Great Danes
Had a bit of a late start after Ryan’s football presentations, and a night out with friends to watch the Champions League final, so did not get there until 10:30. As we were setting up, it looked like there was a black plastic bag hanging in the tree at the road end, until we noticed it moving. Yes, the cormorants have arrived, and we saw this one take at least 15 fish throughout the day.
We had settled on pegs 2 & 3 at the hotel side by the small gate, and set Ryan up with a small waggler to size 18 red maggot hook, as he was going to start on 2 dead red maggots. He was soon catching small roach, and the odd gudgeon which are all a good size.
I set up the pole to about 7m, with grey hydro in the top 2. The rig was a 0.2g NG XT Decker, Preston Reflo 0.17, to a drennan wide gape 18 on a 0.15 hooklength. The lake is pretty even in depth, and after plumbing up, the rig was set to dead depth at 77cm. I fed a couple of handfuls of salted sweetcorn with maggots out, and started fishing like Ryan with 2 dead red maggots.
The first bite came after about 15mins, and I landed a nice common about 2lbs. Ryan was still landing some nice small roach, and catching the odd tree 🙂 but his casting has really improved on the waggler now. I start getting a few small fish bite, so I changed over to 6mm cubed luncheon meat that has been dusted with krill powder, and then frozen. This seems to get the krill drawn in to the meat better than just dusting it.
Still loose feeding a few pieces of sweetcorn, it is not long, and in to another nice dark mirror. They are really starting to feed well, and have another 3 before Ryan has a tangle for me to sort out. He takes over and soon gets in to a nice carp around 5lbs, but it seems to have spooked the swim now, so time for a nice coffee.
After a 15 min rest, I start to loose feed the sweetcorn again, and almost straight away in to another little mirror around 1 1/2lb. The next bite screams off straight out, before heading off to the island on the left with the elastic at what be almost f
ull stretch. It finally comes in towards me, and I manage to unship to the top 3 before it starts heading off again straight out. This time it comes right up to the bank, before heading off down the margin to the left in to the overhanging branches, but a flick of a large tail and it out towards the middle again. After about 5 minutes waiting for the
inevitable ping, it seems to be heading in towards the net, and eventually Ryan manages to just get it in the net, and a nice 11lb common.