Barnburgh Lakes -29nd March

Back to the Match this week.
After a bitterly cold night (the dip tanks had frozen), it was a beautiful morning .. clear blue sky and flat glass water .. not a whiff of a breeze.
Not the best fishing conditions then.

I drew peg 13 ... which is on the top lake, and the peg to my right was empty.
I set up a small feeder, waggler and pole at 11m.

Started on the pole line, three small potfulls of feed pellets and maggots, then fished maggot.

first hour, not a bite. the guy to my left had three or four, the guy beyond him had even more .. as did at least one over the far bank. So i stuck it out for just over an hour, tried pellets, .. not a knock...then went on the waggler.

Fished double maggot (mostly) about 18m .. where it was much shallower than on pole line. fished about 2ft deep, loose feeding maggots.

slow start, but finished strong. had 13.25 pounds. 16 pound won it .. the guy two pegs to my left.

I came second!!! .. wohoooo .. in the money

My first Barbel

third outing of the year.

I had a trip out today with my two eldest lads, Jamie and Ben. Jamie fished two or three times last year, but Ben hasn't picked up a rod since we went to Ireland a few years ago.
I spent days wondering where to go and eventually decided upon the Brickyard at Bolton.

We got there about 8.15 and walked the banks looking for three swims together. There were about a dozen bivies set up, mostly zipped up with the three obligatory rods keeping guard of themselves. No sign of any non-speccy anglers .. which was my first concern. The water was gin clear .. no colour at all, and it looked decidedly un-fishy. So .. back in the car and off to Barnburgh.

The top lake was matched up with the normal Sunday open, and there was a six peg match on the bottom lake as well, alomng with some pleasure anglers all across the far bank. I ordered the bacon butties and we legged it to three pegs in the 40's.

Ben and Jamie set up with poles, and I put up a waggler.

This has to be the windiest venue in south yorkshire.

First hour and Ben's catching small silver fish on Pole, I had four carp around the pound mark and jamie was struggling to get a bite. At around 11, I swapped wih Jamie, and put up a small feeder which wasn't as productive, but produced a few small carp.

I fished the last 40 mins or so on Bens pole, and had loads of small fish at 6m on the maggot. a few small tench and ... my first ever BARBEL .. closely followed by my second ever!
Though I have to say .. they were babies... almost thought they were specimin sized gudgeon.

The lakes didn't fish that well today, the other pleasure anglers really really struggled, and the match boys were hardly pulling any trees up, but we had a great day. A combination of perseverance and chopping and changing yielded some fish in difficult conditions.

We all enjoyed it.

No photos though.

Barnburgh

Second trip to Barnburgh for the Sunday Open. I really didn't fancy a day in the rain, so following a quck glance through the curtains to the blue skies, I jumped out of bed and got the porridge on.
On arrival it was blowing a gale, but fine.
I drew peg 24 and decided straight away the pole would not see service today. There was no way I could manage that in the wind. So I set up a waggler rod and straight lead/feeder.
5 minutes before the in, the bacon and egg sarnie arrived .. Definitely worth two quid.

At the off, I pushed out the lead to the half way mark, and straight into one of them funny little carp. Must be one of them F1's. Second cast, I was into a little tench.
The plan had been to cast around the peg with the lead looking for signs of fish, and a pottential spot for dropping the feeder on.
I stuck to the straight lead, single maggot all day, never fed once, and caught slowly but steadily all match except last hour.
It pissed it down, for a while. Then it cleared a little. Then it went pitch black and we had hailstones. Did I mention the wind .. right in my face?

Strange thing about match fishing .. I really tried to be alert to who was catching .. and i thought I was doing reasonably well, but ended up being well beaten by several anglers. the winner was on the far bank (whop also fished straight lead, twenty odd pounds), and there were better weights on the bank to my left. .. though we had the worse conditions :)

I think my peg was worth more than the 7.15 pounds I caught .. but at least I feel better than last week .. although wet and cold.

Thats about it for now

Liner

The fish are in

Liner

why on earth is the liner so big ?

Carpet lining

Sanded

Wall for backfill

This is the first major issue.
Since we are using a flexible liner, we need a decent overlap for the liner, so we needed to build a wall of wood, and backfill to form a ledge.
The stone wall was built around the old pond, and right at its edge.

It's finally stopped raining.

Digging complete

This is the hole, completely dug.

First marginal shelf

Ben, Still looking at the hole!!

Marking out

Ben. Looking at the hole!
New profile marked out with hosepipe.
We're going much bigger and deeper as well.

Hole

Old liner

This is the old pre-formed liner. Magically it seems to have grown in size after removing it from the ground:)
No sign of a hole. :(

Pond extension

So, the old pond had been leaking for a while, and we decided to dig it up and make it bigger. This is the hole that it left.

After the pond removed

Barnburgh Lakes - 1st March 2009

Today was the first time I went fishing this year. It was also the first time I had fished at Barnburgh Lakes .
I decided to fish their Sunday Open, having walked the banks on a couple of occaisions.

For some reason, I felt a little nervous at the draw. Maybe the fact that it was an "open" was playing on my mind a little. When I last fished club matches, some twenty years ago, opens were big matches .. or so i seem to remember .. nowadays, it seems there are a million opens every day of the week, on every commercial. Anyhow .. I didn't really know anyone, didn't know the venue, havent fished for three months .. what could go wrong?
Well .. everything.
Glancing around as tackling up, everone seemed to have better tackle, be more organised and ready quicker than me. I still don't have my set up right.

So, I start off on the pole. two or so metres short of the guy to my right, with his tourny pro. "Pole envy" kicks in. Oh, and I must get a potting kit. It seems so obvious that you can ship them out whilst watching a tip.
After about 15 minutes, its woosh, woosh from either side, as the wagglers fly.
Wagglers? ... bugger! .. I'd never even thought about the waggler.
after about 45 minutes, without a knock, I went out with a small feeder. No-one seemed to be catching on the pole, and certainly not those either side of me.
the guy to my right was catching consistently on the waggler. The guy to my left, was getting the odd fish (also on waggler).

Now .. what I should have done, was to set up a float rod, and punch out a waggler to the same line, and catch some fish. What i did, was sit there like a demented rabbit in the beam of an oncoming car. WHY!!!
A switch to straight lead brought a couple of smallish fish, and that was it.

The peg to my left won, with 25lb, and I posted a DNW, though at a guess, 8oz would have been kind.

I am officially a MUPPET.

I CAN fish the waggler.. I would NOT have cast all over the lake like a fool.. I would NOT have sprayed maggots over every inch of all three pegs (the pegs here are cozy to say the least).. yet I didn't even try.
I would have caught some fish. I definitely wouldn't have got close to the winner.. but I ended up looking more stupid than I thought I might look, by fishing the waggler badly.

On the positive side .. I did learn a lot.

The main thing that stopped me going out with a waggler, was that I knew i couldn't get any feed out, with the catapult I had. Turns out that the winner never managed to get any out anyway!

I'll be back.