The Fishing Was Almost As Hot As The Weather!

Catfish Virgin (Still!) · #1 05-11-2008, 08:09 PM

My red forearms tell me it was pretty damn hot this weekend!

But the resulting fishing was really top quality in several different ways. Because of the hot weather I planned to fish relatively short sessions, afternoon/evening, and hopefully take advantage of the cooler late afternoon temperatures. Oh! and I guess you know where I went??

Saturday:
I knew there would be a match on Harris Lake but when I got there, around midday, I was told it was a meeting of The Tenchfishers Society and I could slip in where there was room. So I set up in the middle of a few vacant swims and proceeded with my usual pole attack. Within the hour I had a lovely tench of exactly 6lbs, swiftly followed by another of 5lb 4oz. Quite a few tench and the occassional crucian were being landed and I had a spell of crucians rolling in my swim. I wasn't getting too many bites but eventually connected with a little lift that turned out to be a stunning crucian of 2lb 13oz. Things were looking very good but that was it for the next several hours as the whole lake seemed to "stop". I stuck around until fairly late and finally managed to hit a really positive "sail away" which I assumed was another tench. I was suitably suprised when the "bar of gold" rolled on the surface and slipped into the net. Need I tell you what the weight was....? 2lb 15oz yet again but a stunning fish:

Sunday:
I hadn't planned to fish today but my wife seemed keen to get rid of me so no further incentive was required! Arrived about 1pm to find Harris pretty full and decided to give Richardson a go and particularly fish an area I hadn't even seen let alone fish.

To cut a long story very short, I had a superb day with the tench as I caught throughout the afternoon and early evening. I started on caster but could only get small rudd, switched to punched meat and found tench from anywhere between 1lb and 3lb. Even had some quality rudd on the meat as well:

I scaled down to a lighter elastic (#4-6) and was having a lot of fun as the tench really got their heads down. But every now and then I would lift into a bigger tench. Several topped 4lb with the best two going 4lb 13oz (female) and 4lb 15oz (male):

They kept feeding throughout the late afternoon and early evening, I reckon I had well over 30 tench and about a dozen sizable rudd. Also, just to remind me, I had several crucians with the best one going 1lb 12oz:

It was a very enjoyable few hours "baggin up" but the best result came after a chat with the Steve in the on-site tackle shop......he's invited me to be his guest next Tuesday for a pre-dawn start, specifically in the quest for a "BIG" crucian (day tickets can't fish until 7:30am). Anticipation is building as I type this!