Bad luck and frustration!

Sunday 11th April

The weather had cooled dramatically for todays trip, even though the sun was still out the wind had swung around and had a real nip to it. Nonetheless, I joined my mate Paul back on the club lake with some Tench firmlyin my sights.

I opted for my trusty bolt-feeder and maggot tactics again and, as i was fishing the margins, i sprinkled a liberal dose of groundbait over each rod to hopefully hold any passing fish patrolling along the margin. Within 10 minutes my right hander was away and a fish was on, not for long though because the 5lb hooklink parted like cotton.
It was my own fault for using an old rig from my previous trip, im normally pretty hot on tying fresh rigs and checking my setup for weak spots but in my rush to setup i never bothered to check on this occasion and it cost me a fish, bugger!

I quickly retied both rods up and recast. Once again, after about 10 minutes i was away again, this time on my right hander. The run stopped as i picked the rod up and i found myself connected to a snag and after a quick tussle i was soon landing a prime tree branch of about a pound! Oh well, at least there seemed to be a few fish moving.

Another take on my left hander about half an hour later saw me connected to what was obviously a Carp which took off on an unstoppable run down the margin and under the trees. Despite exerting as much pressure as i dared it wasnt to be, the hooklink went again leaving me cursing my luck and most annoyed at leaving another hook in a fish.

After this i decided to beef up the gear a bit by fishing 10lb straight through to the hook in the hope of actually landing something at some point. Soon enough the left hand rod tip suddenly yanked around and i was into another Carp. I managed to turn it away from the trees and soon had it under the rod tip. It looked a fairly decent fish of around 15lb or so but it wasnt beaten yet. It made a last ditch lunge for some tree roots and unfortunately made it despite me bending the rod to the cork to try and stop it. I could feel the line grating through the roots before the inevitable happened and everything went slack.

I was gutted, even though i was there for the Tench, a bonus carp wouldve been nice. Thats the trouble with fishing lighter gear for the Tench, any Carp hooked give you the right runaround . I went to see Paul who had just moved due to a lack of activity in his starting swim. He too was fishing with maggots and soon caught a nice dark female Tench of about 5 1/2lb.
Inspired by his success i headed back to my peg not before stopping at a known spotting tree for a quick peek at the shallows to see if there was any kippers having a mooch. Sure enough after about 5 minutes, a fat mirror Carp waddled into view followed by a larger sleeker common which i put at around 20-22lb. I went back to my peg to grab some bait to trickle in over them, this was the first oportunity id had to watch fish feeding since last summer so i wasnt gonna miss it.

I waited for the fish to move off before dropping a couple of handfuls of maggots and some pellets in directly beneath the tree i was stood in. within minutes the fish were back along with two more and made several passes over the bait before the fat one stopped and up-ended on it. Puffs of silt wafted up as the fish worked its way over the baited area, it was great to watch.
I suddenly occurred to me that perhaps i could put one of these fish on the bank, even though it was impossible to get to the fish from either side of the trees i was stood in from the bank, i could get to them from the tree itself. If i hooked one it would be a case of jumping in the lake where i would be able to safely net it. The water under the trees wasnt even waist deep so i decided to give it a shot.

To cut a long story short, i spent about 3 hours up that tree trying to catch those fish. Despite the hookbait getting picked up at least 4 times i never hooked up and by the end of it i was pulling whats left of my hair out in sheer frustration!
Its amazing how a fish can pick up every scrap of bait in a swim apart from the hookbait, the amount of times they visited the baited area and got away with it was unbelievable. Just makes you wonder how often they get away with it in situations where we cant see them.

Even though i didnt catch i saw several interesting things that got me thinking, as usual, ill be back!