After spending all Sunday, Monday and Tuesday last week with what my missus suspected as severe "man flu" I jumped at the opportunity of a days leave on the Friday when it was announced a space had become available. My whole mindset for my two days left in work was to get rid of whatever bug I had picked up so I was well enough to make an early morning attack for the tench that resided in the murky depths of Rixton Clay Pits come Friday.
The next two days in work flew by and I soon found myself making a late afternoon last minute dash to the post office on Thursday to pick up my new EA licence for the forthcoming year, after sharing a quick joke with the postmaster about the odds of ever being asked to produce this licence after purchasing one for the last 19 years and only ever been asked for it once I was on my way to the local bait shop for some red maggots for the trip the following morning.
I woke up nice and early Friday morning, a necessity it seems for catching the better fish from Warrington waters in the warmer months it seems, car loaded and I was on my way. A quick check of the weather and although the temperature was a steady 16 degrees showers had been forecast for the morning so a quick u-turn and in went the English fisherman's best friend the umbrella.
I arrived at Rixton to find only 2 cars in the car park, straight down the gravel path and a quick glance over to find the swim I had hoped to fish was free, my method of attack today would be solely on the method feeder with a ground-bait mix of sweetcorn and maggots with maggot on the hook.
The swim:
With my 12ft Drennan power carp feeder already being clipped up from my trip last week it was a 5 second job to set the rod up and get fishing. Nearly instantly I was getting little taps on the tip and I knew from experience this would be skimmer bream eating the contents of the method feeder and knocking it as they did so, surely it wouldn't be long before the culprit found the single red maggot stationed close to the feeder and the tip wrapped round, sure enough a few minutes later I was into a decent skimmer which turned out to be the best one of the day.
Skimmer Bream:
When I fish the method feeder I like to get a decent bed of bait down so for the next 20 minutes I was only leaving the feeder in for between 3 to 4 minutes before re-baiting, this definitely paid off as the first time I then left it in for a longer period the rod was nearly pulled off the rod rest and I was into what felt a first another skimmer but it all to soon became apparent that this was down to the fact the fish was swimming towards me and as it got into the margins near me I could not for the life of me move it off the bottom, this was certainly no skimmer bream the fish made numerous attempts to get me into the sunken trees to my left but after a series of hard heavy lunges I managed to get it to the top a quick glimpse of olive green before in dived again and I knew I was into my first tench of the season. It wasn't long before I was pulling the fish over the lip of my landing net and it looked a real good fish and one worth weighing, I was lucky enough to be bought some digital weighing scales for Christmas so I can now put a weight to the bigger fish I catch, this topped the scales at 4lb 3oz so this being the first tench I have ever weighed it became my new official personal best!!!
4lb 3oz Tench:
With the capture of this fish the heaven's opened and it seemed to have a marked effect of the fishing with only 3 more smaller skimmers and a tiny perch, so small I didn't know it was on, came to the net although I did have another visitor throughout the downpour who greedily hoovered up any maggots I threw to her.
My company for the day:
After around about a hour and half the rain stopped and I caught a few more skimmers, nothing to write home about and I decided to call it day around about 3pm as I could feel my cough getting worse. I really do love Rixton as a venue and the pegs that are in place are truly a credit to the club and the work volunteers put in, thank you!!!.
I cant help thinking that this place screams out large perch!! the covers there as are the smaller fish for them to feed so they may well be worth a go for in the coming weeks. I also made my monthly trip to Stapeley Water Gardens and picked myself up a cheap Fox Warrior bite alarm and some bits so hopefully can put my under used barbel rod to use as a sleeper rod for a bonus tench or carp next time I visit Rixton.
tight lines
Danny
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