Great Days!

So wow, its the first day of spring in my eyes! Those horrible north-easterlies have buggered off! The sun was out and I decided on a spur of the moment that an outing to a local commercial lake was the order of the day today with my 9 year old daughter Jamie-Lou.

As it was so short notice I hadn't brought any bait with me except my PVA bucket, a selection of hookbaits and my pellet bucket. Luckily for me (well not me but J) I had a small bag of 10mm Nash Scopex Squid shelflife boilies with me from our last session, so at least we had some bait for J if the fish started feeding.

We set up at the deeper end of lake after we had seen some fish enjoying the warmth of the sun. It was such a heart warming sight to see the fish moving and crashing out after the winter of hell and relying on luck as much as watercraft.

After we got the gear out of the car I set up my rods. A single white Choddy cast to a small reed bed and a PVA bag to the showing fish, both rods fishing with some special hookbaits from Kieran. I then got Jamie all set up with her help and she had a practice cast before heading around to the next peg to bait the reed bed by hand with a good handful of the squid boilies.

Baiting her spot. 

We picked her leader out, a Nash diffusion one with a lead clip and 1oz dumpy pear and next came a rig. We picked a nice simple blow-back rig and I decided that the fish might still be a bit picky and wanted a balanced bait so we opted for a snowman type set up with a 10mm Nash Scopex Squid bottom bait and a small pink bit of pop-up corn. We tested the rig in a spare bucket and found it just popped up with the hook of bottom, perfect. So with the test cast done, bait and rig done all that was left was to cast out. This is something J is great at, with a bit of coaching she dropped the rig on her baited spot first cast! Proud was not the word. We set the rod on the stand and proceeded to get the sandwiches out and only a few moments after J's alarm let out a series of beeps as the rod tip pulled around. 

The rods are out!

Again with a bit of coaching she lifted in to the fish and immediately started to panic, as this was only her second fish ever and the last one was a very small one, but she held her own remarkably well with me only having to touch the rod once which was to steer it away from my lines. As we were about to net the fish my right hand rod melted away as a small angry mirror took my choddy with all the vigor of a great white! After a few minutes we had both fish in the net, not ideal by anyones standards, but needs must. I was lucky and my fish unhooked itself in the net which made the situation so much easier as I could get rid of my rig and scoop the fish straight out of the net and back to its watery home. 

Jamie's fish on the other hand was a keeper. A few photos and a weigh were certainly in order. So out came the Kaptive sling and we slipped the fish in for a quick weigh, at 6lb 10oz it was a great result for J! 

Result! 

After the fish went back we dug out some more bait and J placed some on her spot again before recasting, this time not quite on the money, but still looked good for another bite. So at this point I had two scrappy mirrors to my name and J had the larger common. As I was using my 3.5tc Entitys I thought I would have to play the smaller fish with a lot of care but the rods are superbly soft and I only suffered the one hook pull the whole session. Jamie had another small common she lovingly named 'Bob' and we topped the swim up again. 

The Nash Scopex Squid! 

She was in again a few minutes later! The fish were really turned on to this bait today and I think we had just got everything right for her. Me, on the other hand, was struggling big time. I even tried a 2ft zig to no avail, but alas the day was not to be mine and Jamie ended the three hour session on four fish with me lagging behind on three. It was a great few hours though and the fish are certainly on the move, now all we need are the ones on my target lakes to wake up! 

A few liners had her sat at the rod!

If I had have had more bait with me we would probably have stayed a little longer but as it was last minute we had to make do and had such a fun time which I think a lot of people are missing from their fishing. It was a really 'needed' session, as was the ice-cream and milkshake on the way home! Roll on the next time!

Matt.