Hard Weather Session at Hazel Court Ponds.

As with every fishing session you plan you always hope for a bit of nice weather and with my annual leave wearing a bit thin when I booked my first day off work since the Pike fishing trip back in January I was hoping for for just that. For the past twenty days the sun had been shining and temperatures were pretty comfortable and I was eager to get out and make use of my newly purchased rod licence.

I was fairly confident that we'd get a nice day when I booked the day off to chase the Catfish at Hazel Court Ponds.

The day arrived and it was like the seasons had change overnight! The temperatures had dropped, the wind had picked up from nowhere and the sun had been replaced by rain and there was an cold damp feel in the air. Not really ideal for Catfish!

Undeterred, Steve and I loaded the car and headed east along the M4. Honestly the drive was horrible and seemed to take longer previous trips as the early morning traffic increased so did the spray coming off the motorway making it an almost impossible to see more than a few cars in front.

We arrive at the ponds and took a brief walk around the Cat lake but we had already made up our minds to try get a bend in the rods rather than chase Catfish in these conditions.

We settled down on the Specimen lake and I started baiting up a spot before slapping up the bivvy as a shelter against the elements. Despite the temperature drop there was still a few Carp making themselves known with the odd fish turning over in the centre of the lake.

Within the first hour I got a run, I was standing next to the rods, my mind was miles away but the screaming of the alarm quickly dragged me back to reality. I picked up the rod and I could tell I had a Carp on but its was hard to gauge any kind of size as it was really putting me through the paces. When it surface I could see it wasn't very big but that didn't slow it down as it continue to battle on until I slipped it into the net. Cracking fight!

I put the fish on the mat but didn't bother weighing it as I don't think it would have pushed more than five pounds. A lovely example of a lean Common Carp and in true Hazel Court style it had slight koi tint to it with a few translucent flecks along the scales.

Only fish of the day a wiry little Common Carp.

With a fish on the bank the weather didn't seem so bad after all. I continued to bait the spot in the hope that a few more fish would grace the bank.

We had been fishing for around two hours before the true nemesis of Hazel Court Ponds started their assault. The spot that I had been baiting since our arrival and the only spot to have produced a fish was totally ransacked by a pair of relentless Swans. They turned into the bane of the session, not content with clearing out my first baited spot they continued to harass us for the rest of the day, their exploits consisted of clearing out any bait we'd put in the lake, cleaning themselves under the rod tips, swimming through the lines countless times, picking up the back leads and my personal favourite, trying to squeeze under the rod pod resulting in turning it over rods and all.

Don't you just love nature.

It was a long day with the rest of the day being a mixture of bad weather and bad luck with me missing my second run due to me fiddling with the camera. We ended the day after one of the swans picked up my hook bait. The commotion was more than enough to destroy any chance of seeing any more fish on the bank and I packed up glad that I'd managed to get one out before the Swans started.

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO BLOG OF THE SESSION.

Steve was a bit disheartened by a blank as he was more than confident we'd be bagging up but I think the drastic change in the weather turned the fish off the feed and the Swans just made things worse.

As the summer month start to come closer I'd like to think that we'll get another few session at Hazel Court but as with everything we'll have to wait and see how things pan out.