Full Moon Party

With the tail end of the hurricane hitting the UK, the weather was not the best conditions that I had been fishing in but with dropping pressure and the new moon arriving on Sunday night – I couldn’t resist.

Not surprisingly finding the lake almost empty with my mate and only one other up there, I had a whole side of the lake to myself. Instantly slipping on the polarised glasses and looking for any tail tale signs of fish movements – 4 fish rolled simultaneously about 50 yards out which I knew was just short of a drop off.

 Loading both rods with hinged stiff rigs and mainline pop ups – I hit the spot, one either side of where I saw the ripples and put just over half a kilo of cell boilies and spread them about the area of a snooker table.

Making sure that the tent was well and truly pegged down and strapped up to the nearest tree – the wind seemed to be picking up and blowing all over the place – had just enough time to bring the kettle to the boil before the right hand rod let out a few beeps and pinned the bobbin tight to the rod. After lifting into the fish the line was kiting back towards the other baited rod so applying more pressure – the fish came in easily and gave a small bulge to the bottom of the net. At just over 10lb, it was a nice start to the evening and as another angler came over to say that that was the first carp to be caught all weekend –I couldn’t complain. Re-baiting and sending the rod back out to the baited area – the next trap was set.

The rest of the evening past with talk of the moon and if it actually made any difference to the feeding patterns of fish. We both came to the conclusion that a lot more investigating need to be done and that we should start a log. The night drew on and nothing but the odd bosh could be heard about the ever increasing wind speed.

Half asleep and still wondering if the tent was going to blow away – the right hand rod let out a series of beeps and stopped, the bobbin remained in the same position and thought that a twig had hit the line. But all of a sudden the line peeled steadily from the reel indicating a fish was on. This fish gave a slow plodding thumping which gave me great confidence that this was much better quality and had thoughts running through my mind that this could be one of the 30lb+. After a very easy battle and practically reeling it straight in, I lifted the net into a very healthy looking common carp.

Dropping the scales at 23lb – this was one of the better looking fish that I have caught. Now all I have to think about is if it was down to the fact that the bait was cast to showing fish or if fishing while to moon is out really does affect the fishing.

More fishing is needed to decide the outcome but one thing is for sure – the pop ups seems to be doing the bizz for me right now!

RED LETTER DAY???

The weekend finally came that we had been planning all year. The chance to fish my mates- work colleagues’ “garden pond”. It turned out to be a 2 acre lake that only had 12 members and stuffed full of carp, tench and bream. They really had no idea how many fish were in there and when asked about the size, they shook their heads and said some nice fish??!

So after our tour of the lake, there seemed to be only 8 swims and were told that we could only fish the two nearest the house as some members were arriving later that day. I opted to fish the shallower end as I had seen several fish moving around on the surface.

Setting Cell pop-ups on each rod and flicking to some showing fish, I had a run a run within 20 seconds, a nice fully scaled 4lb mirror. Not a bad start to 36hrs of some idealist fishing. When the tent was finally up, I had already banked 6 carp to 10lb and each one was a golden bronzed colour - picture perfect fish.

As night fell – I was seriously thinking to drop down to one rod otherwise, if the action was to continue as it had done, I would not be getting any sleep. As it happened, there was not even a beep from either rod the whole night and caught up on some much needed sleep. Re-casting at first light seemed to revitalise the constant bites and this continued throughout the morning and into the afternoon. Fish after fish was being caught all between 10-14lb.

The other members did not turn up and I was permitted to fish further round in the lake and so I opted to move into the deeper water in the hope of attracting some bigger fish. Locating some likely looking spots with the marker, the baits were once again positioned and the wait once again was less than 5 minutes. For the next 2 hrs, all I could catch were bream and tench – was this the right move really? I was starting to have my doubts when the left hand rod screamed off and lent into something a lot bigger.  The fish seemed to come in far too easily and just as the fish was in the net, one last lunge for freedom and ........ The hook pulled and its tail gave me a little wave flicking the side of the net. Felling very down hearten, that fish would have easily gone 20lb+, but at least the fish were getting bigger and the move was worth it.

Night was fast approaching and the fish were still coming think and fast but nothing of any substantial size. Still persisting with the Cell pop ups and putting out a kg of cell 14mm over each rod I hoped to feed off the smaller fish and get the big boys in on the action. Sadly, all this did was to increase the number of actual fish I was to have in the evening. Morning broke and 15 more fish had graced the net but nothing larger than 15lb.

Packing up in the afternoon and tallying up the list of fish and weights, my mate had caught 35 fish but I had caught over 50 fish with a personal total weight of 500lb. This must be the best total weight I had ever caught.  I don’t think that I would be able to fish like that every time i went fishing but was a very special trip none the less.

As near a red letter day as I have come close to! All down to the Cell and its Mainline magic.