Anglers Paradise 2017 - Session 3

Session 3 - Octopussy

Dragonfly on Octopussy

We only had a fairly short session on Octopussy as we had to pack up around 5pm to be ready in time for the BBQ. Catfish were the target and I was able to get on the peg I'd caught stumpy from for the last 3 years, so putting a bait in stumpy's spot was a no brainer. The other rod I figured I'd move around every couple of hours, trying in the bay, margins, open water etc... For baits I'd opted for 2 x 28mm halibut pellets topped with a large pop-up in stumpy's spot, as I didn't want to be picking up any greedy carp. For the roving rod I went for a single 22mm pellet topped with about 3/4 of a 15mm krill pop up.

Not much happened for the first half of the day, in fact that's probably overstating the action we had! No liners, no beeps, no signs of catfish anywhere... I've seen more life in a morgue! There were a few small grass carp hugging tight to the back and edges of the bay though, so I brought in the roving rod and broke out the floater gear and dog biscuits. They took quite a lot of convincing to eat anything at all, and when they did it was only the biscuits that had drifted near them, and even then they only took a few at a time, they simply weren't in the mood. One of the fish taking the biscuits did look half decent for Octopussy though, and this was the most action we'd seen for the last 4 hours or so, so I decided to have a go.

First cast couldn't have landed in a better place, and almost instantly the bigger grassy came up and slurped in my bait, and with my ninja quick reflexes I struck... Into thin air. There was a large swirl as the fish spooked, never to be seen again, and most of the smaller fish went with it, brilliant!

Steve with a small grassy from Octopussy

It turns out they all went to Steve's swim, who also had the floater gear out, and it didn't take long for him to bag one. He wasn't fussed about having a photo, but it was a nice day and I didn't have anything better to do having just voided my swim of all fish so I made him have one! I switched back to fishing 2 cat rods for the next couple of hours, again with less life than a Cliff Richard concert, when I noticed a half decent carp had turned up and was munching down the remaining dog biscuits still floating around from earlier. So back in came the cat rod, back out went the floater rod and not long after I watched my bait vanish into the abyss of a pair of slurping lips. Even more ninja like than before, I struck... into more thin air, followed by another large swirl as the fish spooked also never to be seen again, double brilliant! I put my cat rod back out for the remaining couple of hours but nothing came of it, I was heading to the BBQ with a cheque book and pen.