A session I finally get to take our daughter out fishing! Well she wasn't too fussed about going fishing with her dad to be honest however she came along none the less to keep me happy as I was the excited one.
We also took along good friends and neighbours Mike and Finlay to add to the experience.
Of course the venue had to be Tees Valley Lakes as you are guaranteed many bites during the session from plenty of different types of fish.
The Peg
Arriving at Yarm Lake, there were a couple of anglers across the lake, one in the area I'd planned to fish with Mike and the kids so we picked Peg 2 to the left of the car park for our 3 hour evening session.
Set-up
Applying the keep it simple approach, two of the new Guru A-Class whips both at 3 metres together with a couple of pints of mixed maggots and plenty of hook lengths!
The Session
We plumbed up both Maude and Fin's swim to start on the bottom and purposely fed nothing to show the kids what the effect feeding would have. The kids also practised swinging out the rig to try and get the line to land in a line and avoid potential tangles.
The floats stayed motionless for a few minutes and then we started to trickle some bait in, "little and often" before both floats buried. Maude and Fin both caught a roach each. It was clear that the fish wanted to be up in the water, so we shallowed the rigs to half depth, and strung out the shot.
Well, it transformed the bite time and the fishing became pretty frantic with both kids pulling in fish just about every chuck! Of course, Fin's dad Mike wanted a go too and it wasn't too long before he was pulling in fish and bagging the first carp too.
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Mike, one happy dad!
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Now I'd forgotten a towel to wipe our hands on after landing, unhooking and letting these fish go, so the temporary towel for Maude ended up being dad's trousers and t-shirt and Fin used his jacket, later known as "fish poo" jacket. These were to go straight in the wash the moment we got home.
The swim was becoming more alive and of course we had a few hook length snap with bigger fish, plenty of tangles, a few squirrel casts where the float and line end up in the tree, hooks in clothing and hooks in dads!
Well After all this the fishing was excellent and the bigger carp started to want to play ball. We managed to land a few on the light whips with some help playing them and of course awesome netting skills from both dads!
The maggots that had dropped at our feet in the water, there started to be big swirls, so I got the kids to drop a handful of maggots close in the edge. The carp came up to say hello so, it was too good an opportunity to miss. I had brought my elasticated whip, however the elastic was light it gave us half a chance of bagging some bigger carp.
Fin went first, the float buried and the carp was off, straight into the reeds to our left, hook length gone, rig saved and quickly set up, Fin was soon into another carp and he experienced a good fight with a carp of around 4lb.
Maude's turn next and she hooked a beautiful mirror carp followed by a very pretty common carp. The light was starting to go, so we packed up, the kids fed the fish the rest of the maggots and off home we went.
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