The Lake #23 The top of the pyramid.

I have for the last two weeks been banging my head up against the brick wall that is Coombe Abbey lake. I think describing it as a brick wall is perfect as what I have been trying to do there is as tough as brick is hard! As I had said many times before, myself and this lake have had an up and down kind of relationship over the years, but of late we've been doing alright. That was until the predator season came along and now it's all turned to rat shit... 

Even with this water teeming with pike of all sizes I find myself fishing only for zander. If you believe anything written of Coombe and zander in the past twenty years, you would think that there is loads of the damn things right up to record shaking weights. Well, the reality is that things here have settled down on the zander front and I think that the pike outnumber the zander twenty to one, and that's being conservative. Then if you will, think of the classical ecological pyramid with millions of prey fish making up the wide base of the pyramid and a smaller amount of predators forming the tiny point at the top. Now if that pyramid had a shiny little flash of light glistening right at the top that would represent the zander. I am sure you see where I am going here. Hence I have been seeking a very small amount of very special fish in a massive lake full of not very special fish and it ain't been going well.

So far I've spent time staring in bushes as the rain has been coming down so hard that I had to turn my back on the lake...

I've sat watching motionless rods all day, only to find my bite alarms have succumbed to the damp...

I have also spent hours scanning the huge expanse of water looking for signs of predation...

And so far all I have achieved is to read a book whilst I waited!

Truthfully right now I find myself thinking that the time I spend trying to winkle a single run from this lake is just time wasted. I could wait day and night until Christmas and not receive one bleep, let alone a run. From what I have heard on the grapevine it;s not been going well for any other anglers pursuing them either and so far if I am right, the grand total of zander caught this season totals the daunting number of one! Right now for me that is just not appropriate or conducive to what time I have to spend on this foolhardy quest and as a result I have decided to leave it alone.

With my Coombe zander quest shelved for now I need a bit of pepping up so decided to head back to the lake I now refer to as Area 51 that I fished recently for sturgeon, hoping for a run or two. Every time I visit this anomaly of a fishery it has a weird feel to it. Take this resident duck for example...what the hells with that hairdo!!!

The fishing and captures on this occasion were relatively normal. The sturgeon failed to show but I did not lack action. By noon I had actually run out of bait as a steady run of low double figure carp kept me very busy stuffing my oversized baits into their mouths with gay abandon.

It kind of made me wonder about the intelligence of carp as this lot were more than happy to force my match box sized cubes of luncheon meat in their cake holes, along with what can only be described as some very agricultural rigs attached to it. These stupid blighters made the now popular carp fishing term of 'riggy' redundant. Thirty-five pound braid... not a problem! Size two choddy hook... not a problem! two ounces of luncheon meat... nom nom nom (sorry for the use of 'nom nom nom' I am ashamed of my use of this terrible consumption reference as I hate it, but it does kind of work in this case)

In between random runs I found the rest of my time filled trying to repel my borders against a rather over confident goose. There is is a flock of farm yard geese that waddle around the lakes constantly all day long. Most have a healthy respect for personal space but there is one who thinks nothing of coming blatantly right up and rooting round in your bag, then when you try and shoo him off this cheeky gander just stares you out like you done him some wrong. 

He was a damn nuisance sticking his head were it did not belong, and on at least one occasion found himself in pretty bad situation from his general inquisitiveness..!

Even though I did not actually catch any of my target fish it was nice to get some action after spending so much of my valuable angling time chasing ghost fish in some pretty awful weather. So I suppose this trip did actually serve purpose and has pepped me back up. But even with my renewed vigour I wont be rushing back to Coombe after zander any time soon and will instead change my venue in which to look for a big Zed.