Well with Maria working today and arranging to meet up with a friend after work I took the opportunity to pop down to Monk Lakes for a session today. I was thinking of having a session on Match Lake 4 providing I could get on there, to see if I could get amongst a few of the better Tench that have recently been stocked.
Arriving just after 8am I stopped off and had a chat with Ron the bailiff while I paid my day ticket. He informed me that apart from a club match on Lake 1 there was nothing on any of the remaining 3 match lakes. I drove up to the top car park and could see that there were a few people on Lake 4 but still plenty of swims left, however as I got out of the car I could see that apart from a solitary angler on Peg 47 there was no one else on Lake 2, and that meant that Peg 45 was free.
All thoughts of Lake 4 vanished, and my kit was soon occupying Peg 45. It’s a corner peg which the prevailing wind normally blows into and usually provides a good days fishing.
A quick chat with the angler on Peg 47 (Mick) revealed that he’d looked in on the Maggotdrowning.com forums for some information on the lakes before his visit, and he was already catching well on the pole.
With it being a mild overcast day and the surface of the lake being smooth as glass I decided to set up a 2ssg styro pellet waggler from Malman Floats so that I could give my Shakespeare Mach 3, 11ft Micro Pellet Waggler Rod a work out later on with the prolific stock of F1′s that are in the venue. I also set up a couple of top 2′s for the pole to tackle the margins as it’s normally possible to catch well close in especially on a day like today when there’s very little pressure on the venue.
Bait for the day was pretty simple, just a combination of GOT Baits 4mm pellets for feed that I could also fish banded on the pellet wag and a pint of red maggots.
So a handful of pellet fed at my feet and straight in with a top 2 rig and as soon as the float settled it slid away and a minute later a fin perfect Tench of about 1lb slid over the net. The fish were just lined up and hungry for the bait and soon it was one a chuck from a variety of Chub, Barbel, Carp and Tench, both green & golden with even a few Gudgeon sneaking in amongst them.
Around 10·30am a car pulled up behind and a chap got out with his son. He came over for a chat and it turned out that his son was just getting into fishing and he’d brought him down to try his luck here. They strolled over to Lake 4 to set up, but seeing them take a couple of uncut loaves over for bait, I did wonder in the back of my mind whether they might struggle.
Anyway back to the fishing and out with the pellet wag. 2 good pouches of pellet at around 25 yds followed by the float soon produced a plump F1 around the 2lb mark and by regularly feeding around 10 pellets a time these were soon coming regularly with the odd better Mirror muscling in on the action when they could beat the F1′s to the bait.
About 1pm I decided to have a stroll over to lake 4 to see how the father and son (Stuart & Jack) who had spoken to me earlier had got on. Dad had a carp rod and baitrunner set up with a small float set a couple of feet deep, while Jack has a small 4 mtr whip with the same set up but way too much line. A brief chat revealed that they were struggling with just a couple of small stockies to show for their mornings efforts.
With his Dads permission I spent 5 mins sorting out Jack’s kit, showing him how to plumb the depth etc and shortening the rig down to a more manageable set up. Apart from the bread they had some corn, so I showed him how to bury the hook into a kernel and as he settled down we fed a few grains round the float.
Soon his float shot under and he was into a small Mirror of about 1lb, netted by his dad and laid on the unhooking mat for hook removal and a picture. A couple more followed then a Golden Tench much to Jack’s delight so I left them to it with Stuarts Thanks.
Back to my peg and Mick came along for a chat, He was a little taken aback by the number of fish he’d caught, telling me that after 30 years angling he mostly fished rivers and natural lakes these days, and he couldn’t get over the condition of the Barbel he was catching as he’d always been led to believe that they didn’t flourish in lakes!!!!
By now the wind had got up blowing straight into me and while there were still fish to be caught on the pellet wag, feeding and presentation were proving problematical. Jack appeared holding his whip explaining that the float seemed to be behaving strangely, and a quick look revealed the shot weren’t locking the float properly, and with the wind getting up he was having trouble so I changed it over to a Drennan blue from my box and re-shotted it and he was soon back in action.
After this I went back onto the top 2 feeding maggot with double red on the hook. Soon it was obvious that the Barbel had moved in with a vengeance. Most of these were in the 1-2lb mark and all super fit, giving the Black Hydro a good work out.
3pm soon rolled round and Stuart and Jack stopped by as they were leaving to thank me for my help. Jack watching me land another Barbel remarked that he would love to catch one, so sitting him down on my box I handed him the top2 and told him to hang on, Soon the float slid away and he was in, the look of surprise as the elastic shot out was priceless, but he soon had it under control and I netted it for him.
With both maggots still on the hook I told him to drop it in again and sure enough another Barbel obliged. Stuart managed to capture the moment on his camera phone, hopefully to provide treasured memories to a confirmed angler in years to come. I think Jack’s fishing could cost Stuart a few bob in the years ahead.
That seemed to be a good point to call a halt to proceedings, Soon the kit was packed away, leaving me to reflect on what had proved to be a most enjoyable day both in terms of fish caught and helping Stuart and Jack with a few pointers in the right direction.
