Upon arrival at Snitterfield reservoir we could see the wind was causing quite a chop on the dam end. Given our target species for the evening was Crucian Carp we both agreed to fish in the lee of the wind to assist with the presentation under floats. There are also some weedbeds at the opposite end to the dam and the consensus was to associate Crucians with weed.
I fished a light float outfit just off the rod tip, in about 5ft of water. I baited with a mixture of particles and groundbait and fished corn on the hook.
Second cast and I got into a Crucian. After a pretty dogged fight I weighed it in at 1lb 12 ozs. It was certainly an old warrior, looking like it had been round the block a few times. It's worth a silver in the challenge I have with my mate Pete though irregardless of it's proximity to the great weedbed in the sky!
Bites were regular throughout the evening and we both caught our share of fish. I had predominantly Roach with the odd skimmer, Perch and Rudd.
After I'd caught the first Rudd off the bottom I thought I would have a go for them properly and switched from my centrepin to a fixed spool reel so I could reach a bit further out. There were fish coming up for some bread I'd put out which were obviously not Carp so I reckoned on them being good Rudd.
I fished shallow with a small piece of bread and got bites from the off. It took me a while to connect however and when I did - in came a Roach. I persevered but took only a couple more Roach fishing shallow like this.
I switched back to the bottom and carried on trying to hit the finicky bites I was getting there. I'd fed hemp and was now sure my tell-tale bottom shot were being picked up by fish thinking they were seeds. The float seemed perpetually on the move. I hit one of the slightest lifts and hooked a Roach on the underside of it's mouth. When I pulled the line forward the two dust shot lined directly up with it's mouth.
After this I adjusted my shotting pattern so the lowest shot were ten inches from the hook. This seemed to help matters but the bites were still proving hard to hit. I say I connected with about one in four.
I had no more Crucian's to show for my efforts.
Jeff's swim was deeper than mine and he took approximately six decent Bream to three pounds something during the session. He also connected with a Carp off the top but was playing a Bream at the time so the noises coming from his peg were pretty funny I can tell you. A combination of 'Aaaarrgh, help, Keith, take this rod will you' coupled with a screaming clutch followed by a punchy obscenity and then bemused laughter. As you can probably guess, the Bream was landed and the carp got away rather well.
The fishing challenge scores are now;
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