Golden Paws

I had this last year as the lake I was on had a lot of catkins and they dropped into the lake causing a huge raft of drifting debris. It was so thick that I had to stop retrieving the reel after about 10 turns and carefully bite it off the line. Unfortunately the berg became saturated and dropped to the bottom and sucked in oxygen out of the water and at least 25 carp perished. All the catkin trees were removed and the lake pruned to prevent the worst of the leaf litter problem.

I've met some great people on the bank but also some I'll be glad never to meet again. Here are some examples of "That Guy"; You've found a spot, got the rods out and the bivvy is up. Time to relax with a cup of tea and then it starts. Tap, tap, tap........tap, tap, tap.... tap, tap, tap. Worse, you know the idiot has about 11 more pegs to get in! You struggled to push yours in the hard ground with a bit of sweat and a few choice words but did it confident that the fish wouldn't be aware of your presence. Anyone owning a bivvy mallet should have it inserted blunt end first! It was 2 in the morning. It was during one of the recent heatwaves and all the bivvy sides were up. A blinding light hits you and a car rumbles past on the gravel track. Everyone has an emergency ever now and again so you let it go. Ten minutes later it comes back and parks again. I know the portaloo is 200 yards away and despite what you think, your Tesla does make a racket! A bloke was fishing on the opposite side with his missus and 2 kids. They had a BBQ at dinner time. No problem. Then the 2 kids get out a football and kick it all around the lake! I was fishing one rod about a rod length out near some rushes. All of the sudden, there is a huge splash right where I was fishing. I thought it must have been a fish. Twenty minutes later another splash and I saw the lead go in! I walked a good 25 yards to the next swim and had a few words with the bloke! A couple of kids were fishing near the dam. Doof. The lead went in. Five minutes later another doof. Every five minutes another doof as they cast repeatedly for hours. Yes, I blanked. A noisy bloke was on the other side, Regularly you would hear him tell his dog to lie down. Luckily after dark it all went quiet. Then at 2:30a.m., he started chatting to his mate in the next swim. I could hear every word, despite him being 100 yards away!

Heavier version of the original but delivers a punch.

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.

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.

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.

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!

I'm not particularly a Johnny Cash fan but this one blew me away. The poor old bloke looks like he has one foot in the grave and the song reads like a deathbed confession. Not very often a song moves me so much, it brought tears to my eyes.

I've got a 48 hour session booked for this weekend that I paid for last year and not particularly looking forward to it. Luckily that lake that I'm going to has quite good night form and early mornings also are pretty good but then not expecting anything until the following evening. On my park lake a few days ago, I was catching a few in very shallow water. I didn't actually plumb it but the time lag between opening the hopper on the boat and the lead smacking down was minimal, I reckon it was probably on about 2 foot but it was under the far bank trees. The lake is a dammed stream and I've been catching at the top end when the effect of the oxygenated water flowing in is at it's greatest.

Back on the Park Lake yesterday and managed 10 with 2 x 14, 2 x 15 and a 19-0 Common. The lake was very coloured with an algae stain and struggled for a bite for a few hours but sending the boat out to both areas with plenty of bait soon had the spots rocking. I got though several kilo's of bait but it really is a case of buying your fish. Other people using singles or PVA bags were only picking up the odd fish.

I split my fishing between day only fishing and then the more hard core 48 hour sessions on bigger waters. The bigger waters haven't really happened this year but it seems that most people were struggling so not too despondent, especially with the 2 heatwaves we have had this year. Yesterday I went to my local days only park lake. It's a 2 rod limit and I started at 10:30 and you have be off by 21:30. I caught 22 fish including a 17, 18, 19 and 21-5. It was so stupid, I struggled to find time to eat my sandwiches! At 21:00 I sent the boat out for the last time. I had just dropped the second one and the first was away which was the 21 so I opened the bail arm on the second and left it on the pod. When I picked it up about 10 minutes later, I knew that a fish would be on! One time I was clipping on the bobbin and the line was ripped from my fingers. The previous trip I had 14 but the biggest was only a 16 and the 2 trips before that I had 8 and 9 including a 20. You could be forgiven for thinking it's massively overstocked but I don't think that's the case. I've been fishing it for about 15 years and 2 or 3 fish is a good result and my previous highest tally was 9. I've blanked more times than I care to remember and it can be a bit moody at times. The water is pretty murky and so it's difficult to gauge what is happening but it can't last forever and so it's a case of making hay while the sun shines.

One from the weekend after the heatwave.

A lake I fish has several lake bed aerators and it does produce a current almost similar to a river and the fish do feed just downstream of them. They also have 2 large water fountains that run for about 4 hours in the summer mornings and I tend to avoid those areas, it must be like sticking your head in the Marshall stack at a Motorhead concert- -trust me, I've been to one!

I mentioned on another thread that over the weekend I did an unsucessful 48 hour session and saw the bailiffs going out in the boat to net dead fish. Unfortunately the lake in question (commercial) had a policy of chucking in a sack of pellets 3 times a week, mainly because another fishery down the road has some larger fish and they were trying to boost the size of their fish.They didn't do it when I was there this time, probably due to the heat but I do wonder if it contributed to them dying.