College Pool 31.8.11

Having had to put off my catfish expedition for a number of reasons, I needed a fishing fix so I went to College yesterday. Had the pool to myself for the first few hours which was a surprise as the cold winds we've been having lately had subsided to be replaced with warmer weather. It was a little too sunny to begin with but the extreme depths of the pool, despite the drop which appears to be 3 - 4 feet, should have persuaded the fish to feed fairly comfortably.

I started off fishing a Polaris float with a small maggot feeder stopped 8" above a size 10 baited with prawn. I was hoping that the nice Mr Perch I had earlier in the year might have been feeding himself up for winter - possibly a 4lber? Well, the perch were certainly having it big time. Often before the float rose up the line I was getting pulls on the rod tip. Unfortunately they were from the grandchildren, or great grandchildren of my earlier one. They ranged from real tiddlers to max 3/4lb.  This one couldn't even manage to get himself properly hooked, the size of the prawn being almost too big for his mouth - greedy bugger.

Sorry for the quality of the pic, the autofocus failed to pick up that macro was needed!  Here's a better view, clamping his jaws on the prawn made it possible for me to swing him in.

After running out of a 1lb bag of Sainsburys best and landing over 30 of the little blighters I switched to a small flat method feeder and pellet approach for the bream. They too were happy to munch. As I hadn't introduced groundbait in any quantity - following Leamington's rules - and the only feed they could get was that around the feeder, I had to intercept them as they patrolled the middle channel. I was feeling confident as on most trips here the bream have always seemed on the feed.

My first was the biggest at 6lbs 12oz.

and the other 7 ranged between 5 and 6.5 lbs.

Again, not the best photo but I didn't want to keep them out of the water for longer than necessary. The last one I had looked particularly sad.

I don't know if it's the depth they live at or if they are a particular strain, but all the bream were very light in colour.  I lost 2 fish which I think were carp as they steamed off down the pool rather that nodding and dour fight we get from bream.

A good day.  I'm now re-planning the trip to Pitsford for those cats, the squid in the freezer is calling me!