Bungled intentions.

Curse you red wine, curse you!


Those were my exact words as I stood in the kitchen at seven o'clock on Sunday morning with my head feeling like it was stuffed full of cotton wool. Although I had only over slept by and hour and a half this had screwed up my Sunday morning jaunt to my top secret canal carp fishing spot. I suppose I could have raced there but by the time I'd driven to the canal and tabbed miles of tow path I would have all of an hours peace and quiet before the boats started, so a change of plan was needed.


There was something I have meaning to do for a while and with my limited time it seemed perfectly convenient change of tack. 
I have heard along the grapevine that Jubilee pools big lake contains some rather large bream. I myself have never witnessed any of these rumoured leviathons, but the depth of this lake combined with the hoards of smaller fish and the masses of bait deposited into the venue by the dedicated band of carp anglers which surround this lake, lead me to believe that there could be some very large bream swimming in its waters. So this mornings trip was as much about finding out possible feeding areas as it was fishing.


Upon arriving I headed straight to the area where most of the carp fishing gets done. Chatting with those already fishing anglers confirmed that the bream here have taken a real shining to bolies/spod mix, and why shouldn't they when its getting throw in by the bucket load daily. So I set up down the bank in a position which would enable me to fish a couple of feeders whilst watching where got baited by others.

It all went pretty much to plan and as I made notes for future sessions my buzzers sounded intermittently as a shoal of bream passed time and again over my baited area. I took about five or six proper bream up to 3.6lb and a few immature skimmer bream. One had foul hooked itself whilst mooching over the bait causing the most unbelievable one toner and made me think I'd hooked a much bigger fish as it came in sideways.

Just about every fish like this three pound example were sporting spawning tubercles and fought pretty hard on the way in.

Later in the morning I decided to have a walk down the bank and investigate what I suspected was a group of carp milling round on the top. My suspicions were correct, and in an area called (ironically) 'no carp corner' by the regulars five or six decent carp were basking on the top. It was too much to resist! Even though I had no floaters I thought casting a pop up or two at them may give me a chance to a slurp or two. As always a few casts turned into many but sadly every time one of the carp went to take the white pop up it tuned off at the last minute. As I sat in the shade dappled corner I got chatting to a chap called Alan who is a regular fishing companion of  someone I know from another venue, so we sat discussing Zander fishing as I time and again flicked my single bait in front of these wary carp.

I never did contact any of those carp but still I spent an enjoyable day in the sun whilst bagging some bream and learning some very useful information for future trips to a venue I have ignored over the last few years.