Hubble Bubble, Napton Struggle

The hottest day of the year so far and Phil and I arrived at a sun drenched Napton Reservoir at 5pm looking to bag a few tench, fortunately the causeway pegs were available so we were in business.
Float tackle was the order of the day with only a light breeze in our faces, feed and hookbait was to be sweetcorn and pellet although Phil had taken a few maggots along as back up.

Bright sunshine often makes for some slow sport on this fishery, there are also currently masses of natural food available in the form of huge swarms of daphnia (Is that the collective term for daphnia?) so I fed sparingly.

Two hours passed without a bite but at around 7pm the first tench bubbles began to appear in small single groups all over the area we were fishing, my sweetcorn hookbait began to attract some half hearted interest from the fish but I couldn't get a hittable bite.

By 7.30 things were starting to look a little desperate, fish were certainly in my swim but not feeding with any real enthusiasm, maybe they had gorged themselves on zoo plankton? Phil, who had earlier introduced some groundbait during the bite less first couple of hours, was calling me over every few minutes to look at his swim and it was certainly worth seeing. Bubbles erupted furiously all over his baited area as if his float was enjoying a Jacuzzi, in all my angling life I have never seen anything quite like it, yet Phil could simply not get a bite!

With the resounding failure of both pellet and corn hookbaits I borrowed a few maggots and hooked three onto a size 16, first cast and I landed a fish of about two pounds. Next cast I pulled out of a similar sized fish then I caught a three pounder before stupidly allowing what felt like a slightly bigger one to get into the reeds and snap me.

Phil meanwhile had been pulling his hair out as masses and masses of bubbles still surrounded his unmoving float, suddenly without any warning his float slid away and he hooked, landed and stared agog at....a perch of about eight ounces. Ten minutes later I was sitting behind him drinking a cup of coffee and watching the orange tip of the float riding amongst the foam of tench bubbles when it slid slowly and confidently away again....and another 8oz perch came to the bank.

Having struggled at Napton in recent times our relationship has been a little bit on the rocks and two tench in four hours had done little to repair the damage but as the sun began to set over the fishery, the cloudless sky a fiery red and big, big fish rolling with increasing frequency on the glassy surface in all areas of the lake I began to remember why I love the place so much.