A full day at Gowerton.

This weekend we initially made plans to fish the neath canal to see if we could catch a few Roach, Rudd and Pike the weather forecast showed over cast condition but the sky outside was bright blue with beaming sunshine so we made a snap decision and headed for Gowerton Coarse Fishery for a full day session, something that we don't usually do as its becoming more and more busy during the day and the fish usually don't seem to feed during the day.

We arrived at 8 o'clock and set our priorities by heading straight for the golf range cafe and ordered two mega breakfasts, we stuffed our grease feasts and headed to the lake to find there were 12 other anglers who had got there before us. Luckily there was a three pegs empty on the far bank so we headed over throwing a handful of mixer biscuits as we arrived at the peg. The Carp were straight on them but with the usual nudging them and knocking them before they even thought about eating them.

I'm not going to lie, the first five hours were hard for me I managed to hook and lose three fish while Steve manage to hook and lose four but also managed to bank two Carp around the six pound mark which gave him a two fish head start on me which at one point I thought I wouldn't be able to match.

Steve unhooking his first fish of the session.
And then holding it up for the camera.
Coming to the surface and then to the net.

The second of Steve's catch.

It was well into the afternoon before I actually managed to get a fish to stay on the hook by this time I had lost count of the amount of fish that I'd hooked then come off, this meant the I was only one fish behind so I started to concentrate to try and level the catch ratio.

My first fish of the day and a long time coming.

My second fish didnt follow to far behind, as the biscuits that we had been throwing in were slowly making their way down the lake the and Carp were picking them off further down the lake , after watching one launch itself out of the water at a biscuit I moved down a peg and cast straight at where it had been, genuinely thought that it would have been a pointless effort and the jumping fish would have spooked the rest of them but less than a minute of the biscuit hitting the water when a Carp popped its head up and began opening and closing its mouth trying to suck in the bait, it tried four times then finally got it.

Fighting for a level catch total.

The fish kicked off by swimming straight at me then heading out out into the middle of the lake where I thought it had tried itself out but I was wrong, it carried on coming close then darting back out it took so long to bring the fish to the surface Steve had a chance to take a few nice shots of me playing the fish. When I finally netted this nice Common Carp, and like always we were in total disagreement about the weight, Steve gave his estimate of eight pounds and I reckoned that it was just pushing double figure giving my estimate at ten pound, this minor dispute was ended when the scales confirmed the weight at 9lb 8oz, I was closer but neither of us were right.

On the unhooking mat.

My biggest catch of the day a nine and a half pound Common with a rather unique dorsal fin.

This meant that the catch total was level and Steve started his walk around the lake to see if he could spot any Carp in the edges and regain the lead.

My third and final Common of the day.

From the other side of the lake I watched him lose a further three Carp while I lost another two. I finally managed to hook our final catch of the day and claim another small victory with another with a Common Carp about four pound in weight not a monster but a day winner.