With high winds and heavy rain at the beginning of the week and not that much motivation after the hard going on my last trip, it wasn’t until Wednesday that I finally got the rods out.
And after an hour and a half of searching for good signs of Carp with the Chirp. I finally settled on a swim by the island, my previous trip on here had revealed either a shelf for the Carp to feed on or an amazing drop-off. Both these features would produce Carp in the right conditions over the Winter months.
I set up my rods as normal and flicked them out both with PPS pop-ups. One on the bottom of the drop-off and the other on the shelf and catapulted some 8mm Catalyst pellets.
I’d purposely got these for this lake with my last order. Within 10 to 15 minutes, I was getting liners and not long after that my first take.
A lovely Mirror, but before I got a chance to do anything the other rod was away with a Common!
I quickly sorted out the photos and got the fish back. I sorted the rods out and was just catapulting more pellets out and the right rod was off again, with another Common.
Wow, that was a mad 30 minutes, may get a chance to finish my cold coffee!
It all went a bit dead when the rain arrived and I had to wait until 1230 for my next take.
Another small Common to the list and that was the last take of the day. This was a good 4 hrs worth of fishing and I was just hoping for one fish.
I would like to give a brief snap shot of my life and introduce myself;
My name is Richard Handel and was born in 1965 in Suffolk. I have worked as a UK Operation & Intermodule Manager for a shipping company. I live in Hampshire now and am married with 2 young children, both girls so I am a bit outnumbered even the cat is a girl!
I have been fishing since I was about 7 years old. I started on small local rivers in Suffolk, then moved onto gravel pits and then carp fishing. My personal best is a 39.08 mirror, over recent years I have started river fishing again, on the Hampshire Avon, this is a nice break from the carp lakes.
My life has turned a big corner this year, the company I was working for relocated their Operation centre to Estonia. I was offered a job at the head office in London. This would have meant a 5 day commute and working in Stratford. As a family, we did not fancy this, as I would hardly spend any time with the children (and the Mrs). So after 22.5 years, I was given a nice redundancy package and with my wife is working full time. I became the house husband.
This has meant a complete turn around in my fishing, as I can pick and choose when I go. I have found a splendid new syndicate to fish this year, which includes 5 lakes and some 8 miles of river with only 150 members. It's an amazing change to the way I am able to fish.
I am now trying to start my own tackle business and make a bit of a name for myself in the world of fishing, as I have retired from real work.
Richard