Gone with the wind

[Banana Steve]

As the week began, I was hoping that Ian and I would be able to fish the Canal, as I had fancied fishing for silver fish. But as the week wore on the forecast for the weekend seemed to be getting worse. With a phone call from Ian on the Friday suggesting that we fished Warminster’s other lake “Berkley” as the forecast was high winds and rain and Ian assured me that “Berkley was more sheltered than the Canal, I agreed.
It’s been a very long time since I had fished “Berkley” to be precise it was 8 years ago and even then I only fished it the once. I arrived at the car-park at 9am were Ian had arranged to meet me. Ian’s car was there and it looked as he had made his way to the lake. It was as I walked across the fields to the lake that I remembered why I don’t fish “Berkley” The Bl**dy walk, across a fields then a walk through the woods. Ian had set himself up a tidy little swim and on my arrival he was setting up his pole. After a brief chat I moved on up from him and also found myself a nice swim to fish.

I decided to fish the feeder; I didn’t fancy battling the wind on the pole. As I was setting up, Ian shouted that he caught a carp.
(Ian’s First of many wild carp for the day!)

As Ian was playing the fish another angler turned up and watched. It turned out that he was old work colleague from over twenty years ago. Anyhow back to the report. As the morning progressed Ian’s Friend turned up to fish with us. Dave is fairly new to fishing and set himself up between Ian and me.
Ian was catching quite regularly and he seemed to be getting the fish close in. It had been two hours and I had not had a single bite on the feeder, I was fishing a fair distance out. So just to give ago I chucked the feeder out very close to me at around 8mtrs from the bank. I put the rod down on the rest, to have the rod nearly ripped of the rest.
(A nice wildey of around 2lb mark.)

(Ian with another Wild carp)

(Me with a wild carp)

We even had a visit from Matt (Fullcrell) who supplied Ian with some paste, which seemed to up Ian’s catch rate. With all tree of use catching close in, we started to enjoy the day, the wind was getting stronger as the day progressed but this didn’t stop the fish from feeding, but then came the rain, and with the wind, it became a bit precarious fishing with the umbrella’s up.
(Ian and Dave battling the rain and wind)

After a few more fish, 2pm came and we all decided to call it a day. We all had a good day but with the wind and rain the thought of a nice warm fire seemed a better choice.

[fullcreel]

Its not such a long walk, its just that anglers are getting lazy!!!
Seriously to walk to the far swims at Crockerton, is not too different to the early swims at Berkley?, I know there are trwo gates.
I travel light, stalking kit and its a wonderful place to fish.

[carper-chris]

Well done all, sounds like a good day apart from the bad weather.

[Greenheart]

Nice report & pics Steve. I agree with Matt, it's s great little fishery if you travel light. I think it will improve in years to come as those Carp put on weight. Considering the place was polluted with farm effluent only two years ago, those carp were comming along nicely. That Elderberry paste of Fullcreel's certainly did the trick & resulted in almost instant bites. He also advised me to fish closer in. I think the water is deeper closer in as it was dredged out recently using a Hy-mac type of digger that only had a limited reach. Great days fishing, just a pity about the wind & rain....

[fishypaul]

lovely fish there guys,shame the weather was pants

[Lman]

some nice wildies there, looking forward to joining up and wetting a line there

[Fishing Forum Admin]

nice fish and hat off to your fishing in that weather

[fullcreel]

It was not as bad as it seems, parts of the lake are sheltered by woods.
There was the odd unpleasant gust, sorry steve....

[Twiddler]

Sounds like you had a nice time, despite the weather getting worse.
Certainly looks a lovely lake.

Elderberry paste? now where on earth did that come from?

[pingu]

looked a pleasent little session there

what is it about you 2 and wind?????


dave