Exceeding All Expectations!

Catfish Virgin (Still!) · #1 04-19-2008, 08:43 PM

There may have been a frost this morning, I wouldn't know as I woke up late! Looked out the window to see heavy winds and driving rain, went back to bed!

I kicked the cat out of bed and cuddled up to the wife (or was it the other way round?). Eventually got up and pondered the weather whilst I downed my second cup of coffee. You can probably sense I was not at all keen to venture forth this morning, but nothing ventured nothing gained. So, almost predictably, I set off for Marsh Farm for a fourth time in a little over two weeks. My expectations were low, it was cold, raining and the easterly wind was bitter.

I arrived at about 11am and still could not make up my mind where to fish. I eventually headed for Richardson Lake rather than Harris as I'd been told that the former had a "bigger head of fish" than Harris. Although the general size of the fish was a bit smaller there were still plenty of specimens. My reasoning was that if I was going to struggle to catch, then the larger stock levels should at least improve my chances.

My set up was similar to last week in that I was using #6 elastic with the rig ending up with #20 hook. Bait was to be red maggot &/or caster. I also determined to feed very lightly and only had one pint of maggots and one pint of caster (I still had at least a half pint of each left over when I packed up). I also determined to fish the pole much closer in at approx 5mtrs as controlling anything longer in the gusting winds would prove difficult. Best laid plans and all that!! But this time it worked it treat!

I fished from about 12noon till 6:30 and had an excellent session with fish from the off. Presumably these Surrey fish are of hardy stock as they obviously couldn't care less about the atrocious weather!

I started off with a couple of tench to about 2lb and then had a couple more slightly larger together with a couple of "skimmer" bream to about 1lb:

I then landed a nice crucian of 1lb 10oz and was really enjoying myself. That beautiful bar of gold was quickly followed by the best tench of the day at 4lb 02oz:

Two more crucians followed, one was in pristine condition, the other, a little battle weary, they both pulled the scales around to 2lb 04oz:

From about 4:30pm I really had the tench going well and ended up with a total of 20, mostly in the 1lb to 2lb+ range but did manage a couple which were 3lb+. I also had a few more bream to about 1.5lb and a further nice crucian of 1lb 15oz:

By the time I packed up, I reckon I had well over 50lb of fish. The tench were excellent but the crucians were the icing on the cake!

I'll be there again tomorrow, well I've got plenty of bait left!