August And Everything After
Updated: Sep 4
It was a warm, cloudy morning and Swakestone Lock was like Piccadilly Circus. Several narrowboats sat on both sides of the lock, waiting to continue their journeys.
I set up a float on the Billy Lane rod and Mitchell 300 reel, with sweetcorn and bread for bait. It was a short session, made shorter by people magnet fishing, which didn't help, and I only caught a few Perch and Roach before packing up.
After putting my fishing tackle in the car, I thought I'd go for a 'scoot' up the towpath to look for quieter places to fish in the future. I found some lovely, quiet spots with plenty of room for fishing, with trees overhanging the canal on both banks and features for fish to hold up.
A week later I was back at Swakestone Lock, but this time instead of fishing below the lock, I went upstream to one of the places I found the week before. I found a good spot to fish in the sunshine and made a short video of the day.
The following week I went to Allestree Lake to try and catch a Tench. I fished all afternoon as I know Tench have been caught during the day, and even red maggots and sweetcorn didn't tempt them. However, I didn't entirely blank, although a glove wasn't my target species; it's my PB!
The next session this month was at Robinwood Lakes. I fished Lake 4, which is out of the way and quiet. Plus, there's a good variety of fish from Gudgeon to Carp.
Today I used my Mitchell 324 reel, a 12' fibreglass rod, and float-fished red maggots, sweetcorn, and hemp to bait the margins, and dead reds on a size 16 hook.
After catching Gudgeon, something much bigger took the float under, and my reel screamed and nearly fell off the rod rest. After a good fight on a soft-tipped rod and 3lb line, I landed a bright, bronze Carp.
I alternated between maggots and sweetcorn on the hook, but after a few hook-pulls I changed to a size 14 hook and changed the spool to a stronger line. Soon after, the breeze dropped, and several Carp started to feed on the surface right in front of me, even touching my rod tip a few times. I moved my float to bring the bait nearer the surface and, after carefully throwing in some loose feed, my float dipped under, and the reel screamed off again. A good-sized fish moved out towards the middle of the lake, suddenly jumped right out of the water, twisted and managed to come off the hook.
After staring at the water in disbelief for a while, I reeled in. Frustrated at losing what looked like a double-figure fish, I looked at my watch, and it was time to go. I stared at the lake for a while longer and thought about coming back and catching "the one that got away".
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