A Lovely Dark Mirror at the Half Round Ponds.

My intentions initially were to hit the Fendrod again but with a late start coupled with a bout of nicer weather there were a lot more fine weather fishermen on the bank and I was left with either slim picking on the peg front or the option of a different water. 

It was time for a trip to the Half Round Ponds. Something I'd been thinking about visiting it for a while and considering how hard I found these ponds when I first fished them back in 2007 I've yet to film a bad overnight session. I now look back at my earlier blog posts and can really savour catching these dark beauties as I know first hand that they don't come easy.

This time I was adopting the method I'd used on the Fendrod except I'd scaled down the amount of bait I was going to spod out. I picked my pegs and decided on two spots to place a bait then proceeded to spod out a generous helping of pigeon conditioner, nothing near the amount I'd used when I caught the big Ghostie but enough for the size of water I was fishing.

My rig choices for the session were the same as my last session with one bottom bait rig with Mistral Rose-hip Isotonic hookbait topped off with a piece of fake corn and the other rod was back on the chod, this time I'd made life a little easier by not using a chopped down 20mm pop-up and gone with a 15mm CCMoore Northern Special. I was confident that the bait would stand out in amongst all the particles.   

I was happy with where I'd put my baits and settled down in the bivvy for the night.

The night was fairly quiet with a few single beeps on the right hand alarm around midnight.

I stirred at dawn and my first thoughts were 'another blank'. I knew I'd put the baits in a good spot so I didn't bother disturbing them and rolled over in my sleeping bag to catch a few more zeds.

I must have only closed my eyes for a few seconds when my right hand rod screamed off. I didn't hang around throwing myself out of the sleeping bag and hit the rod with only my socks on my feet. I connected with a fish within seconds not giving it the chance to run amok through the dense weed.

It was another hard battle from a Half Round pond Carp, as long as I get a hook up I can always rely on the ponds to provide some hard fighting action and this was no exception. It wasn't happy in the clear spots and was making heavy lunges trying to get its head buried in the weeds. Its was lovely to be waking up and straight into some action, my only regret was not putting my boots on as my socks were sodden after running through dew soaked grass but it was worth it as I finally netted my first Half Round Pond Carp of the year.

I put the fish in the margin then proceeded to put my boots on, then laid out the mat before I got the camera ready. I flicked the camera on record and picked the net out of the margins, lifting the fish out of the water I had literally touched the mat as the other rod screamed off! Trying not to panic I slipped the net back in the water and picked up the other rod. I felt a kick on the end before the line dropped slack. It would have been great to get two fish on the bank in the daylight but it wasn't to be.

I wasn't to upset about the fish coming off as I still had one in the net! Again I was underestimating the weight, I seem to do with the Half Round Pond fish as they are all short fish and I never take into account the width. It weighed in at 14lb 4oz lovely way to start the day. 

Lovely dark Mirror Carp.

Rise and Shine. One out two ain't bad.

As the morning progressed it was starting to become a hot day. I decided to get the kettle on and soak a few mixer biscuits ready to try a bit of surface fishing.

By 10am I had the bivvy packed down and everything that I didn't need was now in the car. I had seen so many fish cruising about it seemed silly not to try a bit of surface fishing and in my mind I was making a good choice.

The weed bed I fished over in the night.

You can just make out a Carp with its head buried in the weeds.

After the early morning success the rest of the day turned into one of the most infuriating bits of surface fishing I have ever done. I managed to prick one but that was all, the rest of the lake residents were ignoring me. I even dragged a biscuit across one Carps face but it just wasn't interested.

I finally gave up and went home, I got in the car and felt like I'd had a bad session and it wasn't until I had a quick look through the photos on the camera that I realised that apart from the frustration of the last few hours I'd had a pretty good day.

Well, it was a nice change fishing the Half Round Ponds and they provided me with another good session.

So, onto the next session I've got a few things planned for the next week or two so my next time on the bank will probably be my birthday session so hopefully it'll be a good one. I think I know what I want to do but lets see if I can afford it. 

Check out the video blog of the session. In the middle of the video I do the draw for a competition I held on Youtube if you want the chance of entering my competition subscribe to my youtube channel.