"Pleased As Punch"

Look Closely At The picture.
you will notice how dark it is
this was taken late in the day
as we were packing up!
This was typical of my friend
John, how on earth he hid this fish from me I will never know?
These fish where caught at a place called Oak Hanger fisheries, near Crewe Cheshire, a place were we had fished for the first time

Whilst fishing, we were visited by one of the local match anglers, who suggested to us that we would not catch many fish, where we were fishing, he then went on to tell us that the swims we were fishing, produced better results during the Summer Months!.

However who was I to argue? but once we had sat down it would have been a waist of time to move somewhere else, besides we had caught some fish, although they were only small six to eight ounce skimmer bream, and roach, we were still getting bites.

As usual whilst we were talking my swim had gone quiet, and I wasn't catching much, but not long after he'd gone and as I was just beginning to think he was right, I decided to throw caution to the wind, and introduce more feed into the swim, not long after doing this bubbles appeared on the surface directly under my float.

I knew these were of course tell tale bubbles of something bigger down under, immediately I linked this to be the reason for the reduced number of bites I was getting, as it is a common occurrence that smaller fish tend to move off from larger fish as they feed, they tend to bully them away, until they have had their fill.

Or get hooked like this one did! all of a sudden my float disappeared, and I new I was into something a little bigger than what we had been catching. My thoughts were confirmed when I slipped the net under a carp of two to three pounds.

After putting the fish in my net I got off my seat, and knowing John hadn't caught anything of note, I asked him if he had some micro pellets he said he hadn't, I took some over to him and told him what I had done, he then fed his swim with a good pot full of micro pellets, and within five minutes or so landed a carp of around two pounds.

Like myself John retired from competition fishing some time ago, but is thinking of fishing some club competitions in the future, you could see by his face he was as pleased as punch to know he has not lost his touch, we both fished on the pole a method that is relatively strange to him,but a method he is mastering very well.

Although we are only fishing for pleasure there is always the pride at the end of the day, and of course something to reel your mate in with!

Having said that there was not much to choose between us, as we had identical catches , apart from the fish John had under his coat at the end of the session?

For both of us to catch double figure weights in a seemingly poor area, was most encouraging to say the least, and as a result of that visit we will be returning, next time in competition perhaps.

Having said that if John decides to fish I shall be watching him very closely.
So until next time bye for now.