Rookery Waters

After a great breakfast in the Cafe, I visited the tackle shop for my day ticket. There was a match on Jay which was where I fancied fishing so I had a look around at the other lakes, most of which were empty. I decided to head over to Magpie,  which did have a few others fishing and is the site’s match record holding water of over 500lb in a single match.

It was another low-pressure end to the week and conditions started still and overcast. After setting up I plumbed up rigs for the up against the island 13 Meters, 36 inches deep, Middle 7m, 48  inches deep and in the edge 34 inches deep. I also had a short slapping rig and mugging rig setup.

Starting on the surface with the slapping rig set to 12″ I was soon into a Carp of around 5lb. In fact, I wasn’t even looking when I hooked the fish but that’s the joy of this style of fishing, if you keep the line tight. After such a quick fish I was disappointed that it wasn’t followed by more. I moved out to the island and tried on the bottom, fishing over 2mm pellets from a medium cad pot. This produced a few fish but after an hour I admitted defeat. I was a little put off (jealous) by the angler a few pegs up. He was on a wider part of the lake and fishing a method feeder which was producing carp every 10 to 15 minutes. 

Around noon I gave the edge a try again fishing over 2mm soaked pellets. This immediately resulted in a lot more interest and lots of short sharp bites. My first fish was an F1 around 2lb which explained the quick bits and possibly explained why I stuggled at 13m. I dotted down the float a little with a number 12 and carried on fishing on my pole’s top 4 sections. I was finally into a run of fish with F1s and the odd Carp thrown in up to 6lb.