Rat a Tat for the Easter Goose

Banana Steve · #1 04-05-2010, 11:33 AM

Rat a Tat for the Easter Goose

I spoke to Claudia during the week and asked her if she was up for a couple of days at Crockerton? At the time of asking the weather forecast didn’t look to bad. And with reports saying that Crockerton was fishing well we agreed we give it ago over the Easter weekend. So the plan was to meet at Crockerton on Thursday at lunch time “ish” and fish till Saturday lunch time. Claudia was in Kent and was going to drive back Thursday morning but I received a Text saying she was heading back early as the weather she was awful. This was the Wednesday, and the weather forecast had changed for Warminster area, and was forecasted heavy rain and high winds. On contact Claudia I asked if she was still up for going and as a trooper she was. Ben Lee was already out there and on ringing him I asked how he was getting on, and at that point he had not yet caught, but he had experienced a verity of weather fronts, from warm Sunshine to hail and snow.

Well Thursday morning came and I had to go to work till 12:00pm. Mind you the afternoon was a MOD holiday know as Maundy Thursday (a religious holiday). So off to the Steve’s Tackle to re-new my membership, Thought it best I do that, don’t think it would look good if the Chairman was caught without a membership. I then quickly nipped home and grabbed my kit and headed off to the lake. As I said Ben was already there and he had set up in Peg 2, with the banks not looking to good I opted for peg 3. When Claudia arrived the Rain followed her in and so we quickly got her Bivvy set up in Peg 4. (I am certain that Claudia is a rain goddess and the rain clouds like to please her by raining, LOL) Then it was back to Steve’s Tackle for Claudia’s membership, and finally a super quick trip to Morrison’s to get the ingredients for her secret bait.

Finally we arrived back at the lake and started fishing by 3pm. To say the weather was rough was an understatement but as brave little Indians we cracked on. It wasn’t until 8:00pm when the first fish showed its face; Claudia had a run that produced a Bream for 2.5lb.

Just after the fish had been returned, the heavens opened and the wind picked up forcing all of us to retire to bed. Ben was the next to catch at around 11pm he landed a small carp of around 4lb. Next was me with a small bream of around a 1lb this was at 4am, for which at that time the rain had stopped, there was even a clear sky.

I woke at 8am to the sound of rain again; I stepped out to recast my rods and noticed everyone else was still asleep, so it was time for a bit of breakfast.
Bacon The Movie

As the day progressed a single skimmer was caught by myself and the best fish of the day was Ben’s 6 to 7lb common

However, the day was not too good with the weather being so wet and cold and with the water temperature dropping all the time, I knew that it was going to be hard, and with the day drawing to a close I felt that we were flogging a dead horse.

As night fell and the heavens opened up again and with Ben gone home, both Claudia and I decided to call it a night and retired to our Bivvies. That’s when it started, first of all it was very quiet just the sound of tapping, and then it got louder. Claudia checked out the noise and noticed two ducks tapping on the lid of bait bucket. After shooing them off, we settled down for the night. I had just dropped off to sleep when I was rudely awoken by my bite alarm and screaming run. As I stepped out of my Bivvy I edged my way down to my rods as the ground was slippery as an ice rink. I called for Claudia to ask her for help. The fight was not very long and the fish came in quite quickly, a small carp of 3lb.

This was at 11.00am, just as I put the fish back the rain came again. So I made my mind up to bring my rods in a get some sleep. It must have been an hour since the fish when it started again
“Rat a Tat” on the Bait Bucket, this time it was the two white Geese. With rain hitting the Bivvy I managed to fall asleep, but I think Claudia got a little bit annoyed, but knowing it was the Geese she left them alone.{Claudia hates the Gander}. I awoke at 5am to a clear sky, so I re-casted my rods and went back to bed. I was woken at 8am with the Gander taping on the front of my Bivvy; at that point it was time to move the bird on.

Over the next couple of hours brought dry weather and at lunch time we called it a day, for which the rain returned and try as much as we could we couldn’t help but pack away in the wet. By the time we had finish packing up both Claudia and I were soaked.

View of our Bivvies

View of my Swim

Overall I had a great social, it was just a shame the weather was against us for all three days. But hey that’s fishing. At least we all caught, and we even had our own drum show.