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Wednesday I turned up around 11am, surprised to see carpark empty.
Settled on peg 2 opposite the tree. Took awhile to set up as it was extremely hot.
Finally got fishing about 12.20. One rod on method feeder and Cocoscope water, other rod on my favoured Heli rig and red maggots.
Saw several tench rolling and carp cruising on the surface, so had an idea nothing was going to happen until it went cooler.
Late afternoon my Heli rig went off only for the hook to pull during the fight, it felt like a tench, a little bit later the method went off. Quite a nice common carp came in, saw the awaiting landing night, turned a d fled, another bloomin hook pull 😳 So 2 new rigs tied with a bigger hook. Around 8pm ish I reeled the Heli rig in, and found a small blade roach had hooked itself without any indication! Chucked the rig back out, immediately into another fish, which resulted in a roach which came in a few ounces under 1lb. Something I have to deal with when tench fishing.
I had a very quiet night, which I was puzzled at. Obviously they don't like big beds of bait, noted for next time.
Thursday I woke to complete cloud cover, total change from Wednesday and the wind was blowing in a different direction.
Again, tried various baits and most action I had was liners, noted next time back lead.
A lad turned up and setup 2 swims above me. Then started casting virtually to the tree where I was fishing!😠 About midday my Cocoscope on the method went off. Weird bite the bobbin lifted and stayed but no line was being taken, looking at the line where it entered the water and I noticed the line moving to my left. Lifted into what felt like a decent carp, the lad 2 swims down saw it and confirmed it was a carp. By now it had wiped out his right-hand rod, probably due to being technically in my swim. Anyway we managed to get it separated and I was finally controlling the fish, not an easy feat on light tench gear. Played it for another few minutes and.......
yup hooklink snapped 🤬 I started a slow pack down but reeled both rods in and had an hour or so on the driftbeater float, which resulted in a couple of Rudd on pineapple mini wafters. Then around 13.30 I decided it was time to go. Although you could see it as a bad session, being my first overnighter I did learn abit more about the water, besides it was my 1st overnighter for 2 years, so it was more about getting back into it. With the way my head is at times, I'm pleased I managed to get out. Armed with new ideas I will be back again.
The tench aren't shy so try a stronger hook link so as not to worry about hook pulls I use 8lb flourocarbon and have landed big carp on it and the tench fight well in there so it isn't overkill
Most people don't see beyond that tree unfortunately. There's a lack of etiquette with sparrow and tetton with the stages so close together and people wanting the known "hot spots" even though both lakes are full of fish and will produce anywhere. Better luck next time!