Tuesday 19th April I made a visit to the tench/bream water at the club’s Mike Day Fishery…

Leaving the house at 0615 I arrived onsite at around 0645 … a bit muddy from all the rain we’ve had this year but it was an easy push of the barrow loaded tackle from the car park to peg 24 on the far bank, one of our (Liz’s and mine) usual swims for this time of year. With trees behind to the east the water on this side of the pool remains shaded until usually between noon-1300.

On arrival the first thing, as usual was to put out about 10 5” diameter balls of the usual feed (cereal, dead maggot, particles [rice, barley, wheat, hemp, corn], hemp infused oil, Vitalin, porridge oats, crushed wheat,….) to start to work whilst the tackle, bait and area layout sorting was performed…

I started out on my float rod, casting out at 0715 using a lift method setup. My 5AAA driftbeater float being set 12” overdepth above my anchoring SSG shot with the 6” hooklength below (ie the whole hooklength sat completely on the bottom) … the rest of the float’s needed shot to sink its body set at 12” above the anchor shot. Water depth in all in this swim (and seemingly the whole pool as I’ve never found much deviation anywhere other than within 2’-3’ of the banks) it being basically a flat bottomed ‘U’ shape. Main line 6lb mono, hooklength 6” of 6lb braid, hook size 10. First – and only used bait – of the day was 2 dendrobaena worms.

Up to around 1100 I was having bites virtually every cast but, apart from one connection that quickly pulled free, I felt nothing on any strike even when I let the rod tip bend with the take…

11:00, a over vigorous strike saw the end tackle whizz over my shoulder and to try to prevent it ending in the bushes/fencing behind me I whipped the rod back forwards … which did prevent the ‘behind snagging’ but the resulting whip curl put an untangleable knot in the line … and rather than spend time cutting it out and re-tackling I brought my leger rod out of the quiver.

The leger rod is an 11’ Grandeslam ‘Des Taylor System Avon’ which comes with a standard Avon top section and a top section into which various quivertips can be fitted. I rarely use the quivertip section except on the canals and so again it was fitted with the standard Avon section (which I think gives the rod a TC of around 1.25-1.50lb). Main line was, as usual for all my legering, 8lb mono terminated with a 6” link of 8lb braid and size 8 hook … weight was a free running 10g flat pear grip lead on a 4” link of 6lb mono, the link being inside a length of silicone rubber to prevent the link wrapping around the main line.

So for the next hour or so hour I fished the leger on a bite alarm into the pre-baited area I’d been previously float fishing … some excellent bites from slow bobbin rises + smooth beep-beeps to 100mph bobbin crashing into rod butt + screaming buzzer … but not a single connection made again.

Noon+15 mins, with some shopping I needed to do in mind I decided to pack up and head home for the day intending to return later in the week (Liz being away in Cyprus until the 21st I’d free access to the car). However, the second section never happened due to the usual medical stuff and then weather was not so good on the Friday that I’d prepared the tackle and loaded the car for on Thursday evening.

So, hoping to get out on Monday 29th April now… weather improving, etc… J

On this session there were signs of weather change – more members on the banks with the sunshine and no rain. Usually only 1 or 2 others at most on the water but there were 5-6 on this day…