I needed a break from the Lee Valley but really wanted to catch a fish or two and so I found myself heading over to the Walthamstow complex last week.

The weather was warm but I didn’t think it was hot enough for the fish to be cruising around on the surface so I packed all my usual gear and planned to spend the day looking for showing fish a moving quickly onto them, a tactic that works very well over there, and just fishing sticks or stringers to the fish.

After paying for my ticket I set off on the first lap of the reservoirs and couldn’t believe that there were numbers of fish up on top on the no.2 reservoir and  more importantly, they were showing a keen interest in the floaters a chap was putting out to them.

It was at this point I kicked myself as I hadn’t packed my floater gear for this trip and had to get back to the car, unload, pack and drive home to get it.

In less than an hour I was back in the swim and there were still signs of fish in the area and so I started putting out a mix of 8 and 11mm Oily floaters. This was a gamble as I knew that the gulls could be a problem but I was confident that I’d brought enough bait to feed them off if they turned up. How wrong can someone be?

There were only 4 or so at the start but as the layout of the surrounding land is quite flat and very open, soon I had more birds in front of me than I could count and I just couldn’t feed them off. The water was like a Jacuzzi what with all the birds competing. It was like watching a natural history programme on Gannets!!! So lesson learned, I left  them to it.

Moving further around the no.1 you come to an inlet at the furthest point. As I as walking past something caught my eye and I got that feeling that there were fish around despite not being able to see any. I stood for a while behind a tree and watched. The area was full of lilies and I could make out several fish cruising below them so I started to feed some Oily 11mm floaters to the gaps in the lilies and also out into the open water to my right as this would be where the fish would be approaching from.

Several fish took a bait but they were very cagey and exploded out of the water each time almost as tho they were desperate to feed but panicked each time hunger got the better of them. Despite quietly feeding almost a bag of bait, most remained untouched and I packed up again with a plan of walking the rest of the water on the way back to the car.

As soon as I got to my feet a group of 12 fish came into view, and so they got a pouchful of bait just in front of the lead fish. This time the started going mad and every bait were taken, and so they got some more whilst I changed my set up over so that I could free line bait to the fish as they were only yards away.

Although the fish were confidently feeding I was struggling to get a bait in just the right spot, what with the lilies and strong wind it was very tricky indeed. A cast finally went right but as I was using two floaters as hook bait, the force of the cast separated them and sods law a fish came up and took the bait that had blown up the line away from the hook!! Typical!

It was clear that there were two better fish in the group and so started to feed two spots now and it split the group of fish as I’d hoped, leaving me with a better chance of picking one of the bigger ones.

Luckily the next cast landed spot on and the mirror I wanted was just beaten to the bait by a small common. I managed to resist striking and as the common spat the bait back out; the bigger mirror turned and swallowed it.

Fish on. This fish went ballistic and shot off down the margin to my left but in doing so got caught around a lily stem that I just couldn’t break off. Keeping calm, (well nearly), I brought the fish back to the offending stem and held the fish there so that the extra weight finally freed my prize which was then safely netted.

The photos show what a stunning fish it turned out to be and at an ounce under 25lbs I was chuffed and very pleased that I’d made that extra effort to walk to the opposite end to where everyone one else was set up. Lesson number two re affirmed.

Till next time, tight lines.