A good day on Eden Pond

My chosen swim for the day

Unusually for me, I was sound asleep when the alarm woke me at 05:00 this morning. Normally, I am awake, waiting for it to go off. For a split second, I considered rolling over and going back to sleep. This was not an option as nature was reminding me that I needed to get rid of some of that water I had been drinking yesterday in all that heat. To say I am relieved I did, has far more meaning than the quick visit to the little boys room!

For the past few weeks, the M25 has been slow going, clockwise, all along the stretch leading up to the A22 junction. There seems to be no reason for it, but it can add ten to fifteen minutes to the journey. Not that much of a problem usually but today I was aiming to get on Eden Pond. The trouble with being a little late is that all the early-birds get the pick of the swims. As Eden Pond is a small water you really want to be first there. Talking to Andy (head honcho) he said that there was only one guy showing any interest in fishing it today and he was not sure.

Alone again, naturally... Sounds like a song title. I had Eden Pond to myself, all day

I paid my dues, just the one rod today, and bought a tub of maggots with the intention of targeting a few perch at some point in the day. A short drive around the other lakes and off to the far-reaches of the fishery got me to Eden Pond to find no one there. Great. I parked the van behind the hedge that separates Eden pond from Daughter's Lake. Daughter's Lake is closed at the moment as the fish are spawning. That means it is very quiet down there today, making it ideal. As the day went on, nobody else arrived, so I had the place to myself.

The day started off on the cool side, and I was sitting there with a jumper on. As the sun rose above the trees the temperature in my little corner of the lake began to rise but being in the dappled shade, it did not become uncomfortable, once the afore mentioned garment was discarded.

I started fishing with my favourite float rod, an old, thirteen foot, Silstar that was given to me by a fellow member of the Maggot Drowners Forum. This is an early carbon fibre rod that has had a reel-seat whipped onto it. Fitted with a modern Greys FD reel, it makes a very comfortable pairing. I was using four-pound line, as there are some bigger fish in here. I was after the tench, and I would like a bigger roach.

The maggots are getting on a bit now and were looking somewhat sleepy. They were in the pre-caster stage where they become smaller, and their food sack had all but disappeared. I plumbed up (realising I had stolen the other bloke's plummet as we packed up on Sunday) and discovered the water was no more than two feet deep for as long as I wanted to cast. Entirely different to the Medway on Sunday, where three foot from the bank the depth of the water was twelve feet plus! My own plummet - the last one I had left - was looking a bit sad, wrapped in electrical tape, but it lasted the day out.

Maggots seemed to favour the smaller roach, and I caught lots of those with a few around eight inches long. I changed to sweetcorn, and the bites slowed up considerably, but the fish were bigger.

I caught my PB (so far) roach today. Very Happy!

I caught the largest roach I have ever caught, not huge but far bigger than the usual stamp of fish I catch.  At this point, I decided to give the bread a go. I had some bread slop I had mixed, using rainwater, the day before. This I balled into the swim, and while waiting for the initial commotion to die down and the bigger fish to move in, I dug out some bread, my bread box and some punches. I started off with a small 6mm diameter punch which made a nice firm disc. I hooked it directly on to a size 14 hook and cast.

I had to use the bigger net for this one - good fun on the float rod it weighed about 2½lb

The bait had hardly hit the water when the tip of the rod whipped around, and I was playing, what for me was, a big fish. This thing was giving it some and heading for the reeds. I managed to keep it out in the open water, and when it showed itself, my suspicions were confirmed. It was a decent sized tench. In fact, it too turned out to be the biggest tench I have caught so far. At around two and a half pounds, it was not a monster, but I was happy. I continued to fish using bread and tried all the punch sizes I had to hand and settled on the 8mm one as being the most effective for most fish. I caught lots of bream, several more tench plus the odd greedy roach.

One of the smaller bream, but a nice clean-looking fish

I did have a bit of a go with the tele-pole, but the thing was not long enough to get to the places where pole fishing would have paid off so I went back to the float rod and continued to catch the bigger fish. I also tried some stuff my local tackle shop recommended. It calls itself Yum-Yum, but Yuck-Yuck would be a better name, it stinks! I tried it by dropping a few drops onto bread and punching it out. This gave a soggy bit on one side and a nice compressed white on the other. It hooked well, and I caught a good few fish with it, all seemed to be bream. It is too early to decide if it works or not but it did seem to.

Bread punched to 10mm with Yum-Yum soaked into one side

As much as I like Drennan products, I have decided I don't like their antenna-type floats. They fish nicely, but they break far too easily. I was only casting a few yards in an underarm sort of a lob and when I came to unhook my best tench of the day I noticed, yet again, the antenna was missing. I had a rummage around in the float tube and found a short crystal waggler that did the job for the rest of the session.

I have neglected my stock control over the past few months and find myself low on things like small weighted crystal wagglers, in fact, I could not find any with inserted tips of my preferred choice. I found myself so low on plummets that I was taping an old one up that had split. I also discovered I was running low on bait. A trip to our local B&M store is to stock up with a case of Plumrose Bacon Grill. I also need to buy some more Sweetcorn as I eventually used up my stock of tinned 'hookers' after last year's great sweetcorn survey!

Last fish of the day was a nice little tench

What next?

Now there is a question, where to fish next week. I may go back to Beaver, if Daughters lake is open and spend the day with a couple of carp rods out, trying to catch a big fish. On the other hand, I might be brave and try somewhere else for a change... I might even try a new venue.

Ralph.