Sunday 6th January - Apex Lake pleasure session

With no Club Match on this week up I was undecided what to do up until the Saturday. During the week I was thinking about fishing the Saturday Open at Acorn as the wife was working or book into Summerhayes for the Sunday Open. I really wanted to fish for some proper Silvers though and finally narrowed my choice down to two venues, Apex Lake in Highbridge or the River Kenn. I bought some caster, maggot and groundbait from Cadbury Angling on the Saturday afternoon, I had some worm and dead reds at home so I was fully armed for a pleasure session.... somewhere.
I fancied the upper reaches of the Kenn up by the Cross Waters and took a look on the way home from the tackle shop. It looked fairly good, nice clour but just a little too pacey with the old River Kenn coming into to it and the ditch opposite also in full flow due to all the water draining off the moors, by Wednesday it would be spot on if it remained dry, I will be back though befor the end of the river season. That was that then, Apex it was.

Alarm went off 06:40, got up 07:50, well no rush today. Even when I was packing the car I was still being drawn to the Kenn! A short trip down the M5, 7.5 degrees and a bit foggy, arrived in the lake car park at 09:00 ish. On arrival there were loads of guys about, car boots open, it looked like there was a match on. Upon further examination it was loads of guys out 'twitching' bird watching. I asked one of them what were they looking at / for, he replied some kind of birds name, he could see I looked puzzled and then said a big f*****g angry gull to you lol.

I decided to fish in the narrow part of the lake nearest the sea, John Wolstencroft and I had done well in this area before. There were only 3 other anglers on the lake, 2 piking (didn't know there were pike in here) and 1 carping, all on the far side and down towards the boating lake end so plenty of room.

I was fishing by 10:15, 1 rig fished at 12:00 and 14:00, same depth approx 5', 4 x 14, with 0.13 main and 0.10 trace with a drennan 18 silver fish, thats as technical as it gets, oh and fished at 14m.

Groundbait mix was Sensas Nore and Greem Stim. 2 cup fulls in on both lines with caster and a few dead reds. Straight out at 12:00 with a live maggot and I was in to a small skimmer straight away, same secon put in, 3rd put in bumped a good bream.

Tried the 14:00 line, nothing and did not get a bite from it alL day.

I re-fed a little more GB and went back out with double caster, skimmer and a few more but bumped another good fish. Trouble was my lightest elastic was Preston Blue Hollow, I left a top 3 at home with  No.5 pure latex.

Anyway I had bites all day on varous baits and all from the one line. Finished the day just after 15:00, managed to persuade a passing youth to take the pic below, he seemed a bit reluctant or was he thinkin of running off with the camera. I ended up with just over 12lb but should have been around 20lb had I had the right elastic.

Club Match next Sunday on Woodlands Lake Trinity Waters.