May 23rd - Pleasure Session at Morndyke‏

Seeing as I was at Evolution festival in Newcastle on the Sunday and Monday I decided to make sure I got fishing on the Saturday so I didn’t miss a week. I’d spoken to Gordon and decided to join Honest John and himself up at Morndyke. After carrying out a few early errands I got to the fishery at just gone 9 and John and Gordon we’re just about set up. They we’re pegged on 7 and 8 so I decided to plump next to them round the corner on peg 9. I’ve never fished this area before and tend to fish on or towards the central island. I quite fancied a day on the method but all the pegs I fancied for this we’re taken so I opted to fish paste again and with a marginal bush on either side I had plenty of scope for different lines to fish.

Gordon and John were both fishing paste for the day too so it would be interesting to see what the outcome would be regarding who fed what and in what quantity etc.

I finally rigged up with a rig identical to the one from the week previous, and also mixed up some more of the pellet power+ paste. I first of all went out to the right bush and plumbed about for a bit. I decided to fish a foot or two away from the bush, one it meant the float was easier to see against the back drop and also the bottom flattened out nicely where as under the bush it was on a fairly steep gradient and I didn’t want all my feed to roll to bottom of the slope away from where I was fishing.

First put out with a blob of paste and half a dozen 6mm pellets and after a couple of minutes I was into my first fish. Now the fish in Morndyke average at about 4lb although that average will probably be nearer 4.5 to 5lb now! The bite was much just like a typical bite on any bait, not a frustrating bite you often get with paste, I played the fish for a minute or two as they fight like crazy in here and you just can’t get their heads up! I put the power on as it charged under the platform and we parted company. A couple of extra winds of elastic onto the bung and I wasn’t going to be beaten again!

Next put out I waited a minute or two and was soon attached to another, this led me a merry dance and due to the amount of pressure you have to put on them I ended up landing it with my number four still in place. It finally took a gulp of fresh air and soon nestled in the bottom of the net, this was a good fish by fishery standards, probably knocking on 6lb. I had a couple more before I felt the swim was fading away from me.

Now feeding patterns, Gordon didn’t seem to be feeding anything, John was big potting after every few fish and I was dripping half a dozen pellets in with my hook bait. The thing is no real trend could be found as we were all catching.

John had started fishing shallow and took one straight away. Seeing as my line had pretty much died I dumped a pot of bait in at 7m straight in front and a pot full down next to the bush also. I would then fish the 7m line and start feeding pellets at 13m every few seconds.

I managed to take a fish straight away off the deck at 7m but no more. I went back down the bush and managed a couple more but I had to wait a long time between bites. I’d been feeding the shallow line for the best part of 90minutes now and decided to give it a go, 30 minutes later and no signs what so ever I decided to sack it off and save my bait!

John and Gordon packed up at 4pm and by this point I think I had 11, John had 16 and Gordon had 19. I decided to stay on for a further hour as it had picked up a little. I managed four in the space of half an hour whilst they were packing away. It started to spit and I thought it was best to head home also so chucked the remainder of paste away but then the sun came out again and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so I pinched the rest of Johns left over paste and after they’d gone I managed another 3 fish in quick succession taking my tally to 18.

So another better weekend and a few more paste lessons learnt, I finished with 18 carp for about 70-80lb, easily my best result of the year and probably more than I’ve caught in the last few weeks put together!

No club match this coming weekend so probably another pleasure session somewhere, perhaps Morndyke again!