Cold, no fish and SWANS!!

Bleak - It looks much nicer in the summer!

I was awake long before the irritating monotonous drone, omitted by my not-so-smart phone's alarm, sounded at 05:00. For some obscure reason, me and sleep are not good bedfellows of late. Now, give me a hard kitchen chair, the lunchtime news and I am off, a fully paid up package holiday to the land of nod.

Peering out of the window into the half-light that adorns the grounds of our 'umble abode, reveals that the latest buzz-word to emerge from the annals of the BBC's online weather 'precipitation' was indeed taking place outside the bedroom window. The latest version of the online weather site is now giving likelihood predictions of precipitation in percentage terms to provide yet another fact they can get wrong. Still, if nothing else, it gives us (me?) something else to whinge about.

By the time I had made the flask of coffee, heated up the breakfast and filled the food flask with hot baked beans, tinned ravioli and a few chopped up frankfurters, I was ready to load the van. Thankfully, the 65% chance of precipitation for this hour had become 0% in reality and I was able to load the van in the dry.

Today I was off to Monk Lakes to meet Tim for a day of chat and a bit of fishing thrown in. For me the journey time and distance are at about the maximum I really want to go for a casual day trip; thirty-five miles and about an hour travelling time. Getting there early in the morning is no hassle and I got there a few minutes before 07:00 to find Tim bending someone's ear on the mobile. Who on earth do you call at 07:00 in the morning?

A few minutes later and the main gate opened and we, along with a couple of other vehicles trundled along the drive to the office where we parted with our day ticket fee and made our way to our chosen swim. I decided to revisit the swim I had fished on my first visit. This time the trees were bare and the whole place had a different feel to it. Not really bleak, but very bare as there is no amount of undergrowth and no evergreen trees. It is at times like this that the venue reveals its true identity of a few large holes, filled with water in a field! For me, this makes the venue less appealing at this time of year. That said, it is an excellent place to have a natter.

It was overcast cold when we arrived. While we were setting up, the precipitation I had avoided earlier caught up with us.

All wrapped up and waterproof, this in itself was not a problem apart from giving the maggots traction. A spot of dust from the maggot stock sorted them out and covering them with a towel prevented any further unauthorised excursions.

Warm enough Tim?

We started to fish. Tim was fishing close in using simple light float gear while drowning a few of his maggots. I had a two-rod ticket and set a feeder out in the deeper water looking for anything that would be attracted by my feeder full of Two Dog groundbait and maggots. I made three or four casts to the same spot and then added a hook length baited with a tender morsel of Bacon grill. I left the feeder to sit there awaiting some attention. Meanwhile, I was having a go with one of my elasticated tele-poles.

The swans were eating our bed of bait and would not go away.

It was cold and I expected the fishing to be slow but not this slow. Neither of us had a sniff, nothing, not even a line bite. We tried all sorts of things, different weights of line, different hooks and baits but still no action whatsoever. The bleak surroundings, gusty winds and intermittent rain was just about bearable but what really spoilt the day were the birds. First, a flock of seagulls were taking the bait out of the air, in some cases before it hit the water! Then we were plagued by a couple of swans that would not leave us alone and proceeded to eat all the bait off the bottom. Not happy with that, they then proceeded to plough through our lines on several occasions resulting in lost floats, feeders and tackle either by getting themselves caught up in the line or navigating it into the reads. By four o'clock, after spending most of the afternoon trying to avoid the swans, that just followed us around, we gave up and went home. There was only one other person on the 16+ acre lake that we could see. Apart from one, 1-inch long foul-hooked fry, neither of us had a bite, let alone land anything.

Next week I am planning a trip to Beaver Fishery - It should be warmer on Monday and even if it is not, at least there are plenty of nice sheltered spots to fish.

Ralph.