Whitmore Return

Following our recent Friday afternoon outing Tony was itching to get out for a full days and with me not needing to much convincing we were soon booking a midweek day off work for a return visit to Whitmore.

We both tucked into a full english on arrival while we were discussing which of the many lakes to fish, looking out of the cafe window both the East Lake and Doughnut were practically full and the Basin was also getting quite busy so we decided to go for a bit of quiet and headed for the Club Canal.  Settling down on the 2 end pegs closest to the Lily Pond, we were alone on the canal and it made for a nice peaceful days fishing.

We both fished the pole on the day and having got Tony fishing close to an overhanging tree on the far bank, I set up my stall with a swim on the far bank, 1 down the track and a couple of lines close in, one at a top kit length in front of me and the other against some margin vegetation to my left.

Tony was well into catching before I had finished setting up and had put together a nice run of Carp and Skimmers of a typical 'stockie' size.  I kept things nice and simple and fed all my lines with 4mm pellets and a few grains of corn and started on the far bank swim with instant results.  I was catching Carp in the 2 - 4lb size range quite frequently although they were in a very scrappy mood and several made a good dash for the reeds and subsequently shed the hook.  I will happily admit that I was getting quite frustrated with this so I rested the far bank swim and went down the track.  The track swim produced similar sized Carp with the odd Skimmer thrown in for good measure but it was noticeable that the bites were not coming quite as fast as they were against the far bank.

We had both been catching well but I decided it was time for a brew and to make it a bit easier I fished a top kit in front of me with a banded 4mm hard pellet whilst I was enjoying a coffee.  This swim produced quite a few nice Roach, seeing this Tony went onto a close in line and began to catch a similar stamp of Roach, like in this photo

The day finished similar to how it started and by rotating through the swims I managed to keep catching until it was time for off.

Here's one of the bigger Carp of the day, not huge but good fun on the right set up

One point to note is that it was an absolute scorcher, always remember sun cream.  Unusually for me, I kept myself topped up and I'm glad I did!!