Bag up on Butterley

Well as the title suggests there is only one end to this epic tale. Arrived around 9am and all the pegs on the wall, some on the match stretch Swanick side and all the pegs on the Ripley side were taken - um! Well it perhaps was always going to be the rocks anyway.



Classic Butterley Bream - muscled out by those carp?



Carp coming to the net - notice the feeder.

Ended up fishing the same peg as last time. Feeder rod set up, 1 kilo of fishmeal green groundbait mixed up plus a few pellets.

It then began to rain.

It then began to blow a gale.

Waves and rain crashed against our intrepid hero.

He grasped his tiny fishing box and umbrella stick - he faced the rain.

'Ride the storm, ride it, Moby Dick will not have us this day - the white whale - see the white whale, its back, on men on' cried Captain Ahab.

Well it was quite stormy anyway.

Was bed and the warmth of a good woman a better option - was this the move of a sane man?



Match on, game on, fish on.

Well first chuck and a fish.

Second chuck and a text ' Did you bother?'

Third chuck and a fish.

Fourth chuck and a fish.

Monkey tennis, change reel, lose feeder, nearly fall in, weather a gale - you get the picture.

Slow.

Nothing

Then a fish.

Slow

Nothing

Messed around with pellet feeder.

Odd fish.



This is all you need plus groundbait, rod, reel and someone who isn't a monkey.



Well chipped away. It was steady. By about 12.30pm I'd had 10-12 fish - good decent session for 3 hours. One fish every 15 minutes. However I'd had 30 minute gaps then catch 2 or 3 quickly. Were they moving around? did I need more bait going in? Baliff popped over, I became a member with tales of the water being 'black with em!' and 'their catching them all over'.

How true his words would be.

I now got comfortable, sorted out my kit, weather became calm, reel changed, sun out and decided to fish less than half the distance out that I would usually. Method feeder, pellet and groundbait.

Well gentlemen what can I say. It just came alive. From around 1-4pm It was a fish a chuck. Small knocks would be followed by a rap around. All carp of between 3-5lb, with the exception of one 4lb plus bream. See photo.









In the end I was reluctant to go. Sun beaming and in a T Shirt. Bagging up. It was alive. Lost count of fish - easily thirty fish and my best days fishing - I would estimate I did the ton. It was madness and for £35 per year its crazy prices!

We need to get there soon while the fish are biting and the weather is good. Venue for Saturday and Sunday?

As I walked back - once again breaking my back with too much tackle - I spoke to a guy on the wall - he had had 18 carp and 1 bream and was setting up when I arrived. They are there and they are there in numbers.

'the whale, the white whale'.