Wakey Wakey, Eggs and Bakey! 29th April

The weather was definitely on the up and up and with spring now firmly digging its heels in, it was time for another session down at Frimley. With my wedding just around the corner, this was officially my last session as a ‘single’ man – some may say forever ;) Our Dad (Nick) was back in the country for the wedding from working overseas and the finer details of the session were discussed over a curry for Ricky’s birthday the night before. A few beers later and we were well up for getting down there! So, the next morning at silly o clock we found ourselves all bleary eyed and stumbling up the hill towards Pit 2, still half asleep and trying to shake away the fuzzy remnants of too many Cobra beers!

Down at the lake, we had a quick scout around and decided to opt for 3 swims fairly close to each other, so we could have a bit of a social as well as try and land a kipper or two. With our Dad working abroad, fishing sessions with him were a rarity, so it was important that we were all within talking distance of each other. A perfect spot was the old breezeblock swim and the two next to it in the corner - we settled in and started to set up for the day. It was only about 5:45am but already light enough to see properly so we wasted no time in getting some baits out. With 8 rods out spaced out between the 3 swims, with marginal spots, island spots and open water spots, we were definitely expecting some action. All three swims had produced decent carp for us and others in the past so we had the best of both worlds; a social and a decent days fishing ahead of us. As always when our Dad comes fishing, so too comes his cool bag FULL of food. “Dinner’s on me!”, were his parting words the night before so we held back on our usual supply of Pot Noodles, Meal in a can’s and crisps in anticipation of what was in store. We were definitely not let down when he cracked on with a breakfast of egg and bacon rolls – pukka! Once we’d wolfed them down, they were followed up by a second round of bacon rolls, which we just couldn’t refuse! Then we settled down and waited for any signs of life from the pit, which so far were only coming from the Canadian Geese thrashing the waters into foam whilst they tried to hump each other…

I think we all must have dozed off when my screaming alarm woke me up. I’m in I shouted just as it stopped and I saw a coot coming back up from my baited spot. Theres nothing like being woken from a sleep by an alarm to get the old ticker racing! I waited by the rod for a bit on the off chance that it may have been a fish and then recast that rod in case it had been moved off my baited area. Shortly after I’d set the bobbins, Dad’s rod was away – a nice steady run which he connected into and the rod hooped over. We went over for some actions shots and I got the net ready. By the bend in the rod you could tell whatever was on the end wasn’t a carp and lo and behold our first tench of the year slipped over the net. Weighing at around 4lbs and with some gorgeous colouring, our Dad couldn’t have been more chuffed as he held his first English fish of the year up for some photos. With the tench slipped back, we were all ready and waiting for some more action.

Lunchtime arrived and out came that legendary cool bag! With a delicious dinner of chicken, potato, broccoli, salad and some lemon cake settling inside us we couldn’t have been more content. The weather was nice and warm and there was no sign of rain. Ricky had a drop back which amounted to nothing, me and Dad had a few knocks here and there but that was it. The day didn’t really deliver what we thought it would. I had some more trouble with our feathered friends, which kept me on my toes but no action from anything that didn’t have a beak! We had to leave early afternoon and slowly started to pack up. I wont be down Frimley for a good 3 or 4 weeks as my honeymoon is calling, but Ricky will be making up for that, so until then….