Another Quick One!

Monday, left it till later in the day starting the session at around two thirty. Dan was on peg one so I stopped to catch up on things and we were shortly joined by Barry, I dropped my stuff onto peg two and put a couple of lines out before rejoining the social, it wasn't long before I heard some intermittent beeps from one of the alarms so ran to investigate, I picked up the rod and felt a bit of weight but it soon became apparent that a tuftie had tangled itself in my line midway between the rod and rig, I quickly untangled the poor thing and it swam away fine.
The rod was put back on the spot, I put another fresh PVA bag out on my second rod and returned to the top of the bank to continue the chat with Dan. After a short while, I heard the alarm sound again, this time on the bottom bait, I struck and immediately felt several good thumps back up the line and thought, tench!
As Tench go, it was a good hard scrap but two and three quarter test rods don't do them justice, the fish was a good size though. (Cheers Dan for taking the photo)

I gave it another hour then made a move around to the disabled peg to get onto the back of the strong cold wind, I thought the wind had got a bit warmer earlier on but with this peg being exposed to the southerly wind it felt very chilly on my back.
I saw a few bubblers in that bay but had no takes.

Bite time!

Saturday afternoons session ended in a blank and it was bloody freezing when I left the lake, I was half expecting to find some ice on the lake today but the sun was very warm when I set up at the back of the island, I'd had a good look through my diaries this morning and I fancied a go from the peg I built a couple of winters ago and I've done well with early season fish from this corner of the lake in the past.
The usual pop up and bottom baits went out to known clear spots and the wait began. The sun was lovely and warm and I was sure that this corner of the lake would receive a visit from a hungry fish or two with the amount of sun it was receiving, the water temperature must have been a degree or two higher in this corner but all that visited my baits were the tufties. I kept an eye on the ducks as they surfaced in case they'd been spooked by something else feeding in the cloud they were making.
Several hours passed very quickly and I remained fishless, I made a quick move to where I'd caught last week and was set up and cast out ready to see if 'bite time' would be the same. It was only a few minutes later than last week when one of the bobbins hit the front of the alarm as a fish pulled the tip round, this was no tufted duck. The fish felt heavier than last week and put up a good scrap, this was no Tench either, it wasn't long before I had a Carp safely in the folds of my net.

A lovely plump common of 12lb 8oz.

About half an hour later I hit another run off the same spot but something I hadn't done before casting out was check the hook point, it was blunt!

This one got away.

Ryton Twenty Ten Carp Account - Open!

Even though it's not quite spring, I've started my campaign for the Ryton Carp.
I started early on Saturday and used pop up boilies on one rod, bottom bait and PVA stick on the other and cast these towards areas that were clouded up by the feeding tufties, these spots have accounted a few early season Carp for me on previous seasons and even though you have to put up with the constant line bites and pick ups from the ducks it's somewhere to start. After a couple of fishless hours I moved to another swim with the hope that the sunny spells would start to warm the shallower water unfortunately the wind swung round and picked up slightly and was now blowing straight onto my sunny spot. With the wind having a cold bite to it I made a move to another swim that enabled me to cast to the calm areas sheltered from the wind with a hope that the fish would be there.
Early afternoon saw the session finish on a blank and after seeing the forecast for the Sunday I didn't think I'd be fishing again this weekend.
The heavy rain had past over our region early this morning and the wind was a lot lighter than the forecast so I made my way back to Ryton for another Carp session. I stayed on the back of the wind again and used the same combinations of pop ups and bottom baits to target the same spot's as yesterday. It was only after I made a move that I struck gold with the first fish of the day. The tufties were having a good root around the area of my pop up and at first I thought one of them had picked up my bait as the bobbin was making some very erratic movements, I picked up the rod and started to reel in the bait but couldn't feel anything, then everything went very heavy and I could feel something kick and then kite off to my left, at last a Carp!. The Carp had picked the bait up and bolted straight towards me pulling the top bead off my leader and up the main line, hence the weird indication.

A nice way of finding out how safe my rigs are!

A small Common weighing in at 9lb.

There was still some bird activity over the spot so I put the same pop up out again, I'd only just sunk the line and set the rod on the pod before it rattled off on another run. It didn't feel as big this time and after a short tussle I had the fish in the net.

The Tench at Ryton are always welcome.

Ryton 2010 Carp account - Open!