Elphick’s Fishery. Sandwich Lake. March 1st, 2003.

Well as Maria had to work late today I thought I’d grab the opportunity of a few hours down at Elphicks, and see if I could catch another couple of species for the Maggotdrowning.com Fishing Race.
I had a leisurely drive down and after stopping for brekkie arrived about 10am.
A quick chat with the lads in the onsite tackle shop confirmed my worst fears, as it hadn’t been fishing well,and with heavy rain yesterday, and more showers promised for today + a falling barometer, things didn’t look too promising.
I drove up to Sandwich lake and was greeted with a howling wind and the first of the many showers to come. Comfort being the order of the day I chose peg 11 as the wind would be at my back.

The plan of attack was to feed a few micro pellets and a pinch of damp pellet crumb + 3 grains of corn every put in, to the left of the concrete overflow at 9 mtrs in about 5 feet of water using a rig consisting of an 8 elastic and a Preston 4×14 durafloat shotted with a bulk of 10′s on 0·10 to a 0·08 hooklength ending in a size 18 PR24 fishing a single grain of corn.
The three lads fishing the bank to my right were all on the feeder,but were only getting the odd small Roach.

Well it was a very slow start and after an hour without a bite I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen, when all of a sudden the float slid away, Strike! NOTHING……. MISSED IT!!!!!!
Back out and 5 mins later it went again, This time I connected and was relieved to feel a pleasing resistance, and a minute or two later there in the net was a nice Bream of about 3lb.
After that I didn’t look back as slowly but surely one after another came to the net in the course of the next 4 hours. The smallest was about 2lb while the largest may have scraped 4lbs.
All in all I had 28 of them.
A real nice session, given the conditions but the real icing on the cake was the 3 Tench that decided to add themselves to the mix.
Firstly this one at about 3lb spiced things up…………………


but the last one was the clincher in an already good session, My 1st Goldie of the year

So there you have it…….. 5 hours & 70lbs+ from what some may call a “Commercial Puddle”. A decent days fishing, given the conditions.