A Good Start on Blithfield

Gary makes a good start to the day (click for bigger picture)

At 7.15am 26 boats set off into the gloom with 52 anglers all dreaming of making contact with the fish of a lifetime and, trust me, they are in there; I’ve seen them. The majority of boats headed straight for the North West arm where big fish had been taken by Dave Kelbrick and Mark Ackerly back in November. This suited us fine as we seldom follow the crowd; on a near 900 acre reservoir I can’t understand the appeal of lining up on one tight area with other anglers.

We motored around a little before dropping anchor in an area where Steve had taken a 21lb fish last autumn, but more importantly in a spot where Eric Edwards and I had found large shoals of roach holed up the winter before. The wind was blowing off the bank and once again we could make out that small fish were again in the area. Although there is little doubt that these fish grow fat on stocked trout it is also the case that the massive shoals of silver fish in this venue also provide rich pickings, especially when shoaled up tight in winter.

Hopefully a few pike will have followed the small roach and will be sitting on the edge of the shoal and with this in mind I clipped a light 3-4″ silver spoon onto the trace and cast towards the bank some 30 yards or so away. After about 20 minutes I hooked an over-wintered rainbow of about 4-5lb which was obviously finding the small roach of interest. I shook him off at the side of the boat and continued casting towards the bank, fanning out the direction with each cast to cover as much water as possible. Shortly after hooking the rainbow I had a gentle take just a few feet from the bank and the boil of water resulting from the strike suggested it was a decent fish. Although she put up a bit of a struggle under the boat she was netted without too many worries and was left in the net over the side of the boat while the unhooking equipment and cameras were made ready. Nothing too spectacular for this water but I was pretty pleased when the scales showed a weight of 22.03, a good start to the day anyway.

The action after this was slow and for the remainder of the day we moved around trying different methods with little success. I did have a follow off a huge fish mid-afternoon. And when I say huge that’s exactly what I mean. I was slowly working a ‘Loz Harrop’ jerkbait through the clear water when I spotted the grey/green shape appear at the end of the retrieve. This truly was one of the mythical Blithfield monsters and it followed my lure right to the side of the boat. To be honest it didn’t look like it was going to take at any stage, it merely looked inquisitive. At one point I could have touched it with the end of my rod before it ghosted back into the depths. How big?..well I’m privileged to have netted a 41.08 fish from the same water for my mate and this was in the same league, possibly even bigger. Whatever it’s actual size I’ll never know, but it is sightings like this that keep me returning back to this water year on year.

Over the course of the weekend around half a dozen other twenties came out and Dave Foster from the Midlands had a superb fish of 34lb 8oz. Steve, my boat partner, had little to show for his efforts until right at the death on the second day when a trolled Super Shad Rap was hit by one of the lakes predatory brown trout, the fish was quickly returned without weighing but was estimated to be around 7 – 8lbs.

We have two more dates booked on Blithfield towards the end of this month and as traditionally late February produces the biggest fish who knows what this special water will turn up. I’ll be giving another update on FISHINGmagic after the event and hopefully I’ll be seeing the ‘crocodile’ again – this time however she may just make a mistake…..