Here we are again, and this time the summer has turned up to greet us. What a wonderful place, bright sunshine, no wind, fish crashing all over the place, and stumpy in tow! Well you can’t have everything can you. . . . . . . .
We arrived on the Monday evening, and to be honest, I thought it would be jam packed, but to my surprise, there was only two people on the whole lake. We could choose our swims, and not have to rush it. We took our time, which makes a change for us, and walked the lake with Harry, one of the bailiffs on Southlake. He took us to the ladders swim, where earlier in the day he had seen the big Koi. 
We decided against the ladders swim, only because the gnats were everywhere, and I can’t stand the bloody things, so we settled on peg 13, ‘The Boss’, for me and peg 12, ‘The Reeds’, for the Stump. We have fished these swims before, so we at least had an idea of what was in front of us, where the gravel bars, weed, silt, etc, were, so we thought this would be to our advantage, that, and the fact that the carp were all over our swims. Now we were out of our favourite bait, Protovit Liver, or Shellfish, so I thought i would try the Nash whiskey.
I don’t know if you read about our last visit here, but between us we took out 22 carp and a couple of tench, so our expectations were quite high, but you can never tell, can you? Out went rod number one, I tried to plop it right on the head of a carp that crashed out on the corner of the left hand island, not a bad effort I thought, for the first cast, but as it was a mile away from its intended place I reeled in and tried again. That’s better, right where I wanted it. On went the back lead, tightened up the line a bit and turned on the alarm. Number one sorted.
Now then, where was number two going? I wasn’t to sure, I decided to leave it for a while and set up my brolly, to see if something big was going to show itself. My answer came quickly. An enormous crash had me spinning my head round in haste to see where to place it. I grabbed the rod, already baited and stringer attached and walked to the front of my swim. I lined myself up with my intended target, rod above my head, left foot forward, placed on top of a wooden post protruding from the water, only to start doing the splits. The post was not secure and although I narrowly missed falling in, I did get a wet foot. S***! Now that was a lucky escape, so I wont be doing that again. Eventually, number two was set up, and as dark was falling, I thought it was best to hurry and finish off setting up my bed and cooker. I was desperate for a cuppa. Monday night was uncomfortable, it was so hot and muggy, if I lay on top of the sleeping bag I got bit by all manner of creepy crawlies, if I got in I got so damned hot. So I got up and looked around for a while. What a night, a full moon was high in the night sky, which made me wonder why Stumpy wasn’t up and about looking for a neck to bite! I must have fallen asleep on my chair for the next thing I knew stumpy was asking me to take a photo. By all accounts he had caught one bang on 6am, but try as I might, I can’t get the miserable little, vertically challenged git to smile for the camera, as you can see.
Steve, the bailiff, whose day it is on Wednesday, turned up to check the tickets, and was shocked when he saw us there. ‘Hello boys, thought you were fishing Horton,’ he said.
‘We were, but we needed a change of luck.’ I said.
Nice bloke Steve, and he ended up fishing the night with us. We had a good laugh, mostly at poor old Stumpy’s expense, but he doesn’t mind. 
Steve managed to land a tench of 9lb 10oz, but put it back before I could get a piccy. Sorry, but I do have a good reason. Stumpy stood by my brolly and said, ‘Steve’s got a good size tench down there, you should have a look.’ He then turned towards Steve’s swim, and walked straight into my rods, knocking them off the banksticks, the alarms going nuts, and lines tangled to hell. Thanks Stumpy, at least I found out that my alarms worked.
Sadly, Thursday came round all too soon and it was time for us to go. Only the one fish this session, and I have to say, that this was my first blank at Southlake, and hopefully my last, ‘cos in the future I will be getting in touch with Simon and Jim at Tails Up, and taking plenty of their shellfish boilies with me which I’ve heard are doing the business on there.
If you have not yet visited Yateley Southlake, you are missing out. It is a wonderful venue, all fenced in, toilet on site, angling centre two minutes walk away, along with a chippy, a Chinese, an Indian, a pub, an off-license, a KFC, a newsagents, everything you could want or need.
For more information phone Sue or Ian on 01276 453300 and they will send you a guide book to all their fisheries. Tickets for the fishery can be bought from Yateley Angling Centre on 01252 861955 or e-mail them on Yateley Angling Centre or visit their web site at www.yateleyanglingcentre.co.uk.
All the best and tight lines
Kevan and Stumpy.
