Location Airfield Lake

Hours – 72

Swim Big Gravel

It’s Bank Holiday weekend, so time for a social with Ian.  We meet up at 11 am on the Thursday before the May holiday weekend, in order to get a head start on all the other anglers.  The weather conditions are not looking too great, the wind all over the place and we are still getting frosty mornings at the moment, but in this day and age, we are happy with any time on the bank.

We decided that it would be a good idea to fish back to back; with one of us fishing the middle lake and the other fishing the large part.  This would help Ian in the future to work out where the carp feed, at the moment they’re certainly not playing ball.

I was fishing an area which had previously produced carp for me.  I baited up with my mixture of 12mm Smokey Jack, Catalyst and Classic Corn boilies with added Crusted peanuts and Tiger nut, all soaked in tiger nut juice for the past 4 day’s.  I was very hopefully that a carp would be attracted into the area and be tempted into feeding.  My hook baits were 20mm Catalyst and Classic wafters, which may surprise you, but I was looking for something that would stand out from everything else on the lake bed.

The sunset was absolutely gorgeous this evening.  Hopefully a carp would grace our nets tonight.

There was not a bleep between us overnight.  The wind had dropped and the air felt warm.  I was feeling a lot more confident, that these conditions will bring the carp on to feed.

The wind was a gentle breeze and the sun was nicely warming up the water, they just had to be getting active soon.

I decided it would be a good time to put fresh bait on and swapped things about a bit to see if I could encourage a bite.  A little bit of rain was forecast for an hour and I’m hoping this will also help bring some action our way.

After an afternoon of showers, the sky cleared and there was a very hard frost again.  Again, my rods were bleep free.  Not looking good at the moment, which is shame, but you can’t pick the weather conditions when you organize to going fishing.

The third and final night past with only the sound of geese fighting and the early morning calls from the cuckoos over the lake.

Ian had a 14lber at just before 5 am and then a lovely 20+ Common just before 7 am

He was over the moon, after a few very hard days and nights, in not particularly the best conditions.  At one point yesterday, I was in my t-shirt baking hot, the wind picked up, the clouds arrived and it felt like the darkest depths of winter again.  I was back wearing my winter jacket, thinking this is ridiculous and wondering why you were bothering.  Two hours later we were sitting in the sunshine again.

As packing up time is fast approaching, it’s looking like a blank session for me, it certainly wasn’t without trying.

Until next time

Richard

P.s Ian managed another smaller common after I had gone home.