Saturday 14 July 2012

New Home, New Pond, New Floats , New P.B.

As the title of this post suggests ive recently moved house and back into an area I thought I knew well. Sure enough the small pond I had such fond memories of is still there however the fishing so far has been extremely lacking there. Once upon a time I would go on this particular pond for a few hours of a morning and catch up to 30 lb of crucians in just a  five hour session as well as the occasional tench and the very rare carp. So far this year I've not even had a bite, there has been one major change in the 6 years or so since I fished it last. Somebody managed to persuade the council that the pond would be better off under his control than as a free fishery. He took over the fishing rights approximately 5 years ago and since then , as far as i know, has cleaned the pond of weed....... once.
 There's an ugly little rumour going round that he may have netted the pond and transfered some of the fish to another pond he controls, I sincerely hope this isn't the case , either way, wether he moved fish or not the pond as it is certainly isnt worth the £4 fee he started asking. Such a shame to see a fantastic free fishery go this way :( .

 I signed off from my last post with anticipation of the river season, well so far its been an absolute blank for me. Yes I was out on the day, ready to try my best but alas the weather conditions were against me and I couldnt even hold bottom in the raging flow so feeling very disapointed I headed home only to find myself seated next to a rather distinguished gentleman who took one look at the 'kingfisher guild' badge on my cap and started to regale me with tales of a tiny millpond with monstrous bream, the kind of place every angler secretly dreams of finding.

 So fast forward a few days and I'm sat turning some goose feathers I'd picked up whilst walking the dog into my first attempts at goosequill floats when my mom says something which strikes a chord in mind, surely she didn't just say that the bus that runs almost outside my door went through a place with the same name as my ancient piscator had told me of? Oh but she had... and it did and does indeed.I carefully finnished the floats vowing to try them at this 'secret' pond at my very first opportunity.
My first four Goose Quills, the two large heavier ones i thought would do for carp and the shorter/lighter pair for close to medium range for tench, roach etc.


 Finally the day came and after checking the bus times I decided I'd take a bivvy and stay at the pond overnight in order to start fishing early as the last bus home was at 6pm and I couldn't set off till 4pm.
 Thanks to google maps and my phones GPS I made my way to the geenral vicinity of the pond and was led to the bottom of the right path by an elderly lady dog walker. My first glance at the pond filled me with disapointment, it was tiny! and the back half was an almost solid wall of reeds. 
 But then I saw a shadow move where a miniscule feeder stream entered the pool, looking closer i counted 4 or 5 dark shapes gliding around the edge of the reeds..and compared to the pool they looked enormous!!
  Needless to say I wasted little time in setting up my 12ft Aspindale/Gemina combination (this was to be the Gemina's first outing since acquisition) utilising the smallest of my new floats, expecting to be into hordes of large fish within minutes..
 In a way I was but not the ones I foolishly expected , instead of the monsters I'd seen I found myself catching roach after roach and not one less than six ounces, this pool was surprising the hell out of me.It seemed the float was barely settled in the water before it began to gracefully rise back out. Having failed to pack a flashlight in my haste I wistfully put away the rod at around 10 pm and lay back in the bivvy impatiently praying that first light would hurry along.
 4 am saw me already on the bank and gazing out over the water to the area where i'd seen the 'monsters' which i'd somehow convinced myself were wild carp.How to catch one without the largest 'nuisance' fish i'd ever encountered taking the breadflake? The only thing I could think of was to step up the hook from 18 to 14.. I also swapped the float for a somewhat heavier crowquill and balsa that was also on its first outing.
 Within minutes of my first cast the float rose majestically and lay flat, while I tried to put down the flask of coffee I'd resisted all night, too slow, the fish was gone. Out went the bait once more and before the float had settled it started to rise back out, as if it were connected to a bungee chord, the gentlest lift of the rod and the line was tight as could be, the tip bent over and my heart was in my mouth , I had one on! Suddenly the fight was over and I realised the fish was not a carp and could not help but feel deflated but then i saw gliding in on its side the largest bream I'd ever seen outside of TV shows.
                       

 Within the next hour I had two more stunning bream and I knew I had beaten my personal best by quite a margin, I'd only ever had skimmers before. I took a little break to walk round the pool and take a nosy at the fish from a higher elevation. I couldnt help but be amazed at the abundance of natural beauty that had sprung up behind an old derelict mill.

 It wasn't too much longer before I was joined by another fisherman who looked at my old rod and reel and laughed, he wasn't laughing for too much longer as yet another of those fabulous bream glided over the edge of my net , did i feel smug about it? , well, yes, i'm afraid I did for a moment but as he offered to take this pic for me I decided that he had suffered enough. He seemed somewhat reluctant to believe I'd caught several of these apparently hard to catch beasties however, that is he was, right up till I caught yet another . He claims to have fished that pond for 10 years and only once had he seen anyone catch more than one in a session. He also reckons that the largest he knew about had been caught two years ago at 9lb 3 oz...I pray that fish is still alive, I'd dearly love to know what it weighs now and who knows, maybe I could be the one to find out...
  Oh and just to give you an idea of how tiny this pool is.. The last picture was taken halfway along the first of the two fishable banks which ends at my left shoulder. The second fishable bank goes no further than the bush visible at top right of the picture which is where the far bank from the one i'm stood upon begins.
 I think I found a slice of heaven and I'm looking forward to a return trip..
 Tight Lines All.