I arrived at my chosen lake around 7am. The weather was bitterly cold and I truly felt that autumn had truly taken over. The cars temperature gauge read a chilly 4 degrees. We had had some serious rain fall the prior few days running up to this session. I had booked a few days of work so even the truly poor conditions wasn’t going to dampen my spirits. A freezing cold northerly wind was ripping across the lake on arrival. Going on the previous weeks results I headed for the same swim.
Luckily the swim was free so I settled with my first choice. I felt although cold this area would give me the best chance of a fish or two. It didn’t take too long to get the rods positioned on the areas. Fishing the same tactics as the week before, aBetalin soaked tiger with a fake corn topper on a simple blowback rig was my rig choice. Threading a small stick of gems 50/50 onto each hooklink to protect the hook points. Over the top of this I started with around a kilo of hemp,Beta’nana, crushed tigers and a mix of Hinders pellets. Copious amounts of hemp oil and Beta’nana glug were added to finish off. The traps were set but unfortunately that lunchtime I suffered a hook pull on one of the long rods. It wasn’t till the following morning I got my next chance. Luckily everything stood the test and a very nice 33lb leather was soon being lifted up to have its picture taken. I followed this up with another few low twenties the same morning. Once again the bait and tactics were clearly performing well.
After each fish I topped up with around a kilo of the mixture this kept the bites coming. The following morning I connected with a very decent fish that fought extremely hard wiping out another rod in the process. At the same time as all this happened I received another take. I concentrated on landing the first take as I felt this was a fish worth getting in. Again after a long battle the hook hold gave way due to the rod it had wiped out locking up on a weed bed. I cursed my luck as this was the first time I have had this happen in this swim. I had got to see the fish and it was a large mirror of upper 30s that I was once connected to before the hook pulled. The other take turned out to be a low twenty that hardly healed the wounds of losing the previous fish.
The final morning of my trip I finished with two fantastic fish, a beautiful mirror in its autumnal colours of 27lb 8oz and a rather powerful beautiful common of 34lb 12oz. Once again the bait and the tactics proved a success as only one other fish on the venue had been caught during my time on there.
Craig
