Ravensthorpe all to myself

My wife had a candle party tonight, you know, one of those great excuses to gather a hoard of women together, drink, spend money and gossip! so I thought i would make myself scarce and it was not a bad idea being my first evening on the banks this year.

I thought there would be a few naturals about after a nice day so thought i would head for Ravensthorpe, it was 6.30 but still good for another hour. Bob Church was just returning to his car after a great day and even as much as he has fished still recounted what a great 4 pounder plus he had just caught on a black buzzer and a bung. His enthusiasm for fishing is still awesome! I was planning to head for the platforms in mongers bay and after Bob advised that there were fish there and close in my optimism picked up greatly.

I hadn't been there too long and the last boat headed in, the bailiff packed up and went home and so did the last bankie next to me. He said that the last hour hadn't been great recently, marvelous! It's alright for those that can get there at 4 but i am going to have to make do with what i can.

A look back over to the lodge made me realise I had the place to myself and still over an hour of daylight left.
It wasn't too deep in front of me so I decided to copy the boat tactics and fish a team of buzzers on the bung. I had only a seven foot cast on, 2ft to the first dropper, 2ft to the next and 3ft to the point. A Daiwl Back, Black buzzer and a bead head buzzer on the point to hold it all down. I could now understand where the bankie was coming from as the wind had picked up, gone cooler and was blowing in my face, not too much though and I still managed a decent cast so that i could see my bung.

It was a strange technique, it felt like fishing from a boat where you are drifting towards you bung but in fact your bung is drifting towards you.

I managed to catch and return two fish on the droppers and lost another couple with a few more pulls that I saw but didn't connect with. Nothing over two pounds but very pleasant all the same!

The last 10 minutes I tried of the dam but as i struggled to see my bung, and two Tawney owls were twit ter wooing to each other from the trees behind the dam and those behind the overflow, I thought it was time to head for home to the madding crowd and see if they had left any food and drink.


Not bad for just over an hour ,