After fishing Friday night I was hoping
to grab a few hours sleep on Saturday but having a couple of recent
birthdays found myself heading out for a meal so had to keep going
till the evening.
Sunday was all about catching up on the
weekly paperwork which seems to take forever along with cleaning the
kit down and reorganising it for a week of guiding.
I was looking forward to Monday as I
had promised to take young Jake to Frensham the previous year and
with the weather being kind to us and exams out of the way we were
both able to relax and focus on catching a few tench. Meeting at 4pm
we headed to what’s called ‘The Oaks’ a popular swim but one I
had never fished before. The wind was from the North West which was
great as it was pushing gently into our faces. Tactics were to fish
two Helicopter rigs in the hope of tench and rudd plus a rod with an
inline maggot feeder, short braided hooklink along with a size 12
hook carrying a hair on which three plastic maggots were fixed. This
was really to try and overcome a phobia I have on just using plastic.
After spoding out plenty of groundbait, maggots and hemp we sat back
to await the response and as so often with Frensham it didn’t take
long as a tench ripped of with one of the Heli-rigs. This happened so
many times that it was obvious real are better than fake, yet the rod
was still cast as often as the other rods to try and gain a response.
Eventually it happened yet I was so shocked that I dropped the fish,
obviously another tench. Chris my tench companion joined us come the
evening and also tried the more traditional inline maggot feeder set
up yet with Jake regularly catching on the helicopters soon swapped
come dusk, just as Jake found himself slipping the net under a big
tench that weighed 7lb 1oz, a new personal best by some margin.
Action slowed come darkness and come 11pm we had all settled down,
yet the rods were left out and it was the plastic maggots that
started to receive the bites and amazingly these were coming from
rudd, five in fact, the biggest going 2lb 6oz. By 1am I was feeling
the pace and decided that as the rods went of they would be left in
so that I could grab some sleep. Two tench fell in the night which
left one rod that hadn’t received a bite. Casting all three out at
5am saw them all rip off in the first half an hour, proving the
importance of casting regularly. Jake finally awoke an hour or so
later, just as Chris was packing away and went on to land a few more
tench including another weighing 7lb 1oz. Our final tally was 18
fish, not a bad result.
Back at home the standard two hours kip
was followed by sorting the kit out as well as sorting out the barbel
tackle for a guided trip with another customer on a difficult stretch
of the river Loddon the following day but not before having to attend
the end of term Proms and taking some pictures for my girlfriend’s
sister.
After dropping the girlfriend of at 7am
I headed to the Loddon. The weather was bright, not ideal conditions
yet after meeting my customer at 8am and heading to a favourite swim
he soon found himself attached to a big barbel which weighed 10lb
11oz. In fact it took just twenty minutes to get the bite and once
again the ‘pellet-lead’ proved its worth. We roved the river for
the around another seven hours for just one more bite, a chub of 4lb
12oz which might not sound good, but on this stretch one bite a day
is classified as a result. It was whilst fishing the swim where the
chub was taken that a number of good fish rolled, so many in fact
that I stood and watched the river, eager to see what they were. My
suspicion was that they were bream, maybe barbel but they were
neither, not even chub, in fact they were tench probably in spawning
mode.
Thursday I was up early, 5.45am and
once again headed to Frensham to meet Jake in the hope of catching a
few tench on the float. With the weather bright these were always
going to prove hard, yet we did manage one early on. Once the sun was
up it was all about casting the feeder rods out and come 4pm a few
tench to 6lb 8oz had come his way. With Jake leaving at 4pm I had
another customer joining me and having never fished the venue before
and being an avid barbel angler I hoped that Frensham would deliver.
Unfortunately the weather turned for the worst and what was supposed
to be light drizzle turned into heavy and persistent rain. We did try
fishing the float but gave up at around 8pm with just a few missed
bites to show for our efforts. I had cast a feeder rod out and this
had ripped of four times during the evening and thoughts were of a
big hit but the swim died come dusk. At around 9.30pm the rain
stopped and we tried the float once more. I received two bites, one
was a rudd around a pound the other a tench weighing exactly 8lb!
With very few bites coming we decided to grab four hours kip before
commencing our efforts come 4am. The weather was slightly better and
a few tench finally started to show. We both had a feeder rod out as
well and come 8am Alan had landed six tench including a personal best
of 6lb 5oz. I had a few also and although the big rudd that we dearly
wanted failed to show we left well happy as how often does a tench of
8lb fall to the float as well as your customer walking away with a
p.b! I was in need to sleep later that day but amazingly also needed
to get on top of a weeks worth of paperwork and housework and finally
hit my bed at around midnight after picking the girlfriend up after
the evening shift.
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