By Anthony George Ron Potton
So I set set my alarm for 5:30 am on Friday 29th March , ready for session at Duffryn springs with my fishing buddy Liam, who was fishing the day with me as he was just getting back into carp fishing after a few months off the bank concentrating on being a dad to his little girl, now he's ready to hit the rods again so was keen to get out on a session. So, as we arrived at the venue around 8:30 am, later than I usually set off, I was thinking we wouldn't get the peg we wanted but to our surprise we were the first people on the whole complex. We decided to bait up our chosen swim with Solar Candyfloss 15 mm Boilies and Bait-tech Tripple N Boilies. Using a mix of the 2 would give me more options to target and also be able to see what bait the carp would prefer on the day. It wasn't long after allowing a bit of time for the swim to settle after baiting up the fish began to show signs of feeding. I was the first to get my rods out as Liam had to set his up from scratch. I targeted close to the island with one rod and the other i put into open water at 3 rod lengths.
Not long into the session my right rod screamed off, the bite was very aggressive and the carp bolted straight to an over hanging tree snag, I managed to steer the fish away from it and after a few minutes of hard fighting I had a lovely common around 11 lb, as soon as the fish was weighed and returned i continued to put more Solar candyfloss boilies over the swim to hopefully encourage any fish in the area to stay and keep feeding. The rods fell quiet for a few hours so i decided it was time to re-evaluate my approach, I then changed one rig to a solar candyfloss wafter glugged in candyfloss booster set on a Ronnie rig set-up. At around 12:30 my left rod with the wafter on burst into action and it kited right across the swims and across my other rods but thankfully i had carefully sunken the lines so they wouldn't get picked up if this happens. I eventually managed to get another cracking common into my net weighing 14 lb.
Liam's rods remained silent for a couple of hours but then suddenly he too was into some actions and unfortunately as he was playing the fish in the hook pulled and the fish gone. My heart sank and i knew how low he was feeling at that moment. He got his rod straight back out into the mix and after applying a few more boilies out in the swim, within minutes of the bait going out he had another fish on. What seemed to be a lovely carp on the end actually turned out to be a good size Bream and to top it off he followed with another bream a short while after. We decided to drop the Solar Candyfloss boilies into some of the Triple N glug, why not have a go. Within minutes of putting bait out and resetting the rods, Liams rod bolted into action and the fish off towards the edge of the island where there was some nasty snags in view. He managed to keep it away but as he was applying a lot of pressure to get it away from the snag he had yet another unfortunate hook pull. Talk about unfortunate.
After a couple the rods became silent and the water went calm and was very peaceful just sat relaxing, no fizzing or fish showing so I then decided to throw the remaining boilies out in all three swims hoping for a last gasp carp or two. It was around 17:00 when my right hand rod screams off and I was straight into a over hanging tree. The line locked up and i felt gutted thinking it was tethered i decided to sit my rod back on the rest and left it watching my line after a few minutes it started to twitch a bit meaning fish was still on there and moving out of the snag. After a short while it bolted off to the right bending my rod right round so I let the fish play for a bit and eventually got him in my net, the biggest of the session, a common weighing around 15 lb.
Just as the day was drawing in to a close getting slightly dark we decided to start packing down . Then my right hand rod again goes off to the right and was a nice easy one straight in to the net with very little fight weighing in at 14 lb another lovely common. That was the end of a great day. I learnt a lot about the lake and my own rigs and tactics. I had to work hard to get the four fish I had, but all in all it was a good days fishing and great company.
On to the Next Adventure ......
