30th April Horseshoe lake and more carp, oh and one tench

When is the weather going to warm up. I arrived at 7am on the Monday with the rivers flooded due to the incessant rain we had over the weekend together with the gusting easterly winds. I had a quick look around and couldn’t believe I was the only angler on the lake. The problem they had with the carp deaths last year has certainly had an effect on the numbers of carpers turning up to fish the lake. It is said that bad news travels fast and the situation at Horseshoe reflects that. However there are still some big brown monsters to be caught. The trouble is I’m struggling to find the big green monsters (Tench), to be fair it’s difficult to catch any green fish at all.air

The weather forecast had said that Monday would be fine and clear then thunder and rain would spread in from the east early Tuesday morning. So I positioned the bivvi so that the wind and rain would be at my back.

I spombed out some feed which included sweetcorn and hemp. And guess what within 40 minutes I soon had a take and from the fight it wasn’t a tench. I was using popped up plastic sweetcorn. The fish fought really well and took me sometime to bring to the net. Another guy Paul joined me to see what I was up to. He netted the fish for me and help me sort out the lines that had got tangled in the process. On the scales the fish went 24lbs plus and what a beauty it was. Almost a fully scaled mirror and in very good condition. What I’ve noticed is that the carp are giving you a good tussle for the time of year.

: 24lb almost fully scaled

I could say it was a good start but it’s not a tench. I continued to fish throughout the day but nothing much came along. In fact nothing!

Sure enough as the sun began to sink on the westerly horizon clouds began to gather on in the east. I was listening to the Manchester derby which sounded like a one sided affair. At about 11pm as I turned the radio off and slipped into the sleeping bag there were a few flashes of lightening in the distance. As I drifted off to sleep the bivvi frequently began to lighten up. The thunder was in the far distance way over towards Oxford. This storm disappeared but at 2.20am another came along together with heavy rain. You could tell that rain was coming as the wind really picked up as the air temperature dropped. It continued to rain and thunder. It’s at this stage when you just don’t want the rods to roar off with a fish as waving a carbon rod around when there is an electrical storm is very dangerous.

THEN IT HAPPENED I CAUGHT A TENCH at 5am oh what a wonderful sight. At 4lbs 5oz it looked so so beautiful.

I even took a video of the thing.

With it still raining at 7am I had a take on one of the rods and a lifted into another brown monster and not a tench. This one was a fully scaled mirror of just over 17lbs.

So another brown monster eating all my feed I’m putting in for the tench.

So with the rain going off at 10am I really thought about moving swims and things looked up as a fellow Tench Fisher Mick Butler came along. Together we hatched a cunning plan to fish a couple of swims. So I packed everything away moved swims and then proceeded to blank again for the next 18hrs.

I’m having a terrible season with the tench on Horseshoe at the moment, but with the weather being very unsettled the fish have not started feeding in earnest.

I can see me fishing for the tench way into July this year. As they say in football “I’m keeping the faith”.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 at 9:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Kenny's Angling Guiding Service

30th April Horseshoe lake and more carp, oh and one tench

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