Not the session we had planned but we'll take it. Our initial plans for today were to fish for Perch on the Old Canal at White Springs but when we arrive we were told there was a match on the Old Canal and that we couldn't fish it until after the weigh in, so we kept our options open and paid for a pleasure fishing session and took a walk around and ended up setting up on the Pleasure Lake.

The weather was a total mix of overcast skies with burst of summer sunshine in between with high winds blowing for most of the day, with the high winds I wasn't really expecting to catch much but the day went very well.

Steve managed to hook into his first fish of the day almost seconds after casting out, and landed a small Carp officially starting our session on the Pleasure Lake.
The action continued with another couple of smaller Carp who couldn't resist the boilies on the Carp Rod and a few small Carp and a lot of small Bream on the freelined prawn on the Match rod, then just as this seemed to dying down the line on the match rod jerked tight and I struck, the fight was like one of a small energetic Carp which stay deep and darting off just as you start to gain any line on them, which didn't really excite me that much as I'd already landed a few of them today, but when Steve shouted out 'It a bloody big Perch' I got excited and concentrate on bringing it to the surface and netting it at the first opportunity and he was right it was a bloody big perch weighing 3lb 1oz, and to my knowledge is one of the biggest Perch to come out of the Pleasure Lake and a new personal best for me.
As the day went on the bites became less frequent and we contemplated a move to the the Old Canal but after a quick walk we discovered that the match hadn't finished so we went back to the pleasure lake, this time to a different swim and again back into the action.

Steve and I manage to bank loads of Carp, Small Bream and a Golden Orfe. I genuinely lost count of how many fish I'd actually caught. Most of the Carp were a around the the 3 to 5lb mark with two bigger Mirror Carp one weighing just around 9 and a half pound and the other just under 10lb. We were hoping to catch a few Tench from the spot we had move to and even though I only managed one small one Steve managed to land two nice Tench one beating his PB with a weight of 3lb 4oz.
We finished off the day on the Canal with a few more Carp being caught and I ended my session with a modest sized eel which I tried to photo but it wouldn't keep still long enough.

Well, seeing as our initial plans for the day weren't strictly followed, I think we had one of the best sessions this year with three Personal bests beaten, me with my Perch and Steve with his Tench and Perch and as an added bonus I achieved one of my three goals which I had set myself at the beginning of the year by catching a Perch over 3lb, I hope to fulfill the other two goals as the summer progresses, so until next time.

By the way if anyone is actually interested the goals that I set myself at the beginning of the year were;
1. To catch a Carp over 20lb (which still may happen).
2. To catch a Pike (any size, but after our sessions during the winter maybe the hardest one).
3.To Catch a Perch over 3lb (achieved with a 3lb 1oz. 22nd June 2008).

With this spell of nice weather continuing, Monday saw me leaving work an hour early in attempt to beat the traffic and secure a spot on the bank at the Half Round Pond on arriving I was stopped by the usual bailiff to check my membership and was told that no Carp had been caught all week as they had started their spawning and that there was probably no real point in trying until next week.

Slightly disheartened I took a walk around the lake and at the far end of the lake I could see over ten Carp cruising around in the sunshine, it didn't take me long to get back to the car and unload my stuff after seeing that.

I unpacked one Carp rod and baited with a single mixer biscuit and after several cast dropping the biscuit directly in the path of the shoal of Carp numerous times they just cruised by with no interest in the bait .

Another Sunday afternoon session at Gowerton this time Steve's brother came along just to show Steve how its done.

It seems that the fish are truly up in the water with guys that had been fishing all day with bottom baits not catching a single fish, while after throwing out a few mixer biscuits we got a reaction almost straight away.

The weather was lovely and sunny but like Gowerton always is there was a quite a strong wind making floater fishing hard but not impossible and with the lack of interest in any bottom baits there seemed little point in fishing the bottom.

Not long after setting up Steve was into his first fish to the dismay of the people fishing the peg next to him who had only caught one fish all day even thought they had been there most of the day. Like most of the Carp I've caught at Gowerton this year this one fought hard and put up a good scrap for its weight, it was finally brought to the net and started our little session.
The wind continued to make it hard for us and we didn't do ourselves any favors with us all losing fish. Me and Martin both managed to bank another Carp each before we run out of biscuits thus ending the session. Not too bad seeing as we were only there for about three hours and we managed five fish on the bank all ranging between four and seven pound nothing massive but still good fun.

Well this was another short little session with me making my way to the lake at nearly half past five the glorious sunshine had made way for and overcast evening, but it was still nice and warm.

Upon arriving at the lake I spotted a few small Carp swimming round, well almost circling a single patch of weeds, I stop threw a small handful of mixer biscuits in vicinity of the weed and unpack and set up a single Carp rod ready for a bit of freelining, before I had even had a chance to put a bait on the hook the small handful I had thrown out was quickly being annihilated.

First of all I put two mixer biscuits onto the hook then cast it out further than the circling fish then slowly pulled it back, three Carp swam directly underneath the bait and completely ignored it, I was thinking that the double biscuit on the hook maybe acting as more of a deterrent than an attractant so I reel in and pulled one of the biscuits off and recast the single biscuit back into the same area as the double had just been ignored, almost staight away a larger than the average Gowerton Carp cut a ninty degree turn to gulp down my single biscuit bait and I struck as I watched its mouth close. It went berserk splashing about at first then heading out into the middle of the lake at full steam, after wrestling with it for a few minutes it turned and came straight back in towards me giving me the hard job of trying to bully it out of the weeds at my feet, it finally came to the net after a hard battle and was definitely one of the hardest fights Ive had this year.

And to add a cherry on the cake the scales pulled round to just over 15lb, so after minusing a quarter of a pound for the net, I had just caught my personal best Carp from Gowerton at 14lb and 12oz.
I tried for next couple of hours to get them feeding again but it was hard and I only managed to catch another one fish of around four pound but I cant complain.

This weekend we initially made plans to fish the neath canal to see if we could catch a few Roach, Rudd and Pike the weather forecast showed over cast condition but the sky outside was bright blue with beaming sunshine so we made a snap decision and headed for Gowerton Coarse Fishery for a full day session, something that we don't usually do as its becoming more and more busy during the day and the fish usually don't seem to feed during the day.

We arrived at 8 o'clock and set our priorities by heading straight for the golf range cafe and ordered two mega breakfasts, we stuffed our grease feasts and headed to the lake to find there were 12 other anglers who had got there before us. Luckily there was a three pegs empty on the far bank so we headed over throwing a handful of mixer biscuits as we arrived at the peg. The Carp were straight on them but with the usual nudging them and knocking them before they even thought about eating them.

I'm not going to lie, the first five hours were hard for me I managed to hook and lose three fish while Steve manage to hook and lose four but also managed to bank two Carp around the six pound mark which gave him a two fish head start on me which at one point I thought I wouldn't be able to match.
It was well into the afternoon before I actually managed to get a fish to stay on the hook by this time I had lost count of the amount of fish that I'd hooked then come off, this meant the I was only one fish behind so I started to concentrate to try and level the catch ratio.
My second fish didnt follow to far behind, as the biscuits that we had been throwing in were slowly making their way down the lake the and Carp were picking them off further down the lake , after watching one launch itself out of the water at a biscuit I moved down a peg and cast straight at where it had been, genuinely thought that it would have been a pointless effort and the jumping fish would have spooked the rest of them but less than a minute of the biscuit hitting the water when a Carp popped its head up and began opening and closing its mouth trying to suck in the bait, it tried four times then finally got it.
This meant that the catch total was level and Steve started his walk around the lake to see if he could spot any Carp in the edges and regain the lead.
From the other side of the lake I watched him lose a further three Carp while I lost another two. I finally managed to hook our final catch of the day and claim another small victory with another with a Common Carp about four pound in weight not a monster but a day winner.