Not having fished my local Jeanes Pond since the early summer, I made a late afternoon visit in the hope of some decent roach, or even a tench this week. Despite recent heavy rain showers, the pond level was very low and I made my way round to the deepest part at peg 5.

The sun was already behind the trees as I set up my pole, the surface flat calm apart from waves from the aerator pump, it feeling warm for the second week of October. I mixed up some sweet ground bait, putting in a few small balls along the shelf, setting my 2g antenna float to fish just off bottom at five feet. The bulk shotted float took the 7 mm punch of bread straight down and had to wait several minutes for the groundbait to work, before slight movement of the antenna showed interest from a fish. After more minutes, it slowly sank out of sight, and the pole tip bent into a decent rudd that flashed on its way to the surface.

This was a good sign, as the pond has been full of tiny rudd all year, grabbing the bait on the way down. I dropped the float back in, this time with a better response, the float holding down for a couple of seconds, before sinking slowly away. Another “better” fish, a roach this time.

Once again good to see, this pond used to have quality roach on tap. Another similar roach followed, then the elastic pulled out of the tip and I was playing a clonker roach, the landing net was ready, when the dreaded green flash of a pike arced across and took the fish, pulling the elastic out, as I rapidly added another two lengths of pole to stay in touch. The elastic pinged back. Both fish were gone, but the barbless size 14 was still there. My dilema now was, stay where I knew that there were some good sized roach and expect the pike to return, or move to another swim? If the pike was munching on that roach, it would be a while before it was hungry again. I decided to stay, as I felt that I had only just arrived.

The pond was still swirling, when I dropped another three small balls of feed over the shelf, followed by the rebaited rig, which sat untouched for a few minutes, then dived under. I missed the bite. Small stuff? Next bite was a slow glide away and I hooked a much smaller roach. Oh well, try again. Ah, that’s a better roach, which I swung in.

I was back to the small roach again, when there was a swirl as I lifted it off the surface.The pike had returned. I cast the float round to my left, where I had first started and put in another ball of feed. The surface folded in a slow swirl, as the ball sank attracting small rudd. Further to my right, there was an  almighty splash and bubbles, when a pike broke the surface. It was too early to pack up, so I moved around the corner, where I knew that there was deep water close to a lily bed and a bush to fish under.

Scraping up the last of my groundbait, I seeded an area between the lillies and the bush to start again. A burst of bubbles got my interest, but only yielded small roach. It could have been a tench, or even a carp, but my mindset said that was probably another pike. I began packing up before 5 pm.

This heavy float was the answer to avoid the tiny rudd, getting down to the bottom feeding roach, but there were too many pike on the feed to let them settle. My next visit will be with a spinning rod and some sinking lures.