Fields End (56)
After the previous week’s phenomenal day, today was never going to measure up.
It didn’t start well, as five minutes after casting I lost a fish in the reeds. As the float went under it was heading for the reeds and the fish was probably already there before I struck. Half an hour later I lost another fish; my mistake this time as I put much pressure on the rim of the centre pin. I was also missing bites, probably roach or crucians.
At 09.00 I managed to land a tench of 2¾lb, still on luncheon meat. Even then I had managed to catch the line around the handle of the rod and I nearly lost the fish.
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Crucian 2lb 2oz
Leather 14lb 8oz
Common 8lb 10oz
I switched to flake to try to connect with the missed bites and at 10.35 got a crucian of 1¼lb. I then lost another fish that didn’t feel massive but the line broke. This was followed by a nice roach of 12oz, and then another fish embedded itself in the reeds and transferred the hook. How do they do that? Four fish lost by 11.55 and nothing of note landed; depressing. At this point I removed the last 10 metres or so of my reel line to remove any weaknesses.
At 13.10 I caught another crucian of 1¼lb that looked remarkable like the one I had caught earlier; surely not. This was followed, at 14.35, by a 2lb 2oz crucian on flake that matched by personal best of the previous week.
Five minutes later another crucian of 1lb 10oz came to the net.
The rest of the afternoon was patchy, producing a roach of around 6oz, a small perch (on luncheon meat) and numerous missed bites.
As I mentioned, after 16.00 the weather became very calm, although chilly, and conditions appeared ideal. However, the expected ‘evening feed’ did not really materialise. At 17.55 I got a tench of 2½lb on flake and soon after, at 18.10, a solid bite followed by a hard fight on the 4lb line, produced the best fish of the day, an 11lb 4oz Leather.
The day was rounded off with a nice tench of 3lb 14oz, also on flake. It’s good to see flake catching again as it has been a disappointing bait this year on previous visits.