Four Seasons In One Day - 31st March 2015 - The Oaks Sessay, Cedar Lake

First I feel the need to apologise in advance to anyone who's read any of my blogs. After re-reading previous entries i noticed just how much I mention the weather not being what I wanted/expected. Ive unwittingly picked up the British trait of  finding it too hot, too cold, too wet etc.  In the UK our weather is what it is and we all have to accept it and adapt. This blog was meant to be about fishing, not about meteorological observations. However in saying that today the weather really was the show stopper !

I'd earmarked today as my best chance to get back on the bank for another few weeks at least but the weather  Over the previous few days the weather forecast had warned of very strong winds (30mph+) with gusts of over 50mph but I was hopeful that with a bit of thought I'd be able to find somewhere sheltered for the day. After all as the saying goes "There's no such thing as bad weather, just unsuitable clothing" (although I'd be amazed if it was a coarse angler who coined the phrase !) I decided to head back to the Oaks at Sessay in North Yorkshire as a lot of the lakes are ringed by trees and vegetation offering some cover (theoretically !)

The day didn't start well with traffic jams caused by blown over HGVs and me realising I'd left all my reels at home. This pretty much guaranteed I'd be heading for one of the snake lakes at the complex as it would be pole only today. To be honest this was where I'd fancied anyway, as I hoped the F1s would feed despite the temperature dropping again from the weekend. I drove round the 3 snake lakes looking at potential spots and only saw 3 other hardy (crazy ?) Souls fishing. The trees didnt offer as much respite from the wind as I'd expected but peg 36 on Cedar was the calmest I could find, so although the conifers behind me were buffeted and dancing in the wind, the peg in front was virtually untouched.

Cedar Peg 36 - North West of complex

The Eye Of The Storm ?

I'd expected pellets or maggots to be the best options so my bait tray was relatively uncluttered (by my standards !)   on arrival I'd wetted some fishery feed pellets in both micros and 4mm, 2 pints of red/white maggots, some corn for bigger carp/F1s and a little groundbait (Sonubaits F1/Sensas Lake)

I set up my tackle and plumbed up around the peg. The far bank was just about 13m straight out, so I could fish 2 lines at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock at bang on 13m with the same depth each side, on a nice flat area down the far bank slope. As the gradient was quiet shallow I had the options of starting at 3' deep but my adding or removing a section I could search the different depths if required. I  planned to fish one line negatively with a few micros and a banded 4mm over the top, whilst the other long swim would get 4mm feed pellets with an expander on the hook. I'd fed another line with some corn and a little groundbait down the track in 5 feet of water about 8m out but at the same 13m distance from my position, to try and leave for a few hours to offer a safe area for the (bigger) fish to back off into. However as things transpired i didn't fish this line at all. Lastly I would throw a few maggots in by hand  every few minutes down the base of the near shelf at 3-4m  with the intention of not fishing for at least an hour to build up the fish's confidence and really just catch anything with fins.

After the late start it was nearly midday when I started actually fishing an almost inevitably the wind had changed direction. One minute it was directly behond me coming through the gap in the trees, then it would veer and come across and seemed to generally swirl around.  Even with a longer line and backshot the presentation on the long lines was awful. After persevering for far too long with only a small skimmer to show I had to admit defeat and abandon fishing past 5m otherwise my pride and joy pole would soon come in far more than its official 9 sections ! A brief hailstorm and rain didn't brighten my mood and I had really decided to quit but then I dropped on the short line for the first time and had a small roach. The sun came out and I could actually feel the warmth on my face. I started catching small roach and after gradually increasing the feed had a good F1. It wasnt fast or furious but I was getting bites. As id fed over a larger area I could try different depths as I'd intended on the far side. Most of the skimmers came directly at the base of the shelf but I had a few F1s right on top of the near shelf in about 2.5 feet of water but perhaps unsurprisingly they didn't settle.I got a bit ahead of myself and fed a small golf ball of groundbait but this seemed to put the fish right off. When they did come back after a bit more careful loose feeding it was skimmers and the biggest probably went a pound before I had a few more F1s every now and then. I could have tried a few things to make something happen such as a longer margin line but by now the heavens opened again, except this time it turned into a full-on blizzard of wet snow. There was no way a brolly could survive this wind so I just had to grit my teeth and bear it. I'll admit at one point when i could no longer feel my fingers,  I retreated to the car for 15 mins to defrost before fishing again.

The next rain storm made me decide that descretion was the better part of valour and after all this was a pleasure session not a match. I'd only fished for 2.5 hours but had had 4 F1s up to 2.5lbs , 20+ roach and a few good Skimmers, all from a top kit + 1 or 2 length. I decided to call it quits before I broke anything and had a blustery return up the A19.

So i managed some really nice fish and whilst I could have caught a lot more,  I felt quite satisfied with what I did have in the time I actually had a float in the water.

My final word about the weather.....I  wonder if people in other countries where the weather is warm all year round get bored ? Maybe they should experience some British Springtime !

Tight lines

Robin

Every Cloud Has A Silver(s) Lining - The Oaks, Oaks Lake - Feb 14th 2015

After a multitude of reasons conspiring to keep me off the bank I was at last able to make my first outing of the year. 

The ice that had affected a lot of northern lakes had melted and the mercury above freezing and a day at The Oaks in North Yorkshire was my choice.

Id planned to fish for a bit of everything and anything on one of the 3 snake lakes on site, probably F1s (if they would play ball) but also skimmers and possibly Ide. However on arrival at the tackle shop I was informed these lakes had been rock hard, with good weights possible if you hit lucky and were on fish. If not there was real chances of a blank. The recommended method was to dob bread around the swim without feeding - a method that wouldnt rank highly on my list of preferred methods.  I consider myself to be an active angler and really like to make something happen.  The other alternative was fishing for roach on Willows (the specimen lake). I'd always prefer to fish with bites so decided to go for the roach and leave carp and F1s for another time.

Willows lake is a few acres and has a few small islands centrally. There were about 3 carp boys bivvied up on the left side of the lake and one on my immediate left fishing 2 rods. He wasnt in a bivvy but was actually parked behind his rods sitting in his car (!).

My peg was at the rhs of an island about 30m away but the pole was my only choice out of the holdall. As I tend to fish "standard" commercials most of my pole rigs are for 4-6' deep, so I was surprised to see 7-8' at from the bottom of the near shelf in front of me; perhaps not a bad thing at this time of year. The bottom was relatively flat and the lake still had a good bit of colour so along with a bit of advice from the shop I picked 3 options.

At 6 sections to my left I would feed pinkies in case the fish would settle close in. This was just about as far as I could get to throwing by hand but was fortunate that the wind was pretty much none existent. My expected main line was straight out at 11m. Here I fed  2 tangerine-sized balls of Sensas Lake Black with a few micros and maggots. At 45° to the right on the same length of pole I cupped in some finely chopped worm and caster with the intention of leaving this for a few hours before looking for some bonus roach or perch, then threw in about 10 pinkies to the short pole line every 5 mins. I also toyed with the thought of a feeder next to the island. However if this was to be a roach day I'd much prefer to catch on a float rather than the tip so didnt even rig this up.

Rig wise I was a bit undergunned for the depth.  However the lack of wind and tow meant the .30/.40G Floats I used were fine for and stability wasn't a problem. I'm a great believer in fining down so had my 2 main rigs on .105 mainline to .08/.09 hooklengths with ES43 hooks.  I had an DT Winter Wire for the pinkie swim for extra sensitivity and a DT Pencil dotted down on the 11m swim. For the worm swim I opted for a DT Tear so I had the option of laying some line on the deck if I wanted and could read the bristle a bit more.

DT Winter Wire

I started with double pinkies short and had a few roach of about 1oz but quite slow. After 30 mins I went over the long line and had a few more slightly bigger fish on maggot before that line went quiet 2. By swapping  lines I could catch a few but the bites were very slight dips on the float. It was a nice change catching these lovely fish on light elastics and every now and then I'd pick up a slightly better dumpy roach but despite playing with the shotting pattern and trying shallower rigs, every bite came with the rig set at full depth and after at least 20 seconds after settling. Every now and then I'd have a quiet spell of 10-20 mins, on the first occasion I gambled by refeeding a golf ball size of groundbait but this didnt seem to bring the fish back until they were ready, as the pinkie swim had gone quiet as well.

I did try the chopped worm line varying between small pieces of worm and caster but it was very sporadic - although id did lead to my 2 biggest roach about 6oz each. 

Trying a larger piece of worm didnt get a touch and apart from 2 micro perch it just didn't work today for the bigger stripeys.

By now the carp boys had gone and after a longer quiet spell the fish seemed to switch on. It was never hectic but I made the most of the time coming back with a fish most drops. It seemed best to feed every 5 mins with about a dozen maggots by catapult, then using a kinder pot dropping half this amount again directly onto the float.

One thing about The Oaks is the resident bird life have the anglers' sussed out and after feeding my namesake (a Robin) for some time, a Wren joined me for about 1.5 hours and must have scoffed its own body weight in maggots and pinkies ! If I stopped feeding it for long it would jump around between my net bag and holdall until it caught my attention. ...very cheeky.

I finished the session with about 7-8lbs of roach, with the 2  6oz fish the biggest. All pristine fish that were fun to catch using the appropriate tackle and light elastics. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable day fishing for and catching something totally different from what I'd intended when I left home. 

The new DT Floats were superb, particularly the Winter Wires which were the right tool for the day.

It was good to finally give these floats a practical test and they were as good as I'd hoped for. I will review them further in detail after a few more sessions. 

DT Tears & Pencils

I also found my Maver Enigma "Carp" pole also excellent for lifting into roach bites so IMO the carp moniker does it a disservice,  possibly why its been left off the 2015 Enigmas.

To anyone who's taken time to read my ramblings, thank you. Hopefully we can meet on the bank someday.

Tight Lines

Robin

Fisherman`s Blues - Friday 5th September 2014 - Angel Of The North Lakes, Lookout Lake

After a long 6 weeks without fishing, I was going to get back onto the bank again. Due to illness in the family I would have to be home early so somewhere close to home was the order of business.

I decided to go back to the Angel and enjoy being out in the late summer weather but was greeted by a real 'pea-souper' fog on arrival at the fishery.

The day was cool but there wasn't a breath of wind on the lake - a total reversal of my last trip here ! It was forecast to get up into the low 20's when/if the fog lifted.

As I was the first angler on the lake I could choose where I wanted to fish. Initially I would have liked to be on the island on the far side but some of the fishery lads were going to spend the day cutting the vegetation back which I thought would scatter the fish away from it, so I headed to the nearside main bank and peg 32.

I had a longish chuck to the island if things settled down over there later in the day, but had been advised to fish close in and this area had some form for crucians which I hadn't caught since last summer.

I decided to fish 2 lines, the 1st one at the bottom of the near shelf on a top 2 + 1 section in around 4 feet of water. The 2nd one at the bottom of the next shelf about a foot deeper but on 6 sections at 45° to my box.

I had been told the fish were hungry and to feed heavily and this was where I think I made my first mistake. Usually I'll try and have one more 'negatively' fed line but this time I was a bit gung-ho.

I still wasnt sure if the carp would feed today so I decided to go for a particle attack on the near swim. I fed 2 big pots with a combo of hemp, micro pellets and dead maggots - I tried to spread the bait over a wider area than usual so some would land up the slope. This was to give me a chance to hopefully find the fish if they wanted to come shallower. 

On the longer swim I again went for it ! 2 pots of groundbait with some chopped worm and a few dead maggots and pellets added.

I would also look at the margin on my right but not feed this for a few hours or sooner if I saw fish moving about.

I started on the 6m line with a banded pellet  fishing dead depth, but didnt get an indication for 15 mins or so. My plan was to try and fish this line out before refeeding but kinder potting on the close in line.

By now the fog had lifted and it was suddenly hot, bright and windless. I had a small skimmer from the groundbait line but it was very slow. I tried the close in particle line and this was much the same, occasional bites leading to small skimmers or roach. I tried mixing the hookbaits and as time passed I had some better skimmers up to 1.5lbs and a nice crucian with either worm or a banded fluro dumbbell pellet seeming the best.

As usual on this lake carp would come right at my feet to vacuum up any dropped bait but they were very spooky and would bow-wave out of the swim very easily. Although the water is very coloured I suspect it was a bit clearer than my last visit here which could account for their actions.By now  things were getting slower if anything and the sun was now burning hot. This was reflected by carp swimming about in the top layers of the water. I tried a spot of mugging and had a nice common of about 3lbs before getting snapped off a few minutes later.

Normally id try to make something happen - like start a new line on the pole further out or fish lead/feeder to the island  but with only 2 hours left and feeling very despondent with the way the day had gone,  I just continued to plod away. I'd eventually managed to get fishing and it was rock hard.

This would be my last session before the weather was fully autumnal probably and I couldnt get away from the feeling id destroyed my peg - rather than the fish switching off.

A slight breeze had sprung up putting a bit of a ripple on the water but this didnt seem to improve the fishing. It was now time to look at the margins. 1.5 hrs ago id cupped in 4 pots of loose groundbait and some dead maggots. Then an hour later another pot which id left for 30 mins. The margin here was around 2 feet deep and when I lowered the rig in I had an immediate bite, from an 1 oz roach which in truth hadn't been my intended quarry !

I continued to rotate swims picking up a few fish including some more crucians. I felt more aggrieved that I was wasting my time - although my 'bad day' was put into context by the guy who managed to tip his lorry onto it's side on the roundabout,  just visible from my position about 200 yds away. A fleet of police cars, fire engines and an ambulance arrived very quickly. Hopefully nobody was badly hurt. 

Back to the fishing and I realised the wind had got up and now was straight in my face. As if by magic the margin was peppered with carp slurping off the surface. They still weren't really on my bait but I found in the last 45 mins that by pushing all the shot to the float base I could catch them. The best way seemed a regular feeding of particles whilst I fished a corn skin on the drop. This led to another 4 carp to 5lbs and one that snagged me in the reeds on my last cast ( also destroying one of my favourite Nick Gilbert floats in the process !).

I packed up just after 3pm with the carp typically now continuing to feed. On the walk back to the car a few more anglers had arrived and there seemed to be a few carp coming out.

I left seriously pondering if I should continue fishing anymore. I dont need or expect to catch a100lbs of fish every trip. But as I get out so infrequently I put pressure on myself to do the day justice and im sure I didnt do that. I'd love to be the type of angler who just enjoys being on the bank, but that's not me. I think I have to force myself to simplify my approach. Im sure that if I'd kinder fed maggots or pellets on one line with a feeder back up or straight lead that I could have felt my way into the session and built the peg up gradually. The only option is to get out again and actually put this into practice. I'm also wanting to get out on the bank with some good match anglers I know.  I know I'll pick up loads of tips and advice if I can manage it.

On a more positive note I had converted 2 of my puller kits to the Maver Easy Flow puller bung and they seem to operate even more smoothly than the standard slot version. More time will tell.,

Thanks for reading

Tight Lines

Robin


P.S. After reading other forums it seems other anglers struggled this weekend in some parts of the country. Perhaps the fish are not knowing quite how to react with the changeable weather although I still feel I ruined the peg with feeding too heavily. I`ll learn from this though hopefully and not put all my eggs in one basket.

Anyone have any views and comments either about my blog or my fishing experience please share. I`d like to hear your opinions.

Thanks Again.

Robin

Best Laid Plans - Friday 23rd May 2014 Angel Of The North Lakes

3 weeks on from my trip to The Oaks and I was champing at the bit to get on the bank, spurred on in part by a (nother) new pole to play with as the Grim Reaper had been superceded by a Maver Enigma Series 1 16m.

Due to family commitments time would be at a premium today something that despite being aware of, I never put into practice.

The weather had been glorious leading up to my session and Lookout Lake had actually had 2 matches on the same pegs on the Wednesday,  during the day and evening. Weights for both matches were very good but then the bubble burst.  20C plus on Wed had dropped to 10C on the thurs. The forecast for Friday was for more of the same, plus a blustery NE wind. Not a great portent for my trip ! In fact the temperature never got into double figures at all during the day.

Ann, the fishery owner confirmed the venue had fished hard the previous day. This meant I couldnt be sure if the carp would still feed, so I made a snap decision to buy some worm and casters to supplement my already bulging bait bag.

As usual I headed for Lookout, the slightly smaller of the 2 main lakes and a bit more exposed than Bowes lake. Because of this, and as there are no real west facing pegs on this lake to fish, I picked an area that had been quite fruitful a few days earlier and would hopefully have a bit of respite from the cold wind as it was slightly sheltered by the central island.

I picked peg 25/26.There was A closeish chuck to a cutback on the island for the feeder (which I didnt even set up in the end !) And a  floating bridge on the left of the peg to the island, easily in pole range. I also had decent looking margin swims on both sides, although depth tight to the reeds was about 18" on top of the shelf. I would have certainly preferred 2 feet plus here, especially with the sudden temerature drop. Undeterred I would ignore the margins until after 1pm.

Plumbing up gave about 6 feet off water after the shelf levelled out. So I decided on 3 areas to target. 

The first line was 10m at the 2 o'clock position. This would be my pellet line. I fed a couple of balls of groundbait with some 4mm feed pellets mixed in. I had a Nick Gilbert 0.4G gimp on 0.14 Middy Low-Viz to 0.125 Matrix Power Micron hooklength. The hook was my favourite B911 F1 18. I had a (huge) range of pellets to use and could fish with banded hard pellets or expanders. But started on some VDE 6mm Jellets.

At 10 o'clock I could use the same length of pole and reach the bridge, but decided to fish about 6 feet away and try and prise any fish out from under the bridge, rather than chasing them in. As I was unsure if any carp would feed I tried to cover my options here and cupped in a slop made from chopped worms and casters mixed with soaked micro pellets. I would fish here with a worm head, the line was the same as my pellet rig on a 0.4G DJK power pencil fished an inch over depth. The hook on this rig was a 16 Maver MT2 which is a heavier gauge than the B911.

I set up a NG XT mini-diamond .2G for the margins on the same line and hook as above.

Lastly and the rig I would start on was at 6m for an out and out silver rig. This would be casters loose fed by hand. Another NG Gimp but 0.3G this time. On 0.12 Lo-vis to 0.10 Preston Precision hooklength, with an 18 B911 F1.

After feeding the long lines I decided to let them settle and started on the short line. Sport was far from hectic but I started picking up some small roach and skimmers whilst feeding casters every few minutes. I tried the pellet line and had a better couple of skimmers  before moving onto the worm line. For some reason I felt this would be the banker line but after 10 mins I hadn't had a sniff of a bite. I decided to refeed using a toss-pot and within a minute the float buried and a spirited short fight led to an 8oz tench in the net. A beautiful little fish and my first tench of the year. Again the fishing was slow and I was getting some tiny fish, not a good sign for carp moving in. The next fish shattered that theory as 8 feet of yellow Drennan bungee shot off under the bridge.  A minute or so later and a nice 3lb common was in the net but turned out to be a one-off as the next fish was a mini-roach, and I didn't have any more carp on the long lines but the best fish was another tench around the pound mark. 

During this time the squally wind changed direction and blew my brolly inside out. Stupidly id left the seatbox bracket at home and had to stake it out with guy ropes. So when the wind changed I was effectively battling with a 6 foot kite and quickly ended up with a brolly spike shaped like a hockey stick. This lead to a great deal of swearing and attempting to rectify the problem was proving impossible. In the end the umbrella kept most of my gear dry but I was soaked through !

Trying to regain some rhythm meant I had 90mins left. I prepped the margins with loose groundbait and big handfuls of maggots and left for 30 mins before going over with 5 maggots on the hook. The float moved and bobbed before going undet and...I had another 1 oz roach ! It wasnt even hooked but just holding onto a maggot in its gob ! 10 mins later and I eventually hooked what turned out to be another carp that steamed off under the bridge.  But by burying the pole tip the middy 12-16 did its job and I had a 5lb common banked. Another scale perfect fish and a gorgeous bronze colour. Because of this fish I stuck on the margin swims until I packed up at 2.30 with only small skimmers and a crucian to add but painfully knowing that I was probably approaching the best time of the day as i was leaving.  but needs must.

I ended up with around 10lbs of silvers plus 8lbs for the 2 carp and felt that id spread myself far too thin today. I left feeling very despondent at my own fishing ability and certainly didnt want to write about it. However 24 hrs on and I have tried to think objectively about where I went wrong and writing about the day is almost carthritic.

As I was fishing with a new pole I hadnt even bothered with the feeder  despite seeing fish activity during the day near the far reeds, sometimes its best to fish methods to catch fish, not methods i want to use regardless. Id also gone with far too many ideas and baits to stick to a plan. The pellet line didnt work but id only fed it intermittently when not on it, so it was only used half-heartedly in truth. I could have certainly made life more comfortable by fishing the lower lake with a bit more shelter. I was the only angler all day on Lookout, so that tells its own story but also means I dont know how anyone else would have got on. On the up side despite a poor day I`d had carp,tench,roach,crucian,perch, ide and skimmers - so plenty of variety.

My final thought is this; if you look forward to something enough. If the weather is glorious for weeks before the day. Be assured that when the day comes round the British weather will have returned with a vengeance ! And never leave home without an umbrella bracket !

P.S. The new pole and Nick Gilbert floats were both spot on. I will probably review at a later date after a bit longer on the bank.

Thanks for reading.

Robin.

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30th April - The Oaks, Cedar Lake

The Venue..

This was to be my first outing in over a month and Id decided  to head back to The Oaks in Sessay and go back to Cedar.The Oaks is around an hour and 20 mins drive from my home in sunderland, so I needed to be there in good time to get a decent session in before heading home to family duties. I’d fished there about 5 weeks ago in an area with little form (as I later found out) and hadnt done brilliantly, so looking at match

results I wanted to be around peg 56 if possible but  on arrival a club match was scheduled for pegs 50-80 when I arrived so i went for peg 32 which had also shown some form recently.

For anyone not familiar with The Oaks, the fishery has a number of lakes,  some for matches only and others pleasure or mixed. Cedar is a commercial snake lake that holds about 80 pegs, so the match had little impact on where I would fish.. The peg  was at the north end of the lake which is very picturesque. There is a bank of pine trees at your back which have been cut for pole access. The margins are grass lined with a good depth close in and the island again has trees making the peg very sheltered. In fact there was hardly a breath of wind on the lake at all, whether this would be good or bad for me I’d have to find out. I’d left Tyne & Wear under a thick veil of fog and a paltry 9° C, Sessay was cloudy but a barmy 16°C and fish were showing everywhere. I wasn’t expecting to blank !

I set up taking my usual age to get ready (how do I fix that ?) mixing groundbait, etc  and plumbed up.

Id been advised to look for 2′ of water across, but at the full 13m of my Grim Reaper I was still nowhere near the far bank and in 3.5′ to 4′ of water. So I decided to fish straight out as far as possible with meat and corn over  some hemp.An 8m swim at 45 ° with pellet over groundbait and straight out at 2+1 with meat over meat/corn/hemp (in hindsight putting this directly in front as well wasnt the best idea)

The Baits..

I had 2 tins of cubed meat (1 supermarket, one dynamite baits which was just too soft to stay on the hook.

2 pints of maggots

A pint of wetted fishery micros with a variety of expanders and hook pellets.

A tin of corn.

Some old ghost F1 match groundbait (which smells totally vile when i opened it in my opinion) plus a little special g green

The Rigs…

Im in the process of replacing some old diameters of pole line, so the rigs were tied on a real mixture.

The 13m line had a NG gimp .3g on 0.14 middy low viz to .0125 matrix micro and B911 F1 16.

A DJK Pencil 0.3g with the same line/hook was for the short line

And finally for the pellet line I had a .4g matrix pencil on .12 gline to .10 preston precision.

I would look at the margins after a few hours as there was a cutway in the near reeds about 6m down the edge into 2 feet of water but would not feed until 30 mins before fishing.

I fed the meat lines sparingly with a pinch of hemp plus about 5-6 grains of corn and 3-4 cubes of meat.

The pellet line was just fed with micros plus a tennis ball size of groundbait which I topped up every 5 mins a dozen or so micros via a catty whilst throwing in 3-5 cubes of meat short.

The Fishing..

Eventually I started at 10.30 on the long line with a cube of meat and found my current obsession with going for float tips designed for sensitivity (still in winter mode I guess !) was going to cause me trouble all day. The floats were just too fine to support meat and corn. After 10 mins I had a bite and landed a 4oz perch; not quite what I expected. This was followed by a dumpy 6oz roach both on a 4mm cube of meat. So I decided to cup in some more bait and try 8m. In all honesty I pretty much abandoned the long line as it wasn’t fun fishing full length tbh and having to re-ship every time the bait came off after a missed bite.

Moving onto the pellet line and it was slow going with lots of missed bites on a 4mm expander. I switched to a 6mm jellet which was a lot more durable and had a few F1s and a couple of roach.

I refed this line and tried meat short. Again I was faced with the sinking float syndrome and lots of missed bites  but had a few more nice F1s and some dumpy roach, then everything went quiet for an hour. I was still getting occassional bites but not connecting which was really frustrating, maybe I should have stepped up the hook size or drastically alter the feeding. I plugged away but really should have tried a new maggot line for silvers as I could have caught small fish all day long this way but I was focussed on bigger baits for bigger fish I think and it would have put fish in the net whilst waiting for the carp/F1s to switch back on. Eventually I tried upping the feed on the short line and after getting swirls on the top I decided to try shallow, lifting and dropping the bait or flicking out and holding it tight. This got me back amongst the fish, some lovely F1s and ide before a ‘proper’ carp took the meat hookbait. The fish made an initial run before plodding about for 10 mins, before it took off again. It was a long lean fish that I was a bit disappointed was 6.5lbs. The fight on grey hydro had made me think it had to be a double so I was a little disappointed to find it was nearer half that, I was sure it was going to be my P.B pole fish. Never mind it was a lovely looking mirror that fought really well but I was probably extra careful on the .125 bottom as I really wanted to land it !

The fish came and went in bursts and on trying the margin swim for the last 90 mins I picked up another half dozen fish, a couple more F1s and carp to 3lbs or so. I did lose a couple of better fish from this swim at least one of which was foul hooked from the scale that came back on the hook ! Alternating the margins with the now heavier fed 3m line and I also picked up some big ide to 2.5lbs and what I was sure was a chub of around the same weight.

I packed up after 5 hours to fight back through the traffic and on lifting the net out  Id guess about 60lb maybe a bit more (im rubbish at estimating weights !) Not a huge weight but still a good day for me. On the day perhaps but id gotten too sidetracked. 2 lines plus the margins would have sufficed with deep and shallow rigs set up rather than starting 3 from the off. I need to stop over complicating things !

The oaks certainly is a very well ran fishery offering different types of lakes for different types of anglers In a beautiful, clean setting.The tackle shop offers pretty much everything you’d need once you’re on the bank as well. The fish are in great condition and I will be back soon. I just wish the entire place could be moved 40 miles north !

Thanks if you’ve taken the time to read my ramblings. Tight elastics !

Robin

p.s.

A few weeks ago my mate Tony from Fishing Republic Sunderland dropped something sharp and pointy onto his Daiwa Air at Whiteacres resulting in a nice bullet hole type shape in one of the big sections. Of course I didnt mock or take the p***. So at the end of the session I was taking care packing up (despite my best intenions my peg usually looks like a hurricane has hit after 5 hours) I stepped over the no.4 section on my brand new Grim Reaper only I didnt…A 3″ crack down the top. So this weekend it’s off to see Tony at the shop. Where did I put my humble pie again ?

UPDATE.... total over reaction. The crack was less than an inch and easily repaired. Panic over !

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