stevetheangler

Well, it’s Thursday 4th April today – and nearly prepped ready for tomorrow’s outing to one of the club’s pools. All the rods are tackled – oh, the joys of a rod quiver rather than a holdall! Rods can be ready assembled, tackled and carried almost ready-to-go to the waterside saving a good 30mins to an hour doing so when you get there wasting valuable fishing time! Tackle for tomorrow:

•  2 x 1.75lb TC leger rods (home made 30 years ago!) – both with 8lb Krystonite mainline to 8lb braided hooklengths (1 rod with size 6 hook, other with size 12 hook) attached via snaplinks to allow easy and quick changing of hooklength/hook – and a sliding swivel with snaplink also allows the leger weight to be added/changed easily.
• A 13′ float rod (actually, its a 30 year old exact clone – same blank, etc – of a Hardy Matchmaker), 12oz TC, with 6lb Berkeley Tri-line line straight through through to a size 16 hook. Again, I use a  free-running swivel with snaplink for float attachment with a piece of silicon rubber below – thus float can be fished sliding or can be fixed by sliding silicon up onto swivel to lock it in place. No float attached yet – final decision and shotting done at waterside according to conditions.
• A 11′ Winfield (yes, from the days that Woolworth’s sold fishing tackle!) ‘Specialist Angler’ rod, 1.75lb TC, fitted with vaselined 15lb braid with a 1/4″ cork ball adjustable by a sliding float stop located above the ball and then terminated with, again, a swivel with snap link to allow attachment of a hooklength. Cork ball is to compensate for the weight of the swivel/snap to prevent them sinking the line. This is my rod for ‘floater’ (bread/dog biscuit/ etc) fishing. No hook or length yet attached but generally use size 4 or 6 hook on 36″ of  8lb greased mono.

Baits:

• Maggot
• Bread
• 2 flavours of Jelly Bread
• Garlic Spam
• Strawberry Potato
• Chocolate Potato
• Chopped Pork with Ham (plain)
• Chopped Pork with Ham (in Extra Hot Chili)
• Sweetcorn
• Also breadcrumb with personal additives/attractors – probably mainly use if I use an open end feeder.

Not expecting all the rods and/or baits to be used, but to be prepared is to be … errr… prepared! :D I’d dig the compost heap for some worms but as it’s still sub-zero overnight I don’t want to disturb them and so resisting doing that until proper warm weather arrives.

New CarpTech bobbin heads for bite indication when legering arrived today from eBay – 4 pink and 4 white ones. About £11 all inc. Look good but the proof of the pudding will be in their use tomorrow. The ‘line clipping’ is done by 2 sprung balls either side the line slot and a quick test seems to show that they will work well. Have a slot for an isotope for night-time illumination too. 2 white and 2 pink will be mine – will give the other 2 pairs to Liz although she’ll probably store them away somewhere and continue with her current ones as usual! :D

Oh well, as I said rods are done, a few adjustments, swaps and changes of auxillary tackle have been undertaken… and now just final packing of the bags to be done… and prepping of butties (this evening) and flask (in the morning) will see me ready to leave for the water’s edge at 8am – and hopefully have my baits in the water for about 8:30-9:00am :)

TIP: Great for keeping your maggots live and wriggly in cold weather – although once in the cold water that may get negated – are those re-chargeable handwarmers that you get from Poundland, etc – ‘plastic bag’ that contains a chemical solution that generates heat when activated by clicking an internal metal disk – and then can be re-used again on another day by boiling the bag for 10 minutes when you get home. I have half-a-dozen I take with me. As handwarmers per se they are a bit feeble really but their gentle heat is just perfect for keeping those maggots lively by placing an activated one in their container. Also helps keep cheesepaste, etc that bit softer too. In Poundland, they can be found in the medicinal area – with the wrist supports, etc.

PS: the missing quivertips as mentioned in the previous posting turned up today – in the bottom of the rod quiver I’d actually taken fishing with me that day!! DOH!!!