Finch Farm 22-12-2013

Having finished work for the year, I had a chance for a few hours fishing. The weather forecast was dry with some sun (but very windy) so I headed off to Finch Farm for a few bites.

Lech the bailiff was there on my arrival, I paid my tenner and got a free cup of tea (most welcome I might add) and set off with my gear.

You can usually find some shelter there and with larger numbers of small fish present you can usually bag a fish or two, although the average size is a bit small. But hey, it's December and any fish is a good fish. 

I had the intention of fishing a different part of the lake to normal, but there was shelter on my usual island peg (hiding behind two pampas grasses) so that would do. 

The plan was to fish maggot and small pellet and catch what I could. I set up a pole rig with an old favourite, the Tubertini K2 float with the aim to fish light (no.6 elastic on a pulla, to 2.6lb line through to an 18 hook). I started at about 10 m, just where the far slope settles down. The far bank here has collapsed and the bottom is very steep, there's a shallow shelf tight for about 6-12 inches and then it drops off to 4ft or so very quickly - so much so that the plummet usually rolls down towards you if you're not touching the far bank. 

The plan was to fish to the right and left (where there's a bush) and hopefully move onto soft pellet as the day went on.

I settled for the deeper part, potted in a few maggots, added the cad pot to the pole tip and went for it.

 

First put in and the float went under as I brought in a nice roach of about 6oz. A good start. More bites followed as I put in a pinch of maggots via the cad pot each time, a chub, a goldfish, a rudd, an F1 carp of about a pound and a half - I felt like I was making good progress. 

One of the many plump goldfish in the lake

I was missing some bites, but by the time the first hour was up I was on 12 fish. Not bad for this time of year. 

Then, disaster, the hook pulled out of a goldfish under the top 3 and the rig flicked off behind me, never to be seen again. 

I re-rigged and started producing a run of more fish, but somewhat slower. I tried the bush a few fish, up the shelf (a few roach) down the shelf (odd bite) and so it continued. 

It was frustrating, just when you thought it was happening the bites would slow. Or I'd have a patch of bites that I couldn't hit or I'd pull out of a fish under the top 3. And a few times I'd connect with a big fish (probably foul hooked) and lose it as soon as it'd gone a few yards. 

I played with pellet - just the odd knock, but nothing special, so it was back to maggot to catch whatever was present. 

Perseverance kept the fish coming, but the rate was slow and intermittent.

Surprise fish of the session was a nice perch of 1lb 11oz, which is a fair but bigger than I've caught here before and one of only two perch on the day.

1lb 11oz stripey

At 1:15pm I lost my rig to a far bank bramble, so decided to give the pellet a bash on the far shelf on a new rig.

First put in a 4lb F1 - my best fish of the day. Next put in a mirror of about a pound. Then a quiet spell. Then another F1. A couple of small fish added and a few more bites missed. 

Best F1 of the day - 4lb

I was just about to call it quits when the float went under and one of the pools larger residents took the pellet. And shot straight under the bush. It shed the hook and left me tethered to the snag. I pulled for a break and called it quits. It would have been nice to have landed it, but with light gear and so many snags in the peg it was always going to be a challenge. 

Not a bad session for late December. 

Catch List:
F1 carp - 12
Mirror carp - 1
Goldfish - 20
Gudgeon - 1
Perch - 2
Chub - 2
Rudd -1
Bream - 2
Roach - 20

Total weight - 25lb