Catch - 40 Skimmers, 10 Roach
Weather - Cold overnight. Bright & sunny
I am currently in between jobs, starting a new one in 11 days and since I have some time on my hands, I contacted Andy Seery's to arrange a time for a together. We decided on Goodiford Mill, because its a venue Andy has fished a lot recently catching many of the venues silvers population.
When we met at McDonalds just off the motorway we tried to work out how long it has been since we last saw each other and concluded it must have been about 8 years! How time fly's. Andy generously agreed to sponsered this years Lands End Winter League and I was presented with 3 more boxes of groundbait and pellet which should cover the next couple rounds. Well it saved on the postage.
I've never been to Goodiford Mill and was pleasantly surprised it only took me 75mins to get there and it was only a few minutes off the motorway junction. As for the main lake, it certainly looked interesting and speaking to the new owner who is taking over from his deceased step father, the intention is to tidy up the lakes and include some much needed platform.
Mal King joined us as well and with 3 competitive anglers fishing it didn't take long, before we agreed to have a knock up. We settled on pegs 9,10 and 11 which is a deep area of the lake. I drew 9, Andy was on 10 and Mal 11.
As expected Andy knocked up a good amount of his Black Gold groundbait. Me on the other hand took a slightly less aggressive approach since the weather had turned colder in the last couple of days. I think Andy got a bit dizzy with excitement after seeing photos of big skimmers caught yesterday, introducing 4 big balls with plenty of micros at the start.
Plumbing up revealed just over 6ft of water all over, which would keep things simple. Only 2 rigs, a 0.75g Dino Long Bream float fished double bulk and 0.5g chimp shotted up more conventionally.
The day proved to be quite tough due to the recent cold weather combined with a chilly northerly breeze.
My day was spent rotating 3 swims. 13m to my left over groundbait, including a few micros and dead maggot, 13m to my right fed negatively with black micros and a 6m line with groundbait and caster.
The fish never seemed to settle properly. The double bulk rig initially was quite successful, until the fizzing started and foul hookers became a problem particularly over the left hand swim. Switching the light rig improved matters, fishing just on bottom.
The right hand swim was my banker for later in the session, because I thought and hoped the better skimmers would turn up over the micros, fishing a 4mm expander. Well I did catch some better skimmers over this line, but it never really took off.
As for the short line, at one point I thought I had it sussed because I had a spell fishing the caster were the float was burying almost instantly, but again the fish just didn't settle.
When it was time to pack up, mainly governed by the fact it was starting to feel really cold, I finished with 14-1, compared to Andy's 10-2 and Mal's 9-9. None of us had any real quality which was a shame, but I could certainly see the potential for the place.
Overall a lovely day's fishing in great company.
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