Almost A Blank!

Date: 15/1/12
Location: Cottington Lakes
Lake: Black Lake ( Species Carp almost pushing 20lb, good head of bream to 8lb, roach, tench rudd and perch to 3lb. with a few medium sized pike)
Catch Report: Weather was awful! Rain hammering down testing how water proof by bivvy was, and winds testing how stable it was. Thankful my bivvy stayed in one place, and i didn't get wet. Fishing was a real struggle, and no matter what i did, i didn't seem to be get nibbles.

I tried the usual baits that work well on this lake (luncheon, pellets & sweetcorn) yet i drew a blank on all of them. I set there all morning and most the afternoon trying and trying. With about 2hours of fishing left, I spotted a calm spot on the lake, not sure why it was so still as it was in the middle of the lake, but none the less i made a cast to the spot. I put two trusty maggots on a size 14 hook, sat and waited. i was using buzzers with swingers, and the wind was blowing a gail and i could not really register bites off the tip of my rod.

My swinger slowly started rising up, i approached my rods and waited. The swinger was still slowly rising, I usually find this is a tench bite. I waited for the swinger to rise fully and the line to go tight before striking (this must have taken 20seconds) I immediately felt the weight of the fish as it tried to run. I was correct, it was a tench. I find the fight on a tench very distinctive, yet hard to explain. It put up a fair fight, but i managed to get it to the net pretty quickly, and i was desperate not to loose this fish. The fish was in pristine condition, fin perfect. She weighed in at 7.2lb, so was a decent size to.

That was the only fish of the day, but in my view it was worth it to get such a nice fish. after the morning i honestly thought i didn't have a chance of catching. but i kept at it, and eventually tempted on fish into biting.