The last few days had been horribly hot. I suppose that statement is relative in terms of where you live. Speaking to my best friend, who lives in Arizona, her comment to me was "how hot is hot?" Out there it can get very hot, but it is dry heat which means you can tolerate a bit more of it as long as you stay out of the sun. This was hot and HUMID. It was like being back home in southeast Pennsylvania, where the humidity runs consistently above 90% all summer making the heat index higher than the actual thermometer reading. When the temperature hits the mid 80's or above, you feel like you are walking around wrapped in a hot wet blanket. So let's just say it was excessively hot for The Thames Valley area.
It was so hot that we took our time getting sorted out in the morning; you don't tend to rush or hurry when every movement results in serious sweating. By the time we'd stopped at the grocery and the bait shop it was well after noon when we arrived at Pondwood.
As usual Steve dropped me off, with all the gear, at the gate to the match parking area. Pondwood periodically runs fishing matches on The Snake, the little stream we have come to love so much. One end of the field, by the road, is used for parking only during matches. The rest of the time, if you are planning to fish The Snake, you have to park in the main lot which is on the other side of the woods. It's a long walk from there to The Snake if you carry as much "stuff" as Steve and I do. So he drops me off with the gear and then drives round to the main lot and parks. While he's doing that I ferry the gear, bit by bit to the side of the stream, checking for likely spots to fish. Steve checks the upper part of the stream as he walks back from the car.
Before I go any further let me explain about match fishing for those unfamiliar with the sport of angling.
* * Matches are events that anglers pay to enter, the idea being that part of the fee goes toward the winner's purse. Keep nets are used; a keep net being a long, tube like net placed in the water, into which all the angler's fish go. At the end of the match the total catch is weighed and the person with the heaviest catch wins. The exception to this are larger carp, they are individually weighed and released; if they were put in the keep net their sheer size might result in injury to the smaller roach, rudd, perch etc in the net. Their weight is noted and added at the final tally. * *
Steve had indicated he wanted to fish a little further upstream from where we'd been the last couple of times, but as I reached the water with the first load of gear I saw that our previous spot was teeming with fish. There were so many carp lazing around at the surface that you could have walked across to the other bank on their backs and never wet your feet. By the time I came back with the next load of gear I could see Steve coming out of the woods. He had taken a bait box of maggots with him and was pausing every few steps to cast them into the water. I tried to flag him down, without spooking the fish... miming to him to stop... and indicating there was a carp convention down at this end. All he did was wave merrily back at me. Note to myself: brush up on semaphore and mime.
So we set up in the usual place. I baited up directly in front of me and out on the mud bar, same as last time out, using a mix of trout pellets and sweet corn. It worked before, no reason it shouldn't work again, right? Steve opted for surface fishing. He'd brought along some lightly soaked dog kibble and several loaves of unsliced bread.
Before I had even finished rigging my line, Steve had his first fish. He hadn't even had to entice the fish with bits cast out on the water... just squashed a hunk of bread around his line, just above the hook, chucked it in and presto, hey, Bob's your uncle, he had one. A fantastic gold beauty that I christened Fort Knox, a great looking common carp.
After taking a photo I got back to my rig and cast it out. Then I settled down to wait. Not for long. Less than half an hour after Fort Knox, Steve has a middling mirror that has a wound, probably a spawing injury, just in front of its tail. He treats it with antibiotic lotion. I call it Scabbers and think, at least I'm not the only one catching 'manky' looking fish.
Fort Knox and Scabbers
Things go quiet.... the fish seem to have woken up.. not unusual considering the ruckus that goes on in each time one is hooked. This is, after all, a VERY small water. Patience is the key. After a bit Steve decides to mosey off and see what he can catch elsewhere. That's one of the advantages to surface fishing. All you need is your rod and a loaf of bread, it gives you mobility.
I continue to wait. It's too hot for me to want to even go walk about on a photo tour. I sit and watch the coot and her chicks. I observe a lone mallard hen... no mate, no ducklings... bet she is a youngster hatched last season. I continue to wait.... and wait.....