Monday, 29 April 2013

3.5oz of breaking a British Record! Weekly report starting April 20th 2013.




 Last weekend I helped a customer with tactics in approaching a new venue for tench. The venue is big, around 30 acres and unfortunately the tench were reluctant to feed so we decided to head back the following week, yet when Saturday dawned the first thing I had to do was scrap the ice of the cars windscreen. The wind had also tuned a gain to a chilly easterly and although the skies were blue and the sun shone I was still happy that I was wearing thermals. We fished from 7am to 1pm and apart from an aborted take the highlight of the morning was listening to the first Cuckoo of the year. I’m sure Steve will get to grips with the lake once it warms up, yet as they say if the fish aren’t feeding, you’re not going to catch them.
Monday was spent in the company of another Nash Peg One consultant and although meeting late in the morning and fishing till around 3.30pm he still managed to put together a great bag of bream, hybrids, tench and perch using helicopter rigs, maggot and the Nash Ballmaker.
Tuesday was an early one and this time I headed south in the early hours to a favourite day ticket water, Mill Farm Fishery in West Sussex with the hope of catching a monster silver bream. Arriving at 7am I headed for the Specimen Lake and hoped for a swim that I had never fished before. It was as if I had a sixth sense. Starting on maggot proved a non-starter so a switch to hair-rigged 6mm Pineapple Squidgee bought a instant response from a dozen or more carp to 21lb 10oz plus a few silvers around 10oz. Playing the numbers game and continuing to cast every ten minutes with a cage feeder filled with 2mm Scopex Sticky Pellets to build a swim finally bought a bigger silver weighing 1lb 7oz, however from then on they slowly got bigger. The carp had risen to the surface giving time for the bream to find the bait and what followed has to be what’s classified as a red letter day as silvers of 1lb 14oz, 1lb 15oz, 2lb, 2lb 10z, 2lb 2oz, 2lb 6oz, 2lb 9oz and a massive one of 3lb 1oz 8drams followed. I even let my girlfriend’s father use my rods for half an hour and he had silvers of 2lb 2oz and 2lb 9oz plus a 4lb tench! What I could have achieved if I had stayed till closing time is mind blowing yet due to a pressing engagement I had to reluctantly leave at 4pm.
In the office on Wednesday I completed part 2 of ‘Approaching a new water for tench’ for CAT as well as a ‘First Trial’ on an expensive Shimano reel for Anglers Mail before getting the tench gear ready. Arriving later than normal I managed to secure the same swim and deposited a kilo of hemp plus some dead maggot, small pellets and crushed and whole boilies to the gulley in front at around 50 yards as well as in close. With all rods positioned, now fishing Monster Squid boilies in one form or another, I settled down to await events. The Tufftie Ducks are well on our bait but they seem to leave the boilies alone so I’m quite happy for them to be cleaning of the spot. A couple of times they came up quicker than normal, obviously spooked by fish and a good fish rolling gave me confidence that the baiting has started to work. Just into darkness the middle rod flies off, obviously not a bream this time, but the expected tench turns into an immaculate stockie but at least it’s a bite. Nothing happens in the night, yet at first light a repeat performance sees another carp landed as well as a big aborted drop back a few minutes later. I stayed a couple of hours into daylight as it was really misty but nothing happened.
Back home I was really in two or should I say three minds what to do. Should I head back to the big southern gravel pit and have another go at the bream, maybe I should return to the tench lake, yet this hasn’t woken up yet or should I head back down to Mill Farm Fishery knowing jolly well that there was a very good chance of a British Record silver bream. In the end I decided to get on top of the paperwork, have an early night and set of before dawn in hope of a big silver. This freed up some time on Thursday and the standard nine holes of golf was fitted in with my mum as well as completing yet another article, this time for Nash.
The alarm sounded at 4.30am on Friday and come 6am I was pushing the trolley to the same swim as fished earlier in the week. The weather was completely different with rain in the air and a chilly north easterly blowing. I did doubt my position come six hours later, not for fish in general, as loads of carp, tench and silvers up to a pound were regularly falling. In fact I reckon l must have landed sixty or more fish before a big silver showed. Out of the blue and completely unexpected one of 3lb 8drams appeared and as I was organising the camera kit another comes along, this time 2lb 9oz. Half an hour later another graces the landing net, this time exactly 3lb yet after working the swim for more than nine hours and with an hour of inactivity I decide to call it a day totally knackered.   

No comments:

Post a Comment