More maggot drowning.

I used up the last of my maggots yesterday at Magiscroft coarse fishery near Cumbernauld. When I woke up in the morning and checked the weather forecast I wasn't going to bother but Lillian was keen to go so off we went. As predicted it was raining when we arrived and after paying for my day ticket and asking for advice regarding which spots had been fishing well we headed to the Birch Ponds to get started. The pond was partially covered with ice and the peg I fished last time I was there was iced over so we elected to fish the one adjacent to it. Fishing with a #18 barbless Kamasan B911 hook baited with a single maggot just touching bottom about three feet below a 2AA puddle chucker insert waggler I cast out between two islands in the middle of the pond and began feeding the swim with a few maggots every now and then but this failed to produce any bites so after about an hour we decided to move to the Island Pond. We headed for the deeper end of the pond and I quickly started fishing again.

Waiting for bites.

Casting to the island and clipping up so I could cast quickly to the same spot each time it wasn't too long before I started getting bites and the first fish was hooked, a roach. This was followed shortly afterwards by a small tench. For its size it fought rather well, using its big tail to try and power away from me a couple of times but it was soon played out and brought to the net which was being expertly handled by my trusted ghillie. 

Finally off the mark.

A lovely little tench. They don't half scrap well.

 

After that it went a bit quiet, started raining again and the wind picked up a bit making controlling my float more difficult. At this point the bailiff came around to litter pick and gave me some advice on how to best to quickly sink my line and adjust my shotting pattern to minimize the movement of my float. This immediately paid off as I hooked a second roach. Next time the float went under I struck and felt the thrashing of another tench but got quite a nice surprise when it came into view and I realised it was one of the golden variety. 

My first one and a very pretty fish indeed.

Do ornamental fish count as seperate species? Technically the answer is no but I'm going to count it as one in my tally anyway. Doesn't seem right not to somehow.

This was closely followed by another new species for me. At first I thought I had caught an ide but after a closer inspection and a quick lateral line scale count I realised it was in fact a small chub.

Chub have larger scales than ide. The number along the lateral line is 44-46 for a chub and 56+ on an ide.

By the middle of the afternoon I had also caught a little F1 Carp, a third tench and a further four roach. By this point bites were becoming much more frequent and the sun even made an appearance at one point! I hooked and lost a few tiny roach and would have liked to have fished on but had to head home to get ready for work.

My second ever F1 carp. Nice looking fish and fought well too.

Another tench in nice condition.

I must say I've really enjoyed my maggot drowning sessions this last week or so. The fishing has been quite slow at times but my effort has been rewarded with some nice fish and I think I'll be doing more coarse fishing over the summer this year for sure.

Tight lines, Scott.