Not shy round the buffet.....

I love fishing the evenings after work, as someone who spends hours sat on ones backside throughout the day designing insignificant plastic bits for cars it's a Godsend. With the kids in bed and the Wife watching CSI or something 3 or 4 hours fishing at a local venue is a must for me, breaks up the week and tops up the vitamin D.

The reservoir was the venue for today, for those that have a Leamington Anglers Association book it's a must fish venue, when the fish are feeding it's hard to beat.

I planned to fish till just before dusk for the big Crucians and I also brought my carp surface set-up to try and winkle a carp out. When I arrived a couple another angler was just moving his stuff to the favoured peg I planned to fish, he was also surface fishing for the carp.

Small cubes of garlic luncheon meat seem to tempt the bigger fish, for added attraction I flavour it with Sonubaits spicy sausage powder. I was fishing just off the rod tip and the float didn't take time to settle before it sailed under, this was no Crucian but one the many many reservoir bream, they also like a bit of spam. The second bream I caught had a large wound in it's side, it was a decent size fish, maybe a pound a half, one of the many resident Grebe's with eyes bigger than it's mouth ?

5 more bream later I decided to give the float rod a rest and switched to the carp set-up. No Crucian's yet but some nice size bream which are a pleasure to play on the centrpin.

Whilst fishing the float I was catapulting dog biscuits a few rod lengths out to try and attract the carp. Not many moving but still fish topping and slurping at the weed beds so there was a chance of catching one. The reservoir isn't a venue where the carp anglers sit behind their buzzers all day, so there isn't piles and piles of high protein boilies being added to their buffet table, a good thing in my book as it keeps their natural nice slender shape.

I set the trap just off a weed bed where I noticed some carp rising to take the big biscuits, with the bubble float full of water I've found there isn't a need to strike when the bread crust has been woolfed down, the fish tend to hook themselves on the weight of the hook. Takes can be savage when the carp realises he has been hooked so I activate the reels baitrunner for that added security. It didn't take long before there was a huge disturbance in the water and the reel was screaming off. They are not college pool fit but they do fight well these carp but within a few couple of minutes I had it in the net, a big scaled mirror. Not one of the big ones but very welcome all the same, I didn't weigh it but looked around 11 or 12 pound.

With the swim disturbed and the remaining angler vacating my favoured swim I moved for the last half an hour to try for a decent Crucian. You can tell Crucian bites and in the swim I had lots of them, I sadly couldn't connect to any fish though. With the river season nearly upon us, my time on still waters are dwindling but I'm hoping to still get a few more sessions in.