stevetheangler

Hoping to get out to a ‘carpless’ club pool tomorrow. Aiming to leave the house before 7:00am and be fishing from 8:00am. I may also have an hour or so late in the day on the carp pool that sits alongside. Originally, with the rising and trending upturn in temps, I’m hoping for some tench action but if they are not playing ball then hopefully the perch will!

Tackle for the day:

• My 13′ float rod will be my main weapon of the day and armed with 6lb line straight through to a size 16 barbless hook. Already set up and just requiring the float to be attached to the silicon rubber already in situ and then plumbed to depth. Will be laying-on with a 2SSG shot and a BB shot around 3″ from the hook, a 2SSG driftbeater float (obviously overshotted) will be set 6″-12″ over-depth.
• Alternative set up – also pre-tackled bar weight to be clipped to snap link – is my leger setup… 1.75lb TC (Winfield ‘Specialist Angler’) rod with 8lb mainline, 8lb braid hooklength, size 6 barbless hook. This will be the main weapon if I do visit the carp pool later in the day but also my change of tactic road if required in my tench quest.
• And a 3rd rod – for floating baits for carp – a 1.75 TC (Winfield….) rod, with 15lb Vaselined braid terminated with a snaplinked swivel encased in a small cork ball  – snaplink allows easy change/fitting of hooklink but generally use around 36″ of 8lb Krystonite fluoro-coated co-polymer with size 4 hook. Baits used with this are generally bread/crust/dog biscuit.
• Swim rake….

Baits:

• Maggots
• Sweetcorn
• Specials… (Various JBs)
• Maize and hemp (part of loose feed)
• Bread
• Dog biscuits
• Meats of various types/flavours (Spam/sausage/etc, plain, chili, garlic, etc)
• Dips & glugs: Marmite and Monster Crab
• Groundbait: Consisting of…Breadcrumb, ground birdseeds, ground peanut kernels, dried blood, dried milk, custard powder, Instant Whip, dried milk (proportions are secret!) and to which will be added at the time of mixing, hemp, maggots, bits of JB, maize, crunched up meat particles, mini-pellets.
• Special ‘glob’ feedbait…. as used for Staffie canal gudgeon back in the 70’s/80’s!!! But hoping the Andrews Liver Salts type results it produced back then are made by tench bubbling rather than gudgeon! :D

Almost all set now – baits ready in bag, rods loaded and already in car, sandwiches prepped.  A few baits to be retrieved from the fridge before I leave,  flask to do in the morning and then to be put in the bag along with the butties.

Can it be LUCKY 13???