Bugs, Bats and Big Tench

I am essentially, deep down, still the same little boy who couldn't get to sleep if I knew my dad was going to take me fishing tomorrow, the same little boy who woke up hours before the alarm was meant to sound and then couldn't get back to sleep because I was too excited about a day out with my old man. This is why I was awake at 02:30 on Sunday morning and sat back with three rods in the water by 4am. This did however give me the opportunity to play with dad's bat detector. I know nothing about bats but it was great fun listening to them and trying to follow them across the lake. 

Bats!

It was unusually busy this weekend along my favoured bank which meant that I had to fish a new area of the lake, I was in one of the deeper swims, which it turns out, is absolutely full of 1lb eels. I genuinely lost count of how many of them were caught, I'll be honest, they started to give me the hump once I'd re-rigged the rods for the umpteenth time because they'd twisted the rigs into clock springs. 

It wasn't all eels though, because my swim dropped off into 12ft of water right under my feet, I was able to play with the centrepin and float rod in the margin, I still caught a load of eels on it, but it also turned up a couple of tench and my first ever carp from the venue, albeit possibly the lake record for the smallest carp ever caught from there. 

Lucky

How that little carp has survived in there is a miracle, the sheer amount of cormorants, grebes, kingfishers, perch, eels and pike that are trying to eat it every day must stack the odds against it monumentally. if it survives to see adulthood, it needs to be called "Lucky".

Possibly the biggest tench I've managed this season at 7lb 8oz

I’ve started taking dad’s camera fishing with me now, teamed up with the 100-400 zoom lens which he used for most of his wildlife photography. I don’t understand the settings on the camera properly yet, but thankfully my mum is always on hand for some advice. The time flies by when you’re chasing dragon and damselflies around trying to catch them perched in the sunlight for long enough to sort the focus out and take a picture. I’m not sure of the id of these, there were many other species buzzing around with them, they just wouldn’t pose long enough for a picture!  

Lessons learned from this weeks adventure, I certainly wont be fishing worms in the deep water again. Those tiny eels are enough to drive a person mad. I shall return for another crack in a different swim this weekend. 

Tight lines,

Benno.