Great times & social unwinds!

Hi all.....

Busy few days in the office again with some lovely orders going out. Thanks to all those who've continued to support myself and the business through it's recent upheavals. Thankfully things seem to be settling down nicely now and stuff is flowing much better. I'm hoping to add a little bit more new kit to the web store in the coming weeks so please bare with me a bit longer on that front.

Beautiful Somerset skyline at dusk!

Fishing has been very interesting this last week with a great social session I've had lined up with my good friend Keith Parris, who I haven't seen properly for almost 3 years. Which is too long for good mates to be apart. It had been planned for some time but we just never seemed to get the opportunity to get the free time to actually plan a specific day and time to meet. I had a trip to see one of my field testers penned in for last week but had to pull out at last minute due to work ties and other commitments but this week had to be done due to the serious lack of opportunity that KP and I had to meet up.

Good banter between best friends.

We opted to fish a venue I had been to some 7-8 years ago in Somerset. Emerald Pools. A very pretty little complex of 4 ponds with lots of lovely corners and spots to fish to. The main specimen lake, Jade Pool, around 2 acres in size used to be a kind of horseshoe shape with a big island section across the middle and a reasonable stocking of quality good sized fish to low thirties. On arrival on Sunday I was amazed to find the place had been re-dug twice and now looked totally different!

I wasn't overly surprised by the reasons for the changes but they were possibly a little too dramatic for my liking....The nice little nooks and crannies were now pretty much just a square hole where everyone casts towards the middle and catches each others lines. Not my idea of fun! But, we paid our money and took our chances. The venue was very busy on arrival but many of the anglers were just leaving as we rocked up with our session gear.

Biggest of the session at 16lb 1oz....

There were all walks of life around the ponds and all age groups. My main concern was for the group of 5 Polish anglers that were taking up almost half the pool with a good half dozen very widely spread roads which had no regard for the other anglers on the complex! Never mind they were to leave shortly after our arrival and so did everyone else for that matter. Every one there was telling a similar story though and that was that it was fishing very tough and only a handful of carp had been caught over the last few weeks! This was despite what I could see in front of everyone....bubbles galore and feeding activity everywhere!!!!!

Colourful characters outnumbered by tiddlers.

We opted to fish a pair of swims which afforded good access to the majority of the ponds main bulk of water and also access to the free to use huts which were a great addition in my opinion. This gave us the use of running water and a light, so we could wash up dirty pans etc after dinner. We3 took our time getting set up and it was almost dark before we finally got properly sat down to a fresh steak curry cooked by my fair hand. KP had a fish straight away and at 5 pounds although pretty it was never going to break any records. Unfortunately this was going to set the tone for pretty much the next 48 hours!

My first fish was a little bit more tasty....a stunning ghosty common of 16lb 1oz found the net from a spot I had liberally baited just to my left at a rod length out. The other rods were a little slower to kick off but soon I was into a fish a chuck and I struggled for 3 hours to keep a rod in the water! The more bait I gave them, the more I caught!

KP got in on the action despite seeming to have a lesser swim.

These fish were so dam hungry that it was silly! I have to say that I felt there needed to be a vast reduction in the stock levels in there for a supposed specimen pond....There were crazy levels of fish in there and to add more fish to it was just unbelievable in my opinion! We're all fishery managers at heart and would all do things differently but a reduction in stock density would allow room for growth of fish and not just a whole pond full of oxygen starved, mouth battered fish. Some of which I felt were showing real signs of problems starting to occur.

Anyhow, gripe over, the fishing was nothing short of continuous and after 19 fish in the first 6 hours fishing, I was starting to wonder why so many people were complaining about the lack of action??? I can only put it down to poor angling as we had no problems at all. I tried to get a little sleep on Sunday night but my alarms were sounding with an almost continuous tone. By morning I was well into the late 20's with about 6 of those fish scraping double figures. Not really what I was after to be honest but lovely to see plenty of action regardless. I decided to up the anti and put on a size 2 curved hook and a double 16mm Fireball boilie with a long hair. This was an attempt to hopefully trigger les bite activity from the smaller fish.

One of the more attractive larger fish I encountered.

My actions were little more than an effort and within minutes I was again playing another 5-8lb common. Followed by yet another......etc etc etc etc What did you have to do to get the bigger fish out. It really was like playing a numbers game in there. KP managed to bag a few small ones but nothing over double figure for him at all. I finished the 48 hr session on 37 or 38?? I forget??? Could have been more to be honest, especially with the bream too.

The fishing was manic but peaceful and to be honest it was just great to catch up with my good friend who it had been far too long apart from. Nice weather and great company make for an even greater time. I'm now struggling to see an opportunity for my next adventure due to many family commitments and I think it's probably going to be at least 3 weeks now before I get some proper free time to get back out there and give things a real bash before the winter starts to arrive. I have a huge buzz this year for the Pike season and although 1st October is the official start to proceedings, it still feels far to warm and summery to be thinking about predators! For the present I still have Barbel, Chub and Carp on the agenda!

Tight lines friends x