Well fed

Date fished 20/4/2024

8am until 1pm 

Frosts during the week and lows of minus one. Perfect for some spring tench! 😂

The weather is usually the limiting factor in my fishing. Too hot, drought, too wet, flooded just some of the experiences these last few years. I try not to grumble though, no bugger would listen (or sympathise!)

Tom and I decided to head to Tilcon. We had been messaging about halibut pellets over the last few weeks. Me teasing him, as he loves them, that he was making them for dinner! He assured me it was actually corned beef hash, it looked good, my invite must have been in the post?!

Arriving at the lake, it was similar to the last outing here. I had the float rod and the ledger gear ( not sure why I use rod and gear that way?! but always do)

Walking around the flooded path, I found a couple of fishable swims next to eachother. I plonked my gear into one and started feeding. myself, not the fish! Or so Tom thinks. 

I ate two roast beef rolls, a kit kat, a little orange and drank my flask of coffee. Not too much! 

We then fed the fish. Corn, pellets and groundbait. No bites but plenty of fish topping and a huge ripple right next to my float. My exclamation only met with Tom's laughter as he declared "that was my pellet I chucked at your float!" 

Blanker! (Not a typo) 

Hypnotic

Date fished 6/4/2024

7am until 12pm

A date with Kathleen later today didn't sound fun, so I headed out early. The rivers being closed to coarse fishing had me going to my usual April to June ish haunt of Tilcon. It's great to have a club close by, just to cater for my closed season fix. In truth, I probably fish Tilcon from April to October, but mostly evenings when the river season is back open from mid June. 

Today, the lake was full. Very full. The wooden platform I usually sit on was a good few feet underwater, and by a few I may mean five! Am sure someone will tell me. I plumbed and was fishing fairly deep on the bottom and was probably just about fishing where the normal edge of the lake would be. 

Nornally, I would walk from the end of the wooden channel to the platform by that bush. That's how much water was in. But it looked perfect for a fish. Kathleen had brought some unusually warm weather and when the drizzle stopped, it was ideal weather. 

Float fished sweetcorn about 10 steps from my parked car was the approach, with a little bit of bread crumb and micro pellets as loose feed. It took about an hour and the float disappeared. A nice, hand sized ide to open my account. 

Another angler came just as I was releasing the ide, we had a little chat and he set off to the other side of the lake. 

Unfortunately no more fish for me, but I had a good time. Whilst slowly being hypnotised by the float, I watched Magpies taking housing materials to their chosen spot, a deer eating it's breakfast and a large fish porpoising over floating sweetcorn skins. 

I thought it was a large bream, it didn't slurp them down like a carp. Instead, going back and forth over one skin. It took two or three attempts to eat it. Of course, I changed tactics and soon two skins attached to my hook sat on the surface. The fish took my offering three times, but sadly no hook ups! 

I enjoyed my day at Tilcon. I sat and realised, it was the last place I had fished with Davey. I am not a believer when people say it's not called "catching" but "fishing", so not catching is ok.

However, I was more than happy to sit and be hypnotised by nature this morning. Am off now to hook up with Kathleen and make her dry my washing!