College Time

Saturday came around and I woke up with a bit of a thick head from the night before. I'd been out on a mass works leaving do, courtesy of a company's desire to make "progress" by closing down our office. I've been lucky to find similar work at a local college, so it's not all doom and gloom by any means. It's just been a bit weird being back in the job market after 22 years with the same company.

Anyway, a couple of tablets, a few glugs of water, an extra hour or so in bed and I was ready to head off fishing. I opted for College Pool in the hope that one of its bigger Perch might put in an appearance in the favourable overcast conditions. I didn't arrive until 10-15am and was surprised to find the place deserted. I settled in at the far end of the pool on a peg I haven't fished for a while.

Things started slowly, but eventually the fish found my bait and I ended up with a mixed bag. Unfortunately it didn't include any Perch. A Roach and a skimmer kicked things off before the Bream moved in. The first one was 4lb 15oz.

The next was smaller at around 3lb.

A feisty and pretty little Carp was next to be banked.

I then had a mad couple of minutes when I landed a Bream. As I lifted the net, the alarm went off on the other rod. I then had to land the second fish with the Bream still in the net. Fortunately it was only a small Tench that was easy enough to slot into the net.

I managed one more Bream, which bizarrely also weighed in at 4lb 15oz.

No Perch, but a pleasant enough day yielding close on 20lb of fish. Oh, and Coventry City finally won a game away from home to pull clear of the drop zone, which made for some nice listening through my ear piece!

*** Post edited following comments***

In response to Ian's comment, I've added a further image of the Carp below.

Initially I also wondered if it was a Crucian and I actually took the extra photo and weighed it in to be safe - it was 2lb 5oz, which would easily be a pb for me. I looked at other images of Crucians and I wasn't comfortable to claim it as a true Crucian. That said, it does stack up quite well in various aspects of criteria listed on a site I visited http://www.crucians.org/html/identification.shtml

The missing scales towards the tail end don't help with accurate scale counting though. I'm no expert  and would welcome any positive identifications from those more in the know. I note that the site suggests that Crucians can vary greatly in profile. I always think of them being like this one I had last year.

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I should add that the pool in question has no history of Crucians to my knowledge. I know fish are occasionally stocked in there from a local pond and I once even caught a fan tailed goldfish, so I guess anything could be in there!