Having a few days off and some nice weather forecast, I decided that a quiet day's fishing was called for. One of my local commercial venues (Wood Lane) seemed to fit the bill.
Arriving a little before 7am I headed for the far lake which supposedly contains the better fish. I have my usual strong pole gear with me and a wide selection of pellets, so this was an easy choice for a few fish (or so I hoped). Rather than fish my usual peg, I headed round to the far side of the island, and rather then limit myself to the shallow side, I went further round to give myself a decent margin swim and open water to the left if needed.
I potted in some pellets at 11m on a line to the left (open water) and right (towards the island) and plumbed up. 2.5ft on the right and 5ft on the left – the island swim worried me, the lake is a pretty uniform 5ft elsewhere so it might be challenging to get the fish to feed properly in the shallows at this time of year.
In with a lightish rig to a 16 hook on the island line produced 3 quick roach of a few ounce each on double white maggot (these were left over from a previous trip, so I thought I'd give them a go). Switching to 4mm hookers produced a few skimmers, but of no particular size. After about 20 mins I was back on the open water (left) swim. 16 hook and 4mm pellet eventually produced a bite... and lots of elastic. After a minute or so the fish was still going strong and the hook pulled. Slightly annoyed but typical. I toyed between resting the left hand line, but went in again just in case there were fish present on the deep line. There were. In the course of 10 mins I landed a couple of carp (4lb and 2lb) and a couple more skimmers.
I rested the left line and tried the right again. A brief wait on pellet and another 2lb carp. I wasn't ripping up and trees, but this was good for March. Then it went quiet. So both lines were re-fed and a second rig was made up for the left with a larger hook for 8 and 12mm expander pellets. Out with the big rig and an immediate bite, another 3lb carp. Then a couple of missed bites (skimmers playing with the expander, I suspect) then another carp and then. Nothing. I cycled through the rigs and lines and nothing again. By this time the sun was just starting to break through and the pegs around the lake were starting to fill up – so these may have been factors.
I tried a few different things and picked up some small skimmers, and then went over to the island again, but pushed right out to 14.5m – they'd been signs of a large carp (probably a double) in the margin reeds, so this was worth a punt.
Three bites in three put-ins, produced three carp, but not the double, maybe going 8lb between the three of them. And then, nothing.
And that was the end of the regular bites. Try as I might, apart from a couple more small carp it was mostly skimmers on pellets and a range of small fish on maggots. Large pellet couldn't buy a bite, small pellet got ignored and the shallow water to the right limited me for more swims.
The only good news is that I was doing better than anyone else on the lake – which is hard reading given that 100lb pleasure weights are common on this venue all year round.
So after hours of trying and struggling and watching several anglers blank completely, I packed up at 2pm and headed home. Not bad for March, but I cant help thinking that I'd selected the wrong peg and/or caught the venue on the wrong day. Maybe one of the deeper corners or the pegs on the deep side of the island would have been more productive.
Catch list:
Common Carp – 9
Mirror Carp – 1
Rudd – 3
Skimmers – 30
Perch – 1
Roach – 10
Total weight - 40lb
No comments:
Post a Comment