Catching in the rain

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Why does it always rain on me? Not only a great song by the band Travis but also a very relevant statement for the majority of my fishing trips (and most of Britain 80% of the year).
I arrived at my club lake at 8am Monday morning having sat in traffic for the best part of an hour only for the heavens to open and completely drench me on the long walk from car to swim, not the best start to the session at all, but I was set for 72 hours on the bank and nothing was going to ruin it.

I was accompanied by my cousin Harry, who I fish with regularly and we were fortunate enough to get on to our favourite swim. I decided to fish the same spots as in my first blog as it had produced a fish and I had a good idea of the features in front of me.


I decided to get a lot of bait out straight away as we were going to be there for a few days and I can  just top it up every now and then so I put about half a kilo of the Gulp! Carp squid & Liver boilies over each rig and the another half a kilo in a line between the two hoping if the fish went through the middle it may lead them to the hook bait. I also filled PVA bags with a mix of the hemp, tiger nut and Bloodworm flavour Gulp! pellets and the Spod Blend particles.
I use solid PVA bags in 99% of my fishing for 2 reasons, mainly for the bait attraction but also so the hook point is masked when it hits the bottom so I can be confident that its not caught in any weed or debris on the bottom.


With the weather being so dreadful, the rain lashing down and the temperature having dropped drastically in the last week I wasn't surprised that there was little or no fish activity at all, by 3pm I had not seen any jump, role or any signs at all that they were feeding which was not filling me with confidence at all but if you have a bait in the lake you have a chance I suppose.

Unfortunately other than Beans for tea and a rather large amount of flatulence there was not really anything worth reporting for the rest of the day, The bailiff had come round earlier in the day and said he had 9 fish out over 3 days the week previous which is actually quite good for this lake so we were still confident of one or two but I knew we were going to have to play the waiting game.

The morning arrived having had an undisturbed nights sleep and after breakfast and a cuppa, we recast the rods and got a bit more bait in but still nothing was giving us any indication of fish in the area. There are 3 lakes in total on site and when the bailiff came round in the morning and said he had not seen any fish at all on the bank or in the lake since Saturday we starting to ponder a change of lakes. Normally we would sit it out but we both decided a move would be best and started to pack up the gear and as Harry started to reel his right had rod in he felt a pull and was in to a fish...what timing. Well to our surprise as the fish reached the net it was not a Carp, nor a Bream but a Pike! obviously or saw the bait moving and pounced on it...They all count!

So, after the surprise Pike we packed up all the gear and set off down to the bottom lake, a little smaller, but always in with a chance of a decent fish. The bottom is a little silty but its not deep enough to cause any real problems. It also has a lot of Lilly pads in sections around the lake so I decided to fish tight to these to the right of the swim and the left hand rod 40 yards straight out in open water.

A few hours passed and a bream for Harry was the only catch to report until around 7pm when my right hand rod screamed off and luckily for me out into open water rather than straight into the pads. At first the fish felt like nothing special and was coming in quite easy until it got  under the rod tip and then it decided to put up a fight and began circling the swim at which point I caught a glimpse of it and it was rather larger than first anticipated. After a good 10 minutes of struggling I finally got it on the bank and weighed it in at a pleasing 19lb 8oz. What a cracking Common caught on the Gulp! Carp Squid & Liver Boilies.


Fortunately I did not have too long to wait for my second fish, around an hour an 30 minutes later my Left hand rod went with a slow ploddy like run, hoping this would be a bigger fish I struck into it but it was not the monster I was hoping for but still another very nice and very welcome 8lb common again on the Gulp! Carp Squid & Liver.

Shortly after putting that fish back the heavens opened and the rain began to lash down unbelievably and after a few hours of continuous torrential rain, at 2am we decided there was no chance of getting any sleep and enough was enough. A decision well made as when I woke up in the morning it was still raining just as hard and some of the local roads had flooded.
So the session may have been cut short but I was over the moon to have caught a couple and still have 3 days of my week of left so will get another session in later in the week.
 

Thanks for reading, please check out my website www.phippsysfishing.com and until next time...keep calm and go fishing!

Tight lines!
 

A bad day on the bank is better than a good day at work!

I am lucky enough to have a week off as I am starting a new job soon and what better way to spend it than on the bank, a day session today then a 72 hour stint next week.

I arrived at the lake at around 8am this morning only to find the world and his wife were already there, luckily the swim next to my favourite was free so that was good enough for me.

I've recently been lucky enough to be signed up for the Berkley Gulp! Carp Army so I am using the Squid & Liver boilies today with the Spod blend particle mix in PVA bags over a large bed of boilies. The beauty of all the particles in the Gulp! Carp range is they are 100% PVA friendly which I am sure you will agree is a great touch and gives a real edge over other anglers especially if, like my chosen club spodding is banned. The Spod Blend mix consists of everything you could possibly want in a spod mix including Tiger Nuts, Maize, Hemp and loads of other seeds.

As the morning past I was having lots of touches on both rods which were 2 rod lengths apart tight to a big set of pads but, unfortunately no takes. It wasn't until around lunchtime when I had my first real bite but still not a take!

I hadn't noticed any fish activity at all for a few hours and what with the drop in temperature and the amount of angling pressure on the lake my hopes of landing one were fading.

I decided to recast again slightly shorter of the pads on both rods as the line bites were telling me the fish were closer in than I was fishing so I hoped this would bring my rigs to thier attention.After a short while, my right hand alarm let out a few beebs and then stopped as if it was teasing me. This pattern went on for the next 10 mins, every 30 seconds just a few beebs and then nothing. With the day running away this was becoming increasingly frustrating and I was beginning to wish I was staying for the weekend as I knew it was just a matter of time but hey ho, thats fishing and a bad day on the bank is better than a good day at work, thats for sure.

So after my first, albeit short session on the new bait, no fish but some encouraging signs. It was more a case of wrong place, wrong time. Hopefully I will have more luck next week when the bait really gets put to the test.

Until next time...Keep calm and go fishing.

Tight lines!