Well guys you find me filming for Fishing Britain this weekend and I will be sure to add a link at the bottom of the blog for those that want to see my efforts at talking to camera! And a laugh… possibly not in that order
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With so many blogs, DVD’s and TV programmes about every aspect of carp fishing we wanted to do something a little light hearted. So it’s a Smeets and Slater session on a park lake with what turned out to be everyone else who owned a fishing rod! Even the lakes bailiffs got in on the action searching for a snag out in the middle of the lake in a boat. Tony had already found this and reeled in what turned out to be 60 yards of line that morning, but shhhhh we didn’t want to spoil there fun.
Arriving at the lake at 5am for a walk round, we found two of the main swims taken by people that had fished through the night. Now you can’t use a bivvy or bed chair on this lake due to it being public, so it’s a brolly, chair and no sleep. The other swim I fancied the guys had come down at 3am, so they could have been tipped off we were getting down early. It’s not like the DVD’s where the swim is closed for 3 months and pre-baited in the real world.
We pitched up next to a couple of guys who were leaving at 8am, fishing a few hours before moving into the swim for filming. Both Tony and I landed a couple of mid-doubles to this point, but nothing like I’d caught the weekend before in an evening session whilst doing some research. Pressure was high and talking to the guys that fished the night nothing had come out the margins, always a winner on a park lake normally.
Fishing Britain arrived with Tony fishing long to the end of the island (a known holding area) with me fishing the right hand margin for a bigger fish and open water just over half way to the island. Tony chopped and changed to great effect to keep the bites coming, but I simply couldn’t pick up a fish from my spots. We planned to film till 3pm and with an hour to go till filming ended I moved the rods back into my morning swim. This resulted in a fish minutes before time was up and I can’t say how welcome it was too. More so for Aaron I feel as he had a 3 hour drive ahead of him. Thanks for staying buddy.
The day was filled with so much banter, bailiffs, dogs, the pubic and children seeing their first carp. We even had time for the Wychwood Slug Challenge and although I lost I do feel a little cheating was going on.