Pennine Champs, Dam Flask. 13-08-2006

It’s been a long time since I fished Dam Flask, it must be pushing 14 years or more. Given the fact that pretty much all my fishing now is based around commercials I was looking forward to fishing there again. Having not really had any up to date info or been able to practice I wasn’t really fancying my chances but we’d see.

The dam is a big expanse of water and it doesn’t take much of a breeze to turn make it look more like the North Sea, so opening the curtains on Sunday morning and seeing it not only chucking it down but the trees swaying in the wind led me think we may be in for a battering.
These concerns weren’t eased when we arrived at the dam. The rain was still pouring down but it wasn’t quite as windy as first expected. To make matters worse I’d left the brolly at home. Not a good start.

I drew peg 10, which was about half way down the plantation I was pretty pleased with what I’d drawn. Upon arriving at the peg, the wind had dropped considerably and the rain had stopped, things were looking up.

The main line of attack was going to be groundbait feeder which was a mix 50:50 of Sensas Bremes 3000 & Sensas Lake 3000. To this I was going to add casters and chopped worm. To stop the worms drying out and casters floating, thee were going to be added directly into the feeder and plugged with groundbait just prior to casting.

I spent about 10 mins casting around to find a suitable spot. As the lake is deep I didn’t want to clip up and pull the feeder back towards me on cast so to keep the cast in approximately the same spot I tied a stop knot onto the main line. As you cast you can hear the knot rattle through the rings, this enables you to feather the line and keep the feeder hitting in roughly the same spot. I contemplated setting up a waggler rod but didn’t want to risk missing out on any Bream if/when they turned up so I’d stick with the feeder.

At the all in, I spent 10 minutes casting the feeder to get some bait down onto the bottom, then attached my hooklength with a single caster burried. The first bite came after about an hour with a small roach coming to the net. Only one more roach followed in the next hour, but not much was being caught around me so it wasn’t panic stations yet. Changing hookbait between worm and caster didn’t bring no more joy. After about 3 hours the tip slowly but positively wrapped round, a gentle pull on the rod and it was on. Not wanting to risk losing the fish I took my time landing it and into the net slipped a skimmer about 1.5lb. Hopefully this was the first of many. Alas it wasn’t meant to be, one more roach followed and that was the end of that. With about an hour left I switched to the waggler, which brought a few more bites and one roach.

I’d liked to have switched to the waggler sooner if to break up the monotony of sitting cross eyed looking at the tip. I don’t think it would have caught me any more fish but it would have been a bit more interesting.

I weighed in a mighty 2lb 6oz which got me nowhere in the section which was won with 4lb odd from lower down the section. The match was won with just over 20lb of bream from the other bank down at the bottom end.

Although the fishing was dismal, it was still an enjoyable day and I’m looking forward to having a couple of pleasure days back up there and having another go next year.