Horns Dam
The first session I had was a first visit to Horns Dam in Goosnargh, this was also my first session with my old pal Martin for a while so I was looking forward to it.
After a nice breakfast at a local cafe, we arrived at the fishery. We fished on the dam itself and pegged ourselves on the dam wall end. We both decided to fish the feeder for the day. My set up was a basic running feeder rig with an 18 inch Hooklength to a size 20 Drennan Silverfish match hook. My groundbait was a mix of brown crumb and bait tech special g. A few loose offerings of hemp and pinkies were in the mix with maggot or pinkie on the hook.
Martin was the first to catch and I had a much slower start but we both caught reasonably steadily throughout the day. Martins stamp of fish was noticeably larger than mine and he seemed to be catching more frequently. He was using a different groundbait mix to me but he was also casting a bit further than me. Who knows what was giving him the edge.
I did chuck together a waggler rod for a bit of a change and had a good run of small roach to keep me busy.
It was a good session to get back into it and a new water for me that I liked and will defo go back to in the future.
Woodshaw Reservoir
The next session I had was on one of the Warrington Anglers waters that I now have available to me, Woodshaw Reservoir. Having never been to this reservoir before, the little homework that I managed to do indicated that it was known as a good tench and crucian water in the warmer months but less information was available for winter. The information I could find said that there are roach and bream present so with little else to go on I decided to target the skimmers and bream with a pole approach. I fed 2 lines at 13 metres, one fed heavy and one fed sparingly. My groundbait mix is one that I have used on my local canals with good success and that was sensas Magic mixed with brown crumb and then darkened with a bit of black tracix. I took only maggots with me for hookbait but I did have a tin of corn available in the bait bag if necessary.
Woodshaw Reservoir peg 21
The venue is quite shallow but reasonably consistent depth so I was able to use the same rig for both swims which made it much easier. After feeding both lines as described, I started on the lighter fed line, potting in 10 - 15 maggots. I wasn't expecting a prolific session but with no indications after an hour I switched to the heavier fed line in the hope that some fish had moved in. Sadly, this didn't work either as I still had nothing to show after a further hour. A switch back to my lighter line saw me hook and land a small roach but I was confident it was more fluke than design. By midday I had only the one fish and decided that a stretch of my legs was in order. As I walked around the lake I had a chat with one of the other anglers (who later turned out to be one of the venue bailiffs) and he told me they had been catching on punch. He was even kind enough to give me a slice of bread and a small ball of liccy to get my swim going. I went back to my peg and set up a short pole line for the punch and fed the liccy on this before re-feeding my other lines in the hope that leaving them a while will see something move over them later. Despite the local advice, the punch line didn't produce anything for me on this day, despite giving it a good go. I must admit I was contemplating an early exit from the fishery but what was meant to be a last look on the longer lines saw me hit a run of Roach that took my tally to about 15 fish. This restored my faith and I carried on until about 3:30pm and ended the day with 20 nice redfins.
Outlook
After this little dip back into coarse fishing I've got another boat trip planned aboard Blue Mink. After that I'll be on full on prep mode for the years match calendar. Until then.........tight lines
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