So Bank Holiday Monday and Maria was working today, so after dropping her at work at 6am I popped back home to load my kit up and set off towards Dorking, having decided to take the opportunity to reacquaint myself with The Old Estate Lake at Bury Hill Fisheries. Surprisingly for a Bank Holiday the traffic was very light and in just under an hour I was pulling into an already busy car park at the fishery.
Stopping off at the Boathouse to get my day ticket I notice that things have moved on since I last visited with a much better stocked tackle and bait section now in place and a quick glance along the Front Bank reveals that most of those swims are already taken. I really wanted to get among a few of the Bream that the lake is known for, so set off along the Long Bank in the hope of getting one of the swims amongst the lily pads.
Carpers, carpers everywhere, but just as it looked like I would be unlucky I found a swim 2 shy of the culvert that would do nicely for the day, allowing me to reach the pads on both sides at 14½mtrs and with a decent amount of open water in front should I hook a Carp.
Stopping off at the Boathouse to get my day ticket I notice that things have moved on since I last visited with a much better stocked tackle and bait section now in place and a quick glance along the Front Bank reveals that most of those swims are already taken. I really wanted to get among a few of the Bream that the lake is known for, so set off along the Long Bank in the hope of getting one of the swims amongst the lily pads.
Carpers, carpers everywhere, but just as it looked like I would be unlucky I found a swim 2 shy of the culvert that would do nicely for the day, allowing me to reach the pads on both sides at 14½mtrs and with a decent amount of open water in front should I hook a Carp.
The rig was simplicity itself, a top2 rigged with black Hydro with a 4×12 KC Carpa Tricky float rigged up on 0·17 Carptec line straight through to a barbless 18 fox series2 hook to fish on the bottom in about 4ft of water. Bait was to be GOT Baits 6mm expanders, with a few of these being fed along with their 4mm hard pellets.
It wasn’t hard fishing really just a question of feeding the 2 opposite lines and alternating between them till a bite came along, which it finally did after about 30mins. A little dip and it just slid away and within a minute there in the net was one of OBH’s smaller Bream going around 3lbs …
It wasn’t hard fishing really just a question of feeding the 2 opposite lines and alternating between them till a bite came along, which it finally did after about 30mins. A little dip and it just slid away and within a minute there in the net was one of OBH’s smaller Bream going around 3lbs …
The promise of another bright hot sunny day looked as if it may have an adverse effect on sport but by sticking at it I’d had 10 between 3 – 4½lbs by 11am.
Next put in and a similar bite saw a lot of Hydro heading through the pads, cranking the pressure onto my Super PowerLite a tug of war ensued, slowly and surely the pressure told and the fish came out into open water. The commotion had brought the angler from the next swim round to watch and within a couple of minutes there in the net was a nice Common Carp of around 10lbs……
Next put in and a similar bite saw a lot of Hydro heading through the pads, cranking the pressure onto my Super PowerLite a tug of war ensued, slowly and surely the pressure told and the fish came out into open water. The commotion had brought the angler from the next swim round to watch and within a couple of minutes there in the net was a nice Common Carp of around 10lbs……
The chap in the next swim was called Paul, fishing more conventional Carp gear of matched rods and baitrunners on a pod, and soon he was into a Carp that has taken a hair rigged Halibut pellet. It was soon netted and weighed in at 12lbs. He'd only got a basic camera so I captured it on my digital to e-mail to him later………
Another couple of Bream for me and then I was into another tug of war, this time in the other set of pads!!!!!!! Once again the constant pressure told and the fish popped out into the open water and after 3-4 minutes of dogged plodding it slid over the net, a much chunkier fish this time coming in at just over 12lbs with Paul snapping a picture for me………
A quick phone call to Malc to find out how he was doing on a pole only match at Drayton reveals he wasn’t!!!!!!!!! Yep, the Peugeot had let him down once again and he was waiting for the recovery truck……………… Some things never change. Another quick call to Dave revealed that he and Stu were on a Barbel hunt on a river somewhere in deepest Yorkshire, but at that point in time they hadn’t had one.
Paul meanwhile had another nice Common while I had 3 more Bream in successive put in’s followed by another Carp, a Mirror this time, which thankfully charged out into open water allowing me to bring it to the net relatively easily. In the net it looked a little weird as it appeared to have a massively underslung mouth, it hasn’t affected it’s appetite though as it appeared otherwise fit and well at around the 10lb mark…
Paul meanwhile had another nice Common while I had 3 more Bream in successive put in’s followed by another Carp, a Mirror this time, which thankfully charged out into open water allowing me to bring it to the net relatively easily. In the net it looked a little weird as it appeared to have a massively underslung mouth, it hasn’t affected it’s appetite though as it appeared otherwise fit and well at around the 10lb mark…
Yet more Bream put in an appearance and around 3pm I was thinking of packing up to avoid catching the Bank Holiday traffic on the way home when the float slid away and I was attached to another Carp, yet another Common and with Paul doing the honours it proved to be my best of the day at 14lbs. As I started to pack my gear away Paul was in again , and after a spirited fight I found myself doing the honours again, this time it’s another lovely Common tipping the scales at 17lbs……….
So that was it for me, a very pleasant days fishing with some good company and a final tally of 17 Bream and 4 Carp. Paul was stopping on for a few more hours so I bade him farewell having made sure I had his E-mail address to forward the pictures on to him.
Next up it’s the final round of The Jinx Series at Rolf’s Lake next Saturday, Hopefully Malc will get there but with his car you wouldn’t bet on it.
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