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Sutton At Hone With My Uncle
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My
uncle took me as a guest to one of the lakes he is a member
of called, "Sutton At Hone Fisheries", part of the Dartford district
angling society. There are a mixture of lakes on the complex and we
fished two of them, the small lake and the big lake. I had an old
Lineaeffe lotus rod set up for pike with a ledgered smelt on it and
on the Senator carp rod I was specifically going out for bream with
a groundbait feeder. The feeder was filled with an extremely sweet
mix in combined with casters and maggots. It consisted of
SMARTBaiT vanilla cream corn groundbait, combined with casters
and SMARTBaiT vanilla cream corn floaters and sinking hookable
pellets. We started off fishing the small lake; my uncle was going
out just for pike and had 2 dead baits out, one with a popped up
smelt on and one with a small roach. He also tried a bit of spinning
too. |
My
swim in the small lake |
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The rod which I was intending on
catching pike with is on the left, in the margins, under the
overhanging branch by that tree. My feeder is on the Senator carp
rod on the right, which was cast about 40 yards out on to a gravel
bar. It wasn't that long waiting and after about 15 casts with a
feeder full of groundbait each time, combined with maggot on the
hook, that I was in to my first fish. It ended up being new PB bream
of 2lbs 4oz - (there are no bream in my local lakes which makes it
very very hard to catch bream) so I was happy :
My uncle Tim on the other hand, was
busy spinning a couple of swims along me as well as having 2 static
dead baits out....
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The fishing then died down, so my
uncle suggested that we trekked off to the big lake. I had to say
yes because I had not caught in hours, neither did my uncle. Plus
the fact that he knows the lakes much better than I ever will. So we
got to the big lake and found a nice corner swim that we both fished
next to each other. Again, I had the feeder cast out about 60 yards
out on to another gravel bar my uncle knew of, and the dead bait
static in a place that I thought looked like a good spot for a nice
uncle esox. To the right of me there were an array of small shrubs
and a tree which overhung in to the water and I managed to cast the
smelt under it without getting it tangled within the branches.
Hopefully this was the spot for a pike!......and it was! A couple of
hours later an extremely weird take, in which even though my
freespool was on, the tip of the rod swung round like a quiver after
a few inquisitive 'blips'. This forced me in to having to strike out
of curiosity, (plus the fact my uncle shouted "HIT IT!"), and there
was a very lively weight on the end of it. This resulted in
a energetic little fight whereby after a couple of minutes I had
netted a pristine jack pike of 5lbs 12oz: |
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My uncle was happy to see that at least one of us had caught a pike. His
exact words to me 2 days before the session were, "I'd be happy to see a
pike come out from either one of us, but it'd be great if someone had a
double figure!", which made me more determined to catch. I re-baited and
recast to the same spot.
A couple of hours later the alarm on the feeder rod went off very
slowly, and I struck. At first I didn't even think that there was a fish
on the end of my line, or I had struck too early. But when I got it in,
it ended up being a small skimmer not even worth weighing at about 3 or
4 ounces.
After this skimmer I thought that I'd try and get a bigger bream. So I
changed to ledgering a 10mm SMARTBaiT CSL boilie on a hair rig. I cast
it to the same spot as before, but this time with a PVA bag filled with
the sweet groundbait, CSL boilies, casters and maggots. I then recast my dead bait to the
left of me in a very snaggy spot full of overhanging trees,
rushes and plants. My uncle convinced me to put the bait there
and was confident that a pike would be lurking about somewhere.
It was just a case of seeing whether or not they will want to
take the bait that worried me! A while later and my uncle and I
were having a discussion on how mad it was that seagulls can not
only take boilies while they're in mid flight, but also know
where they're going to land, and manage to actually follow them
too. We got to chatting about this when we saw a carper at the
opposite side of the lake trying to catapult boilies to a
controller float, but a load of seagulls got to the boilies
before they even got near the water!
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It was then that there was a blip
on the pike rod...then another....and then a couple more.
Before I knew it the bobbin edging closer towards the rod the
rod and I had struck in to what felt a nice weight. It didn't
fight as much at first. Instead it was swimming around in a,
'figure of eight' fashion, then heading towards the snags every
now and then. When it realised it was hooked, the fish hurtled
off about 30 yards out to open water in around 3 or 4
seconds! I managed to bring it in and after about a few odd
minutes of fighting and I had netted a pike which when weighed,
turned the Avon's to 10lbs 8oz. A new PB pike and a new PB fish
overall. It had made the session, and my uncle was happy too:
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The boilie didn't do me wrong either actually! Half an hour or so after
returning the pike the bite alarm went off on the Senator carp rod and I
then had a 2lbs 3oz bream.
So...overall I had an excellent day as my uncle did too. A PB pike
and
a PB bream and the most pike I've caught in a
single session as well believe it or not! My uncle unfortunately didn't
catch but he was happy to see me catch and he was delighted to see a double
figure pike also as he hoped. I cant often go to this lake as it's a fair
way away from me and there is no way of getting there via public transport.
Also there's a 3 year waiting list to get to it and my uncle took me over as
a guest. In fact, it's only the second time I've ever been there and my can
go there any time he's off work. And he was happy for me.......and then we
went home
I want to thank my uncle for a great day out fishing and
teaching me everything I know as well as a few other things on
that session, otherwise I wouldn't be where I am today, and I
most probably wouldn't be fishing at all! He got me 'hooked' as
they say from the first time he took me to a lake on that
complex where I caught around 30 fish. It's always a great day
out when I'm ever fishing with my uncle or with him and my
little cousin to these lakes and any other lake in fact.
Cheers for a blinding day Tim!
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What a view - makes you want to go fishing!
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Tight lines for the new year!
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