eye on the windward end of the lake, and after a while as I suspected, fish began to roll and show at that end of the lake. A quick move saw me positioning baits to showing fish and I swiftly connected with another low double. Once again I anticipated putting a few more fish on the bank. Despite continued rolling and showing the fish had other ideas! I really do think these fish are super spooky, and once you have caught one of them they go on red alert! It's bizarre because as I said in the previous entry about this lake they really haven't seen any kind of pressure and are present in fair numbers.
Anyway despite my trying very hard for the rest of the day no more fish found their way into my net.

I returned the next day to try again with my Son in tow this time. I chose to fish the first swim I had started in the previous day, even though the wind was still pushing up to the far end where they had been rolling. Son chose to fish the south east corner on the back of the wind. Once again I sat there twiddling my thumbs wondering what on earth I could be doing wrong! In the meantime Son had managed to extract his first fish from the lake having blanked on two previous attempts, to say he was pleased was an understatement!

The hours passed and still no fish for me, so I opted for a rig change on one of the rods with a shorter more supple rig and smaller hook and bait as it seemed to me they may be taking advantage of a glut of natural food in the lake and only seeking out smaller items of food. Son had banked his second fish, a lovely mid double common and was using 12mm boilies whereas I was sticking with my standard 15/12mm snowman setup.

The change of rig and bait and a change of spot eventually paid off for me and a scraper double made off with the 12mm single hookbait. I definitely feel that these fish are more oriented towards small food items as most of their diet is natural food with only a small amount of supplementary food from the owner in the form of small pellets.

We finished the day with Son banking his third and final fish, yet another small double. I guess you could say he showed the old man how to do it on this occasion!

I do feel that we should be getting bigger hits from the residents of this lake, the obvious answer being to pre bait several times a week, however I am reluctant to do this as I really like this little lake and don't want to burn out on it too quickly which is what tends to happen when I maximise on an opportunity. I know that sounds a bit weird but with only so many local waters to go at I still want to keep a little something back. We will be facing a huge challenge soon enough with our Autumn and winter target water but it isn't one we'll be able to fish as often as we'd like due to the travelling involved and the cost of said travelling.
In between trips will be spent at this little local water through the winter so I want to leave something to keep me going back. Hopefully one of the elusive larger residents will grace one of our nets on a fresh winters day!

Until next time, thanks for reading.

Stress reliever

Life has been very stressful lately on a personal level and I have really been looking forward to getting out on the bank at the weekends. My fishing buddy and I have recently found a lovely little water where we live that is relatively unfished. The stock is nothing fantastic and is fairly high with lots of doubles and a handful, ( we think ) of low Twenties.

Nothing too serious then because the aim is simply to have fun and test our rigs and baits in preparation for a 'proper' challenge in a few weeks.
For now though this water suits my needs, it has beautiful views with open fields all around and a dramatic hillside backdrop in the distance that you can watch any developing weather fronts roll over the top of and cascade into the valley below. On our first session we were actually caught out by the effect that these 'downs' as they're known,  have on the prevailing weather and we were caught in a torrential downpour with high winds and thunder and lightening crashing all around us for about 45 minutes while we both sheltered under a 50 inch brolly! It certainly adds to the flavour of the place...

The fishing you might think would be fairly easy as the water supposedly has an estimated 150 'ish fish in only a couple of acres and they don't seem to be fished for on a regular basis. However they do seem to present a challenge because they certainly aren't as forthcoming as you might imagine. So far we have applied little in the way of prebait, and to be honest I rarely bother with such extravagances these days, preferring a one to one approach on the day. The only concession to this is throwing in the remainder of the bait we have taken for the session which on a once a week basis makes little difference.

So far our efforts have yielded 13 takes over two sessions with 9 fish landed, there is a barbless hook rule on this water which we have put the 4 losses down to as the fish all came adrift during the fight which is a typical symptom of the skidding and eventual hook pull that barbless hooks lead to. The majority of the fish have been in the 10-13lb bracket with three of them reaching around 15lb. All good fun and still providing a small amount of satisfaction. We will continue to fish this little water for the next few weeks before we move on to the 'Big challenge' over the autumn and winter!

Check out the weather front in the background! ( above )

Thanks for reading and tight lines!