Hartleylands Farm Fishery. The Reservoir. August 29th, 2005.

I popped down to Hartleylands today for a session with Dave the Fish & Wily Coyote.

I arrived in the car park about 8am and was just going to have a walk round when Dave arrived. We could see that Wily was already set up in peg 8 so strolled over to find he’d already had 4 carp on his feeder set up. So back to the cars and out with the gear. I was soon settling into peg 5 while Dave chose peg 6.

1st off for me was the Bagging Waggler, a method I hadn’t used till I fished at Drayton and Clattercote in The Jinx series, and I wanted to see if it would work on the Reservoir as I had never seen it used there.

Dave set up a top 4 to fish one of his favourite methods, tares over hemp to try for some of the roach before the carp moved in, and while we were sorting ourselves out Wily managed to extract another couple of carp on the feeder.

Out with the Bagging Wag and busy, busy , busy with a fresh cast every minute to get some groundbait in, 20 minutes in and the line tightened as the 1st carp of my day found the bait, a nice fit mirror.

Throughout the morning I managed 10 Carp in total on the bagging wag, the best of them being a couple at around 10lbs each.

With the sun beating down it was hard work though and about noon a break was called with Dave driving up to the farm shop and returning with pasties and drinks. Chatting over the morning sport we were all agreed that since last season the carp here have beefed up, packing on plenty of muscle and giving a really good account of themselves.

For the afternoon session I changed over to my margin pole fishing paste, while Wily had gone to a dibber in the margins to try for some of the lumps that were showing in his swim. Dave stuck to his guns but did try paste as well.
Plenty of pellets soon had the swim full of silt clouds as the carp got their heads down, resulting in plenty of bites and regular fish throughout the afternoon.
Wily did the honours weighing my 2 best fish, a nice 13lb mirror……

and a fully scaled mirror that Wily gave me 14lbs for……

Dave was having a bit of trouble getting to grips with paste, but stuck to it and got a few before swapping to pellet for some more later in the session.

Wily was having some trouble getting seen off by a few larger lumps, but with a bit of encouragement from Me & Dave connected with a goody………….

Dave got into position to act as ghillie as Wily guided it to the net………..

A nice mirror that took the scales round to 12lbs being his reward.
5pm and time for Me & Dave to go. I managed 25 carp on the paste, making 35 fish for the day, while Dave had a few less. I left Wily the last of my paste as he was fishing on until about seven by which time he caught over thirty fish including a 14lb, a 13lb and four others around 12lb.
So in conclusion, a very pleasant days fishing in good company with a few laughs shared, couldn’t ask for much more really.