Fishing again! Two days out already for me.

Yippee do dah and way hey hey! It is great we can go fishing again, and hopefully for those of us who like fishing matches that will come soon as I can't wait for a match. I decided to go pleasure fishing on the first Sunday, letting all the other people get out before me I thought. I booked in to fish Windmill match lake, and got there about 7:30am and Kev Winstone was sat fishing on peg 1 and I got on 25 so we could have a chat. There had been plenty of fish caught here in the previous few days so I was happy to fish at this end. It is the deepest part of the lake here and so I opted to fish two methods, a shallow pellet rig at 13m, and a margin rig to my left. I had not taken any rods and was just happy to mess around on the pole. Though I did have the end of the island to fish to if I had brought rods, I let the Romanian angler on my right have the island. He was a good angler, spoke brilliant English and I found after I left he landed a near 17lb carp.

Anyway, back to my start, I fed 6mm pellets out to 13m and flicked a shallow rig out, within 30 seconds I was attached to my first carp, a nice 5lb fish and what a way to get back to fishing. Next drop out and another carp, and the same next drop. This could be good.. It took a bit longer to get the 4th carp, but the 5th, well it never came on the shallow line! The wind got up and had was blowing straight down the lake to the other end, and it seemed the carp went with it. Kev had only a couple of carp shallow and was soon struggling like me. I came into the margin where I had about 2 feet of depth on a slope , OK I would unlikely do this in a match but this was different and I was prepared to give it a good go. I only had to wait about 15 minutes for the first bite and another carp, happy days. By sitting there and feeding carefully and waiting patiently I would catch the odd carp, not bagging but it was enough to keep me interested. Trying back at shallow a few times was fruitless.

I had fished the margin quite close, a top set plus one, but eventually the fish just seemed to go, and I was forced to go further then the peg towards some reeds. The reeds had been knocking all day, but fishing against them would likely bring a few issues. Well it did bring bites, a few carp landed and a few lost. Trouble was it was a deeper margin by the reeds and I fouled a few which is never ideal next to reeds lol. I ended up with 60lb on my clicker, not a massive weight at all, but I thoroughly enjoyed being back out. There were lots of pleasure anglers catching carp, and seeing a couple of families fishing and all catching was really nice to see. Dave Haines was doing a good job helping and encouraging all the anglers, whislt making sure social distancing was kept in place. Kev stayed on after me and had a good run on the paste later on in the day. Martin Rayet and Martin McMahon did well further down the lake on pellet shallow.


Wednesday 20th May and I was off to the prolific Todber Manor Fishery with six other reprobates; Glenn and Mark Bailey, Gary Bowden, Mark Jefferies, Dave Haines and Kev Winstone. We all arrived within a few minutes of each other, and the venue was enshrouded in mist, a tad chilly when I was wearing shorts. Everyone was unloading kit and picking their pegs around the bottom of Hillview, I couldn't see a free peg so wandered up with some gear and plonked myself on a peg I would very much like to draw 49, a big time flyer. There were carp spawning on the far bank and the odd one on the point, but not anywhere else. Today I had rods with me as well as the pole, but having sat on 49 I decided on only getting one top set out for use in the margin. A bit of a gamble but my instincts told me there would be no need to fish anywhere else than the LH margin.

Having never fished the peg before I had a bit of a plum around, it was really shallow right in the edge and just seemed to slope off as I went out. In the end I went for a spot halfway along (just past the reeds stuck out halfway in the photo) and a couple of feet out from the bank. A 4x10 Preston Edge float with 0.17 to 18 KKM-B for banded pellet was set up with about 18" depth. Well it wasn't long before I was fishing, threw some 6mm pellet in and it wasn't long before the float shot under and carp number one was hooked and netted. It was a stupendous day, there were fish coming into the margin all day long, and I treated today like a match in terms of focus and kept using the clicker. I was always trying to keep catching as fast as possible and sometimes I'd drop the rig in and within 5 seconds fish on, but then I might get a spell of missed bites / foulers. By adjusting the feed and by coming shallower this would work before having to go deeper again. I avoided going right in to the shallowest water all day.

Everyone was catching, Mark Bailey on the other point peg (48 I think) was catching on paste close in, Gary next to him had lots on the method and then paste in close, he had one that must of been nudging 18lb. Podge was catching in margin, Glenn on the method and later paste, Kev on soft pellet and Hainer on meat. Below the view looking behind me, Gary still fishing, but Mark Bailey had packed up having caught approx 250lb.

I just carried on catching, a lad who fished two pegs to my right asked if I was bored, but I wasn't, I was trying to get everything right and keep landing fish regularly. I had two spells where missed bites and foulers were an issue, but always managed to get over that. A lot of the fish are 2 to 3lb, but I caught many bigger than that, with at least three doubles, and I think this was the best of  the bunch. You may also see Gary pouring lake water over me via his pole cup, I didn't mind on such a hot day!

I finished at 3:15pm, having fished for about 6 hours, I did have a mid session lunch break watching Gary and Mark, it didn't affect my fishing. At the end my clicker had 365lb on it, never had that much on it before, probably never will again lol. Pretty much everyone had around 200lb so it had fished very well.

I will be glad when matches start, but for now it's good to be out and enjoying the fishing and the weather, I hope you can too.