Missed Opportunities

Well after the modest success of the last post I was poised to build on that but as usual, it didn't go according to plan. I got back to the lake to discover that two anglers had moved into the swim I had vacated and bagged up with a good catch of double-figure bream. What's more, one of the anglers had stayed and was preventing me from getting back onto it so I had to find another spot. I chose a swim I'd never caught much from but that had produced some bream a week or so ago - the result? a blank! It was a bad blank too, in that I hardly even had a bleep the whole night and at six o'clock the next morning I made the decision to move.


The worst thing about this kind of pitch fishing is the moving. You have so much gear to break down, lug about and then set up again that it really puts you off. The end result is that most people, once settled in, never move at all. I chose another swim as far away from that one that I could get, right at the far end of the pit and the whole process probably took me a couple of hours. It was worth it, I got a tench of 6lb 13oz very quickly, but I then proceeded to make a complete mess of things.

The next bite resulted in another tench hooked. It was at long range and I did all the hard work, playing it in from seventy yards, steering it past the snags near the bank, and I had it beaten and wallowing under the rod-top only for the hook to pull out at the last moment. I cursed at that but an hour or two later I had a repeat performance, losing another tench as I was reaching for the net. Denis joined me and I got another run which I struck at but failed to connect. I discovered the problem when I reeled in. I had been using a single grain of plastic corn on the hair along with three real grains and the plastic corn had been pierced by the hookpoint, masking it completely!

Denis took a small tench in the evening but it was another very quiet night for the pair of us. Dawn broke with another tench apiece, Denis's went 6lb 7oz and I got a nice surprise with mine when, after a terrific scrap I realised it was a big male of 6lb 9oz, the biggest male tench I've had from this pit. The morning ended with another failure though when I struck at a bite only for the hooklength to break after a couple of seconds. The line looked as though it has been cut and I do suspect that a pike was the culprit, especially since fishmeal boilie had been the hookbait.

Overall the session was a bit of a failure, but I did enjoy the surroundings. The bird life at this pit is quite breathtaking with green woodpeckers, chaffinches, linnets and bullfinches in abundance. The bullfinches in particular are spectacular birds but they are very shy and I couldn't get close enough for a picture. Here's a shot of a bold cock chaffinch for you to enjoy though.