The Reservoir does not open until 8 am so half a breakfast on the way down the M5 in the Services. On arrival in the car park at the venue there were about 8 vehicles and after going up to the Lodge to get a day ticket (£7.50) I noticed there where a few swims across on the far side so made the decision to fish the first one immediately at the end of the dam wall.
On the way across a Canada Goose mum was out with her two chicks.
It did not take long to set up as I only intended to fish the Feeder. Ground Bait was a Sensas Lake base with Sensas Roach and Brown Crumb to bulk it out a bit. I also soaked some maggot to make them floaters for the hook. The peg was just as I like it and was able to get down in the water.
I clipped up at a distance of about 50 yards picking the flag pole of the sailing club as my marker. You would think it would be fairly deep near the dam but I had no more than about 6 feet. First chuck with a feeder full of caster and hemp I had the rattle on the tip indicating small fish attacking the bait. I hit it anyway but did not connect. The second cast was more successful connecting with a small skimmer of around 4 ozs. This continued for about 30 minutes and I decided to put 3 casters on the 14 hook which resulted in a nice steady pull round of the tip and I hit what I knew to be a bream. It was soon netted and a nice fish of about 3 lbs. There was a nice ripple on the water which was helpful as it was warming up a bit with the sun coming out behind the decreasing clouds.
Bringing in a small fish the line went solid and I had a pike bite through the line after a short tug of war. This happened another 3 times during the 6 hour session (never had this before at the venue).
Fed up with small fish I put a double red worm on and this brought me another slow but sure pull around. Connecting with the fish it held bottom for few seconds and then just moved very slowly. it felt a heavy fish and took its time to co-operate with me. When I got it near the net I could see its was a decent bream of between 4 and 5 lbs. Netting it I could see it had just finished spawning as it was very scabby and rough.
Swapping hook baits and compressing the ground bait more in the feeder brought me a few more skimmers and decent roach up until about 13:00 and then the ripple went leaving the surface flat calm.
Decent fish were hard to come by but I kept adding 4 oz roach and skimmers up until 15:00 when I ran out of caster.
There was no one close by to take a pick of the catch so had to make do with this shot after putting them in the landing net.
Some more outings next week before the Bristol City Docks 'knock' up on Thursday and Gloucester Canal match on Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment