Saturday morning and I arrived at Rixton car park around 06.15 to find around 7-8 cars already there, with all the first few pegs having people in them it was going to mean me fishing an unfamiliar peg further round the pit. I eventually spotted a vacant peg and it looked a cracker it was in a secluded bay and commanded alot of open water in front with a nice tight channel to the right just perfect for my sleeper rod.
The swim for the day:
The first hour and half passed away in a blur with not so much as a touch on the sleeper rod and only a solitary roach to show on the method feeder to the side of the island in front, but as you can hear from the video above the birds were in full song and it was clear mother nature was not going to miss out on the forthcoming good weather, you can really see why this is a SSSI site throughout the day, of the top of my head I remember either hearing or witnessing the following birds, Blue tits, robins, blackbirds, woodpigeon, woodpecker, jay, finches, Canadian geese, moor-hens, ducks and to top it of I was treated to a aerial display of two buzzards soaring the thermals in the mid day heat. When doing a blog I have learned the hard way to take a picture of your first fish no matter how small as it may be your last!!!.
Roach:
From a fishing point of view it was turning into one of those days that really annoys you the conditions where spot on and I was doing my best to mess it up with a mixture of inaccurate casting resulting in me having to set up from scratch again after landing, like it seems alot do from the amount of gear in the trees, in the island in front and not to the side of it. It was after this and noticing that I had now spent two hours with only one fish I decided to set up the float rod and have a go on the waggler, while I was threading up my float rod I was stopped half way up by one loud bleep from my sleeper rod and a load of slack line, I struck not expecting the fish to be still on and off it shot hell bent on taking me around the back on the island I was on, not good, I managed to turn the fish and like last weeks it dogged it out under the rod tip but with me using my 1.75 test curve barbel rod it was no match and it was only a mater of time before the fish tired and my first tench of the day was on the unhooking mat. Tipping the scales at 3lb 1oz it made a quiet morning suddenly seem more productive.
3lb 1oz Tench:
The tench was quickly weighed and it's picture taken safely returned to its home, being such a warm day already this is imperative. I decided to get the rod quickly set up again and quickly had a PVA bag attached to it and back on the same spot and it was back to setting up the float rod, this proved to be a master stroke and from 09.30 till 1pm I had some of the best silver fishing I'd had in a long time, with a fish coming with early every cast, I was cursing the fact I hadn't packed my keep net because it would have been one hell of a net fish to have taken a picture of, the fish where a mixture or roach, skimmers and small perch with the best fish being a pristine 13oz roach. The sleeper rod had two more runs on it but on reflection I think I was striking at line bites and with it being my first ever time using a bite alarm it was always going to be a learning curve.
13oz newly minted Roach:
From 1pm onwards the whole swim went through a massive quiet patch with all signs of fish feeding disappearing, a pike moved in??? unfortunately its just one of those things that will always baffle us anglers. Around 3pm I had another run on the sleeper rod and it didn't half shoot off and was how you expect the bite alarm to go off with a constant beeping, I struck, fish on!!, straight away in knew i was into a proper bream, the fight was all you expect form a bream a dull tugging sensation and to be honest they are not known for their fighting ability, but welcome none the less.
2lb 8oz Bream:
The rod was again quickly re-baited and recast in again and I began to pick up the odd roach and skimmer on the float again as the afternoon went on, before I knew it, it was 5pm and time to start packing up, as I was packing away my float rod and feeder, the bite alarm screamed off again and this time it was no bream but another hard fighting tench, this one was alot smaller than the male tench from the morning but didn't fight any less and I couldn't think of a better way to end the day.
Tench:
Rixton Clay pits.
Tight Lines
Danny
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