Carp puddle action and distractions

Benno, Will and I spent a few hours on Bank Holiday Monday morning fishing at Long Shaw Farm. I had a successful session finishing with eight carp - no doubles! Six off the top and a couple on the bottom, which was all very enjoyable. Benno took this quest for fun a step further by using a fly rod and a "zig bug". He might just as well have used a stick of licorice, because that was about as powerful as his fly rod - the fish hooping it right over and doing pretty much as they liked. My rods were far more suited, by comparison, being a Tring Tench rod (1 lb 2 oz T/C) and a Specialist Barbel rod (1 lb 12 oz T/C) - the carp giving a very good account of themselves, as expected.

I've used this image previously but it does set the scene for any session at Long Shaw 

Two boxes of cat biscuits and some cubed sliced bread crusts was all it needed to tempt the fish from the surface whilst the bottom bait was nothing more special than a section of Spicy Peperami -"glugged" in Crafty Catcher Tutti and Shrimp. It was a very unexpected surprise to be visited by two Environment Agency guys - checking for rod licences - the first time in four years that I've encountered them; good to know that my money hasn't been wasted. Long Shaw is a great venue to spend a few hours bending a rod, it requires very little skill - the most basic of techniques will reap rewards. It is certainly not a place to take too seriously - simply enjoy it for what it is, a carp puddle. The owners are very friendly as you'd hope and are always willing to offer advice if required.

Another old photo - a typical lean common carp taken on some vintage gear.
I used an ABU Cardinal  55 on Monday  - the reel in this image is a Cardinal 44X

The surroundings are very picturesque, and the natural history sharing the venue is always capable of throwing up a surprise. A singing Firecrest was present in the main hedgerow, two Common Terns were fishing the two bigger lakes and a family of Kingfishers were along the stream that flows on the southern boundary. The most striking sighting for me was the micro moth (Alabonia geoffrella) which occurred in good numbers before the wind picked up. I grabbed a few images, but the fishing kept getting in the way of my getting the shot that I'd really have liked. Back home for the afternoon, I netted another micro, which I'd disturbed from the shrubs in the back garden. It turned out to be a Firethorn Leaf Miner (Phyllonorycter leucographella) - a recent colonist which was first discovered in Essex in 1989.

Alabonia geoffrella - a striking little insect

Firethorn Leaf Miner (Phyllonorycter leucographella)
Taken using my 28mm extension tube with a Canon 18 - 55 mm lens (ISO 400 - 1/400th sec)