We arrived at the lake to find it completely deserted, other anglers would turn up later in the day but it meant we could jump straight into our two favourite swims; 'the aquarium' (swim 18) and 'no fish corner' (swim 19).
I decided to start the day using the soft halibut pellets that I had so much success on last time but as always I had also brought along a variety of boilies just in case, as usual a small PVA bag of pellets was attached for every cast. Since the Pike season was now upon us I had also brought along a few Mackerel deadbaits to try a bit of cheeky Piking for an hour or two if the Carp action was slow.
For the first couple of hours it didn't matter what bait I opted for I couldn't get a run for the life of me, I even tried a popup boilie which is a rare tactic for me. My first fish of the day came in the form of a small Pike that snaffled up my margin fished Mackerel deadbait, the fish only weighed a couple of pounds but being so small was awkward to unhook so I decided to abandon the Piking for the day after returning the fish to the water. My friend on the other hand had managed a couple of Carp on tuna and chili boilies but it was definitely slow by Roosthole standards, we suspected the lack of rain might be having an impact as the water level was visibly down from a few weeks before.
A quick wander around the lake revealed a few fish showing themselves on swims 12 to 14 and there was plenty of feeding activity on display in the form of bubbles and silt clouds, they were probably from Bream but by now I was in no position to be picky so the move was made.
I dropped my baits in the area where I saw the silt clouds and eventually after an hour I was rewarded with a run that eventually resulted in a small Mirror Carp of approximately 5lbs being landed. After a few more hours I had failed to catch any further fish from the middle of the lake so I decided to drop my baits as close to a big overhanging tree on the far bank as I dared, not exactly an easy task considering the limited casting room the trees in my swim afforded me.
Within 10 minutes of casting the bobbin on my left hand rod fell, climbed half way and then stopped, rather than waiting for it to move again I decided to hit the bite and connected with something that initially felt like a Bream. It wasn't until I got the fish within a few rod lengths of the bank that it started to use it's big rudder to go on a series of surging runs. After a thoroughly enjoyable fight with the fish staying low and plodding I eventually had her lying on the surface and beat as my mate slipped the landing net underneath what I thought would be a new personal best. I didn't think she would go quite as high as the magical and elusive twenty but I was pretty sure she would be the biggest Carp I had caught, how wrong I was. Sadly for me the fish had the size but she didn't have the conditioning and with her big saggy hollow belly she could only move the needle on the scales to 16lb.
I finished the day with just five Carp and one small Pike, my friend on the other hand managed a much more respectable seven Carp. It definitely looked like the Carp were feeding in spells as more often than not me and my friend would either have fish on at the same time or within a few minutes of each other. Not exactly the best day I've had at Roosthole but I can't really complain, it certainly beats working.
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