The Further Adventures of Singy and Little Singy. Pt1 | Angling Diary
The Further Adventures of Singy and Little Singy. Pt1 byCEMEX Angling
Added 3rd July 2007 at 19:34
The boys hit the banks again...
The Further Adventures of Singy and Little Singy. Pt1 | Angling Diary
The Further Adventures of Singy and Little Singy. Pt1
Father’s day saw us heading off down the A25 towards Dorking and one of the best day ticket fisheries in the country, Old Bury Hill. I love the drive down the mile or so of country lane to the lakes, with rabbits, squirrels, jays and lots more wildlife to be seen along here. It dismays me how anglers can fly down this lane and miss all this. Even 3 mph is too fast, as Daniel and I try to outdo each other with the animals we spot.
On this particular morning I was completely outdone by Danny as I somehow failed to spot the three tyrannosaurs chasing the car , a heard of triceratops moving along the valley and a couple of brachiosaurs grazing the tops of the trees up ahead. Kids eh?
On arrival I was dismayed to find cars everywhere and the overspill car park already full. After enquiring at the shop we found out both Milton and Bonds lakes were booked out for corporate events - on Father’s day for God’s sake! I just wanted to go home, the place was rammed, but Danny was yet again an over-excited bundle of energy and had so been looking forward to another trip fishing with daddy.
We decided to brave the crowds on the old lake. It's a stunning lake and one that holds some great fish, but I was concerned it would not be the bite-a-chuck that Bonds and Milton can offer. The first swim vacant was next to the boat house and alive with bubbles from the large bream herds that live in the lake. I mixed the groundbait while Danny got stuck into the worms with the scissors (don’t tell his mum). I’d soon deposited a few kilos to two spots, one in the edge and one at 40 yards or so, and set up two rods, one on the feeder and one on the waggler.
First cast on the feeder resulted in a strange jerky take and I instructed Danny to lift the rod and it looked to me that all that was there was the weight of the feeder. Suddenly the rod wrenched around. Odd. All was to become apparent after a few minutes and some help from Daddy, a rather nice zander was in the net. I think we’d hit a line bite and the movement of the worm was enough to interest this spiny predator.
Next cast saw me twitching the worm across the lake bed (yeah I know it’s not predator season down there but I was bream fishing, honest) and the same thing happened again, and this time Daddy had a new PB 7.5lb zed, again neatly hooked in the scissors. A few more attempts at bream angling with a moving lob worm didn’t result in any more zeds so a more traditional static bream fishing technique was employed.
Throughout the day we caught bream from 1lb up to 6lbs or so and these are still very impressive fish for a small boy. To him they look huge and he was fascinated by just how slimy they were. He insisted on holding every single one so he could build up his own protective mucus layer on his t-shirt. Phew, he was ‘kicking-up’ a bit already in the heat, and I was very tempted to get mummy to come and pick him up when we’d finished. She could take the net and the mat too.
Danny’s highlight of the day though was watching me trying to tame a large angry carp hooked on the floatfished lobworm in the edge. This beast absolutely destroyed me, with the soft Avon rod and 5lb line no match for this fish as it powered under the boat house, knitted itself a jumper around numerous chains before losing the hook. A rather upset Danny turned to me and said ‘you’re a rubbish fisherman daddy, I wanted a photo with that fish!’ Oh well, you can’t win them all. Revenge will be ours next time my lad, revenge will be ours.
