Autumn leaves and the South Downs

My latest angling trip was a far more relaxed session than usual, for the main part because I only went for a day. I was on holiday in Bognor Regis in an area that seemed starved of specimen day-ticket waters, so instead I ventured deep into the South Downs and opted for a fairly straightforward trip to Mill Farm Fishery in Bury, famous for holding the British Record silver bream. However I was not here for bream (I never am), so I opted for the specimen lake, which contains a head of around three hundred fish, mainly doubles with a good handful of twenties and a sprinkling of magical 30's, but not the sub-10lb tiddlers present in the other two ponds on the complex. Due to not being on the bank every weekend in the past few weeks I decided I would use the opportunity to guarantee myself a few runs, as with winter fast approaching I may have not got the chance to do so again before the years' end. 

I arrived on the bank at nine o'clock, and was set up and in the water by ten. Due to Mill Farm's boilie ban I instead opted for tiger nuts, fished snowman-style on KD rigs tipped with fake corn with little sticks of crushed tiger nut done in Korda's 'funnel web' system. Knowing that the bottom was even and lined with clay plus the fact I was short of time I left the marker behind and chucked one rod in the middle, and with the other edged up to the island sixty yards to my left until I was six inches off the bank, where the leaves and their golden autumnal hues would not have looked amiss in one if Turner's watercolours. I did not bait up, knowing it was a waste of bait seeing as I was only fishing for a day, and instead decided I would have to find the fish as they were relatively high in numbers. 

The picture does not do the leaves justice

KD Rig with balanced tiger nut 

It was dead on one o'clock when I was sitting down admiring my handsome new matrix buzzbars and Korda bobbins that I had my first run on the island rod. The run was hardly a one-toner due to the angle the line left the rod, and I was alerted to the bite as much by the rod tip arching over as the bobbin shooting up. I struck and immediately felt the reassuring nodding accompanied by the fish stripping line from the clutch, so much so I had to hold the spool to keep the creature from the sanctuary of the snags. After the fish gave a good account of himself I slipped the net under a handsome 13lb common.

A lean Mill Farm common

Before recasting I walked the line down the bank to the clip and measured the line on the right hand rod exactly the same, as I planned to put both rods out on the island. I cast the left rod back out, it again hitting the clip and quietly plopping in the exact spot as last time. I cast the right hand rod a rodlength to the right of the other rod, again tight to the island, but before I could even clip the bobbin on I could see the line on the left rod kiting off to the island, before the alarm roared off once more. For a moment it seemed as though the fishing was happening faster than I could handle, but after landing a pretty 10lb ghost carp the action all but dried up after a frenzied half an hour. 

First ghost carp

I tried different techniques to buy a bite, including chucking a rod under some marginal cover along with a few handfuls of tiger nuts as the shadows grew long,but the day had been done, but we had to be out by sunset and with sun dipping below the trees it was not long before I decided enough was enough and I packed up. 

I spend the vast majority of my time on the bank chasing 'lumps' and as a result I blank a bit more often than I'd like to. I enjoyed my session at Mill Farm, as did I enjoy coming home in the evening and watching the football. In my experience different is rarely better, but I like catching carp and in this case a change was welcome.