Lure Magic!

Kevin and I fished at Blithfield at the weekend. It was a dire do with strong northerly winds and occasional heavy showers, some of them with lumps in. We caught nothing, in common with most people, but all the while I had my eye on the weather. The temperature nationwide was on the rise and with a little rain in places I reasoned that the pike just might be on the feed.

I needed a bit of a lie-in after Blith so it was early afternoon on Monday when Denis and I arrived at our chosen venue. The plan was simple, we were to fish lures until dark, that's it. When we arrived at the water's edge we could see that the fishery was rather busy. Most anglers were fishing for small stuff with float and feeder tactics so we had to thread ourselves in between these to find enough space to cast our lures without disturbing them too much.

I managed to get my first choice swim but poor Denis found someone was fishing his and he had to settle for another one. I clipped on a replicant, cast it out and started the retrieve, a retrieve which lasted only a few seconds before the rod was wrenched round and something big and angry began cavorting wildly at the end of the line. The heavy weight told me at once that this was a big fish but it was no match for my heavy lure gear and I had it in the net very quickly. Denis came over to assist with the weighing and took a few photographs for me. 25lbs 5oz on the very first cast, a terrific start to our trip!

We fished on until dark as planned but no more fish came to either of us and after a celebratory drink in the pub we retired early, having set out our plans for tuesday.
Those plans involved a dawn start at another venue, this time with deadbaits as the first line of attack and since we were staying some distance from the water we would have to get a very early start.

Six-thirty the following morning found us at the water's edge once again. We'd yomped over a mile to get to the spot we wanted and we were relieved to find it unoccupied. I gave Denis the first choice of swim (secretly knowing which one he would choose) and set up in another one. Legered smelt was my chosen method and since the fish here come in very close I lowered it in as quietly as I could, clipped on the bobbin and sat on the grass well back from the water's edge. Half an hour later all I had was a cold bum so I reeled in the deadbait and covered the swim with a lure for ten minutes before moving to another spot, passing a snoozing Denis along the way.

Another half hour went by and I repeated the performance, reeling in the bait rod and fishing a lure over the area where the bait had been. Denis was back in the land of the living by this time and he moved swims too. This was the chance I was waiting for. I walked down to the swim he'd just vacated and started covering the water with my lure. Third cast I was into a pike. It was only a small one, just short of nine pounds but at least I was off the mark and I ribbed Denis about catching a fish from the spot he'd just left.

I moved to another spot and before long Denis did too. 'Time for a repeat performance.' I thought and so I reeled in, picked up my lure rod once more and set about covering the area Denis had been fishing just moments earlier. First cast I had an upper double-figure pike miss the lure just as I was about to lift it out of the water. I cast several times more in the hope that I could get it to take but instead all that happened was that another pike, a little smaller this time, followed right to the bank. I had two pike in the swim and both were up for a feed, surely I could catch at least one of them!

I cast again but the lure stopped dead just ten yards out from the bank. I was puzzled. It had felt like a gentle take but there was no kicking or head shaking, just what seemed like a massive dead weight slowly coming towards me. Was it a fish? Was it a submerged branch that I had hooked? I pulled hard and the weight responded with two great ponderous thumps on the rod - this was no branch!

The fight was unspectacular, just dogged and it was over soon enough. I had a hairy moment when the landing net became entangled with some brambles at the water's edge but Denis saw my plight and came to my rescue, freeing the net and scooping up the fish for me - and what a fish it was, long and thickset with two-tone colouration on its head. We hoisted her up on the scales and read off a weight of 27lbs 4oz. This was turning out to be a memorable trip.

We fished on until eleven but had no more takes either to baits or lures so we did a bit of reccying, looking at some new water we intend to fish at some point before having a bite to eat and driving to our next venue. This was in fact the same place we'd fished the day before and when we arrived we could see that there were only two people fishing. One guy told us he's had a good catch of perch but the angler next to him said there was a pike in his swim. We walked off to a spot where a match had been won with a decent weight of small fish at the weekend. The water here was shallow but if there was food, there might well be a pike or two. We settled into adjacent swims and put down our gear.

I took out a pristine replicant given to me by a friend, Karl Devlin, and clipped it on. Seconds later it was in the jaws of a 19lb 3oz pike which had taken it on the first cast. Poor Denis hadn't even set his rod up by this time and could only stare open-mouthed as I heaved the thrashing creature to the bank.

No more fish came from that spot so we went back to the spot where the fishermen were having pike trouble and got into the swims either side of them. I put on a bulldawg this time and lobbed it out into the deep water. Once again it was taken first cast and I landed a stunning looking fish of 23lbs 5oz, what a day this was turning out to be!

Denis dropped down to a spot further down the bank from me while I continued to cast different lures in the swim I was in but before long the anglers fishing above me started to pack up and I called Denis to let him know as he wanted to fish their swim to see if he could catch their troublesome pike. He came up past me and chatted to them as they put away their gear. This was my chance once again and I moved down to the swim Denis had just vacated. Half an hour of casting with my lure and with the light starting to fade I was suddenly into a big fish. I could see that this fish was lightly hooked and I quickly hustled it into the net whereupon the lure fell out of it's mouth.

I called Denis and he came down to help with weighing and photographing this one, it went 26lbs 9oz and it completed one of my best ever day's fishing. Sadly I can't show you a picture of this one as all the photographs were spoiled due to a camera setting error.

Poor Denis hadn't had a fish all day. He'd repeatedly watched me drop into his swims and catch great big pike and he'd had to help me with landing, weighing, photographing and unhooking them while having no sport at all himself. He went back to his swim while I had a few last casts before packing my gear away in leisurely fashion. I loaded it all onto my back and stumbled along the bank in the near darkness but when I arrived at Denis's swim I got quite a shock. There he was stooping over a pike from which he was removing his hooks - and it had a head as big as a horse!

At the eleventh hour Denis had pulled one out of the bag and with his very last cast of the day he'd caught a fantastic pike weighing 27lbs 1oz.

Pure Lure Magic!

Grab a Granny

Winter finally arrived in early February and I decided to stick to stillwater fishing from the boat for now. Two trips have produced a total of eighteen pike, thirteen of them to me and the rest to Denis who only accompanied me on the second trip. It sounds like quite good fishing but in fact we're quite disappointed with our results as the average size of these fish was well below what we would normally expect. Fourteen of the pike were in double figures but only one went over fifteen pounds.

We've had most of the fish on static deadbaits, although I did pick up three of them on lures, replicants to be precise. The weather conditions have been quite tough with sub zero temperatures, snow and freezing rain but the water is still 4.5-5 degrees centigrade so turnover has not yet taken place. There are still a few more very cold days and nights to go so turnover is still possible but if it doesn't happen before the weather turns then it probably won't happen at all this year.

The weather caused us major problems, as it has most people. Launching the boat was a nightmare on the snow covered slipway and approach road. Even Denis's big four wheeled drive car was really struggling and when we came off the lake it was clear that we weren't going to be able to get the boat out so I've left it in the water chained to a jetty. The freezing rain was awful, everything became coated with a thick layer of ice, the boat, the rods, even the clothes we were wearing and it actually became painful to touch anything or pick something up.

I'll be back in a day or so when the ice has cleared to retrieve the boat and I might wet a line while I'm there but hopefully this run of mediocre fish will end and I'll hook into something more worthwhile. It's late season now and the fish are going to be very big. We've had enough of catching the juvenile pike, it's time to grab a granny!

The Big Switch

After the last report what do you think we went and did next? Well unsurprisingly Denis and I went back to the same place to try and do the same thing. It didn't work of course, someone had thrown the big switch, conditions were totally different and the pike were not there in numbers. We arrived at dawn and started lashing the water to a foam with our lures but just had one fish apiece, a sixteen pounder to Denis and a 17.13 to me and by mid-morning we moved on. We spent most of the rest of the day exploring a new venue, something I've done a great deal of this winter and while it was a very long walk, which took its toll on my poorly knee, we did like the look of what we saw.

Next morning we arrived before first light and were surprised to be apprehended by a bailiff before we'd even taken our gear out of the car - now that's keen! He checked our tickets which were all in order and he told us that there had been a serious problem with foreign anglers poaching the fishery in recent weeks so he was being extra vigilant. If only all bailiffs were as good as that.

We stumbled down the bank to the waters edge through grass that was white with hoar frost and we both managed only with great difficulty to get our bank sticks into the frozen ground. This was the hardest frost I'd seen all winter and it came as quite a surprise after the recent mild conditions. The water was low and very clear and I didn't hold out much hope when the sun came bursting over the horizon into a cloudless sky. By eleven o'clock we were both still fishless and there were absolutely no signs of fish life so we called it a day. Best to wait until the conditions were just right again.

It's been quite a while since I got the boat out and since I was keen to give the engine a run I decided that I would go afloat this week and see if I could snag a pike or two. The lake's been fishing very badly so I wasn't expecting too much but when I arrived and saw that there were no cars at all parked up I knew it was going to be a tough couple of days. This time last year there would have been four or five anglers out fishing but it seems word has got around - they just aren't having it.

I fished the first day for no reward, dropping into banker swim after banker swim without so much as a twitch on my floats and at the end of it I retired a little despondent. Kevin was due to join me the next day and I was looking forward to that, we don't get to fish together often enough, but I was afraid we would both blank. I didn't sleep well, the rain hammering on the roof of the car saw to that but Kevin arrived bright and early and we were soon anchored up in yet another spot that, over the years, has brought good results.

Dawn broke and before long I spotted a familiar sight making its way across the smooth surface of the lake. It was an otter, the first I've seen here but as regular readers will know, not the first I've seen by a long way. It seems I just can't get away from them these days, that's four different venues I've seen otters this season alone.

We moved on, then we moved on again and again. We spent some time just cruising slowly, trying to find pike or bait fish on the sounder but we found very little and eventually Kevin persuaded me to try a new spot, one I hadn't fished before. It was an inspired choice as within five minutes of casting in had a low double on a mackerel head. We hung around for some time expecting at any moment to pick up another fish but it wasn't to be and eventually we up anchored and moved on once more.

I decided we'd end the day in a familiar swim, one I'd fished quite a few times but one which I never see anyone else fishing. I didn't really expect anything to happen, they just weren't feeding so I got quite a shock when my float dipped and sailed under. The shock only got bigger when I wound down to this fish and the rod stopped dead on the strike - this was a good 'un!

I heaved the fish towards the boat and both Kevin and I strained to see the creature through the crystal clear water. We both gulped when it came into view, thrashing and head shaking as it tried to remove the hooks, yes it was a good 'un alright. I pulled hard and the fish broke surface whereupon Kevin scooped it up at the first attempt. It was hooked on just the one treble, neatly in the scissors and I flicked that out before hoisting the beast up on the scales.

28lbs 4oz. I was so glad I'd made the big switch and got the boat out!

Once in a While...

I know I moan a bit in this blog. The weather's always wrong or the levels aren't right or something else is giving me a good excuse for not catching. Just once in a while though, it actually all goes right and this past week that's what happened. That said, I got a little help from my friends.

The weather has remained mild but the strong winds and the rain have subsided now. That gave us a choice of where to fish but Denis and I weren't exactly spoiled for choice, we knew where to go. We got there quite early and, having a lot of water to explore we split up. The intention was to fish seperately for the morning and then meet up again at dinnertime and decide what to do next. I chose an area I'd fished before and was surprised to find another angler there when I arrived. He told me he'd had a mid double figure pike and we wished each other good luck as we each went about our fishing.

I dropped a legered sardine into a likely looking spot and didn't have long to wait. The bobbin was off within a few minutes and I pulled a 16lb 14oz pike to the bank. The fish was a bit of a mess I'm afraid, there were scars along its flanks and the bottom lobe of its tail was missing - definite otter damage. I put her back and moved on to another spot. Several spots and several moves later I had had no further action and as it was close to 12 o'clock I rang Denis and packed up to go and meet up with him.

Denis hadn't had anything and we decided to move on to a third place, a short drive away, to see what we could catch there. We had a bit to eat before setting off with our tackle on our backs and yomping across the fields. I left the first choice of swims to Denis and settled into a spot some three hundred yards away, again fishing static deadbaits. Before long the bailiff came by and we had a chat about the fishery and how it was fishing. He said he thought conditions were just perfect and I agreed, after all, that was why we had come here.

The bailiff set off along the bank checking members' licences but after half an hour or so he was back; "There's a chap along there having a bit of pike trouble." he told me, "Every time he hooks a roach a pike snatches it off his line." I didn't need an invite, the deadbaiting had produced nothing so I quickly packed up and set off with the intention of offering to catch this pike for him and get it out of his swim - I'm kind like that. When I got there though, I discovered that I wasn't the only generous soul on the bank, Denis was already there standing next to the roach fisherman - and he had a bent rod in his hand!

I helped Denis land the pike, an upper double, and he told me he's taken it on a lure on his first cast. The roach fisherman wasn't impressed however; "That isn't it," he said, "The pike I've been seeing is bigger." While Denis was unhooking his fish I decided to try to help the old guy out myself and began wobbling a herring through the swim. Nothing happened and before too long Denis had his pike returned and was ready again with his lure. He cast it in and once again he was into a pike.
It seemed it was lures they wanted and that left me with a problem - I hadn't brought any!

I put my hang-dog face on, cadged Denis's only other suitable lure off him and wandered off along the bank before settling in about a hundred yards away and lobbing out the lure. The switch from deadbaiting to lure fishing produced a spectacular result and I took a low double on the very first cast. Second cast the lure was taken on the drop and I landed another sixteen pound fish. Meanwhile Denis was into something much bigger and, dropping back my fish unweighed I went along to help. This pike went 24lbs 8oz, a super fish but the day wasn't over yet.

Over the next two hours before dark we continued to catch pike after pike, all of them over ten pounds and all of them on lures and by close of play when it was too dark to see we had amassed a catch of fourteen fish, five to Denis and nine to me. Two of Denis's fish broke the 20lb barrier and they both weighed 24lbs 8oz (different fish) while I too had a brace with fish of 20lbs 14oz and 23lbs 12oz. We finished the day delighted with our fishing and had a celebratory pint or two in the pub before retiring early for the night, keen for an early start next day.

Next morning we were on the bank before dawn and thrashing the water to a foam with our lures. Denis got off to a flyer with an eighteen pounder and followed it up quite quickly with a fine fish of 21lbs 12oz. I countered with yet another sixteen pounder but horror of horrors, it bit my lure in half! With no more suitable lures between us I set off to the tackle shop to buy some but when I got there I was disappointed. Despite the presence of a fantastic pike fishery right on their doorstep this shop catered only for the match angler. The choice of lures was restricted to a very big lipped rubber Storm lure, more suited to trolling than casting and a handfull of tiny spoons and jigs. I opted for the big one and took it back to the bankside.

First cast with this lure it was grabbed but the fish came unstuck after a few seconds. I cursed myself for not checking the hooks when I realised they were quite small and quite blunt and I replaced one of them with a hook from the damaged lure and touched up the other with a diamond hook sharpener. I was soon into another fish and pulled in yet another sixteen pounder on the new lure but a few casts later I hooked and lost another pike. It seems the profile of this lure wasn't a good one and it was a poor hooker. What's more it was very heavy and had a lumpy action so I was tiring quickly as I was using it.

Denis came down the bank, he'd cast his lure into a snag and lost it so that was it for him. He discounted the idea of buying a lure like the one I had since he could see I was struggling with it and his recent tennis elbow was starting to flair up again. I had a follow on the lure, a big fish, certainly well over twenty pounds but it didn't take and then a short while later I hooked and lost yet another fish.

We decided to call it a day at this and set off to fish the area I fished on the morning of the first day, a place where we knew we could catch on deadbaits. We only had one more pike there though and it turned out to be the same pike I had caught there the day before, the one with half a tail. It seems it wanted to get its own back on me for as I was taking out the hooks it thrashed madly and drove a barbed size four deep into my middle finger of my right hand. The hook was in deep and there was no way it was coming out so that was it for the day. I drove Denis home then took myself off to hospital to get it removed.

Was I bothered? Well after the fishing we had just had, with nineteen double figure pike, five of them over twenty pounds NO WAY!

Backyard Fishing

Crikey what weather we've had. Back in September they warned that we were going to have yet another severe winter with sub-zero temperatures and snow. What we have had so far is, if anything, worse than that with storm after storm crossing the British Isles flooding the rivers and making it impossible to take the boat out. It seems every river in the country has been on a rollercoaster ride rising fast on minute and then dropping the next and catching the river right in such circumstances is nigh on impossible. My one trip to a river was fruitless, the water was high, coloured and rising and I blanked.

The only alternative has been to fish relatively local waters and take what I could get, which is usually not a lot in northwest stillwaters although I've had fish at least. The water I've been targetting is quite a large one, a reservoir but despite its size (54 acres) I've seen the water level rise by more than six feet over the last two weeks and it is currently quite full with millions of gallons tipping over the overflow. Naturally enough the water has coloured up during the process and this has influenced my fishing style somewhat.

I've managed three trips to this lake, although one of them was curtailed when the weather turned nasty once again and I've had pike every time. The coloured water has led me to fish smelly deadbaits so sardines have been on the hooks each time and of course these have had to be on the bottom where the pike have a better chance of finding them. I've also fished at least one rod very close in each time. Here the water is shallow and the light has a better chance of penetrating the murk down to the bottom. Every fish I've had has come close in, usually just one or two rod lengths out.

Three doubles and a jack have come my way, the biggest weighing 15lbs 15oz. The fish have been well fed but they've not been in the best of condition and in particular two of them have had red sore disease. This is a bacterial infection which is reasonably common in pike which leads to a loss of scales, sometimes in big patches and bleeding. They do recover from it in time.

I've included two pictures of the largest, one of the good side and one of the diseased side.

2011

Well that's another year over (well almost). Not so much to look back on I guess but I do feel I'm at a turning point with my fishing for a variety of reasons. Recent fishing's been a bit dull really but much of that is weather related while the rest is down to the interference from the festive season.
The Big Lake is still fishing very poorly, Denis and I have managed just two fish between us in the last two trips but I do know of a very big fish that fell to a friend around three weeks ago. The rivers have been up and down like a fiddler's elbow and the one day I chanced it on a river it was far higher than I had hoped, leading to an expected blank.

Time to look back I think, let's review 2011, as far as it goes.

First Quarter
This is generally the time of year when I get some big bags of fish and the biggest pike of the season. 2011 was a let-down in this respect. It was a struggle for many after the severe cold that had frozen even the biggest lakes and rivers and I struggled rather myself. Fish came alright but it was hard and slow and the fish were smaller than usual. Upper doubles came to the boat including a fish over nineteen pounds but there were no twenty pounders and when at last it seemed that things were improving I had to stop fishing and start some work. March, April and May were then abandoned while I earned a few bob and later I discovered that I had missed out rather. It seems that the fish really turned on in late March with many big fish being caught - oh well, c'est la vie!

Second Quarter
With April and May mostly turned over to working (see above) I had a small window of opportunity to catch a big tench. I've been chasing a Northwest double for several years now and I believed it was possible at a new venue which I'd discussed with Denis. I was hopeful that Denis would do some work on this new place while I was still working but he chose to stick with our old water instead - and was rewarded with no tench at all.
When I finished wiork I hit this water hard, fishing five mornings a week, starting at dawn each day and moving from swim to swim until I found a spot where I could catch. When I did catch i was quite pleased with the result and as you may recall I took fish to 9lb 7oz with a very high average size. Denis struggled for a while but when he broke his duck he did so quite spectacularly, taking a monster of 11lb 12oz!

Third Quarter
Summertime as a quiet time for me. Mrs Edwards is on holiday during the summer as she is a teacher and I choose to spend my time with her when I can. A complicating factor this year was the marriage of my eldest daughter Sarah which took up a great deal of my time what with the organising and so on. After the wedding I took Mrs Edwards away to Madrid for a break then it was back to blighty, she went back to work and I tried for the Colemere bream.
My season on Colemere was more productive than the previous year with a pike, a perch, an eel, two tench and two bream falling to my rods, along with the ubiquitous roach. The bream are all supposed to be in doubles figures but I did manage to catch one of just five pounds. The other bream I caught was quite a different beast though and at a weight of 17lbs exactly it became my pb by nearly two pounds.

Fourth Quarter
I've been quite pleased with this period. I've been out to many new places and found some good areas on the rivers where I believe I'll go on to catch some big pike. Best fish from the new river so far is 18lbs 1oz but I know there are much bigger fish present and I'll keep plugging away until I get one.
Meanwhile, the trout waters have offered mixed results. Blithfield has been very poor all round and I've caught nothing there while my few days on Chew did at least bring a brace of twenties. It's odd that while I've fished at Chew almost every year, and caught a good number of twenty pounders from there, I've yet to break the 25lb barrier. Meanwhile, others break the 30lb barrier sometimes on their first trip!

So Now What?
Three months of the pike season left now as far as I'm concerned and my targets are clear. First and foremost a twenty from the new river is high on my list and I do feel quite confident about it. I still haven't had a twenty on a lure this season yet so that's another one to go for and there are still some trout water days left to fish.
After that I'm going to try very hard for that double figure tench. I have high hopes there after the past season.
I've dropped Colemere. I can't really justify the membership now that they've increased the cost by 50% and after all, I've had the fish I was after. There's another water appeared on the horizon though - watch this space!

Later in the year I also have new pike fishing venues to concentrate on. Like I said, it's all change this year and the likelihood is I'll either have a fantastic year or a totally dull one. That's ok you know, success or failure each in their own way are better than mediocrity!

Better Progress

Another trip to the new river saw me trying out some new areas in search of the fish. It was quite a walk to reach the spot I fancied so I travelled light, no brolly, no flask and no food. I was going to rely on my woolies and waterproofs to keep the weather at bay and the forecast had warned of strong winds and rain so I knew what to expect. Or at least I thought i did!

My research had suggested I might find some good swims in this area and when I arrived at the riverbank I wasn't disappointed. The fast water upstream had given way to a smooth glide with around 200 yards of slack water along my bank. There were many trees and bushes lining the bank so I couldn't access all of it but since many of those trees lay half on the bank and half in the water they added to the attractiveness for the pike.

The wind was fierce but thankfully it was coming off my back. I had no chair (saving on weight) so was forced to sit on the cold ground until the rain started - that's when I stood up so as not to get too wet. The first swim I tried was the widest one on the stretch with a large slack area just in front of me. I dropped in a legered smelt, put the rod on an alarm and clipped on a bobbin. Five minutes later the bobbin was off and dangling in the wind as line ran steadily from the spool. I pulled into the fish and was treated to a lively scrap before putting the net under a good double figure fish. At 16lb 9oz she was my best fish from the new river and was in superb condition, fat and solid with not a mark on her.

I carefully slipped the fish back and put another deadbait in the same spot before huddling down under the high bank in an effort to shelter from the storm force winds. Half an hour passed with no further action and I decided to try another of the many fishable swims I had available. The next swim produced nothing though and after another half an hour I moved on once more. Swim number three was a tricky one, a bush trailing in the water just to the left and a fallen tree in the river to the right made it a tight spot and the bank was high. It was going to have to be hit and hold tactics here and then netting a fish would be a problem.

I lowered a sardine in just a few feet from the bank in seven feet of water, attached the bobbin and sat back. Two dogs on the far bank took exception to my presence here and stood barking for all they were worth although the roar of the wind sometimes drowned out their noise. I pulled my hood up as the rain grew heavy and watched as they got wet, stupid creatures!

Then the bobbin was off again and my only thought was to hit this fish before it could reach the sanctuary of the fallen tree.

I held hard, not giving an inch but the fish was powerful and the 3lb test curve rod buckled madly in my hand as the pike twisted and turned in the clear water. I prayed that the hooks would hold fast during that initial surge and they did, turning the fish away from the tree and back towards me where it could do little other than wallow, its energy all spent in that first rush. I had to lie flat on my belly to net her due to the high bank and then haul her up. It was good fish but on taking out the hooks which were just in the scissors I could see there was another trace inside her.

Normally I can remove any trace no matter how deep but this one was hopeless. So deep was it that only around four inches of tracewire were showing poking out of the throat along with the swivel. Teasing up the trace I could see I was never going to get this one out and so I left it where it was. The wire on it was feeble, maybe just ten pound bs and the swivel was a cheap barrel swivel. No proper pike angler would use such gear and I wondered how it had got inside this fish. There was no line at all on the swivel so I guess the angler had taken as much care with his knot tying as he had with his tackle selection.

The fish weighed 18lbs 1oz and I took a couple of pics to show you but they turned out a bit odd for reasons I don't quite understand. They were badly overexposed so I've had to darken them a bit but they aren't as I would like.

No more fish on the new river and next day I had a day on the Severn again. This was to be another Severn disappointment with three fish coming to the bank on deadbaits but none of them very big. The biggest just scraped over ten pounds and I'm thinking we should give up on the upper Severn as we're just not finding any better fish.

Just For a Change
Denis and I took the boat out on the big lake this week as well. It was all a bit slow with just a handful of jacks to both of us until late on the second day when I had a nice 16lb 15oz fish, again on a sardine. We had struggled to find the fish and it came as no surprise that no-one else fished the lake at all during those two days - it's obviously not fishing well.
When we did find them it was late on the second day and we couldn't make the most of it. No prospect of fishing another day with yet more gales due so we headed home.

That's ten doubles so far for the season, six of them over 15lbs so things are starting to take shape. If the weather holds out we could be in for some good fish I think!