Fishponds Colwall Opens

This place is an awesome fishery. It's got the works; great fishing, picturesque pegs, friendly owner and is not dominated by carp!

So I've been fishing a couple of opens on here with mixed results a couple of frames and a couple of nowheres. As with most fisheries you have to draw well however this place has a lot of great pegs and stunning looking pegs.

My approach had been to fish the pellet on the deck for the skimmers as these skimmers had been making up the winning weights. As the weather improved the ide started to play ball so my approach changed slightly to casters and maggots.

When fishing the pellet I went for an ultra-fine pellet approach. My rigs  for pellet were all 0.13 mainline to 0.11 hooklenghts  and size 18/16 B911 F1 hooks. Floats I used for rigs were the ultra sensitive yet stable Sconezone munkee thinz. I would try to get away with as light a rig as possible depending on conditions, most pegs around the islands this meant 0.2g in good conditions and 0.4g with a chop on. Fishing in the bowl would be 0.4g/0.6g because of the added depth.

Most were fishing an expander over micros in winter however I prefer to fish and feed same baits. So I adapted to 50/50 micros and 4mm dampened pellets with a 4mm over the top. Feeding patterns were difficult to differentiate between... At times dump and fish out worked others they wanted it on a six pence with a kinder pot however my best result was to spread feed and fish around  a dustbin lid size spread of bait.

As the weather got warmer fishing altered from skimmers making the weights to more mixed bags. I drew around the islands a couple of times and had to alter approach to include ide. Casters up in water or over to shallow water was my approach. Rigs were similar 0.11 mainline to 0.11/0.10 hooklenghts and 18/20 B911 f1 hooks. Floats changed also in order to present the bait effectively and also to ensure bite detention was at its most sensitive. As I was fishing on the drop my deck rigs were a Sconezone piranahz in 0.2g, the thin body making it extremely sensitive,  and the tip being hollow was easy to read against the island. For up in the water the tiny Sconezone bitz float was used... With a smaller stem to allow the float to cock quicker. This  float was used in 0.07 with 2 no10 shot under the stem of the float.

My first go at this started frantically however died off. I believe my feeding to be too aggressive with pinging casters 6/8 a time every 20s/30s. The next time I visited I utilised a sprinkle pot on the end of pole and feeding a few casters now and then with lifting and dropping the rig was much more productive. As the fish became more confident and more were there competing I picked the catty up.

40lb-50lb weights of silver fish are a fantastic change to carp fishing that dominates most commercial waters. If you haven't already you should check out this excellent venue!