Peterstone Lakes, Newport 26th June 2013

by Martyn Russ, Trish Lloyd & Brian Lloyd

      

After having a couple of bad days fishing and only catching a few small fish down at Lamby Pond in Cardiff Trish decided we should pay a visit, and sped the afternoon, at Peterstone Lakes as the weather was going to be nice and sunny. It turned out to be a brilliant idea as the fishing was brilliant and we all caught especially Trish and Brian as they seemed to have cracked the method and constantly caught large fish  well up into the 15 lb. mark including Trish's 10lb bream’s she kept landing.

         

The day started of slow with Brian the first to catch landing a nice carp around 5 or 6 lb. Trish then followed with a couple of small Bream around 3 or 4 lb. then suddenly she struck into a little lump, a Brea mover 10lb. I had decided to go on the other lake at the complex that is opposite the lake Brian and Trish  were fishing so i took the adjacent swim to theirs.

         

Whilst watching there fishing action and wondering whether my lake would come alive or not my first rod suddenly burst into action and the alarm screamed off. I struck into my first fish and landed myself a lovely 12l b.+ carp. This made my day as its my PB (personal best) for the year so far. I was using a naked chod rig on the 15 lb. Fluorocarbon fishing line that has been doing the business this year and catching me my fish.

          

Around around half an hour after the first run the rid ripped off for the second time and i struck into a large  carp but unfortunately the hook pulled and i lost her. This turned out to me my only action for the day on my lake but on the other one Brain and Trish were constantly catching fish all day.

    

Towards the end Brian decided to go stalking with some bread on the top and managed to land himself 2 lovely carp one around 12 lb. and the other 15.+ This spur of the moment trip to Peterstone lakes turned out to be a great afternoons fishing and i can’t wait to go back again and see if i can get myself one of the 30+ plus crap that are in the lakes.

    

Wet Nets & Tight Lines

Pole Fishing at Lamby Pond–Fri 21st June 2013

by Martyn Russ, Trish Lloyd & Brian Lloyd

    

With the weather being so wet lately we have been taking any opportunity to go fishing. Our latest adventure was down at Lamby Pond at Lamby Way industrial estate in Cardiff run by Wentloog Fishing Club. A small little pond that holds a good head of small to medium Carp, Tench, Rudd, Bream and Roach. The pond was damaged a few years ago by someone dumping a car into it and the fuel leaked into the water poisoning the fish. It has slowly come back to life over the last couple of years and with the introduction of new fish stock to the water it is slowly getting back to normal.

Lamby pond is what i call a traditional venue where you would use maggots as apposed to other baits on the market. this pond seems to prefer natural food sources as there is plenty of reeds and lilies around the pond making great features to fish to. There are about 10 swims total but 2 are un-fishable as they have overgrown but the rest are all decent swims giving each angler a good feature to fish.

    

As this was a last minuet decision to fish we didn’t bother getting maggots and decided to fish meat and pellets. I know pellets are not normally fished on this venue and would have got better results on worms and casters but we still managed to get a few nice Rudd and roach out. Brian managed to hook into a nice size Carp around the 7 or 8 lb. mark at the start of the day and snapped off when he was landing the fish, but then his swim went dead and all he was getting was the smaller silver fish. My mother was the same and she kept hooking loads of Rudd and Roach but then suddenly in the late morning, just before lunch, she hooked into a rather large carp that ripped off and run straight into the Lilly pads wrapping her rig around the base. no mater how much she fought with the fish she just couldn't seem to break it free of the snags and it ended up snapping her elastic on the pole. Talk about annoying!

         

After that bit of extreme action the swims went quiet at lunch time as they usually do and then later in the day, as it started to cool down again, the swims came alive again and we continued to hook into small Roach and Rudd again. This is definitely a venue i have to return to with a couple of pints of maggots and see exactly what is in there, we know it holds quite a few nice size carp but there are also a lot of other fish that seem to be very easily spooked.

Wet Nets & Tight Lines

Fishing at Hendre Lake, Weds 19th June 2013

by Martyn Russ & John Rees

With all the rain and windy weather we had been getting for the last few weeks it was difficult to choose a day that would be just right but luck seemed on our side and a break in the weather meant we could go fishing at our local lake. John Rees one of the newest members to Team F.A.W. decided to join me to brush up on his skills and practice a few things including making rigs. We also had the chance to try out some new tackle and specially my new Bivvi that is extremely quick to put up and take down. The TF Gear Force 8 Speed Light Bivvi was designed so that it could be erected in under a minuet and easy to use. We were both very pleased and surprised to say the least when it actually too only 30 seconds to put up. The new D-Lock design made it very simple to use and very strong when put up but also allowed it to be taken down just as quick.

     

We were both surprised at just how much room was actually inside the 2 man Bivvi and just how strong it actually was. After initially putting it up it must have took a whole 5 minuets to peg out and secure all the guide ropes. We were ready for our days adventure. The sun was already blazing hot and it was still only 9am in the morning, this gave us some idea that the day would turn into a scorcher and very hot. We decided to start the day using bottom baits backed up with PVA bags full of pellets and ground bait. I placed one rod on a single bottom bait using “The Crave” boilies and the second on a chod rig wit a tuti-fruity pop up. The 3rd rod we decided to do something a little different and place a couple of 12mm Halibut drilled pellets toped off with a piece of yellow fake corn just to highlight it.

    

Our initial set-up was quite simple we were using 15lb Fluorocarbon fishing line, that i got from Total Outdoors, on our Grandslam Free spool Bait Runners on the CK Fusion Expert 3 lb t/c 12 foot carp Rods. These were placed on the CK Stalking Pod using Black Zero bite alarms and indicators. I have to admit the CK range fro Dragon Carp Direct is brilliant value and quality and anyone who fishes on a budget should take a look at the range as they will find the items they need at prices that just can’t be beaten and for someone like me who is getting back into fishing after taking a 10 year break and also deciding to take up specimen fishing it has saved me a lot of money.

The day continued to be sunny and with very little breeze we noticed that all the fishermen around the lake were very quiet and not getting any bites. I would have expected at least a couple of small fish coming out of the lake but nothing. After a couple of hours with not even a line bite we decided to re-set the rods in different areas and within 10 minuets of re-casting we had our first bite. unfortunately it was short lived as the hook link snapped just as i struck into the fish. This shocked us both as it was a 15 lb. braided hook length that normally would have no problem pulling in the largest of fish.

After loosing out first fish of the day we decided to put 2 rods out on Zig Rigs and left the other rod out on Halibut Pellets. We checked the depth of the lake and area we were fishing using a marker float and spodded up the area with a spod mix made up of barley, birdseed, hemp and corn with a mixture of 10mm and 16mm boilies whole and crushed added to the mix. We were also using some bloodworm glug added to the spod mix just to give it that little extra attraction. We fished one rod on a Yellow Zig set at 3 foot off the bottom and the other on a Zig Halo Float set at 1 foot under the surface.

Although we worked hard at trying to get our swim going unfortunately we didn’t hook into any carp for the rest of the day and to our surprise just as we were packing up one of the rods ripped off on a screaming run, we struck into it and played in what was to turn out to be my personal best Eel! It was a good size with a fat body and weighed in at 4 lb. 2oz and apart from a couple of small roach that we had whilst playing in the margins with my 6 meter Carp pole it was the only big fish of the day. That's just how it goes sometimes, you can’t always bag loads of fish and some days just turn out to be difficult for no apparent reason but even still we enjoyed our day out and can’t wait for out next adventure.

Wet Nets and Tight Lines.