Riding home from work on my push bike at 3pm Thursday afternoon with the sun shining and the sky blue, I thought I might just sneak out for a few hours at my local club pond.
Arriving home I found a message from Mrs Pikey on the answering machine suggesting that as the weather was good, I might like to mow the lawns ! Boxxocks I thought I've caught 5 carp in my last three matches (although 2 were 15lb and won me the section) and I could do with catching some fish.
However, with the weather also looking good for Friday I quickly made some paste in the morning before popping off to the Wildlife Aid centre in Leatherhead. Four hours later having fed and cleaned out numerous foxes, hedgehogs, ducklings, Owls, birds and a moorhen chick ! I was on the way home. Arriving home 15 minutes later I grabbed the minimum of tackle, put my paste in my tackle box, quickly made some sandwiches and left the house on foot. Three minutes later I was on the banks of the Top Pond and although there were anglers already in my favourite two pegs, I wandered round the other side and picked a peg with some rushes in the edge to fish to.
The lake used to be solid with roach and rudd but with no casters or maggots, I had decided to just fish paste as I didn't really want a hectic afternoons fishing, just a few carp and a nice peaceful afternoon on the bank. I've seen people fish the peg before and catch a few carp and with the depth being about 3 foot right up against the rushes, it certainly looked fishy. I chose to fish at 8 metres as this was nice and comfortable and not too close to spook the fish when you were playing them. Mt tackle set up was my usual paste gear, H10 pole with 0.18 line, maver margin paste float and a size 10 B911 hook, oh yes, the elastic was Preston yellow as I thought the red hydro that I usually use might be a bit too much for the carp here with most being between 1lb and 4lb.
The plan was to have a nice relaxing afternoons fishing, so after getting my sandwich box out, I shipped the pole out tipped the paste in and just as I went to open the box, the float disappeared as a mirror carp of about 2lb grabbed the bait ! Having fed nothing I assumed this was just a mug fish and I had just dropped it right on his nose. Out went the rig again and again the float disappeared from view and continued to do so fo rthe next 8 put ins as a succession of carp between 1 and 4lb graced my landing net. Now, I don't usually do "Pleasure Fishing" as I get bored easily and I couldn't actually try too many different things as I only had paste with me as a bait. I therefore decided to go for a wander around the Bottom Pond and eat some of my lunch !
Returning to my peg, I continued to catch despite at times having too many fish in the peg - if I could get the bait to the bottom aand the float set properly, I could catch really well but the fish were hitting the bait just as it reached the bottom and I was also getting loads of liners.
Mrs Pikey rang me at about 5.30pm and said she was just leaving work so I had two last casts to finish up the paste I'd mixed and took the 200 metre walk home. I remember when we first moved house some 17 years ago that Mrs Pikey said at the time "That was lucky moving to a house that was so close to the club ponds wasn't it". LUCK ?
Anyway, I finished the afternoon with about 50 carp between 1lb and 5lb and with a club match coming up there in a couple of weeks time, I wonder if I should go or fish at Willinghurst ?
However, with the weather also looking good for Friday I quickly made some paste in the morning before popping off to the Wildlife Aid centre in Leatherhead. Four hours later having fed and cleaned out numerous foxes, hedgehogs, ducklings, Owls, birds and a moorhen chick ! I was on the way home. Arriving home 15 minutes later I grabbed the minimum of tackle, put my paste in my tackle box, quickly made some sandwiches and left the house on foot. Three minutes later I was on the banks of the Top Pond and although there were anglers already in my favourite two pegs, I wandered round the other side and picked a peg with some rushes in the edge to fish to.
The lake used to be solid with roach and rudd but with no casters or maggots, I had decided to just fish paste as I didn't really want a hectic afternoons fishing, just a few carp and a nice peaceful afternoon on the bank. I've seen people fish the peg before and catch a few carp and with the depth being about 3 foot right up against the rushes, it certainly looked fishy. I chose to fish at 8 metres as this was nice and comfortable and not too close to spook the fish when you were playing them. Mt tackle set up was my usual paste gear, H10 pole with 0.18 line, maver margin paste float and a size 10 B911 hook, oh yes, the elastic was Preston yellow as I thought the red hydro that I usually use might be a bit too much for the carp here with most being between 1lb and 4lb.
The plan was to have a nice relaxing afternoons fishing, so after getting my sandwich box out, I shipped the pole out tipped the paste in and just as I went to open the box, the float disappeared as a mirror carp of about 2lb grabbed the bait ! Having fed nothing I assumed this was just a mug fish and I had just dropped it right on his nose. Out went the rig again and again the float disappeared from view and continued to do so fo rthe next 8 put ins as a succession of carp between 1 and 4lb graced my landing net. Now, I don't usually do "Pleasure Fishing" as I get bored easily and I couldn't actually try too many different things as I only had paste with me as a bait. I therefore decided to go for a wander around the Bottom Pond and eat some of my lunch !
Returning to my peg, I continued to catch despite at times having too many fish in the peg - if I could get the bait to the bottom aand the float set properly, I could catch really well but the fish were hitting the bait just as it reached the bottom and I was also getting loads of liners.
Mrs Pikey rang me at about 5.30pm and said she was just leaving work so I had two last casts to finish up the paste I'd mixed and took the 200 metre walk home. I remember when we first moved house some 17 years ago that Mrs Pikey said at the time "That was lucky moving to a house that was so close to the club ponds wasn't it". LUCK ?
Anyway, I finished the afternoon with about 50 carp between 1lb and 5lb and with a club match coming up there in a couple of weeks time, I wonder if I should go or fish at Willinghurst ?
