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A beautiful day here in South London, and only one thing for it: Gudgeon fishing competition! We headed for Clapham Common and fished the little pond as the place is carpeted with the little mud-skippers. Rules were simple, first one to catch 20 gudgeon wins, loser buys the pints.
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I opted to fish a waggler, 3lb line and an 18 hook right in the side. Dan opted for similar tactics but fished half way to the island. Dan was on the fish, I was waiting for them to come to me.
Long story short, I kicked his ass - despite the fact there were millions of them the bites were very shy, and very hard to hit at range - the pint was soon mine! I'm sure he'll get revenge when we're barbel fishing. We fished on for a bit and ended up just shy of 50 gudgeon between us, great way to waste an afternoon.
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There were a few small carp thrown into the mix, nice to catch but they didn't count, I had a common carp about 2lb right to the net before it threw the hook.
Then just as we were about to leave a had a little dip on the float, strike, bow wave and big double figure common carp on. It went nuts, right round the pond for a few minutes before inevitability caught up with my 3lb line... Might come back with some carp gear in the future.
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To the winner the spoils! And there was the double figure barbel, but that's a blog post for tomorrow...
A double already Brian?
ReplyDeleteSadly not, was waiting for a photo but I've added the post above.
DeleteBeautiful reel. Is it a fly-fishing one?
ReplyDeleteIt's a centerpin, a relatively inexpensive one, but the nicest one I've ever used.
DeleteTakes a bit of getting used to but lovely once you get the hang of them. The big carp felt great (until I lost it!).
I like the little mirror. Reminds me of the Lea Sinton days.
ReplyDeletePaulos