Another session yesterday on the small lake I’ve been fishing recently, which got off to an interesting start, when I caught a small rudd on a bare hook while checking the shotting on the float rig. It was fairly hooked in the top lip, so must have taken the hook thinking it was food of some sort.
Having decided that was a one-off occurrence, sweetcorn was added to the hook when I actually started fishing. Unlike last week, there was very little visible activity from the fish, and it was at least an hour into the session before the first real bite happened. Andy had just arrived, and I’d just told him that nothing much was happening, when some bubbles appeared around my float, indicating a feeding fish was around. A positive bite and a lively fight soon followed, resulting in Andy netting a tench of around two pounds.
A small bream followed, but it all went quiet again for a while, during which I got some footage of some very young moorhen chicks on the lilies. Andy can be spotted on the opposite bank.
Switching my bait to a different part of the swim, there was a couple of slight dips of the float, before it submerged slightly and stayed under. I hit it and felt a solid resistance, but the fish didn’t seem to realise that it had been hooked for a while. I’d got it quite close in when it suddenly woke up and shot off to towards some lilies. I’d just managed to get the run under control when the hook pulled. On inspection the hook point was burred over, so I suspect the fish may have been foul-hooked.
As the afternoon moved into early evening, the float sailed away and the resultant strike saw a carp tear off out towards the middle of the lake, only for the hook to pull again. This time I could be sure that the fish had been foul-hooked, as the hook had a large scale attached to it.
Eventually, I did managed to fairly hook and land a nice-looking common carp of about four pounds or so. Andy had two carp, plus another seven pounder that he hooked in the tail. Odd that between us, we had three foul-hooked fish.
Barbelhammer's Babblings 