Hartleylands Farm Fishery, Finches Pond. September 22nd, 2006.



Having a bit of time off I was pleasantly surprised when Maria suggested I might fancy a days fishing last night, as she was going over to visit a friend today. I should have known.

After my disaster at Lemington Lakes last Saturday I really needed to catch a few just to get the confidence back, so it was off to a favourite of mine …… Hartleylands Farm.

So 8·30am brought a nudge in my back as my beloved enquired whether I was going fishing today? A peak out of the window revealed it had been pouring down all night, but a hint of sun breaking through promised better for the day ahead. By 9·15 the car was loaded and I was on my way with a clearing sky, but as I reached Tonbridge the sun had vanished and the sky was getting greyer.

I reached the fishery about 10·30 but was a little disappointed to find a match on the reservoir, so that was the first plan scuppered. A steady drizzle was starting to fall as I had a look around and a chat with a couple of anglers that had already been fishing for a couple of hours with only a couple of Carp to show for their efforts between them meant that I settled for peg 8 on Finches, sheltered amongst the trees and with a comfy 8yds to the far bank it would do for me.

Before I had even finished setting up, the rain started hammering down, so just a couple of simple rigs were set up, 1 for paste and the other for 6mm expander pellet both to be fished over 4mm pellet (all G.O.T baits) both across and in the margin to my left. Both rigs were KC Carpa 2′s on 0·16 Carpteck with Fox match series2 in a 14 for paste and a 16 for the expanders.

First put in across with paste, and 30secs later the float had buried and the black hydro stretched out and safely in the net was the first fish of the day, an nice Ghostie.
A couple of looks over with expander produced a couple of Gudgeon, so back to the paste. This was definitely what the Carp wanted with most bites coming within a minute of cupping the paste in, and the bites are nice and definite, no messing about with the float just vanishing straight down the plughole.
With the rain still pouring down I got a phone call from Dave (Webbo) about 12, and he remarked that he could hear the rain, but it was lovely in Leeds. The action that I'd been having encouraged the chap in the next but one peg down from me to come over for a chat to see what I was doing differently from him. 10 mins under the brolly showing him how to prepare expanders with a pump and explaining the basics of paste and he was off back to his peg with a box of prepared expanders to give them a go.

Back out with the paste and the rain was starting to ease, but the Carp were still there.
By 1·30 the rain has finally stopped but because I was under the trees it was still coming down on me, so a move was called for if I was ever going to get anything dried out. A quick look over the back revealed that there were only 4 anglers on Nick’s Lake, so I moved all of ten yards onto Nick’s peg 3. With nobody on the adjacent pegs it was going to be margins all the way and 1st put in on the right hand margin produced an instant bite resulting in a super common gracing the net.
The afternoon proved to be fairly hectic, I doubt if I had to wait much more than 30 secs for a bite on paste, with most being so positive that the elastic just streamed out without any need to strike, smaller fish in general than those in Finches, mostly commons but occasionally a nice example of the resident ghosties putting in an appearance.
4·30 and as I was packing away after what has been a good confidence building session Paul Ward, the owner strolled round to see how I'd done. It's always interesting to have a chat with him and he told me that he’d finished digging another new lake and is just letting it fill naturally as he’s in no hurry to stock it yet.
Packing up, thankfully almost everything has dried out and on the way out I decided to stop and have a look at the new lake……..

As you can see there’s a quite wide marginal shelf around 2-3 ft below water level and it then drops to around 6-7ft, while it just rises up to the island without a noticeable shelf.
It promises to be another decent addition to the fishery once it’s up and running, probably not until next summer though at the earliest, as Paul likes to let things settle and establish themselves before he allows fishing.