How did you get on?

[wetthrough]

Bit late posting. I was too knackered after lifting maggots all day to post when I got back. Thought I'd give my shiny new Altrincham Anglers card a
try Tuesday and Wednesday. I usually favour larger waters but thought I'd have an easy couple of days. Ha, you know what thought did! Lovely
little puddle in the heart of Cheshire. Had it completely to myself (do they know something I don't).



Only spoilt by the traffic, it's right next to a main road. Soon stopped noticing it though. Fair bit of depth to the pool despite its size. Probably
9'+ at its deepest. I was in about 6'.

Tuesday: No sign of fish activity at all and the water almost gin clear. Not a single bite from about 8:00..18:30. The rain gave my Aldi
bib and brace and jacket a work out though and they kept me dry. Not bad considering the price although the rain wasn't exactly torrential.
However I did give them a coating of NikWax, just in case Aldi forgot...

Wednesday: At least there were some signs of fish activity but the water is still gin clear. Not a nibble again and I'm fishing as well as
I can. I suspect Pike from the disturbance that's going on. About 14:00 I can see a Carp of some sort on the far side cruising about. A bit later
a Mirror sidles in from the left. Takes one look at me, turns round and goes back to where it came from. It never got to where I'd been baiting
the margin to my right

Just call me TwoBlanks

 

[mikench]

I know the feeling! If my waters were less than pleasant and picturesque places I'd take up golf!

 

[Redeemed]

Went to our club lake for the first time.

Well we went, got set up - forgotten just what a palaver that all is, and started fishing.

I started on bread punch on 18 hook, lost a tiddler straight off, then I went on a crazy run of 3 fish in 30 minutes, 3 roach from tiddler up to about 8oz, then it just died.

Me and the boy tried everything, varying depth, changing bait, hook size, method fishing, I even tried the margins late on with both corn and breaad.

There seemed to be a lot of small roach nibbling bait off, and I missed about 6 strikes where they must have been sucking on the corn/bread and laughing at us.

I need to learn more about bait presentation including positioning the tell tale shot when float fishing.

It was difficult to plumb depth accurately because my casting is not 100% accurate yet, and my mate who has seen the pond at low levels says it's full of pot holes and ridges, so that's another challenge to overcome.

The club has access to two other lakes, going to give those a try next.

Onwards and upwards.

 

[mikench]

my casting is not 100% accurate yet

Don't wáit or worry until it is as life is too short! My casting is wayward at best and I doubt it will improve! What I have learned is that casting to the horizon is rarely practical, desirable or achievable!:fish::badcast:

 

[Redeemed]

Well I'm improving because I only left the bail arm on once today!

 

[mikench]

As indeed you can be, any time you fancy coming down.

I will take you up on that Kev say in early May as I will be free to fish as often as I like as er indoors is off to see grandson!!!

 

[103841]

For days now good weather has been forecast and with that in mind made my way to the estate a lot earlier than recently, there is a shady swim which I wanted to settle into for the day and sure enough the lake was empty on arrival so headed over to the shady far corner, the shallow part of the lake.

The weather wasn't good, it was glorious, much better than many of the summer days of last year. Brought some members out too with four of us fishing by 10am, a record in the year that I've been a member!

The air was still heavy with fragrance and the bird song was not far off deafening. The lake was busy with rarely seen residents making an appearance lapping up the warm sun, a terrapin surfacing for a brief moment with a grass snake winding its way across the lake a short time later.

As for the fish.....in short supply, just the greedy skimmers and Bream taking bait on the whip. Got bored catching them and changed to a different setup and targeted the carp.


The lake doesn't hold a great number of carp but the ones present are beautiful specimens weighing anything between 12 and 20lb. They stay well away on the far side of the lake where anglers aren't allowed to fish and spend there days lurking in the reed beds. It's crucial to get your bait inches from those beds which has its obvious problems.

A couple of hours passed with just annoying taps from bream playing with the 14mm pellet popped up off the bottom. As is the way it took me to start having a little siesta when the buzzer sounded, not just a short blip but a full on buzz. Fish on and it took me deep into the reed beds before I could gather myself.

For the next ten minutes it was a case of allowing slack with the occasional reminder in the hope the fish would swim away from the reeds, sure enough it did and another short battle ensued before netting a beautiful 18lb mirror.
.

That was it for the day, not a great fan of the carp, but to occasionally catch one of these beasts is a pleasure, slightly different from whip fishing!

 

[peter crabtree]

Went back to the day ticket lakes I fished last week. Started around 10:30 and it was already hot, huge grass carp were cruising on the top and the normally crystal clear lake was quite coloured for a change.



2 lines today, one at 13m in around 6' of water and another at 6m around 5' deep. Potted hemp into both lines and fished single maggot. All my fish came on the short line, roach, perch and tench.
It was really scorchio in the afternoon, I was wishing I'd bought my brolly to sit under. The pole was like a red hot poker every time I shipped it....
Packed up around 6pm feeling frazzled and weak, got back to my car and there was my brolly in the backmg:

 

[seth49]

View attachment 4399
Very hot yesterday, blue sky’s and sunshine all day, a bit too hot to be honest, not used to it when it changes so fast, different pond today, not as deep as the one we fished on Tuesday, thought it might have warmed up a bit quicker, and it seemed to be right, a lot more bites and the roach and bream were a lot bigger than we had been catching, especially the bream.
View attachment 4400
My total today was twenty four, and I missed a good few bites too, the roach were giving really giving quick bites, even with a drennan three B.B. glowtip float shotted well down, they were not easy to hit, started on maggots which caught the smaller roach and perch, so I changed to six mm expander pellets I’d pumped earlier and flavoured with pineapple, these attracted the bream around the two pond mark, fished over soaked two mm pellets.

Lots of birds about willow warblers,chiff chaffs, chaffinches, buzzards, and the usual robin after some maggots.
Mick got one carp on his sleeper rod about eight pounds, nothing on mine, lots of carp on the surface in the sun, but I’d forgot my dog biscuits, so must remember to take some next time, apart from the sunburn it was a good day.

 

[iain t]

Having over 2 pints left over that were not in the best condition, i thought why not lose a few to the fish. So yesterday i drove the 45 minutes to a natural spring feed Stillwater. The only noise coming from the horse's naying from the stables in the background. My target was the Rudd again. Started around 12:30 with the sun blaring down and all day it was 1 cast, 1 haul the Rudd reeled in. Mostly caught on the drop. Often being able to use the same maggot for a cast or two. I was fishing about 2 foot under depth. The total depth is about 9.5 foot at this peg. On one occasion as i lent down to pick up a maggot i felt something fluffy in the tub, blow me if it wasn't a tiny Robin nicking my maggots. So i spent the next 4 hours feeding the Rudd and the Robin. Cast in, feed the bird, reel in. By the time i left, i had a total of 93 Rudd of all sizes. I left the left over maggots for the Robin and it's family to feed on.

 

[nottskev]

I know this won't be a popular request, but can we have winter back? I don't seem to fish as well when I'm warm and comfortable.

I spent the first part of the morning scraping and brushing the decking, extracting....whatever it is that grows in the fine tilth infesting the grooves. I got to the Old Lake at about 12, and it had its spring face on



There are a few anglers, two carpers three float fishing, around the lake, and they are motionless, like my float, for the first half hour. It's warm and sunny, but there's an ominously sleepy feel about it all. I try a few things. Hemp and corn - small roach. Caster - small roach. Micro-pellets squeezed into a tight ball with pellet on the hook - ditto. It feels like the grown up fish have gone out and left the lake to the kids.

A bit of scratching around produces a small tench



And even a couple of small crucians, which I'm always pleased to see



At around 2pm, what seemed to be the entire carp population of the lake, several dozen fish in 3 or 4 groups, appear on the surface and swim around, enjoying the sunshine by the look of it. It's a great sight, and I saw some impressive and beautifully coloured carp, but that procession seems to coincide with a siesta for the rest of the species, and by 3 pm I was wrapping up and heading home to apply the fungicidal wash to the decking and paint the shed . I'm sure things would have picked up if I'd waited, but I thought, this is the UK; who knows when we'll get another fine afternoon?

 

[103841]

Going by my latest trip, that of Kev's above and many others too, I think we, the angler, and they, the fish, thought we had just arrived in mid Summer. A time when you fish from first light for a few hours til breakfast and then a repeat performance in the evening til dusk.

I'm not programmed to go fishing at silly o clock in April.

 

[mikench]

A case of deja vue today, same place , same tactics, same carp!

I had 9 carp all told to 7lb and no tench! It was very hot in the afternoon and even I found myself wishing, like Kev, for cold overcast even wet weather!! How fickle am I??

Tomorrow I am going to earn lots of brownie points by taking my wife to Thorpe Park Hotel and Spa on the outskirts of Leeds for some medical conference! She thinks I will be twiddling my thumbs for 4 hours or so but I have found a fishery called Swillington Fishery Just down the road so will pass the time there!

If anybody knows it and can give me a heads up I would be grateful! Tench here we come!:wh

 

[Redeemed]

Well, as planned me and the boy went up to the other two ponds our club fishes for a look round and do a spot of spinning for the alleged perch in there.

We go through a gate with a chain on it fit for mooring the Titanic and move slowly up a bumpy track, me all the while worrying about the underside workings of my car, and reach a grassy plateau next to a pond.

There's a car on the grass and a guy sat fishing so taking things as being ok I drive about 10 yards and get bogged down, SERIOUSLY bogged down.

Tried stuff under the wheels, the boy tried pushing and fell over, twice, and every warning light on the car came on and I'm thinking big bills.

So, properly stuck, the guy fishing walks over and offers to ring his lad who, with his Transit with a winch on will pull us free.
Only thing is he's out on his motorbike but, after much back and forth the son turns up with said Transit.

Eye bolt attached to back of car and fastened to winch he starts pulling, and promptly gets his van stuck!

This is turning into a nightmare thinks I. However, these guys were pro's at this sort of thing, they got the ramps out etc, got the van free, towed me off and job's a good 'un.

All the warning lights had gone off now the car had cooled down, even though it desperately needs the car wash, and the two unlikely angels refused any payment.

Fishing? Well, whilst Roy's son went for the Transit we tried our new lures, which we promptly left up some inaccessible trees and had a better chance of catching ebola than any fish.

Never mind, next weeks another day, as they say.

 

[mikench]

You are a source of admiration for us all! I will never moan again! Don't give up!:wh

 

[Redeemed]

I'm trying, Lord knows I'm tryingmg:mg:

 

[wetthrough]

Half and half about going back to the two blanks pool today. I really don't like admitting defeat. Not by fish anyway. Went back to the AA pool
with a plan. plan A) If the AA pool had coloured up a bit I'd give it a go. B) Fish the WA mill pool. Ended up with 'B' as the AA pool was still gin
clear. I'm quite lucky as I have three pools I can fish within about 4mls.

Started OK picking small Roach up the biggest of about 20 through the day being about 6oz. Late morning this lovely little fellow turned up at
2lb3oz.


Carried on catching the rest of the Roach while watching some whopping big Carp cruising about. One did a U turn round the float about 6"
away from it. I'm sure if Carp had two fingers they'd be sticking them up.

 

[markcw]

Cicely Mill ? Next time you go on the Dam, fish the first couple of pegs on the shallows when the lilypads show,
feed one spot at the edge of the lilys everytime the church clock strikes ( 15 minute intervals), leave it for a couple of hours the fish over it,

 

[sam vimes]

Yesterday - the same old headbanging session, but with the added bonus of actually seeing a solitary tench roll in close proximity to my float.

Today - Most of the carp in the lake decided to arse about in shallow water on the end of the wind. Watching them for an hour or so gave no real indication of any feeding going on. Fishing into the fairly strong wind saw me swap out a standard float for a Polaris. I only had one bite, right on cue for an impromptu audience. It's quite difficult to tell what you are playing when using a Polaris, but it did seem to be a tench, right up until the point it was netted. It was a nicely coloured common that might just about have scraped low double figures. Definitely one of the smaller resident carp in this lake.

 

[markcw]

I know this won't be a popular request, but can we have winter back? I don't seem to fish as well when I'm warm and comfortable.

I spent the first part of the morning scraping and brushing the decking, extracting....whatever it is that grows in the fine tilth infesting the grooves. I got to the Old Lake at about 12, and it had its spring face on

View attachment 4402

There are a few anglers, two carpers three float fishing, around the lake, and they are motionless, like my float, for the first half hour. It's warm and sunny, but there's an ominously sleepy feel about it all. I try a few things. Hemp and corn - small roach. Caster - small roach. Micro-pellets squeezed into a tight ball with pellet on the hook - ditto. It feels like the grown up fish have gone out and left the lake to the kids.

A bit of scratching around produces a small tench

View attachment 4403

And even a couple of small crucians, which I'm always pleased to see

View attachment 4404

At around 2pm, what seemed to be the entire carp population of the lake, several dozen fish in 3 or 4 groups, appear on the surface and swim around, enjoying the sunshine by the look of it. It's a great sight, and I saw some impressive and beautifully coloured carp, but that procession seems to coincide with a siesta for the rest of the species, and by 3 pm I was wrapping up and heading home to apply the fungicidal wash to the decking and paint the shed . I'm sure things would have picked up if I'd waited, but I thought, this is the UK; who knows when we'll get another fine afternoon?

View attachment 4405

Great pics Kev, and that Diaflash would look better resting on my holdall, you can keep the octbox,