Cotswold Water Park again.

Graham and I had arranged to fish the gravel pit again on his return from holiday. Our session was to be 48 hrs Tuesday through to Wednesday. I managed to get up there a little earlier as in Monday afternoon. The wind had been blowing consistently from the North for a few days which is not the normal S/W. So we were to fish with the wind at our left, not the best of winds but one that still filled me with confidence. The weather had been settled too for the first time this year, air temps 20 during the day and 8c at night.

I started with the normal two rods on method feeder and one on maggot feeder. using fakes on all rods. I had bought some hemp from a an animal feed shop that wouldn’t split after boiling it for ages in the morning, so I had to go to the local tackle shop and buy some. It was a bit of a shock at the price!!

Anyway after some casters, dead and live maggots were spombed out and the bivvi erected I sat back for the evening feeding spell. Throughout the afternoon and evening I didn’t spot a single tench roll. The morning had been slightly cooler at about 4c. I was up at 4am to re-feed the swim. It was a stunning sunrise with just a few clouds and the moon was just a very small crescent.

 

 

Another tench fisherman turned up at 7.30am in the morning and said a few had been out the previous week, so at least I was on the money.

I saw one fish roll just off the marginal ledge at about 9am and so thinking that’s where they were patrolling I bought the furthest rod in and positioned it right on the edge of the marginal weed hoping that I would intercept them as they came around.

Graham arrived at about 9.30 having travelled from Wales. The sun was up and it promised to be a very bright day. This doesn’t deter the tench from feeding though.

Graham sorted himself out in the next swim adopting the same methods and tactics.

Again nothing showed around the lake other than a carp jumped a few times towards the evening. Casting out every hour or so just couldn’t produce a bite. I fed the swim again at 5pm hoping for the evening feeding spell to materialise but blank. That’s now 8 days without a tench.

In the morning I was up again at 4am to witness carp and the occasional tench rolling about another 10 yds passed our baits. This went on for most of the morning. Graham cooked the bacon rolls as we sat there at 6am thinking that today would be good. The tench and carp rolled and then it dawned on me. The carp were spawning and that the few tench around were feeding on the spawn. I still thought though that things would take off any time however as the minutes and hours passed by so did the tench. I needed to be home by evening to clear the car out as it was off to be repaired the next day. The Wife tells me a wall moved as she pulled out of a car park. The back door, rear wing and bumper told me she had taken the racing line to get out of the car park!

Anyhow things continued pretty much the same until 1pm when I thought the morning feeding session had passed. I packed the kit away and said goodbye to Graham who was staying for the evening. That’s 9 days without a tench so the tench gods are not with me. After saying that nobody else was catching either.

On my way home I had a thought. My mate Steve had lost some polarising glasses near to where I was passing a few days ago so I phoned him to see if I could look for them. He was back on the river again in the same place and couldn’t find them. I said I would drop in to see him. I also wanted to see whether the barbel were spawning and do a numbers count.

I met Steve and we walked to the river and spotted some barbel spawning on the first site, so this was good news. Steve was fly fishing for some of the beautiful brown trout that swim in the chalk stream. Mayfly were hatching too so all was good with river life.

We couldn’t find his glasses so that’s £40 down the pan.

We said our goodbyes and I wander back to the car and headed off to see whether I could find any other spawning barbel. The river had an algae bloom so it was difficult to see into the deeper water. However the barbel seemed to be present on all of the normal spawning sites with groups of 4-8 barbel present. Mostly around the 3-6lb weight.

 

 

Three barbel on one site looked to be all around the 8-10lb mark. These are the largest ones I’ve seen since they were disseminated by the otters a few years back.

So this cheered me up after a disappointing tenching session.

There were also one or two large chub spawning and you can see where they have cleaned the gravel laying their eggs.

The Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART) http://www.bristolavonriverstrust.org/  have been putting in some roach spawning boards on one length of the river. Under the board are short lengths of netting that simulates the kind of weed that they spawn on. Lets hope they work and you can read more about this on the above web site. You can see the colour of the river and the algae bloom effecting the ability to view fish in deep water.

With the courtesy car being just large enough to hold me I can forget about fishing until the other one is repaired.

It’s about time I put some photo’s of tench on here rather than sunrises and sunsets and everything else other than fish. But that’s fishing!

One last thing I found this video of brook lamprey spawning in Cornwall. I’ve not seen this before. Have a look at this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtxPJuAZC4g