ouchthathurt

Rods out on my first session of my new campaign water. it appeared on my club book, no one knows what’s really in here. No one really fishes it and it was stocked 20yrs ago with 50 or so carp. I saw a 26lb on the bank and that was me sold! Just down for a few hours today to get the eye on the water and the first session ticked off.

The boy got in on the act 11lb mutant 12lb mirror, one of only half a dozen in the pond

A few from last night 26lb 2oz 23lb 5oz 23lb on the nose

A couple of pics of last nights overnighter

Other memorable session would be last year when I was unable to get any time in for night sessions, I had a little girl at home and had returned to the ambulance service, so time was at a premium so a few quick day sessions were all I managed. my dad was float fishing at my local club water and wifey suggested I join him and do a quick overnighter, so I dragged the gear out the shed and headed down. I set up and cast out, not really putting any thought into it, just 3 rods with pva bags on a known spot with a few kg of hemp over the top, I sat and chatted to the old man for a few hours until he headed home, gifting me a few pints of maggots. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, so just filled the pva bags with maggots and put them back out. it then lashed it down and I retired to bed, at about 1am, the middle rod tore off! After a 30min battle, I netted a lovely common… at over 40lb, it was a right result

I’ve several memorable sessions, one of my favourites being when I blanked! my son wanted to catch his first pike, but the rain was biblical and everywhere was flooded and the consistency of paint. Still, the boy was keen, so we headed out to a little known and fished section of the royal military canal (basically where it first begins) the rain was torrential and we were both head to toe in gortex, the water level was very high and the water was like hot chocolate and my confidence was rock bottom. My boy, with all youthful confidence was up for it, so we took a light lure rod each and went for a wander. It was a wet, windy day and every other cast ended up snagged so I ended up spending most of my session pulling his spinner free from streamer weed for the boy. after several miles of soggy slogging, I gave up and turned around to head for home. I stopped to talk to an old country gent who was in the process of telling me how mad we were and how hopeless pike fishing was in the conditions (as if I needed reminding) when my son snagged again. He called me for help, I told him to wind down, point the rod straight at the snag and walk backwards until the spinner cut through the weed. This the boy did, only the snag pulled back! He had hooked a pike! thinking it was only a small jack, I wandered down to give him a hand, this fish was running strongly downstream, so I told him to walk off after it. Once he got over the top of it, he brought it to the surface where an absolute unit appeared! I soiled my pants and told him to give it line, set the net up and generally went into a right old state of excited panic! My son gave me a withering look and told me to calm down! We eventually slipped it in the net where we were presented with my boys first pike…

I’ve been using slip d rigs for the last year or so, with esp claw hammer hooks and fox line aligners mate. They work well

When you look at it like that, it doesn’t seem so bad!! 40kg a year? Some guys would do that in a week session! I’ve got to up my game!

Just brought another 10kg of premier supermarinos basemix… at 10kg every 3-6 months for the last 25yrs I dread to think how much bait and cash I’ve gone through!

quick overnighter the other night.

2 spools of Diawa tournament ST in 18lb and another red Steve neville alarm. 👍

17lb 38lb

The boys efforts

A few out last night for the boy and I

the annual catfish hunt

Finally decided to start my river campaign only about 2yrs late! First night last night, one small carp seen cruising along the far reeds, another bigger fish breached and rolled mid channel and I got a few bream and a nice tench from under the bush to the top right of the shot. I spodded 3kg of hemp and 2kg of pellet just upstream and fished a 7 bait stringer over the top with about 50-60 boilies pulted around it. That was the middle rod sorted, the left hand was fished tight to the far reeds in 5ft of water with just a stringer attached. Right rod fished tight to the near margin on a 4ft shelf as a single, with a few broken boilies and a handful of 1mm & 2mm pellets over it. I was worried I’d over done the baiting/spodding on the middle rod, but it was the only one to have any liners or do any bites. Gonna be a challenge this venue, miles upon miles of wild water, an unknown stock of carp (a few come out along this stretch) plus limited and restricted stretches you can night fish stack the odds against me. I can only go to certain places, the carp can go anywhere they like! 🙄

try here

Sorry it’s not in this thread, but if you search hamworthy lake it should come up

Sorry mate, it’s been about 15-18yrs since I fished it last! It always seemed low stock, but I enjoyed my time there. I popped a YouTube video on this thread somewhere that was filmed there

the view from the brolly

Why without the aniseed mate?

Last purchase, 3kg of hemp (now in the pond) 1kg of pellet (ditto) ESP claw hammer hooks, hook swivels and a load of 10mm cork balls

I gave up on my delks because of the same thing, when it rained, they all packed up. I dried them out, sprayed them all over with WD40, wiped off the excess and left them to dry. That solved it after a fashion for a few weeks. went back to Steve neville buzzers… now if I could just work out how to stop them cracking at the base I’d be happy!