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The Storm Is Coming

Posted: 2nd Jul 2017

I will condense the last two weeks into this blog so we are back up to speed. The weather has been very warm again and at times touching 38oc in the shade! This saw the fish spawning again for two days, making the fishing once again very tricky. This is all I seem to be typing for the month of June, but the weather this season has been less that consistant and the whole spawning process should have been long completed and the fish back on the feed again! We had 3 chaps booking the lake two weeks ago, two are regulars along with a newcomer to the fishery. The fish started spawning on the Sunday after the guys arrived and continued till Monday morning. It was a slow start and Richard in peg 3 did have a couple of aborted takes resulting in hooks pulls which was a real shame because every fish counts when the fishing is tough going. Tuesday & Wednesday peaked with the hottest temps, and just out of the blue Steve had a 38lb 11oz in the blistering heat when you would least expect it. Thursday saw a few more 30's landed and the chaps ended on 6 fish with 4 being 30lb+ with the 38lb being the largest. Not a great week for numbers or size but the guys fished well and it wasn't surprising considering the conditions. Crazy part about all this is Steve is one of those crazy ironmen who pushes himself to the limit....so I nearly dropped my cold beer when he went running past the house in full sun with temps well into the 40s, with Warren trying to keep up as they melted away into the African heat only to return after a 4 mile jog ready to get the rods back out for the evening......they need their heads testing:)

Last week saw 3 more anglers booking the lake...once again 2 chaps who have been before with the 3rd being a new customer again. The week started off baking hot again but the weather was set to change massively by Tuesday and a low pressure front was badly needed to bring the temps back down and reduce the water temps from the high 20's its been holding at for weeks. The storms started to roll in with strong westerly winds smashing into peg 5 and the first fish on the bank was a Grassie of 44lb which we have not seen for sometime, falling to Johns rods in peg 3. Next fish was something a bit special with a New Lake Record grassie falling to Shanes rods in peg 5, weighing it at 53lb! What a beast she was and I had mentioned one of the grassies on the draindown looking so much bigger than the rest and no doubt this was the one. I thought we had them of this size so it was great to now see one landed and confirmed on two sets of scales. The grassies did seem to switch on first because Shane followed it up with others of 44lb, 41, 40 so the average size after thinning them out over the drain down is looking very special indeed. Between the 3 chaps they started to catch consistantly in the second part of the week, along with Steve moving from peg 1 into 4 because the fish are still holding in this area and the moved did pay off with him bagging a brace right at the end of the week. The cooler weather has really made a huge difference, both in the carp getting back on the bait and overall comfort levels, far more bearable!

The week ended on 23 fish which is far more like normal including the lake record grassie at 53lb, 4 others over 40lb+, mirrors to 43lb, 5 over 30lb+ to 38lb, 11 x 20lb+ to 28lb and 2 stockies. All the fish landed looked completely empty, so let's hope from this point onwards they start to get back on the feed and let's see some serious weights towards the backend of the season.

So things are looking good and I'm really looking forward to seeing more regular catches over the next couple of months.

 

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