First warm day of Spring

Banana Steve · #1 04-10-2010, 10:09 PM

Well the plan was to fish my one of my club waters, but as usual, I am rubbish at sticking to my plans. I wasn’t going be fishing until late as I had some official Club work to finish before I could go. However, by 10am I was free to go fishing. So where was I going?
One of the club lakes, Crockerton, still a bit jaded with the Easter weekend. Berkley, too far to walk, feeling lazy. Longleat mmm possibly, a bit expensive and too many tourists. Todber was looking good, but went there on Tuesday. What did I want, well I came to the conclusion I needed points and one species I needed was an Orfe. So the decision was made, off to Higher Farm near Bruton in Somerset. Whilst on my way I gave JP a ring as he lives in Bruton to see if he fancied joining me. He told me he had a few things to do first but would meet me out there.

I arrived at the lake at around 11:30ish, the sky was a gorgeous blue and the sun was extremely warm in fact it was a beautiful day, and the lake looked fantastic.
View of the lake

I choose peg 1, which was situated on the left hand corner of the lake, right next to the car park. (Still feeling lazy) The plan was to fish very similar to the way I fished Todber the other day, but with waggler being at depth (4-5ft) but small dropper shots to allow the line sink through the layers hopefully picking up a fish on the drop and eventually the bait being presented on the bottom. To my left I set up my margin pole with the newly fitted elastic a Drennan Hollow Elastic Green 6 to 8, I set this up nice and loose so not to bump any fish as I did at Todber.

The view of my peg

I started on the float rod, and within the first cast I hooked my first fish, a small Rudd of around 2 inches long. (Ohh dear was I going to be plagued by bits) the second cast produced another Rudd but this time a lovely looking Golden Rudd of around 6ozs.

Golden Rudd

This was the pattern for the next 30 minutes or so when I then hooked into a better fish, a nice common of around the 1lb mark. I had feed the left hand margin over the ½ hour and I thought it was time to try the pole. As soon as the bait hit the deck the float started to dip and drive, but I couldn’t hook whatever was trying to take the bait, boy that was frustrating.

JP turned up at that point he informed me that he would be down later to join me. After JP left I went back onto the Float Rod to try and catch the Orfe I came for.

Me fishing the float

JP returned at around 2pm and I was steadily catching Roach and Rudd of around the same stamp of 4 to 6ozs, and with the odd small carp as well, I was enjoying myself and with sun warming the day as well things were going along great.
The average Roach

I even had the enjoyment of watching a Buzzard riding the thermals.

JP set himself up in the next peg and produced a rod that I had never seen before or even heard of. JP called it the “Missing Link” being part Cane and Fibreglass, the butt section and second section were Cane and the tip section was made from Fibreglass. The rod was in top draw condition and I know both JP and Fullcreel love fishing with old tackle especially Cane. It is nice to see that the old tackle is still being used and outdoing some modern tackle.

JP waiting for the bite on his “Missing Link”

As the day wore on JP was finding it difficult to get a bite, and I wasn’t doing much better, in fact the pole in didn’t even produce a fish, I tried Corn, Pellet, nothing; then in desperation I stuck a maggot on and the first put in produced a tiny Gudgeon, there must have been loads there all feeding on my Corn and Pellet, but all too small to take my bait.

As the afternoon wore on and after finding out that my float had a split in it, I changed tactics as I just wasn’t getting the bites anymore. So I shallowed up on the float rod, deciding to fish a 3bb Peacock very finely shotted down to register the finest of bites. That did the trick, I started to catch the Roach and Rudd again and I even managed a nice looking Ghost Kio.

As the day neared 5pm and I decided that I would knock it on the head for the day, the float shot away, I struck and felt I had a better fish on but then in the surface layers I saw that I hooked a bright orange fish. Oh dear it was the Orfe I needed, suddenly I started to concentrate and took my time making certain that I didn’t make any mistakes, as the fish slipped over the net, the sense of relief, well I was glad that I used the landing net. It was at this point JP announced that he too had hooked into a fish, but then he stated that it come off.

My Golden Orfe

It must have been no more than 5 minutes when JP was in again and this time he landed the fish, a small Silver Bream giving him 1.5 points. Mind you he will need to do a report.

JP’s Silver Bream

I called it a day at 5pm and on bring my fish in to see what I caught, JP announced that he had seen a few good Carp around the Island and was going to fish for them on the Fly Rod.
I asked him if he would give me a hand to weigh in my fish and take some photos, for which he kindly did.

My End of the day catch, just over 8lb

I had a great day and the company was great as well, JP stayed on to fish for those Carp on the fly, and I did receive a Text saying that he managed to land 5 Carp including a nice Ghost Carp, so hopefully we will see the photos of them on the forum.

Higher Farm is a great little place and in a very beautiful part of the country, I will defiantly be returning and I may even get one of those Carp on the Fly Rod as well!