Coppull mill lodge

28th December

coppull lodge

Well today was my first venture out to the banks over the Christmas holidays because my wife had been ill after having her operation , so making the most of her feeling better i decided on a trip to Coppull lodge and i had been offered the option of fishing a couple of matches but after putting up with the kids i just fancied blowing away the cobwebs . After me getting a bit of flack recently because i have done a lot of f1 matches recently , so what i like fishing for f1s !!!! so i decided to have a got at fishing a natural water for roach to prove that i have more strings to my bow than just f1 catching and to make it even harder i left my pole at home and decided to use my waggler rod but i did also have my tip rod to use for when the wind made fishing the float problematic .

The weather leading up to today was best described as a bit dodgy with gales , heavy over night rain and a drop in temperature , so fishing on most waters would be hard but after last years trip when it was frozen it still fished well and you can always rely on the plentiful head of roach to turn up . As i set off to the venue there was plenty of dark clouds and just as i got to coppull the sleet started coming down but their was blue sky in the distance which was promising for the day ahead .

After a ten minute wait in the car for the rain to subside i made the decision to begin tackling up and luckily on Coppull lodge the best pegs are right near the car park , today the wind was also in my favour with it blowing off my back so i wouldn’t need the hassle of carrying my gear round to the far side of the lake to get better presentation on the waggler. The down side was that these pegs can often get over fished but in winter this shouldn’t be a problem because their isn’t many anglers brave or daft enough to venture out in the conditions over winter and in fact only four anglers graced the banks on here today .

Upon settling in at my peg i decided to make it a really un complicated day because the roach respond well to shallow fishing on here and in fact their was a few topping when i got their , after my past visits i knew that it was about 12 ft deep so i decided to start at 6 ft which was mid depth and then go shallower as the day progressed .

Tackle

12 ft drennon red float rod

shimano reel

4 lb Maver genisis main line

3 bb clear insert waggler with three number 10 stotz as droppers

3 ft of 0.10 garbo hook length

size 20 gamma pellet hook

Bait

1 pint red maggots with a few fluro pinkies mixed in as a change bait if it fished harder than expected .

With my rod already set up it wasn’t long before i got started , the back ground reflection on Coppull mill lodge was a little patchy and it took me a while to find some where i could see the dimpled float tip which was needed for the delicate roach bites on here . I found a patch of dark in the water at about 16 m and this where i began fishing , i was loose feeding six maggots every minute and was also re casting every five minutes . After about 15 minutes i had my first bite which of course i missed and in fact i didn’t hit any of my first eight because i was struggling to get my line sunk but after a quick squirt of watered down washing up liquid and flicking my rod tip under the water solved the problem .

I began hitting the bites now and every fish i caught was over 4 oz but they would come in patches and seemed like a big predator was making them un easy , in fact about an hour in i hooked some thing a bit un expected and after a spirited fight i saw the erect dorsal fin of a big perch in the clear water but un fortunately after seeing it i began to play it a bit more gingerly which was a big mistake because this resulted in the hook pulling out of its boney mouth just as i was reaching for my landing net, i was under stand-ably gutted because perch are my favourite fish and i haven’t caught one that size for a few years .

average stamp

After getting my composure back from losing that fish the roach where back feeding again but no matter how many depths i tried  i was still missing plenty bites and it was only when i re sorted to putting a single pinkie on the hook that i found out why because my next three bites resulted in three 1 oz roach not exactly what i wanted to catch so i decided to go back on red maggot and put up with the missed bites for better quality fish .

We soon had another hail storm and this made the roach go lower in the water, i had a thirty minute spell without even a bite and i tried at the deepest depth i could manage on the float rod and i was on the verge of getting my tip rod out before the sun came out and i started getting bites again, it seemed strange that you would catch five or six then nothing for about ten minutes and i finally worked out that the best depth was 3 ft , i began putting a run of fish together which included a couple over 1 lb although it was a shame they wasn’t in better condition .

final catch

After four hours fishing it looked like it was going to rain again and with all my gear just beginning to dry out i decided on one more fish before i packed up and just as i was about to net it when i noticed that their was a swirl behind it and some thing had followed it in but i have no idea what it could have been . I ended up with nearly forty roach with the biggest being over 1 lb and i was well into double figures weight , un fortunately my usual travel companion decided to fish a match on Hewlit pond where he had done extremely well , so the pictures today aren’t really up to scratch especially the final catch shot which is a shame .

After speaking to the balief he informed me that their was no pike present in the lodge so it must have been another big perch , so if you fancy a dabble at the plentiful head of roach or even the big perch give it a go because its fishing well and only three quid for a day’s fishing .

I am off to fish a match at Hall lanes Gwens canal that my mate the big dipper is arranging on Monday for my last match of the year , so lets hope its a good one .