This week was spent with my girlfriend’s family at Dawlish in Devon. Her father Mick is a keen angler so we both were allowed to pack some gear, although it was more likely that we would have to take her nephew’s fishing, instead of using it ourselves, and as it turned out this was the case.
The first session was on a small lake just outside Dawlish and as we arrived carp could be seen basking in the sun. This was going to be like taking sweets from kids and with no bread fishing allowed l had a perfect alternative in the shape of a bag of 8mm Sonubaits Oily-Floaters in my Ruckbag. Setting up a Korum 3G 11’ float rod with seven pound line loaded on a Preston PXR 3000 reel plus a Korum clear controller the two boys soon were into carp. Over the next four hours numerous carp came to the net with James taking a personal best of 8lbs 11oz and Thomas taking the lions share including a personal best of 8lbs 1oz.
Two days later myself and Mick thought we had managed to sneakily arrange a day to ourselves, however whilst eating breakfast the question was asked, do you boys want to go fishing? Well you know what the answer was and once again the two eager boys accompanied us. With the best part of a day set aside we did manage to wet a line ourselves leaving the boys to fend for themselves. The venue visited was West Pitt Farm, four lakes with cottages on site. One lake, Kingfisher holds golden tench and orfe and as I’ve never caught golden tench decided to concentrate on this small one-acre lake. No tench showed mainly because an 8mm Sonubaits S-pellet couldn’t find its way to the bottom as one after another quality roach intercepted the bait. It would have been great if we were allowed to use keepnets and had taken our poles as it would have been possible to take twenty-pound of net roach easily in an hour! Even bread on the surface got taken from them, however l did manage to take the odd carp feeding hemp close in and literally fishing inches from the bank. Mick won the day as he did manage an orfe after pinching some of my S-pellets. The boys did well also and did keep there concentration focused for around six hours, in between the numerous tangles and fish however with a fight pending it was once again time to call it a day and head home.
