Well Maria told me that she would be working today, so I decided that I’d grab the chance to pop down to Elphicks and have a session on Sandwich Lake and see if I could get a few species for the Maggotdrowning.com Fishing Race. Vince had arranged to join me for the day to try out his new pole, so a bit of banter was bound to be on the cards.
I arrived at the lake at about 9am and although it was dull and overcast it felt quite mild. I have to say that I was happy to see pegs 10 & 11 were empty and plumped for peg 11 as it allows you to fish 11mtrs to the overflow stack which is the only real feature on the whole lake apart from 1 small island.
PEG11….
I know this swim pretty well, so the set up was pretty simple, Just the 1 top kit with white hydro with the rig consisting of a Drennan Lake carrying 3 no6′s and a no10 and a size 20 PR24 all mounted on 0·12 Silk Shock Ultegra to fish at dead depth (about 4½ft).
Bait was to be 6mm expanda’s with micro Halibut pellets for feed. I also had some sweetcorn for a change bait.
3 good pouches of pellet and about a dozen expanda’s set the table, and 1st put in the float buried and a Bream of about 2½lb was safely banked.
1st Bream…
By the time that Vince arrived at about 10·30am I’d managed about a dozen Bream, a small Common Carp and 4 Tench one of which was the reason for me choosing Elphicks for the days fishing.
A Golden Tench….
A lovely looking fish, not huge at just over a couple of pounds, but very welcome all the same.
Vince set up on peg 12 to my left eager to christen his new pole, as I found a few nice Roach that took a fancy to the expanda’s.
It was easy fishing for me, just a question of loose feeding a pouch of micros after every fish. The Roach eventually vanished but not before I’d managed to get about a dozen of them, with the largest weighing just over a pound.
Largest Roach….
The disappearance of the Roach however, only meant that the Tench and Bream had returned……… Well they had for me, Vince was having one of those nightmare sessions where no matter what he tried all he could do was watch me land fish after fish and pray that his own float would finally vanish.
A typical peg 11 Tench…
Vince finally got a Bream to christen his new pole, but I’m afraid this only proved to be a stray that had somehow mistaken peg 12 for peg 11.
Meanwhile Mr Pheasant had come down to have a feed on my redundant sweetcorn.
The only real fly in the ointment was the fact that as the day progressed it was getting colder and colder. Still the regular pouches of micros kept the fish coming for me, among them 1 small Mirror and a Crucian Carp.
By 3·30 however even my fish were reluctant to feed as it had got colder still, and poor Vince despite trying some of my corn and expanda’s and different rigs couldn’t buy a decent bite, so we decided to call it a day.
I finished up with 25 Bream to 4lbs, 11 Tench to 3lbs including 1 Goldie, a dozen Roach to 1¼lbs and a Common, a Mirror and a Crucian Carp.
As we were pulling out of the car park Vince told me “Your boys (CHELSEA) are losing 2-1 to Wolves” with a large grin on his face.
Well by the time I got home the final score was CHELSEA 5-2 WOLVES.
Kind of sums up mine and Vince’s day.
