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Lake Bolsena 3rd - 9th September 2012

Well it’s a Wednesday, I have to put the day in occasionally as you can easily lose track of the day on these longer sessions, thankfully French lad is beginning to pack up and conditions have settled to some degree. Mick had a fish last night but for the life of me I can’t remember what time although it was but I can remember it was an upper twenty and again from his tiger nut rod down the margin.

I spend the day redoing all the rods, the crayfish action hasn’t been so much the last few days, not sure if that’s because they have stayed in the same place and I have moved my rods up as the water continues to come up. I also move my so called banker rod in 30ft upto 25ft to see if that makes any difference, you have to keep trying different things, it maybe that the fish are trying to find the warmer layers and these are getting mixed up in the rise in water it has now come up some 10ft in the last 10 days.

I also pop up the shops just to get some fresh supplies and it’s always nice to get off the lake once a while and its only then I realise I’ve been on the lake two weeks, it’s just whizzed by. As I’ve been to the supermarket I’ve got plenty of goodies to cook for dinner and with the weather behaving it’s a nice evening to eat and have a few drinks except I get a drop back just as I start tucking in. Great spend all that time cooking and now it’s going to get cold, it’s the 25ft rod and there’s something on, could be a small carp, but turns out to be a foul hooked trench. I’m not amused and finish my nearly cold plate of dinner before redoing the rod, just as I finish Mick’s margin rod chirps into life and it’s another low twenty, he really is due a bigger fish and has been unlucky with the average size of his fish.

We retired to the bivvied about 11ish but had hardly got settled when I had another drop back on the same rod, surely not another tench as I was using the 25mm baits. I’m pleased to say it was no tench on the end when I picked up the rod but a heavy on weight plodding around on the other end. After a decent fight it was finally in the net, a nice dish shaped, chestnut mirror, that will do very nicely, it looked to be upper 30s but might just squeeze 40, I would wait until first thing in the morning to weigh and photograph the fish. I rowed the rod back out to the spot and refreshed it with a few kilo of bait. It was just getting light in the morning when I had the wake up call from that rod, a screaming Delkim. The fish was battling so hard, diving down the slope that I took to the boat in pursuit, in the end it turned out to be one of the bionic male fish which just never give up, not big about mid 20s but it was showing the spot starting to produce and the fish getting on the bait. Photos done, the other fished weighed just under 40 at 38.08 but again an absolute stunner and I was more than happy.

Just I was thinking I had cracked it and it would be carp all the way from here on in, something had to spoil it and it was of course the weather, the heavens opened yet again and it rained solid for the next 24 hours. It was just cold, wet, misty and horrible being stuck in the bivvy the fish didn’t like it and neither did I, no action to either our rods. I was hoping to move to the river at the beginning of next week but this additional rain on top of what we had already had would keep the river in flood, I would have to try another lake close by and hope we didn’t have any more serious rain and get on the river the week after.

Today’s on the bank tackle test –Nash Zero Tolerance waterproof trousers

I don’t know about you but it seems the weather these days just gets worse and more extreme and i have known it to rain for 72 hours non stop. My old goretec trousers had pass there best and so i had a pair of these waterproof trousers to give a try. Firstly, they are nice and light and pack up very small which is great as they can be tucked away in the rucksack or carryall until needed.

The first part of the session was pretty wet but generally they were just showers and i tend to wait until the rain stops before re doing rods, baiting up or having a look in the boat with the echo sounder. I see no point in going out in the rain for the sake of it and then having all these wet clothes in the bivvy, the only exception obviously if i get a run. Well it had been raining hard most of the afternoon and i needed to redo a couple of rods for the night, crayfish would have whittled the baits well down by now. So out came the trousers for a proper test as it was seriously chucking it down and together with my Combat max hoodie i went for it out in the boat replacing baits and baiting up. The trousers are easy to get on, even over the boots i was wearing, one tip here don’t tuck them into your boots as you will only have them fill up with water as it runs down your leg. Once i was back in the bivvy after an hour and removed the jacket and trousers i was pleased to see i was 100% dry underneath and had been light and comfortable to wear. The trousers dried very quickly and were soon back in the holdall until the next time, well impressed with them.