By Martyn Russ
With my health on the mend and the summer weather on it's way I thought it was about time I got out and made a start with my fishing and decided on a few hours on one of our local ponds up at Pentwyn. The lake is a relatively small lake that could hold around 20 anglers maximum and is quite deep at one end shallowing off to around 3 foot at the other with lots of reeds and features to fish too. I had decided on a feeder set up fishing various pastes and pellets on the bottom. John Rees had decided on a similar set up and also a bottom bait rig as he wanted to target the larger carp in the Lake whilst Brian Lloyd decided on fishing the pole with a simple set-up and fished meat on and just off the bottom.
The day went quite slowly as when we arrived it was quite over cast and grey. This was a surprise as the weather had forecast sun for the day but it looked like we was in for a grey and windy start to our fishing session. Brian was the first to catch, and the last as it turned out, with a couple of small roach and rudd with a few skimmers thrown in for luck. It was about lunch time when he struck into what he described as a tank as it just seemed to rip off and his elastic from the pole was stretched so far we thought it was going to give but thankfully it held and Brian managed a lovely 12lb Carp. I myself had had a couple of bites whiles using the Banana and also the Tigernut paste but couldn't seem to get the hook to hold. John was also having a bit of a frustrating session as no one else around the lake seemed to be catching anything.
About an hour after his last fish Brian then managed to hook into a nice dinner plate size Bream just showing us that even under the worst of conditions and no matter how hard a water fishes you can always catch something if you stick at it. I continued to fish the same method through the day but ended up drawing a blank along side John who had also tried a few different methods and styles but also ended up drawing a blank. We tried different pastes, pellets meat and even sweetcorn but nothing seemed to interest the fish. Even bits of floating bread were being ignored by the fish. Pentwyn Lake, although fairly old, is still recovering from a disaster that happened years ago when a car was driven into the lake and poisoned the fish. It has taken a few years for the stock to get back to normal and will be a few more years before it fishes as good as it used to but it is showing promise. Still holding a few big carp and plenty of small ones this seems to be a venue that we will hear more about in the future. Even though the fishing had been difficult and I didn't get much luck catching I still enjoyed the day out in the fresh air and can't wait for my next fishing adventure.
Wet Nets & Tight Lines
