Everything except the terrapin.

I lay warm and curled up in the quilt next to JB and listened to the wind driving the rain into the window beyond the foot of our bed. One of the trio of alarms it takes for me to get up had already gone off and woken me. Waiting for the following two I kept peeping over the edge of the quilt in a vain hope that the rain would miraculously stop now I was awake but it never did. All too soon the two chaser alarms came and went and still I lay there ruminating on my reason for getting up. I must have been mad thinking I would go out fishing in this weather. At this point I must say I am by no means a fair weather fisherman, but I am a fisherman who hates getting wet before I've even started. As long as I can get entrenched in a moment of dry I am happy.

My only opportunity to get out this weekend had already morphed form a crucian session to a tench fishing session as the wind and rain hardly seemed conducive to fishing delicate float rigs and certainly was not the classical crucian conditions I wanted. Still laying bed I was torn between the dry warmth of my current position or damp morning and maybe a cold fish. It was a memory which set me right though! Somewhere from the back of my mind I conjured the recollection of a session on the same water on a very similar day. That day I was the only one who ventured to that lake and it really paid off. I remembered even under the brolly I got wet the rain was driving so bad, but the pay off was worth it as I caught loads of really big old tench. After psyching myself up I quietly whispered out 'who dares wins' so as not to rouse JB and dived out of bed.

Two weetabix and a stop at the shop later I was sitting in the car waiting for the rain to momentarily stop so as I could make a break for and run the deserted path to the vacant area I wanted to fish. Eventually and conveniently the rain stopped and I made my move.

All set up and ready to go the previous visit here to Ryton pool came back to mind. So I opted to fish one rod short over a few loose balls of bait and fish the second as a prospecting rod at range out in front of the island where the wind was battering into. It was a slow start in truth but I was confident I was in the right area and that bites would soon enough come.

Even though the small silver fish were obviously finding my baits it took two hours for the first run to arrive. I half wondered if it was the tow of the water that was lifting my bobbin on my prospect rod at first. But after letting it rise slowly right into the buzzer the line carried on moving and began taking from the reel very slowly. Low and behold it was a fish and not a bad one either! Being as it was my best tench of the year so far I thought a nice tench selfie was in order and that's when I realised that I had neglected to put my camera in my bag for the first time in years! So for this session I was going to have to rely on my ageing phones camera.

The pictures didn't actually come out half as bad as I thought they might. But I've enough experience of sods law to tell me that today I would probably regret not having my proper camera to hand...and only too soon that was confirmed.

Even with the wind trying it's best to hamper my cast I managed to deposit the feeder back within reasonable proximity to the previous successful cast and it worked a treat within fifteen minutes the alarm bleeped into life and a second tench was on and this signalled a run of six more fish of around three to five pounds and culminated in a broad six plus female.

The close in line quite literally lay dormant as all the action seemed to be coming on this occasion from literally the centre of the lake. That was until I had a very stuttering take again on the long line. I had only just picked up the rod and bent into a solid fish when the inside line whizzed off. I was in half a mind to try and pick up the second run, but the fish I had on seemed to be developing into something a little more serious. The second run luckily became a dropped run which was terribly convenient as the fish I was playing was not playing ball. I really wanted it to be a massive tench but I knew it wasn't one in reality. A few people have asked me why I take such a large net tench fishing on Ryton in the past. So here is my answer... 

At nearly sixteen pounds this classical Ryton football would have never fitted into some the nets I see people using when tench fishing on this pool. My right hand is actually hiding how much this fishes gut hung down. Other than the slight nick in its dorsal fin it was absolutely mint top to bottom and thank god I had no one fishing to the right of me as the little bugger kited right into the bank and would have wrought havoc if anyone would have been fishing there.

Really after catching a mess of tench and that carp I was thinking I should be making tracks as I was already a bit overdue leaving. But I couldn't help chancing one last cast into that over productive area and thank old Isaac I did. I had just nipped down the bank to speak to another angler quickly when my alarm receiver bleeped once. At hearing that single bleep I made my way back to the rods. Nothing happened for a while but I still hovered, the thinking it would go off any moment. Slowly the bobbin rose then dropped back six inches sending the alarm in spasm. Thinking it was a drop back I struck and felt some solid resistance. I was waiting for it to steam off as I suspected a second carp had found my bait, but it just slowly started to come closer with pressure. My next thought was it might have been a decent tench, but the tench normally bang their heads a lot in Ryton. My next theory of what I had hooked was a bit out there! There have been a couple of terrapins caught by anglers in this pool over the years and on was even quite a large one as well. As my quarry got closer I was really getting quite perplexed by its identity and wouldn't of been surprised if a snapping mouth with my hook in it appeared out of the water.

I know it's a bit of a Loch Ness monster type photo. But this is one of the Ryton terrapins I took a few years ago.

What actually surfaced was just as surprising as a terrapin... It was a bream! and a good one at that. Now it might sound weird to be shocked at the presence of bream in anywhere, but at the tench dominated Ryton big bream are like hens teeth. According to legend a small shoal of less than ten big old bream have been in this pool for donkeys years and they very rarely get caught, hence my shock.

This one certainly fitted the bill. It was practically blind in both eyes through age and scales that stood as tall as they were wide and long. Even being as obviously old as it was it was in relatively good condition. Back in its prime I am sure this fish would have weighed in as a double. One thing that I did notice was that unlike all the bream I caught last week, it showed no signs of spawning tubercles if it was a male and was carrying no spawn if it was a female. So can only assume it was well past breeding age.

I have to say I was really honoured to catch such a Ryton rarity and it seemed a perfect way to finish a great session.

I think it is worth mentioning that on previous visits to Ryton, I had bumped off a worrying amount of the fish I hooked. After examining the rig on each occasion I had found that the hair rigged fake plastic corn bait I had used was folded round into the bend of the hook. Although it wasn't masking the hook in any way I fear it being twisted into the gape of the hook may have interfered with the hook penetrating or may of helped the hook pivot out of its hold. So I made a tiny and simple modification to my rig by way of adding a small section of silicone tubing that was threaded onto the hook link and then hook before tying the knot-less knot. I feel this certainly helped towards my success on this occasion as not one single fish came adrift during the fight and every hook hold was either in the bottom lip or corner of the mouth.

The lake #11 A reel test ends in a double.

Over a year ago found myself in the market for a new pair of bait runner type reels. After weighing up the options of the available on the market in my price range I opted to purchase a pair of Korum Kxi 60 freespin reels which really looked the part.

In the time that has passed since accruing these I have used them in just about every situation and weather imaginable, from Spring tench fishing on large gravel pits, right through quiver tipping for Zander on the Warwickshire Avon in Autumn, and in all situations they have performed admirably. 

It was not until my early Spring campaign of this year that small foible developed in one of the reels. Very occasionally the free spool became a little temperamental at the very lightest setting. Although intermittent it became a little worrying that sooner or later it might let me down just at the wrong moment. Then more recently the second one also started to show signs of going down the same route. At first I pondered contacting the retailer. But when I ran the scenario through in my head 'I bought a pair of these reels well over a year ago. I've hammered them in every weather come rain or shine and now I think there is something wrong with them' I got the distinct impression that how they would reply would start in a laugh and end in an expletive. So rather than be made a fool off I instead contacted the manufacturer via their website and explained my situation.

Their response was nothing less than amazing considering I was just some bloke who had emailed them via their website. Straight away they asked me to send them back to their service department where they would check them over and repair them, no questions asked. Well a week after returning them I received a parcel I assumed would contain my freshly serviced Kxi's. 

But what was in the box was not my serviced reels but.... A brand new pair!!!!

Not only did they supply me with the new reels but they considerately returned my spools from the old set. Meaning I now have four aluminium spools per reel. To add to that they even chucked in a few goodies including a fetching green baseball cap that I will certainly be sporting for the rest of the Summer.

I have to say that considering the reasonable price I initially paid for these reels, Korum's response has been truly amazing and has left me in no doubt that they actually care about how their products are perceived and whether the anglers that use them are satisfied with there products. So all I can say is thank you very much everyone at Korum. Job well done. 

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Having a newly spooled pair of brand new reels seemed the perfect excuse to hit the lake for a night session  and test them out. So after attaching them lovingly to my Avon rods and setting up the rigs with probably more than due diligence, I headed off to make camp on the shores of the lake.

With the entire night at my disposal there was no way I was going to hold back, it being Summer and all. With no doubt in my mind that the lakes residents would get onto the feed I mixed up a smorgasbord in two large buckets. 4k of green crumb, 2k pellets, 3 tins of sweet corn, 2 pints of hemp, 2k stewed pigeon mix and a few choice flavours gave me around 12 kilos of bait once it was all damped down and ready to be balled in.

A quick lead around found a large clear patch in the weed an easy cast out in an area the seem to be residing in at the moment. Then with a marker float bobbing around central to the patch I fired out ball after ball all over the area. Even dropping them in on a high arc to try and get maximum impact on entry so as they never made it to the bottom whole. As one last cherry on top of the cake I finished off by scattering half a kilo of 10mm Boilies loosely over the baited area to try and get the fish looking for those bigger tasty morsels.

With lines marked and rigs cast out I settled down in my shelter thinking that after all that racket the swim would take a long time to repopulate and this would give me a good four or five hours of dozing before any action occurred. It did take sometime for the fish to venture back in. But no where near as long as I have seen before on the lake and I had not go so much as one wink of kip before it happened. Once the light faded my it was like a switch flicked and the frenzy began.

I was straight into a good size fish on my first bite and that one hadn't even crossed the rim of my landing net before another bobbin began to rise and fall slowly indicating a second fish. The first fish looked huge in the bottom of the net but I never had chance to do anything with it. So I left it in the edge whilst I attended to the second rod. Now with two bream in the bottom of my net I did for a moment consider going for a brace shot. But the second fish literally half the size of the first so I opted to just release it straight away so I did not have to worry about it whilst I weighed the bigger one.

After weighing the fish at a little over 9lb I attempted to get a photo. This turned out to be a little hard as you can see from the state of the photo as my third rod, which I should just say was on a smaller separate spot just down the edge, started to bleep as I was trying to take it. This again turned out to be a smaller 4-5lb fish and after releasing both fish I turned round to see the carnage that was my spot. Three rods all out the water, nets mats and me all caked in bream slime and this was only the beginning.

For the next five hours I worked feverishly to try and keep rods in the water. I do not think at any one point I actually managed to have all three rods in the water at one time. As they just rattled off one after another time and time again. Every time I looked into the bait bucket my bait seemed to dwindling more and more the feeders were going out so fast.

I do not know how many fish I had landed but by two in the morning I was in a real state. My casts were getting less accurate and I repeatedly forgot to clip up. Fatigue was getting the better of me and quite frankly the fish seemed to be getting smaller as the night wore on. It was hard, but I had to make the decision to pull my rods out the water just so as I could get some sleep. It is not an easy thing to do, to stop fishing even though this was one of those time when they can't get enough of it. But I had to do it before I did something really stupid, like standing on a rod or something in my totally dazed state.

I can't even remember throwing off my top or crawling in my sleeping bag. But somehow I did manage to remember to set my alarm to go off at five so I could recast and hopefully fish whilst dozing in the morning.

It is surprising how refreshing only a few hours of sleep can be. My eyes pinged open instantly the moment the sound of my alarm began to build and got straight on with business of getting the rods back out. All three hit there spots first time and I got the feeling the fish were still around as I felt two liners as I set the bobbins.

The fishing was a little less frantic in the light. Which enabled me to sleep for probably thirty minutes between bites. The first takers were pretty average for the lake, falling into the 4-7lb bracket but a couple of naps in a very slight bite yielded a very solid resistance. We all know bream fight like wet sacks but this sack felt like it still had spuds inside. Compared to a lot of the previous fish I took it very easy on this one as it wallowed in. Just of the net I saw a pretty big tail, then as it rolled over the cord it looked big.

I have now caught so many bream from the lake that I have seen probably every possible different shape on one fish or another. Long ones, short ones, thick ones ,and thin ones. But this one had all the positive attributes it needed. Massive humped back, deep pigeon chest and although not a super long fish it was defiantly  wide.

The scales confirmed my hopes. At last a double from the lake. Though only just at 10.2lb!

Weirdly that was pretty much it as the bites went and the first and last fish I caught were the biggest of the whole session and interestingly younger looking fish than a lot of the average ones.

I have racked my brain to try and figure out how many fish I landed through the night. But the best I have come up with was that I lost count somewhere between fifteen and twenty. But I now I landed lots more of all shapes and sizes. A conservative guess may be around twenty five fish through the night. Add to that the confirmed six in the morning. Using some very rough sums and average weights plus the two definite weights has me thinking the total weight could well have been anywhere between a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds. Though I could never confirm the exact weight I certainly had a few hundreds pounds worth of bream slime caked on my kit which I had to try and clean off.

Oh, and as for the new reels, they were faultless!