Blog

Ending on a high

Posted: 26th Apr 2015

Well another week comes to a close and the weather has been kind once again with temps touching 26oc by midweek and water temps at 18oc the fish must be thinking it was winter two weeks ago and now it's spawning time!!! Not yet girls just slow things down a little we are not ready yet.

The fish did move around and start to push out from Peg 1 after holding up there for the first few weeks, but Dave still took 6 fish by the Monday including a brace of 40's. Darren was off to a flyer with 5 fish in the bag by Monday including a 44lb 12oz mirror coming from a nice marginal hotspot that is often over looked. Mike in Peg 5 was not to far behind landing a 44lb 2oz mirror on the Monday taking the pressure off with a good fish in the net!!

A good number of Grassies saw the bank this week and it has always been a love, hate fish depending on the angler. They are in the lake to serve a purpose and I personally love them, so if you do or don't want to catch them, choice of bait is key. Granted they will pick-up any kind of boilie but have a marked preference for sweet type baits or brightly coloured. The lads last week used mostly Mainline Hybrid, and this bait along with the Cell is like a drug to them!! so you can use that to your advantage if you are hoping to catch one of these 4ft monsters. Best Grassie last week that was weighed touched 42lb but Mike in Peg 5 could have had one bigger but didn't fancy wrestling a crocodile in the night.

Bait was once again key this week and beds of Sanctuary Pellet and boilie got the fish competing and picking bait up. Quite a few pick-ups this week where the fish dumped the rig without getting caught so they certainly know how to get in on your baited patches and avoid being hooked on a weekly basis. Sporadic spells of feeding for the lads with hot spells of action then a quiet 36hrs midweek followed by a cracking ending with Darren & Mike in 3 & 5 having a burst of action on the last day. Mike had at least 5 pick-ups and 3 aborted takes from Friday onwards, including the largest for himself this week with a 45lb 13oz mirror. Darren finished off with a catch that will take him sometime to beat with a brace of 41lb+ mirrors, then a 42lb grassie and the best of the week and a new personal best at 51lb 8oz, how's that for an average!!

40 fish was the total for the week so once again a nice steady catch which has been the case each week so far this season. 1 x 50lb+, 8 x 40lb+ to 45lb 13oz, 17 x grassies with the smallest around 20lb+ but most 30lb+ upto 42lb+, 7 x 30lb with 5 being 36-37lb+, 5 x20lb+ and a couple of stockies. The young Commons are doing very nicely with them touching 24-27lb so far this season and will be over 30lb this season. These fish are still very young and the parent mother was over 70lb+ so I'm expecting good things from these chunky fish in the next 2 years!!

A few fish have been lost this season along with a couple of nasty hookpulls so please give a little thought to hook sizes and Rod TC because these fish do have soft mouths. Its not easy trying to eleminate hookpulls/ tears but with no need to fish beyond 80 yards a softer Test curve will be a little more forgiving when playing fish under the rod tip and hopefully reducing any unnecessary hook damage. I have recorded at least 6 hooklink parts so far which can also be reduced if a little extra care is taking with knots and stripping a few rod lengths of line off the rods after a few fish to avoid any mainline parts if the line has becomed frayed. It's all basic stuff and common sense but we all play a role in trying to keep the fish in tip-top condition for the future.

So far so good with the dye with no signs of weed so fingers crossed we get it right this season, good feed back from the customers and everyone including myself seems to like the look of the lake with it's new blue colour, it fits in perfect with the green foliage and does not look out of place in the slightest!!

Another group of regulars are back this week, with April now coming to a close lets hope fo another good week, but once again a massive drop in temps down to 13oc today after a very heavy rain storm when they arrived, lets hope it passes through and the fish keep munching.

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Team Sanctuary