It was some weeks back that I’d had a conversation with Bob re joining him for an open day for Nottingham Piscatorial Society.
“Brilliant club, lovely members, well stocked lake, you’ll enjoy it”, was his pitch, so I said “Yes”.
Basically I’d had a trial session with Bob and the society’s assistant secretary Kevin Stephenson, we’d sorted a date and a list of topics he would like me to cover, so here I was with a car full of gear following Bob down the A1.
I thought I’d arrived with plenty of time to set up but there were already several members there, so I had to get a move on moving all the demonstration gear into the swim. As we’d arrived there were plenty of fish showing on the surface, the weather forecast was good, so in theory catching a few fish should have been relatively straight forward, but it wasn’t just about catching, I wanted to cover what I was doing and why, so by the time I’d got organised, gone over feature finding, spod mixes etc. any signs of fish on the top had long gone.
The morning passed quickly for me, as we talked about rigs and baits, the only thing missing was the sound of my alarm, I must admit I was a bit disappointed that I hadn’t had a take by this time as conditions looked perfect. It was time for a lunch break, as we all went across to the club house for sausage and bacon butties …. Bob was right, Nottingham Piscatorial Society really is a top organisation!
Back at the demo swim, I covered the rest of the topics on the list and at last the buzzer burst into life and I was playing my first carp of the day. It had been a strange day from the fishing point of view, conditions looked perfect but the expected action hadn’t happened and Bob fishing in the next swim for bream had also found it slow going, although he had managed one nice slab and a “nuisance“ carp. The general consensus was that the swims would come to life late afternoon.
With the demo’s finished I tidied most of the gear away, topped the swim up and put the kettle on. It hadn’t even boiled before I had a one toner … why couldn’t that have happened several hours earlier!
For the next couple of hours, it was all action and I had a further five takes, all lovely hard fighting doubles, a really pleasant end to a hectic day.
Thank you to Bob for the pics, to Kevin Stevenson for inviting me, and to all the Nottingham Piscatorial Society members who turned out and provided such a thoroughly pleasant, knowledgeable and supportive audience, I really enjoyed your company, hopefully you didn’t find me too boring, particularly early on when the fish didn’t want to play!
