New Dam

This weekend we went camping in the peak district with a group of friends, a group which happened to include Mentalor and Wanye.  Since he last featured on the blog Wanye has kitted himself out with some second hand tackle, he simply needed a licence and he would be set to go...of course he had forgotten to do this prior to departure & paid the price as he battled through an eternally slow internet connection using his phone from a field in the depths of rural Derbyshire.

Paperwork sorted, bait was next on the agenda, a quick trip into Matlock revealed that finding maggots might be a problem, and a phone call to the Bakewell Fly Fishing shop confirmed that supermarket bait was the best we could hope for in the immediate vicinity. So armed with bread, sweetcorn and spam, and with a secret stash of a dozen precious redworms, we were all set for an afternoon and evening fishing.

Finding coarse fishing in the peak district isn't exactly easy, top quality trout fishing is everywhere, but I had struggled to find us anywhere local until I stumbled into an old forum post mentioning "New Dam" at Youlgreave. The ordnance survey map revealed a prime candidate a couple of hundred metres southwest of Youlgrave & an email to the keeper of the Peacock fishery on the Wye (thanks Warren) confirmed that this was the place. Accessed via a long drive, the pool had a board posting the tel number of the farmer, and he popped down to see us on his way to get the cows in for milking.  Mostly bream, carp and perch he told us, and despite it being a bank holiday weekend we had the pool to ourselves.

Mentalor started by seeking monster perch with a mepps while I took Wanye through knotting and shotting his terminal tackle, with breadflake as the bait. I was in no hurry to get fishing, taking an hour or two at the start of the session to make sure my apprentices were settled in before setting up in an adjacent peg which I had fed with 4 slices of bread pinched into fingertip sized flakes shortly after we arrived.

Mentalor had the first fish, a small bream, on a redworm, and reusing what remained of the redworm quickly followed it with a perch.

When I finally got around to casting it took a just a few minutes until the first bite, which I missed... A second bite, which I also missed came moments later and was followed by a third , three bites within 15 mins but no fish contacted. I was a little puzzled. This time I baited with two redworms, each hooked once through the tip of the tails so they hunk enticingly downwards with the hookpoint clear and pointily awaiting its opportunity. This bite was more decisive than the others, the float shot under and to the left, as I lifted to the right the rod flexed into an interesting curve for a second to two, before the skimmer broke the surface and surrendered its slime to my landing net. The bream was followed by a perch, then another skimmer, a carbon copy of is brother taken earlier. 

It was half past seven, and a large lump of compressed legered bread was to give me my next fish - a small but feisty carp of about three and a half pounds which got into the reeds at my feet, costing me a lead which was dropped by the clip as the carp was coaxed from its futile attempt at sanctuary. Another small bream fell for the last of my precious redworms and the bait crisis this precipitated was generously solved by the only other angler on the pool. His donation to our cause of a quarter pint of surplus maggots handed on when he packed up, helped us soldier on, attempting to add to our tally. 

  As the light faded, a bit before nine, a shout from Mentalor ejected me from my swim, he was into a better fish, his first proper fight really, and it was giving him a bit of a run around. I picked up the net, with Menatalor brandishing the bucking rod in the manner of a confident amateur. Eventually he got the fishes head out of the water, and netted it for him, forgetting that the net I was using had a habit fof collapsing if

used the "wrong" way round. Of course, predictably, it was the wrong side up, and the arms collapsed before me as the net flopped down over the handle, flaccidly enveloping the carp, but retaining it nevertheless. Happy faces all round, the carp weighed in at 3lb 9oz, a nice new PB for the old apprentice. It was also an opportunity for us to give Wanye a bit of a ribbing, as we had landed 7 fish whilst he was still yet to score.

  Returning to my swim I had another another bite on the legered bread which failed to connect. Wayne had found some fish, taking a small bream and a perch I think, and with Mentalors and my tally at 5 each darkness had deemed our fishing time to be over. We returned to the tents at Barn farm, toasting our success with some rapidly consumed bevvies, and agreeing that mentalors carp was the "best" fish, even if mine pipped it a bit on weight...