Last cast seals Eliburn victory.

Last Thursday I decided to head to Eliburn Reservoir in Livingston for a few hours relaxing maggot drowning in the afternoon. As I was getting my gear ready in the morning I remembered that my mate Keith still had my net in the boot of his car. I quickly text him to see if I could swing round and collect it on my way there and when I did he said he'd like to join me so off we went.

Arriving at the car park there was only one car there and sure enough when we got down to the reservoir there was only one angler fishing who had two rods out for carp. We selected a double peg at the bottom of the venue and set up our rods. We both fished one waggler setup up and one feeder setup, Keith opting to fish a method feeder whilst I wanted to try a black cap swim feeder on a helicopter rig. The water was reasonably clear although there was quite a lot of weed so I decided to fish my feeder in a gap in it to my left and my waggler around a weed bed in front of me.

Action was slow to say the least. Reeling in my feeder to refill and cast it out again reasonably often to hopefully attract some fish into the swim to my left, I got a pleasant surprise when on the third or forth retrieve I felt a few head shakes and a small perch appeared into view. I was puzzled why I never saw my feeder rod tip move but perhaps the perch had grabbed the maggots as I began to reel in. In any case I was just glad to catch the first fish of the day.

My first perch of the year. The standard size for the venue although there must be some bigger ones in there!

We both hoped this would signal the beginning of a few more fish but it wasn't and there was no further action until a change of bait to maggots saw Keith's method feeder rod start nodding away. Fish on and after no time at all a bream was over the net and landed.

I've yet to catch a bream so was hopeful of catching one too.

After this the fishing was very slow again and despite fiddling with the length of my hook lengths on my helicopter rig and the depth I was fishing under the waggler after a few hours neither of us had any more bites so we decided to head to the top end of the venue as this normally produces more, if usually small, fish. On this occasion it didn't however so we tried one last peg before leaving. Much to his amusement Keith watched a robin stealing my maggots every time I turned my back. This was the only thing biting though so we started packing up. With just my waggler rod to break down the float dipped slightly a couple of times before vanishing and I lifted into another small perch about the same size as the first.

Keith likes to get quite competitive (all good friendly fun really) and this last gasp fish saw me clinch victory 2 - 1.

After popping the winning fish back we headed home and on the way discussed potential fishing trips we'd like to do during the summer. Keith tells me that Eliburn is due a clean up this weekend to remove some of the weed beds so hopefully this may bring out a few more fish although I think another cold snap on it's way may well mean another trip there will be a while away.

Tight lines, Scott.