RMC Sandhurst Lake. Yateley. June 30th-July 2nd, 2006.

The NKH Club Weekend.

Due to a few matters arising from the cancellation of this years Northern Fish-In, a few of us decided to have a weekend away, and that’s how we ended up in the car park at Yateley on Friday morning.
Those present were Dave, Stu, Jason, Beebs and Myself.

Unfortunately Trogg with his 24/7 work pattern and Dirk with a previous commitment to the South Cerney Festival couldn’t attend, but Jason (NoFinPhish) living about 5 minutes away decided to join us.

The plan was for a 48hr session from Friday to Sunday, and Friday 11·30am saw us all pulling into the carpark for a recce round the lake.
With the temperature edging into the 30′s, we settled for 5 pegs on the left hand bank (11-15) that offered plenty of shade amongst the trees and allowed us to unload the cars at our pegs rather than cart it right round the lake. Slowly we settled into our pegs, the heat even in the shade ensuring we all worked up a sweat.

I was in peg 11 and in common with the others soon realised that this wasn’t your average gravel pit. Instead of the expected variations in depth and features, there appeared to be a constant depth of 4-5 ft as far as you could cast. There was even a distinct lack of weed as it had been treated as there had evidently been complaints that there was to much earlier in the year.
I set up both my rods with method feeders, 1 with a Pulse boilie and the other with maggots, hoping to gradually lay down a bed of bait, and I also set up a float rod for a bit of fun if needed.
As the afternoon moved on we all settled down and with 14 baits in the water awaited developments.

By 7pm we hadn’t managed a run between us, so it was decided to adjourn to the local pub for a pint (purely to replace lost fluids) and to get some grub in the form of a takeaway as the pub didn’t serve food on a Friday night!!!

Fed and watered we all settled back in, sure that the evening would bring a drop in temperature would encourage the fish to have a graze and provide some action.

7am on Saturday with the temperature already climbing and the 5 of us were still fishless, not quite the plan but thing were sure to pick up sooner than later as a chap 2 pegs up from Dave had managed a 23lb’er during the night.
I decided that I needed to avoid a complete blank and cheated by sneaking over to the River Blackwater that ran behind with my float rod and some maggots and managed my 1st fish of the river season, a little chublet.
After another couple of similar size it was back to reality, and it was decided that a trip into Yateley for breakfast at the Café, though Beebs declined in favour of a bit more sleep.
Full and with the Saturday papers collected, we returned with renewed vigour, as fish could be seen moving so it was just a matter of time surely???

Well the day moved on, but still no fish, but at least the family of Great Crested Grebes were catching, allowing Dad to feed the kids.
Still no action to our rods, and with us all trying various combinations of baits and rigs, the papers were read from cover to cover and the only thing that moved apart from the Grebes & Coots were the swarms of Damselflies in the margins.

By 3·30pm with something like 350 rod hours and nothing to show for it Dave, Jason and I decided to watch the England match down the pub, while Stu and Beebs decided to stick it out as they didn’t want to miss the moment when the fish switched on.

The match is probably best glossed over except to say that with England playing on a Saturday at 4pm with the temperature in the 30′s, along with extra time and penalties it must qualify as a publicans idea of heaven.

On our return we were greeted with the news that there had been loads of fish in front of Stu and Beebs pegs but they had still refused to feed. However Beebs had the barbecue going and if nothing else we were fed. A couple of beers, cider in Beebs case and it was back to the swims for another concerted effort.

Around 10pm I heard an alarm off to my left, and looking up could see Stu running towards Dave’s swim, grabbing the camera I was off in hot pursuit.
I arrived to find Dave obviously into a decent fish with Jason standing by ready to do the business with the net. Slowly Dave was gaining line as we all held our breath and there it was in the net.
Onto the mat and as the net was pulled back we could see it was an absolutely cracking Mirror which pulled the scales round to 27lbs on the button and a new PB for Dave.

Handshakes and back slaps all round and we were all off back to our swims with renewed vigour, leaving Dave alone with his thoughts.
The early morning brought nothing more than a couple of runs, 1 for Stu and 1 for Beebs but alas no more fish.

Around 9·30am we had started to break our bivvies down in preparation as we had to vacate the swims at noon.At 10am I had just driven my car down to start loading up when I heard a buzzer go and Beebs call that he was in!!!
The fish was giving a good account of itself, but with no snags to speak of, there was only going to be one outcome and it was soon safely netted.
The fish itself turned out to be a fully scaled Mirror with a marked kink in it’s tail that weighed just over 14lbs, and the look on Beebs face shows just how pleased he was with it.

So that was it, session over. With the temperatures in the mid 30′s all weekend it wasn’t the most productive by a long way, but the good company made up in some measure for the lack of fish. Hopefully we’ll do it all again, but with a few more fish.