Ten Tenches Deep!: Hayfield Lakes, Doncaster - Bob Nudd Masterclass

This was a day I had been waiting for since Christmas Day!!! The BEST present I have ever received - a days masterclass with Bob Nudd!!! As I am a little clumsy and the frailty of my pole, I decided to have the weekend off fishing as the last thing I wanted was to snap a section a day before a pole fishing masterclass. The day was arranged in February and was to be a general days pole fishing with me, my Granddad and Bob. I awoke to scorching conditions and had a trouble free drive to Hayfield and was greeted with a gorgeous water and somewhere I would love to visit again. Bob arrived 10 minutes after us and we were told that a whole bank had been reserved for us (felt like Royalty!!!) and it looked like the spot I would have chosen given the choice anyway. I rang up the day before to find out what I would be fishing for so I could balance my kit accordingly and decided I would try Hydro for the first time. I kitted 2 top 3's with Black hydro and setup rigs to 0.16 mainline and tied a load of Tubertini 808 size 16 and 14 hooks ready for a day of pellet bashing.

Bob provided all the bait (courtesy of VDE naturally) and it was decided we would start on the deck at 9m before looking at a long line shallow as the day heated up. Hayfield is a deep venue sloping down to around 10' and 9m and 12' at 14m where it was still sloping as I ran out of pole. I began by cupping in 2 large pots of 4mm and 6mm VDE hard feed pellets before going out with an 8mm Jellet on the hook. I waited 20 minutes for my first bite and in the meantime my Granddad had caught a roach in the margins on pellet. This bite proved to be the second largest fish of the day as a ghostie not far off double figures graced my net after a good 10 minute scrap. As I had never used Hydro before, I was over cautious playing the fish (plus didn't want to lose it and look an ar$e in front of Bob).

I waited 10 minutes without a bite before potting in another full pot of pellets and decided to try an expander on the hook. This led to 2 small skimmers so I reverted back to the Jellets. Meanwhile, Granddad was bagging up on the next peg with a diverse range of fish including roach, perch, skimmers, crucian and a lovely chub over 2lb!

Whilst I was fishing Bob sat at the back of me constantly firing in 4mm pellets over my swim and having a great chin wag about everything. What a top bloke!!! Nothing was too much trouble. He was frank and open and answered the list of questions I had which obviously will turn me into a matchman to be reckoned with (until the alarm clock goes off!!). Nothing was off topic and he went through a few things with his own kit showing me different ways to tweak my setup.

It wasn't long before I was into another fish a smaller carp of around 4lb - as the first the condition was superb. The fish looked like they had never been caught. The swim then went really quiet so we changed the depth and came 6" off bottom - this produced another fish. Then nothing. More feed went in before a large 12lb mirror took the bait.

We then came up to around 6' to get bites before giving the long line a go. Never have I had to work a swim so much and I wouldn't have done so without Bob telling me too!!

Every fish we caught almost was at a different depth and to keep bites coming we were constantly changing and varying from 6' to 12' as the fished moved up and down in the water. The first attempt shallow with a poly ball rig produced a lovely common around 6lb but again after this it went quiet and even on the long line shallow it was a case of varying the depth between 18" and 4' to keep the bites coming.

We fished until 4pm at which point I had around 100lb in total (had to start putting fish back after 1:30 as the keepnet was quite full) and around 60lb in the net.

My Granddad ended up with one of the best days fishing of his life. Never have I seen the worlds best exponent of how to miss bites catch so many fish - a very happy man indeed including a large mirror later on in the day.