2/1/16 – Hintlesham (bottom lake)
It seemed only fit that Hintlesham should be given the opportunity to show what it had to offer, after the last trip to SWP. I’ve had two fruitless sessions on Hintlesham’s specimen lake this year and with recent blanks taking their toll, I just wasn’t up for any more abuse. I think that’ll be another one to revisit maybe March/April next year. See, there, i’ve done it already – I mean this year! Keep forgetting it’s 2016. Anyway, it’s been a couple of years since I fished the bottom lake. I remember I took my son who hadn’t been fishing long and he had thirteen tench out while I was scraping around for carp.
I had the whole lake to myself today and for some reason I decided to trudge my gear all the way round, through the quagmire, to the far end. I’m getting to the stage where any more gear and I’ll be in ‘barrow’ territory. If the car is near enough I’ll usually make a couple of trips, but if it’s a bit of a trek, I load everything up, take a deep breath, grit my teeth and go for it. This results in the various shoulder straps cutting off blood supply and with me reaching the peg on the verge of passing out on the verge.
So I set about breaking the curse and cast the right hand rod to the island with a new 360-ish rig with a single white pop up. While setting up I noticed a lot of bubbling down to my left in the narrow section of the lake. I would have been foolish to ignore it but due to there being a tree between the two spots, I had to come up with another set-up which was slightly less high-tech than my NGT cross rod pod. It wasn’t long before the plan paid off. A six pound common fell to hair rigged double pellet on the left rod. Unfortunately while getting her to the net I had a positive run on the right hand rod which had stopped by the time I matted this first fish. When I finally went to reel the right rod in, it was completely snagged and the hook link gave in when I pulled for the break. Goodbye Guinea pig 360 rig. After tagging a standard hook link back on I then spent the rest of the day casting this rod around the main part of the lake with no takes whilst the left rod produced two more fish. I think it’s safe to say the blog can no longer be blamed for my recent form.
notaboutcatchingfish 