species hunt session at Top Barn

[Droppenfish]

As I haven't added any points to the Saucy Minnows total for a while I thought I'd better take time out from my obsessive lure fishing to drown a few worms in pursuit of some species we haven't bagged yet. One of the lakes on the complex where I work holds a lot of silver fish as well as a few bonus orfe, crucians and the usual head of mirrors and commons. I decided to fish a quiet corner near the car park as I only had a couple of hours and didn't want to waste time setting up. The water was a nice 4 foot deep here with plenty of reeds and overhanging trees to act as features. it's loose feed only on the lake so I fed a couple of handfuls of choopped worm down the side of the reeds and some sweetcorn under the overhanging trees. I love watching a float so set myslef up with a homemade porcupine quill insert waggler and a 3lb hooklength. All was surprisingly quiet for the first 30 mins fishing next to the reeds, but as soon as i switched over to the sweetcorn under the trees I started catching some little mirror carp of under a 1lb. We've already got a mirror for the species hunt..so that was no use and after about 20 mins I switched back to the worm baited area. First cast the float sailed away and out came a game little Perch...no use..got one of those already..followed by about 6 Rudd AAArrhhgg got those too! (amazing how trying to catch certain species is harder than you would think) next came a nice solid common of about 6lb which took a bit of landing on my 3lb hooklength. By now I only had a bout 10 mins left as I had promised to turn up at my Son's Cub pack committee meeting. In desperation i tried a sweetcorn/worm cocktail under the trees and after a few minutes the float bobbed and waggled and I lifted into a game little fish that turned out to be a skimmer HURRAH! we haven't got one of them



...the last few minutes was spent desperatley casting in front of a sizable golden orfe than I noticed about 20 yards out, but I only succeeded in scaring it off...hey ho at least I managed to get another species and it was nice to watch a float again after nearly 2 months break from bait fishing. It's a nice little lake too and I'm sure i could have managed more species if i'd had longer to build up the swim.

[pingu]

sounds a pleasent little session

dave