Catching up on Coarse fish

With about three quarters of the year now over, I wasn’t content with having only caught two species of freshwater fish for the year, so I decided to go to a venue to increase my count in a big way. My pick was Sussex fishery where I had caught 10 different species at last year and with a possibility of Golden Orfe and Catfish as well it was worth a trip and I knew it would probably be my last change for these this year.

The trip to the fishery is quite long for someone who relies only on public transport but is well worth it. After a lengthy train and bus ride and about 20 minutes hike through a nice little nature reserve, I went straight to the non-carp lake and starting fishing a float and sent a ledger to an island. The species starting flowing in, with Roach, Perch, Gudgeon, hybrids and Rudd coming onto the bank quite regularly.



European Perch - Perca fluviatilis



Gudgeon - Gobio gobio



Rudd - Scardinius erythrophthalmus



Roach - Rutilus rutilus



Roach Bream Hybrid - Abramis brama x Rutilus rutilus

I had some cracking good roach and by lunchtime I had also added a nice Crucian Carp to the tally. All species so far had fallen to waggler floated maggots. The ledger wasn’t a lost cause though, pulling in a nice Bream and a Tench in the mid afternoon on hair rigged halibut pellets.



Crucian Carp - Carassius carassius



Bream - Abramis brama



Tench - Tinca tinca


Later in the afternoon, I had given up hope for an Orfe so I moved on to one of the carp lakes hoping to get a catfish. I fished with sardine flavoured catfood as well as maggots using both rods. First cast landed a nice looking skimmer bream, followed by a few perch, gudgeon and more skimmers. It went quiet for a little while and then the float just disappeared and I held on to dear life as a large underwater creature took my catfood on the end of my waggler rig with only 4lb of mainline. I was really hoping it was a catfish that took my catfood but after a 10 minutes of run after run, I had a nice 9lb 4oz Common Carp on the landing mat. The same thing followed for another 3 carp, a mirror, a leather and another common all around 6-8lb on the waggler as well.



Bream - Abramis brama



Gudgeon - Gobio gobio



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Mirror Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Leather Carp - Cyprinus carpio



Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio

After the 4 carp I felt I had caught enough of carp and so was happy hike back uphill to the bus stop. I had caught over 50lb of fish of 8 species, which so happens to be the total number of freshwater fish caught so far this year.