August 27, 2007

• Old Bury Hill Fishery. The Estate Lake.

  

  So Bank Holiday Monday and Maria is working today, so after dropping her at work at 6am I popped back home to load my kit up and set off towards Dorking, having decided to take the opportunity to reacquaint myself with The Old Estate Lake at Bury Hill Fisheries . Surprisingly for a Bank Holiday the traffic was very light and in just under an hour I was pulling into an already busy car park at the fishery.
  
  Stopping off at the Boathouse to get my day ticket I notice that things have moved on since I last visited with a much better stocked tackle and bait section now in place and a quick glance along the Front Bank reveals that most of those swims are already taken. I really want to get among a few of the Bream that the lake is known for, so set off along the Long Bank in the hope of getting one of the swims amongst the lily pads .
  Carpers, carpers everywhere, but just as it looks like I’ll be unlucky I find a swim 2 shy of the culvert that will do nicely for the day, allowing me to reach the pads on both sides at 14½mtrs and with a decent amount of open water in front should I hook a Carp.
  
  

  

  The rig was simplicity itself, a top2 rigged with black Hydro with a 4×12 KC Carpa Tricky float rigged up on 0·17 Carptec line straight through to a barbless 18 fox series2 hook to fish on the bottom in about 4ft of water. Bait was to be GOT Baits  6mm expanders, with a few of these being fed along with their 4mm hard pellets.
  
  It wasn’t hard fishing really just a question of feeding the 2 opposite lines and alternating between them till a bite came along, which it finally did after about 30mins. A little dip and it just slid away and within a minute there in the net was one of OBH’s smaller Bream going around 3lbs ………….
  
  

  

  The promise of another bright hot sunny day looked as if it may have an adverse effect on sport but by sticking at it I’d had 10 between 3 – 4½lbs by 11am.
  
  Next put in and a similar bite sees a lot of Hydro heading through the pads, cranking the pressure onto my Super PowerLite a tug of war ensued, slowly and surely the pressure told and the fish (still attached ) came out into open water. The commotion had brought the angler from the next swim round to watch and within a couple of minutes there in the net is a nice Common Carp of around 10lbs……..
  
  

  

  The chap in the next swim is called Paul, fishing more conventional Carp gear of matched rods and baitrunners on a pod, and soon he’s into a Carp that has taken a hair rigged Halibut pellet. It’s soon netted and weighs in at 12lbs. He’s only got a basic camera so I capture it on my digital to e-mail to him later………
  
  

  

  Another couple of Bream for me and then I’m into another tug of war, this time in the other set of pads!!!!!!! Once again the constant pressure tells and the fish pops out into the open water and after 3-4 minutes of dogged plodding it slides over the net, a much chunkier fish this time coming in at just over 12lbs , with Paul snapping a picture for me………..

  

  A quick phone call to Malc to find out how he’s doing on a pole only match at Drayton reveals he isn’t!!!!!!!!! Yep, the Peugeot has let him down once again and he’s waiting for the recovery truck……………… Somethings never change. Another quick call to Dave reveals that he and Stu are on a Barbel hunt on a river somewhere in deepest Yorkshire, but at that point in time they hadn’t had one.
  
  Paul meanwhile has had another nice Common while I’ve had 3 more Bream in successive put in’s followed by another Carp, a Mirror this time, which thankfully charges out into open water allowing me to bring it to the net relatively easily. In the net it looks a little weird as it appears to have a massively underslung mouth, hasn’t affected it’s appetite though as it appears otherwise fit and well at around the 10lb mark…………

  

  Yet more Bream put in an appearance and around 3pm I’m thinking of packing up to avoid catching the Bank Holiday traffic on the way home the float slides away and I’m attached to another Carp, yet another Common and with Paul doing the honours it proves to be my best of the day at 14lbs . As I start to pack my gear away Paul is in again once more, and after a spirited fight I find myself doing the honours again, this time it’s another lovely Common tipping the scales at 17lbs……….

  

  
  So that’s it for me, a very pleasant days fishing with some good company and a final tally of 17 Bream and 4 Carp. Paul was stopping on for a few more hours so I bade him farewell having made sure I had his E-mail address to forward the pictures on to him.
  Next up it’s the final round of The Jinx Series at Rolf’s Lake next Saturday, Hopefully Malc will get there but with his car you wouldn’t bet on it .

  

  

   

  • 2:12 pm
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