A puzzler on the pads

Saturday morning had arrived. Marie was going into town then off gallivanting somewhere so I had my first chance to take apart the pads. After sundays raking I had started to feed the swim on wednesday, putting in 6kg of wheat. On ihursday I did another 6kg of wheat with 1kg of peanuts and on friday put in another kg of peanuts, this time with 9kg of wheat

John had texted let me know that a 15lb carp came out on friday night, so I was feeling pretty optimistic that once more my luck would be in. The first omen was a bad one, one peg on the stretch occupied and its the one I'd been baiting, my heart sank a bit. Of course I had brought this upon myself, this peg now looks too obviously fishable...

I called out to the lads “had anything”, “nothing” they replied ...”how long you stopping for?” “about 3” “Ok”, I said I'll drop in once you've gone. I spent an hour with the polaroids scanning the water for signs of fish, the stretch is eerily quiet. Despite perfect viewing conditions no bleak, no roach, no bream, chub, perch.... well, nothing even minnow sized, but it is packed with fry.

Once back in my prebaited swim the first thing revealed by the polaroids was a well cleaned area of gravel. So clear it was shining through the crystal water like a beacon, something had been on on the prebait. I spread 9kg of wheat all across the swim, but limited the peanut distribution to a few handfuls into each area that I would be presenting a bait. The only fish I would see was a low double figure pike cruise lazily through the swim. No runs, two decent line bites off the ducks and that was it. I watched a snail tucking into some lose prebait in the margins... part ofthe logic in using the wheat is to pull in plenty of this kind of natural food

With it being such a lovely day I had taken the unusual step of bringing along a disposable bbq traditionally beloved of riverbank yobbos and ner-do-wells. Paired up with some venison burgers and HP guiness sauce, it, along with bottles of hobgoblin ,bishops finger, and banana bread beer snatched gourmet success from the ashes of angling failure.

July sunset over the pads

On Sunday morning, once I had packed away the bivvie I climbed into the waders to take a post mortem look at the swim. Peering down through the crystal water the presentation of every bait looked just fine, a source popup bobbled inches above a perfect pile of pva delivered source pellets, on the other side of the swim the peanut hookbait remained surrounded by the peanut freebies, exactly as it had would looked 12 hours earlier. If I allowed for the generous ration the ducks had scoffed I reckoned the feed throughout the swim was untouched. Something kept the scaly folk away from here last night, its almost like they knew I was here...

The sun rises over the hay meadow

I topped up the baited spots with plently of handfuls of the peanuts, before I returned home pretty puzzled about the events of the night before,