Gold N Brown

I hate fishing off platforms for reasons I have never quite been able to put my finger on and at Meadowlands, Warren Pool, the venue for all of my recent fishing trips with my dad, it's platforms or nothing unfortunately. I do, here more than anywhere, always take a good look at the platform before setting up as some of them are decidedly iffy.

Members of Slimming World aren't allowed on this platform

                                                                       or this one

Having secured a couple of solid platforms to fish from we set about trying to catch some fish using straight lead and banded pellet tactics. After a mixed start we started to regularly catch carp, fish which varied dramatically in shape and size, some being chunky and broad shouldered and others lean and torpedo shaped, each one fighting hard all the way to the net.

Carp here seem to move in at speed in the shallow water to intercept free offerings so two methods worked throughout the day, either casting the lead out, throwing the rod on the rests and then firing a couple of pouchfulls of pellet down the same hole before tightening up or firing the pellets in first quickly followed by the end tackle.

Amongst the carp other than the odd good roach and skimmers we caught some more samples of brown goldfish, my new fascination. No longer a disappointment to me I have got a bit of a soft spot for the brown goldfish in each of their various guises they are always tough little cookies who give you a decent scrap pound for pound. They vary enormously in appearance and guessing their exact parentage is almost impossible but they hit your bait as hard as any carp and provide the angler with some fun and that's ok by me.

A little bit Cruciany

Fan Tail but a bit pale

I caught one of these too