Horseshoe for the 3rd time and a better result.
The car was packed on Sunday morning and a good lunch inside me saw me heading off to fish Horseshoe. The weather forecast was not very good frost on the night followed by a cool northerly wind. Then the wind was turning to the south west on Monday, then heading for rain early Tuesday morning. The forecasters were spot on.
I had been told of a 12lb tench coming out to a carp angler who didn’t weigh the fish or photo it!!!!!!!!! not unusual from a carper!!!!!
There was also another one of 9lbs 7oz I think that came out which was weighed and photographed, all of these have come from winter bay where the water is much deeper than the rest of the lake.
Arriving at 4pm saw me set up in a swim in winter bay that needed a 83 yd chuck. Now that’s a long throw for me and you needed to be spot on as the patch of gravel was quite small. I spodded out some mix of various seeds and pellets. With this done the bird life on the pool soon arrived and started to dive. The depth was about 9ft and I thought I was safe however this proved to be challenging. With everything set I settled back to admire the sunset.
Sunset in winter bay
It looked fantastic but I knew that following this clear sky the frost would follow. I was soon in bed and listening to the radio. At 11.30 one of the rods roared off and I lifted into a fish that soon got into soft weed and then it was off. It didn’t feel that large but any lost fish is a pain in the behind.I soon cast out again hoping that things might kick off.Other than the mice running over the ribs of the bivvi in search of my spod mix the night passed undisturbed.In the morning I was up at first light 5.45am and recast again. It was very cold with frost on the ground. Soon the bird life kept lifting the baits and taking it into silk weed not very nice. With the wind increasing my thoughts were of fishing another swim where the fish might just move on the wind. Ok I’ll say that it was less exposed!I arrived and spoded out some dead maggots and hemp at 2pm and the sun was out but you could see the front coming in from the west. I was fishing plastic maggots on the hooklink. At 8pm I changed to a pop-up boilie on one rod and the same with corn on the other. I listened to the radio and Arsenal lose 2-1 to Wigan before drifting off into sleep. The wind increased as the hours passed and at 4am the wind was really strong and the rain arrived. At 6.30am the corn rod roared off and as I got out of the bivvi I was taken aback by the cold and wind. The fight was really good thinking that I had hooked a small carp you can imagine the surprise on seeing a good tench in the net.
6lbs 11oz
So on the scales she went 6lbs 11oz. However that was it for the rest of the day. The wind increased in speed and casting to the spot became difficult. Lord Mick Butler joined me at 9am for a cuppa and a chat. he was going to fish for a few days with a mate. So I wished him luck and headed off to see Bristol City play West Ham Utd. Unbelievably we got a 1-1 draw which helped our cause of staying up this year.
