Leaderboard

Came through the latest heat wave fine. All the koi are happy and feeding really well, it's amazing what that extra air has done. I've been upping the food this past week and the fish are loving it. We now have a prolonged period of 25-28C which is absolutely no problem so it's time to put some weight on.

I went to club lake today, was gonna stay most of day but packed up about 1pm it was too hot and no bites and no sign of fish, i got sunburnt last week and when i felt the sun starting to rake over the coals thats when i left, gonna leave the fishing till things cool down a bit

I went to club lake early morning today, had a few mid doubles close in under an overhanging tree, and one mid water too. By 12 o'clock was far too hot so packed up but enjoyed the fishing. Just a small thing tho, my Atts remote packed up mid session, tried to replace it with a Duracell AA rechargeable battery, blooming thing is actually slightly larger than a normal one so didn't fit!!☹️ Didn't stop me having a good day tho 👍 Take care in this heat all.

Blanket weed is my only issue, or should I say was... I stopped feeding them about a week ago, it took a few days but they started feeding on it, but not enough to stop it spreading. So i ordered 15 trap door snails. They have been in 48 hrs and I can already see the pond getting clearer. Water quality is better than what comes out the tap

No, there aren't any bream in there. I've had similar occurrences on another lake that contains some large catfish and they frequently smash people up and due to bad practices by anglers, they are frequently trailing tackle including leads and you get all 3 rods register a bite but then drop off a second later.

I tried that last weekend, setting up in the shade of a big elm tree, and blanked. Last year I created a bivvy spot right under the willows and again, the fish seemed to avoid the area. On both occasions the fish caught were in the brightest and sunniest spots. I would say that I should have moved, but with Sky I refused as I would much rather she was comfortable as possible, and unless I tell her will lay in the sun all day and overheat.

So my beloved BMW Z4 went for an MOT today, its 2009 but is in excellent condition with full BMW service history. So for the first time since i have had her it came back as a fail. Front near side shock leaking, needs replacing. Now this car is a straight 6 3l twin turbo putting out 400bhp. But that's not the bad part, it has fully adjustable active suspension. Getting a replacement aftermarket is like rocking horse poo and costs £800 just for the shock. So i face a bill for £1k just to replace a shock. Damn, it took a while to sink in. But she is beautiful.

Only the one ? treat it to a pair lol

TBH, I recon now the temps have eased off a bit the fish are up for a feed. I don't think they've been feeding much whilst it's been so bright and hot, not there's a bit of a breeze, the temps have dropped and we're getting occasional cloud cover, they've got to feed in some shape or other. If you're luck enough to be there when they switch on and can keep them in the area, you'll get a great result. I haven't been back to my local pond to check water temps since last weekend, but I hope they've dropped a bit and I hope the breeze has helped oxygenate the water a bit.

Despite the sweltering heat, I managed 20 fish on my days only park lake including a 16, 17 and two 18's. The average size was about 12 1/2 lb. As mentioned before, it's not normally that easy and by no means a pastie water. Despite the conditions screaming zigs or a small PVA bag approach, I went in totally the opposite and sent out the boat with spod mix and pellet at least every hour or after a bite.

Probably my favourite track and depressingly brilliant. After Chester died, no other man could replace him and so they got in a female singer.

Lush!

No mate, just wading to cast and thought a picture would be good. 👍

As I'm not allowed to fish my local lake, I thought I would stop by to see what's happening. As expected, there's people using it as a swimming pool/somewhere to go paddle boarding/sunbathing. I bought an aquarium thermometer off amazon just so I know what the water temperature is. I was shocked to find the surface water between 26.1C and 26.3C. Hopefully the temps are going to start dropping soon. That can't be good for the fish.

With such a beautiful setting who needs to catch anything , it would only disturb the tranquility . 😄

Linkin Park are one of my favourite bands and I've got tickets to see a tribute band in a few weeks. After the lead singer Chester took his own life, you start to appreciate that most of what he wrote was one long suicide note!

Have you got a drone now mate?

Damn these fish they just don't care about an angler's comfort ! . Good on you for putting Sky's needs first . 😃

Well the extra air supply looks to be working. All of the fish seem happier and they're all feeding well. One is still heading to the filter return regularly but he's also socialising and eating food. I'll be keeping the extra air going in for now, especially with temps heading back up next week. I now need to get the balance of food right. Digestion uses lots of oxygen so I don't want to pile the grub in for growth until the water temps are down a little.

As expected, my trip was a grueller and I packed up Sunday morning despite having paid until 6 in the evening. I couldn't believe how warm the water was when I washed my hands in the lake. There were a few fish crashing about early morning but they didn't seen interested in feeding. I should have had a good nights sleep but both nights I think that one fish was trailing tackle as I had numerous lifts on the bobbin before settling again, despite using backleads.

Well it was a difficult weekend to say the least. I got the new/additional airlines in on Thursday night before going fishing on Friday night. Both of the fish that were struggling (a 68cm yamabuki (bright yellow/gold common) and a 60cm doitsu kohaku (white/orange mirror)) seemed to improve initially. The fishing was just savage in that heat on Friday so by 9am Saturday morning I was back home to check on the koi. The smaller of the two, the kohaku, was feeding and swimming around like nothing ever happened - a full recovery it seemed, but I couldn't spot the big yamabuki. At 10am, having still not spotted the yamabuki, I started work cleaning the filters. I still had my polarised sunnies on after fishing and I was taking a closer look at the fish from the filter house when I spotted one on its side on the bottom. I knew straight away which one it was and so it proved when I fished it out with the net. One of the best in there and certainly one of the most valuable... the yamabuki.... dead. Digging the grave in 35 degrees was not fun as you can imagine but that paled into insignificance compared to the pain of losing one of my favourite and most valuable koi. I'm a member of several koi pages on social media and it seems all over the country people are losing fish despite following all the right procedures. My water parameters are fine and I have tonnes of oxygen going in. There's not much more I can do. I'm hoping this drop in temps does us all a big favour but I know that we're heading back up to 30 degrees after next weekend. I've increased the frequency of my water changes in an attempt to bring water temps down so that should help a little. So basically it turns out winter is a doddle compared to summer when it comes to keeping koi. I knew that high temps introduce risk for koi but I genuinely thought I was prepared for it. Let's just hope that that's the end of the serious problems.