Drama at the carp lake

Well, I actually got around to doing an over-nighter. I'm not the most organised of folk and find it an ordeal to get everything in place and ready for a session. Getting the gear ready is always a nightmare especially when you find all those little problems you had with it last time out.

I had the lake to myself which is such a bonus. I paid through the nose for my ticket but the solitude is worth every penny, plus there's nobody to see me make a dick of myself - like when I fell out of a tree a week or two back........... ow!

The drama was not really carp related but involved a grass snake which entered the water a yard or two to my left and swam right across the water. It headed straight for a family of coots! A confrontation was inevitable. The snake and what I presume to be the male coot, spotted each other at the same time and the coot moved in for the attack, albeit with a huge dose of caution. The snake decided that discretion was the better part of valour and headed off at quite a lick with an angry coot in pursuit, pecking at its tail. As it passed under the overhanging branches of a tree the snake attempted to climb out of danger. It extended its body up and out of the water with as much as a third of its length above the water, but it could not get purchase and had to dash headlong into the marginal Flag Iris.

Its a violent and cruel world that we live in and this sort of drama is unfolding around all the time. Those coots are obviously doing well and there is plenty of food for them, were there not then the mother would perform an act of 'biting' the heads of the chicks. It won't be actually biting them, it will be measuring them and the largest head, which equates to the strongest and largest chick, will be saved whilst the others will be dispatched, one by one, so that the biggest chick has the best chance of survival.

But, as I said, the lake is full of food, there are greylag and canada geese, each with a sizable brood living the easy life alongside the coots, moorhens and mallards. I watched the mallard chicks chasing flies last evening, a magical sight.

Anyway, I had a 14.12 common at midnight and at 10am stalked an 18.14 mirror. Not a bad trip really.