Wednesday 20 June 2012

Day 5: Gudgeon Match!


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.


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.


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.


To the winner the spoils! And there was the double figure barbel, but that's a blog post for tomorrow...

5 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Sadly not, was waiting for a photo but I've added the post above.

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  2. Beautiful reel. Is it a fly-fishing one?

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    Replies
    1. It's a centerpin, a relatively inexpensive one, but the nicest one I've ever used.

      Takes a bit of getting used to but lovely once you get the hang of them. The big carp felt great (until I lost it!).

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  3. I like the little mirror. Reminds me of the Lea Sinton days.

    Paulos

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