Gardners Pool 2015 - Session 2

Steve and I headed back to Gardners Pool for round 2 of our 2015 fishing campaign. This time the weather was overcast with forecast rain and a fairly brisk south westerly, ideal for fishing but not ideal for sitting on the bank, and as such we had the entire lake to ourselves this week, bonus!

Dave the duck getting in a bit of a flap

Logic would have had us set up in the north east corner to make the most of the conditions, but we didn't really want the full brunt of the weather in our faces, so we opted for a couple of pegs on the west bank that were sheltered from the wind but had also done well for us in the past. After the previous sessions success, I decided to stick with the corn approach on my right hand rod, and my left rod I opted to go with a small maggot clip and a maggot feeder instead of the usual lead setup. 

After the rods were in, I had a little play with my camera as I'd just bought a new telephoto lens that I wanted to test out, so set about taking a picture of just about everything that moved, though it proved difficult to achieve a sharp image in the low light while using the camera hand held, and the picture of Dave the duck was about the best I managed. Still, the whole point was to figure it out so I'll be more prepared next time.

A mint common at 14lb taken on maggot.

It was while I was putting the camera away that my left hand rod rattled off with a confident take from a fish. It put up a fairly good account for itself considering the water was still very cold, giving me a brown trousers moment as it made a bee line for an overhanging tree down the left margin, but I managed to turn it and shortly after it was in the net. It was another mint common of 14lb exactly, a good start to the session. After returning the fish I loaded the maggot clip with fresh maggots and filled the feeder before casting back out to the same spot.

It wasn't long before the rod was off again, but this time it felt much smaller. I've never really had any really small carp from the lake, and while there are some big bream in the lake it felt too lively to be one of those, and it didn't feel like an eel so I started to wonder if I'd managed to bag myself a big roach or rudd of which I suspect there are a few in the lake. As it turns out, no I hadn't and there are some really small carp in the lake as I soon had a little pasty of maybe 2-3lb in the net. Slightly disappointed it wasn't a monster silver, I unhooked it in the water and released it with minimum fuss, though on the bright side it meant I was thrashing Steve once again, which is always a good thing!

Cheryl Vole having a nibble on a bit of wood.

With the rods back out I settled down into my chair to wait for the next bit of action when I noticed a constant clicking sound. I didn't think much of it at first but after a couple of minutes it was starting to drive me insane so I decided to find the source of the noise and put it to a stop. I'd figured it was probably a pull cord or a loose flap on my gear flailing about in the wind, but after a little bit of bank side sleuthing I discovered our old friend Cheryl Vole had made an appearance, and she had her chops around some wood! I have no idea why, but it seems she really wanted to chew up that bit of stick as she didn't even bat an eyelid as I crept over with the camera to take a rather blurry photo. I tossed her a few boilies in the hope she'd rather (quietly) eat those instead, but no, she really liked chewing on that stick so I just had to grin and bare it for the rest of the session.

Thankfully my mind was soon distracted by another run, this time on the corn rod. The fish managed to get around the point to my right and had gone right into the margins so I could feel my line grating on the dead reeds that lined the bank. I kept on a steady pressure and soon had it back into open water, and shortly after I had it in the net. Not quite a minter this time as it had some mouth damage, but otherwise not a bad looking fish at 13lb 4oz.

13lb 4oz caught on imitation corn.

I checked my line for damage and all was good, so I put the rod back out on the spot. Shortly after I had another run on the corn rod but the fish managed to shake the hook before I hit it. It was getting towards the end of the day now so I started to pack my gear away when I had another run on the corn rod, and again the fish managed to shake the hook. I decided to call it a day and packed down my rods at which point I realised the hook on my corn rod had bent ever so slightly out of shape, which had almost certainly been the cause for the 2 dropped runs at the end. Usually I check my rigs after each fish but it had slipped my mind this time when I had inspected the line for damage instead. Still, I don't feel I put anywhere near enough pressure on the fish to bend the hook so still felt a little cheated, so another black mark in the book against Korda hooks as it wasn't the first time they've let me down. I think I'm going to give the deception angling hooks ago this year as I've heard pretty good reviews on them from the various facebook groups I'm in, and they're cheap as chips in comparison to the big named brands which is always a bonus!

Steve managed to blank again, so I won the second kinder egg of the year and bragging rights until our next session, hahaha unlucky mate!

The score so far: Jake 5, Steve 0