October heatwave means hard work....
I took a trip up to one of my favourite venues recently and found that I was the only one there! Lymmvale is a five acre pit containing some super fish including the past British records for golden tench and golden orfe; it is also renowned for its quality stocks of big tench, carp, rudd and bream....not to mention the odd HUGE catfish!
I reached the car park to find no-one else on the water which is almost unheard of, especially considering the weather which was absolutely gorgeous; bright sunshine despite the early hour and a cloudless sky. Although it wasn’t the best fishing conditions I’ve ever encountered, it was one of those days where it just didn’t matter....I was going to enjoy my day by the water’s edge!
After the customary wander around to see if I could spot any fish, I decided to settle into a swim known as the ‘Sandbank’ which is the only double swim at Lymmvale; that may have been an error, but more of that later! As I’d not seen a single fish moving, I chose the peg because I know that the lake bed rises to within a couple of feet of the surface and would be one of the first places to warm up in the sunshine. I expected that any carp on the feed would soon make an appearance and continued to keep an eye out for their presence.
Normally I tackle up at Lymmvale with a matching pair of 2lb test curve rods, but today, I’d been given a cracking Harrison Torrix Specialist rod to try out and then compile a review, so one of my usual rods was left in the bag. Even though it was brightening up, I wanted to fish baits hard on the bottom to intercept fish coming up the shelf into warmer waters, so tackled up with a Pallatrax ‘LiLo’ Stonze combined with a short hook link to a size 10 hook. The intention was to fish a method mix wrapped around the Stonze at fairly short range to try and defeat the copious amounts of silkweed covering the bottom. The second rod was similarly tackled and both baits lobbed out into the weed.
Lymmval...
