Going For Gold…26/08/2013

Going For Gold…26/08/2013 Bank holidays are meaningless to me. It’s just another day – I’d rather work because I get paid more. My wife works in a school so this one, being in the holidays, was also irrelevant to her but my brother decided to invite us for a swim in a friend’s pool and have a barbecue at his afterwards. Sort of a plan though I didn’t fancy the swimming bit. Not keen on getting wet, me. Ahem. I dropped Flo off and planned to sit around in a layby tapping wreck co-ordinates into the pc to transfer to my fishfinder after furling the car up. I didn’t get that far. They had to leave the pool early so I went to fetch her (she’d already left) and then onto my brothers. My nephew, Mike, was just wandering back from the lake where he’d been trying to catch the big carp he’d hooked a few weeks back. He needed to adjust his tackle so I sorted it and then wandered down with him, having, as usual, a rod and tackle in the car. And some corn which could do the business here. I’ve only wet a line in this lake twice and blanked both times; once with bread and once with maggots but I’m in love with corn now. I thought about taking the kayak down with me but the idea of carrying it across the yard, over fences and through fields then down into a half acre lake (or large farm pond, whichever you prefer) didn’t fill me with enthusiasm and with the brightness and heat I wasn’t expecting we’d stand much chance. But I popped a 5bb float on and cast a size 12 in with double sweetcorn and waited. Nothing on my rod, lots of nibble son his; the float would go under nicely but always the fish was missed. I went down to single corn, brought it in closer and waited. Dip. Dip. Dip. Under! Blimey! I’ve never had a goldfish before in my life, a definite first for me! I was amazed at how hard a scrap I got from it and also how vivid the colouring was. My thoughts turned to the competition and I went to fetch the Tetra off the roof, Mike helping me to bring it down. Here goes! Lots of feeble nibbles…I changed down to a size 16 and put a smidgin of corn on…the float dipped and bobbed and then went down…I struck sharply and… Crucian! I’ve never had one of those either! The pictures, on my phone, are rubbish and don’t do the fish justice. A lovely brassy sheen it had, a really pretty little fish. I followed it with another, again only a couple of inches long. Now for a goldfish… Well, I waited and waited and then Mike had one; I went and got his photo. That’s the first fish he’s landed from the lake so he was chuffed to bits. The tactic seemed to be float fishing on the bottom – too shallow and they didn’t see it in the murk. Then I hooked one. I bumped it off on a ridge. I did the same twice more on the same ridge but that’s where the bites were! Now, I don’t know how big goldfish get but I had one hell of a take and had a good one on now – I thought I’d got one of the grass carp on. The rod arched over and I loosened the drag; I thought I’d loosened it too much as the reel sang as the fish bore off towards the middle at a rapid rate of knots, stripping line, but I hadn’t, there was plenty of pressure on it. It was merely a strong fish. I started playing it and saw it’ it must have gone over two pounds, nearer three, Mike was excited and said he hoped I didn’t lose this one. Which I promptly did. Damn. He caught a couple more before I finally got one to the boat; beautifully coloured again and fantastic fins on it! That made species 28… It was getting towards Barbie time. One more each eh? One of the big grass carp swirled ahead of me. I cast there and waited. Mike had his last, and biggest, goldfish. I waited some more. The float went under after a few minutes and a lovely plump goldfish came to my hand. Marvellous. Let’s eat.