A chilli evening

fullcreel · #1 05-08-2010, 01:15 PM

Last night was a bit nippy and a tad windy, but I had set my heart on an evenings fishing, I had thoughts about fishing at Crockerton, but after a chat with JP, we decided to meet at Higer Farm, on the lower lake, which does conatin some very impressive fish, esp some ghosties, one of which is just below 20lb.
I had just a light 5/6 fly rod, whilst JP was keen to test out a new cane rod he had picked up a few days earlier, a vry nice peice of kit, but the ferrules are stainless steel, which does lower the stlye level a bit, perhaps some whipping over them, thats the female part will improve things?
I moved around the lake to have the wind at my back, and fed a few biscuits, JP had been on the water for a little bit, and had the fish feeding on bread, including he thought on of the ghosties. He also had banked a small carp and a rudd, none of those had tested the new rod.
Here's a shot of the lake, this shot does not show how cold the wind was.

I was lucky to get into a nice carp about 5 lb on my second or third cast, the wind made presentation a bit tricky, and it caused aserious drift problem, baits drifting over to the far side of the lake pretty quickly.
Once things had calmed down a bit after my carps activities, the carp here fight in a similar way to their cousins in Berkley lake, comming in pretty quick then going mad close in.
I had agentle bite, the fish came in pretty quick, then changed from being easy to control, to being a nightmare, although a highly entertaining one, putting a serious bend in the light tackle.
JP took the 'phone for a few action shots.

I weighed the fish on JP's electric scales, and was suprised that it came out around the 8lb mark, and this slightly disapointed me, as I was sure that it was around 10lb's. More worringly I have an identical set of scales....
The wind really picked up, and joining it was some rain, it reached a point when I could not cast very well, so I headed over to the far bank, spotting a big ghostie hugging the bak, called JP over. By this point the wind and rain, which hed become drizzle was no fun, and the pub was calling...
I decided to pack up, just as JP called out to say he was in, and into one of the ghosties he was. It took a while, but his new cane handled things very well, so well I think that rod could handle carp well into the 20's, only we'll have to start fishing waters containing such beasts.
Action shot of a nervous JP,

Here is the big Ghosties, about 12 lb, done in stlye on a 'pin.

By this point, it was cold, windy and getting dark, so being wise folk we went to the pub.....