Trefaldu Fishery 15 July

[Pross]

Unusually for me I arranged to go fishing with a friend on Saturday and managed to obtain a pass for a full day. Having had a late night on Friday we set out to Trefaldu Fishery at about 9.00am and the weather was far cooler and more overcast than I'd expected. The fishery, which I was visiting for the first time, has 4 small pools and we arrived at 10am and opted for the Willow Pond as the sun was breaking through and this pond offered lots of shade.

By 10.30 we were both set up and fishing maggot on the float in the margins and I had a second rod set up with a feeder and baited with strawberry flavoured corn. On the first cast my mate Pete had a bite a pulled in a roach of about 1oz, scarcely had I stopped laughing at that monster fish when I had had an equally large fish myself. We both took a few more roach of a few ounces and I then had a better fish which turned out to be a roach of about 10oz. The hook had come through close to his eye so on removing this I decided to carry him down to the water to make sure he was OK, the fish was fine but I promptly lost my footing and fell in! . Having got fed up of being plagued with small roach we switched bait to spiced luncheon meat and got loads of bites which didn't produce fish as they were stripping the soft meat from the hook. I decided to go to the strawberry corn on both rods as my feeder rod was getting regular knocks fishing in the channel between the bank and island and left the meat to dry out and toughen up a bit in the sun. Finally I had a big run on my bottom rod and connected with what felt a very good fish. It took me into the island and snagged me up but I managed to break free but unfortunately I got snagged again on the willow branches and snapped up. I could hear the fish splashing in the shallows of the island but I'll never know how big it was! Shortly after a lady opposite caught a nice 8lb common (pictured on the website) and that bank seemed to be producing well while we were busy blanking.

At around lunchtime we started seeing fish patrolling near the surface and others were literally under our feet. I went to refuel from the burger van and was supplied with some bread to try. Within seconds of throwing out loose offerings the fish were taking them from the surface and I tried putting some flake on my hook but it was too dry and kept coming off on the cast. Meanwhile I was still getting regular knocks on my bottom rod but none would run, I evetually had a brainwave that my feeder wasn't running far enough and they were dropping the bait when detecting the weight so I reset the feeder to run free on the line and within minutes had a good run which I missed. The knocks continued and Pete had picked up his first carp of the day, a mirror of around 2lb when I finally got a decent run which I connected with and after a short but fun fight I landed my first ever carp, a lovely little common of about 4lb



Having landed my first carp I decided to switch tactics and tried the meat on my bottom rod with halibut pellets in the feeder and scattered loose of the point of the island where there was a lot of activity. Almost instantly I was into another fish which was almost identical to my first though very slightly larger. This was soon followed by 3 mirror carp all around 2 to 3lb and my biggest freshwater fish to date, a common of about 5lb, several of the fish were taken before I was able to reset my bait runner and bite alarm. Both myself and Pete also took a couple of small tench of around 1lb and Pete had 2 more carp a pound or so. My final fish of the day came after quite a struggle as it ran into the willows and snagged on the line lost by a previous angler. Every time I tried to pull it free it was lifting the fish out of the water so rather than distress the fish I decided the best bet was to pull for a break but was lucky that this tactic managed to break the other line and I landed another mirror of around 3lb.

By 6.30pm it was time to pack away and I had managed 7 roach to 10oz, 2 tench of about 1lb and 7 carp with the largest being 5lb. Pete had a similar number of roach and tench plus 3 small carp so I had won the unofficial competition even though we were fishing on his turf . It was a fantastic day and I intend to return soon once I have worked out how to set up a controller float to fish for the big ones off the surface. Sorry about the lack of pictures, the camera gave up after that first carp

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Great read mate and well done on your carp

Hope youve dried out

[baitmaster]

good read well done

tightlines
kevin

[wellyfish]

nice one pross , great write up

[Norfolkboy]

Well done Mark, hope you didn't get too wet after falling in

[pingu]

cracking report mark sounded a cool session

[Greenheart]

Cracking report Pross & well done on your PB. Looking at the size of the pond in your pic, i don't think you need a controller float as you don't need a long cast. It would just be another thing to scare the fish. Try buying a really fresh crusty loaf & freeline a bit of crust. It's much more fun. Throw in a few freebees to make the fish confident, then put a tough peice of crust about the size of a 2p peice on a size 6 hook. Dunk it in the water to give it some weight. Then quickly & carefully cast it out before it becomes too soft. Then sit back & watch for the take. Good luck.