The Bank Holiday Weekend

Well, the bank holiday weekend had descended upon us once again, the tough decision was made to not simply spend four days in the pub and make full use of recovery Monday but too utilise my time a little better and get some fishing done! The weather forecast couldn’t have been worse, Friday – Light showers, Saturday – Heavy showers and sleet, Sunday – Heavy sleet and snow. So in hindsight my decision to go fishing on the Sunday was perhaps a bad one, although I had been invited to fish a small knock up match with a few of the lads from the club up at a place called Morndyke in North Yorkshire. It was decided that come Sunday morning if the weather was rubbish we wouldn’t go but if the sun was shining and the rest of the days forecast wasn’t too bad then a trip out might not be too bad. So when I stirred at 6:15 and glanced out of the window to see at least 2inches of snow everywhere I quickly retreated back to my ‘pit’ as my father so affectionately calls it. However I’d not turned my alarm off so I was once again awoken at 8:00am, a quick couple of texts and a phone call later and we were heading on our way by 9:30, we must have been mad!

Now I’ve never fished this venue before but I’d been told by the guy I’d gone with to expect deep water, carp of around 4-5lb and lots of them! Pegs were dictated by his previous experiences and I was brimming with confidence by the time I was sat on my box. I chucked on a couple of trusted rigs and started plumbing up, they weren’t joking when they said it was deep! I ended up tying up a new rig, on 0.15 Power line, a BGT 0.4g float, a size 16 PR36 and capped off with a Middy pink hollow. Now the reason I chose such a light float even though the depth was around 7 feet is purely because I was fishing less than three metres away from the bank but 15m away from my peg to a marginal bush. The wind wasn’t too bad and I thought a bulk shot around 2.5ft away from the hook would give me a nice slow fall of the hook bait. If the wind were to pick up and therefore affect presentation I would simply bung a few more shot on and just lay it over depth by 6inch or so. For bait today I only had 4 & 6mm expanders which I’d pumped the night before for the hook and some 2 & 4mm coarse pellets for feeding.

So I was finally set up and shipped out 15m to the marginal bush where I tipped in a fruit shoot cap full of pellets dropped my rig in and eased it up the slope. After a biteless first hour, the weather was seemingly picking up even if the fishing wasn’t. The guy I was with had hooked one and lost it and there was no one else on the lake to make any judgements on. After a cuppa and another half hours perseverance I finally had my first bite, I struck and connected, the fish led me a merry dance and I thought I’d lost it under my platform for a few seconds however it all came good when the fish surfaced at my feet and was swiftly scooped up into the net. At around 4.5lb I thought, yes, we’re now in for a few fish, it wasn’t to be, and I didn’t have another fish nor a bite for the rest of the day. My mate only had the one carp too of a similar size to mine and we decided to sit it out until 3pm and if we hadn’t had any more fish then we would pack up and head home. Which we did!

Granted we’d had heavy snow the night before and not ideal weather leading up to this weekend but as an angler I always like to lean towards the optimistic side as I think a negative attitude gets portrayed into how you fish. But with 2inches of snow that leads for a lot of cold water entering the lake which surely won’t do any good. However we live and learn!

To top things off I thought the only way to rectify this negative result by going again on the Monday, it turns out I’m a glutton for punishment. I went up to the Oaks, near to Thirsk and fished on Maple lake peg 1, I didn’t have a bite all day, my mate only caught a roach no bigger than his little finger, it snowed on and off all day and to top things off the spike was stuck in my brolly so I basically sat and got cold and wet for six hours. Perhaps next Easter four days in the pub might not be such a bad shout!!