Well after my struggle at Mapledurham I Needed to catch a few fish to restore the old confidence. Looking out of the bedroom window at a grey leaden sky I wasn’t in any great hurry to venture out, but then thought “Why Not” (It’s nice when you have a week off and no decorating to do)
So after a leisurely breakfast it was of to Elphicks Fisheries, Horsmonden, in Kent. There are 6 lakes offering something for everyone, but the one that I was interested in is the fourth lake on the complex called The Sandwich. This lake holds virtually everything with one exception…… No Carp!!!!!!!!! The Sandwich is about 1.2 acres with a small island in the middle,and arriving there I had the whole lake to myself.
I picked swim 10 as it holds the only obvious feature (an overflow stack) on the lake apart from the island.
It’s a comfortable 11mtrs to the stack, and from previous experience I knew that there is an even 4ft of water covering an area about the size of a table tennis table there.
Now knowing that there’s a good head of fish present I went for a positive approach and put in 4 large pouches of 2mm pellets and 2 of casters and went straight out with a soft pellet fished 2 inches overdepth.
30 seconds later and the float slid away and I missed my first bite.
Try a caster, float slides away, a gentle lift and Bingo a fin perfect Roach of about 8ozs gets me off the mark, and for the next hour I catch one a chuck, feeding a small pinch of pellet or caster in a kinder pot every time. The best of which I weighed at 1lb 2ozs. Then all of a sudden they appeared to switch off???
Well I’d already caught about 25lbs so decided to attack it again, 3 more large pouches of pellet and another of caster and back out with a soft pellet.
Nothing……….. keep lifting the bait about a foot and let it drop, then after about 20mins the float lifted of it’s own accord, I lifted into it and ohhhhhh this was a bit better, a nice Bream of about 3lbs.
And so it continued for the rest of the afternoon, I had 27 Bream in total, the best one I weighed at 4lbs 12ozs, Mixed in among them was 1 Tench and 5 Carp???????? (obviously they didn’t realise that they shouldn’t be there).
Some time ago Gray Catchpole put a photo in one of his posts showing a Golden Tench that he’d caught. Trev phoned me enthusing in his usual fashion, that he would love to catch one as it was such a glorious fish. Alas it was not to be as he didn’t make it to the Welsh fish-in at Hazel Court (the venue where Gray caught his).
My last fish of the session, Need you ask? This one’s for you Trev ……
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