Day 5 : Another Lake

Wed 26th August

Not the swim I wanted

We decided to try another lake today that had been kind to me last year even though it had been dreadful when we tried in April this year. Upon arrival we cast out the Deeper. To our shock, the braid broke as the line hit the clip and the Deeper bobbed freely in the lake. Thankfully the line clip had arrested it's progress so it was about 30m out. There was a wind blowing right to left so I had to make a quick decision - strip off then get in the water and chase after it. One benefit of the recent hot spell is that the water was quite pleasant. Whilst swimming back I shouted to Garry that I could have pre-baited whilst I was out there.

Cheaper than a bait boat

Fish everywhere

We re-tied the Deeper, took off the short line-clip and re-cast. It immediately located masses of fish in both swims. Hopes were raised for a good day.

Fish galore

We decided not to feed in the fear of putting the fish off so decided to start fishing and adapt as dictated by the fish/bites.

Unfortunately we could not get bites even though we tried different baits and different lengths of tail on the feeder. When it became apparent that they weren't coming to our feeder, we decided to try baiting up with our bait-up feeders. Again, this didn't produce bites or fish.

We will catch!

In desperation, Garry decided to setup a float rod and fish relatively close-in with maggot. I decided to try the maggot feeder close in. We were leaving early and I couldn't be bothered to walk back to the car and setup my float road.

Garry started catching small Perch, Roach and Rudd. I was catching Loach/Bullheads then a few Rudd. We both hoped that better fish might put in an appearance on these lines but it wasn't to be.

Lucky me

We both left a sleeper rod baited with worm where we had introduced feed earlier. Garry had a few taps on the worm and I had a couple of tugs and slight drop-backs but nothing to hit. With 30 minutes to go I had a much better bite and hit into what initially felt like a Bream. Then it started to strip line and I guessed it was a Tench. 

5lb 1oz Tench

The weigh-in

End results were a good catch of small fish on a difficult day for Garry weighing 4lb 14oz. I had 5lb 12oz including the Tench, Loach and Rudd.

Current tally is 3 wins for me and 2 for Garry.

Session Triage

We put out the Deeper a few more times during the session. On closer inspection we could see that fish only seemed to be in around 30 feet of water BUT were actually 10 feet or so off bottom. Our feed didn't drag them down so I assume they weren't happy at 30 feet (perhaps low oxygen due to the long hot spell). Of course, I should have taken the time to get my float rod and set the slider to around 20 feet just to see if they would feed at that depth. I will certainly try that the next time I encounter this situation.

Time out

We went out for a lovely meal to a Chinese restaurant chosen by Bertie and his wife. We enjoyed a good chat and, in fact, were the last to leave the restaurant. 

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is our last full day's fishing so it's back to Zalk as it's the only place that has produced the goods so far this trip.