Pushing my luck.

It didn't really occur to me that I was pushing my luck a bit going out fishing until I was already ensconced in staring at a sliver of glowing fiberglass a few feet of a reed bed. It was as my mind came out of visualising the events I hoped were going on under the waters glassy surface that I remembered we were going on holiday the following morning and maybe I should be packing or something rather than pursing ghosts on the reservoir. As I had already crossed a good proportion of the county to get here and spent half an hour tearing every sprig of weed out of the area I was fishing using my new weed rake, it seemed foolish to leave straight away. With an early exit firmly in mind, I set about concentrating on the orange tip of my Drennan antenna float close to the reeds and waited for it to make the slightest movement up or down.

Although the bottom of the area I had raked off was liberally covered in very expensive ground bait and a few speckles of corn, I was supplementing that with regular sprinkles of fresh casters. It was this regular feeding which I felt sure attracted the initial slew of nice perch which in this deep clear water give a magnificent account of themselves, fighting hard and deep at first then slowing as the reach the surface. Five or six of these colourful little predators took my triple caster bait as it fluttered onto the deck.

Once the perch capture petered off I knew something a bit feistier was soon on the cards. The first over exaggerated lift was somehow missed but the second more subtle lift of the float was subsequently struck and connected with a savage fish which tore the swim apart. Only a little male tench went this mad and as predicted the culprit did turn out to be a young male full of vim and vigor.

The swim took a good while to settle down after the first fish had made such a fuss. It was nearly an hour before the fish to drifted back in again. The signs were very slight at first, with the float rising a little here and dipping a little there. It seemed most of what I was seeing was probably accidental contact as the fish moved around the swim with tails and fins knocking the line. But being as I was hoping for a crucian carp I did strike at a couple of delicate lifts just in case, but that just resulted in nothing. Trying to hit those early signs of movement on the float proved thankless, so I began waiting a bit longer until both of the yellow lines below the orange tip of the float rose out of the water. The next positive rise was struck and made contact with a very angry tench which really pushed my outfit to the limit and as per normal turned out to be another male.

As the clock ticked down on my session another small tench was landed before I struck into what had to of been a rare carp. One moment I was watching the float wobble a bit, the next line was stripping off my reel far too quickly for my liking. I am not sure how wide this water is, but given that I only had a hundred meters of line on my reel I really didn't fancy seeing if it was more than a hundred meters to the other side. With little to no choice I applied the brakes a bit more and wound down on the clutch. Not long after that the line went at the hook link knot. The suspected carp had cleared the swim upon exiting it and with no time to wait for it to rejuvenate, I packed away whilst it was still light and headed back home to apologize for going fishing rather than getting packing.