Willow Pool March 19th and 20th

The pool had been fishing very well over the previous few days with a few of those big roach showing. Still not in the numbers of last year.

Rob, Mike, Vince and myself had been keeping each other informed on catches, times and swims etc. It still wasn’t easy fishing.

On getting up at 4.30am on Monday morning saw me driving up towards Oxford. It’s surprising that the mornings are opening up and by 5am it’s getting light in the eastern sky. And on this clear cloudless morning it wasn’t surprising to see the temperature on the car reading -2c as the miles drifted by. It’s takes about 75 minutes to get to the pool so there is sufficient time to mull over in your mind what swims might be available.

As I pushed the kit up the path there was a good coating of frost on the branches and twigs of the trees, together with the vegetation. Sure enough the swim I wanted was free and so I set about getting the rods out by 6.45am. As I’m doing this another roach fisher Chris arrives and after a quick chat he moves up to another swim further up the same bank.

It was certainly cool but as the sun rose as did the temperatures. At one stage I was in T shirt and still hot. There was practically no wind so the pool surface was like a mirror.

A little later another roacher Jeff arrived and went up the bank to fish with Chris. The day passed steadily with the rods being re-casted every 1.5 hrs. As evening arrived, anticipation and expectancy was at a high.

Willow in the late evening sun

Guess what, all that counts for nothing when the participants on the other end of the rod don’t play and that’s exactly what happened. At 8.30 I was talking to Jeff and Chris when Jeff’s alarm burst into life. Soon a lovely small rudd of 1lbs 8oz came to the net. That was all the action for the day. There were no roach topping and very few carp moving around compared to the previous week.

The swingers just wouldn’t move however hard I tried to tempt these large roach.

Swingers

There were a few other carp guys on the lake who stayed the night too. I had to laugh one of them told me earlier that the sun was so bright it woke him in the morning.

For me it’s the robins song followed by the blackbird and then the pigeons that do it for me. This normally occurs way before the sun comes up and you still need a torch to bait the hook. Who needs an alarm in spring!

Well the next morning came and went. There was a little more breeze and cloud but this didn’t seem to help out the situation.

Then at about 3.30pm I was recasting one of the rods. As I was feeling the swim feeder down to the 14ft swim there was a bump and the line went slack. I new what had happened I had a take on the drop. I wound down tight and sure enough there was a few thumps on the other end. I had a feeling who the culprit was and sure enough a very nice rudd came to the net.

The funny thing about this is that Jeff was telling me that last year he caught 4 rudd on the drop.

As the evening approached Vince arrived and fished just one swim away. He has had a great week in angling terms and I’ll write a separate blog on his catches.

Anyway none of his good fortune rubbed off on the two of us this time and despite seeing many roach rolling in both our swims nothing came along. A disappointing session for the roach but a nice rudd does ease the pain.

The little monkjack deer are still around.

Monkjack deer

One last session to go before the roach fishing closes on Willow.