Carp Fishing @ Hendre Lake - Cardiff, Wales 1st January 2013
 |
| Finally got set-up and fishing after 45 mins. |
With a break in the weather i managed to find the energy to get my gear packed and off to the lake i went. Was a very cold start to the day with temperatures around 5 or 6 degrees at the best and 10 to 20 miles per hour winds blowing across the water. There was no sign of movement anywhere and no fish topping or splashing around in the margins. This didn't put me off at all, in fact i found myself trying that extra bit harder to get my swim going and the fish feeding.
 |
| All my gear on one fishing trolley. Really heavy to move |
I spent the first half hour "spodding up" an area about the size of half a tennis court hoping to encourage the fish to feed even though the temperature was so low nothing seemed to move, anywhere! I was using Dynamite Baits Particle Mix alone with a few extra tiger nuts added to the mix. I was using White Chocolate and Coconut Pop-Up's as a main hook bait so i put in a bit of the Chocolate and Coconut Hook Dip/Glug into the spod mix as well just to give it that bit of extra attractant. I then put my two rods out and set them up on the alarms and waited for a bite. It wasn't long before i started to get line bites and beeps from my indicators showing me that i must have got the fish to start to feed as they must have been searching around for the food and Knocking my lines. The next thing i knew the left hand rod flew into action and ripped off. It was funny as i struck into what ever had taken the bait it felt like there was nothing there. I first thought the fish must have dropped the bait and gone so i reeled the line in to re-bait and get it back out as soon as i can. As i got the line almost fully in i saw skimming across the top of the water a bream, the little greedy thing had taken the big boilie and would not let go. So it ended up that the first fish i banked of the year was a small bream.
 |
| 3 rods set-up. 1 on Feeder and the other 2 on pop up Boilies |
 |
| A small greedy Bream, hapy to catch it even though it wasn't the targeted species |
This was a good sign as the fish must have been feeding like i thought so i rushed to get my rod back into the water. I then decided to put a 3rd rod out on a feeder and try just at the front of the reeds bed to see if there were any fish hiding away. Using Dynamite Baits Method Feeder mixed with their Rich Brown Crumb ground Bait mix and a Garlic sausage pop up as the hook bait. Now when i placed this bait in front of the reeds i made a school boy error not thinking about playing the fish and getting caught up in the reeds. As it was an hour passed and suddenly the rod ripped off. When i say it ripped off, i mean the run was so big it was about a minuet before it actually stopped running and ended up at the other side of the large lake. When i struck into the fish i could tell it was a good size and was putting up a great fight. I managed to play the fish to about 5 meters from the bank and i thought it was finally getting tired. As i reached down for my net the fish dropped its head and dived and made a break for it. I quickly reacted and played it using the drag but i was a couple of second too late as it managed to find the reeds and snags. The line went dead and there was no way i was pulling it out. I loosened the line off so it was completely slack hoping the fish would think it was all over and would come out of its hiding hole. After 5 minuets i realized it wasn't having none of it and tried again to recover it from the reeds but "SNAP" and the fish was gone, and so was my 15 lb breaking strain hook length. As you can imagine i wasn't in the best of moods after that. It was a freezing cold day and i worked hard to get the fish to feed and ended up loosing what turned out to be my only run of the day. The baits had produced the goods it was just the fisherman who couldn't land the fish. Well at least i managed a small bream so it wasn't a blank day, but hey, that's how it goes, I'll get them next time.....
 |
| My chair just about fitted into my day Bivi. At least i can get out of the cold wind! |
 |
| 3 Rod Set-up waiting for the bites! |
