stevetheangler

Fished a “carpless” club pool from around 7:30am to 2:00pm … and then the adjoining “carp and chub”  pool from 2:30pm-3:45pm.

A day mixed with drizzle and  blue skies throughout albeit quite mild.

Water temps rose from 6.3C in the morning to 7.3C by 2:00pm.

Fished the ‘carpless’ pool using a standard lift-bite technique –  using 6lb line straight through, a 2SSG rated ‘driftbeater’ float was overshotted with one 2SSG shot plus one BB shot both placed about 3″ from the hook (size 16) and float set approx 9″ overdepth so that on a slack line the float lay flat on the surface. On casting the rod was placed on two rod rests such that the tip ring of the rod was just in or touching the water surface and the line slowly tightened until the float started to cock and then continued until the required amount of tip was showing. Usually, on a fish taking the bait one of two indication types occur…

• If the fish stays in place or travels towards you, then as the shot are lifted from the bottom or the line slackened then the float rises in the water… often followed by the float then dropping and submerging as the fish moves further away with the bait… 
• If the fish moves away from you initially then you may just see a sudden disappearance of the float as it is dragged under.

Note the heavy shotting but also note that the full weight of the shot are not felt by the fish unless the floats lifts enough to entirely lie flat. In this case, my float is rated 2SSG but in fact with a 2SSG shot attached this float only semi-cocks it in that the cork/polystyrene/balsa body is submerged but the antenna section is completely out of the water standing vertical… addition of a No. 1 shot to the line now would sink the float to the tip of the antenna… and another No.1 shot sinks the float completely. NOW… as 2 No. 1 shot equate in weight to a BB shot then this is effectively how my setup was weighted. OK… so now we have the weights on the bottom and the float adjusted to sit correctly in the water by line tensioning. OK, now Mr. Fish approaches and is seduced by the bait offering on the hook, picks it up and whilst doing so lifts the shots from the bottom, and the float arises in response – but although the 2SSG+BB have been lifted from the bottom that entire weight is not felt by the fish – and in fact what happens is that firstly the fish will feel the No. 1 shot’s worth of overshotting until the antenna starts to rise from the water at which point, it will start to feel the second No. 1 shots worth of weighting progressively as the antenna rises until at the point the antenna is completely out of the water, and then it will start to feel progressively the 2SSG’s weight until the float fully keels over when the entire weight is now held by the fish. During ‘lift’ most of the weight is actually still supported by the float – remember, that a 2SSG shot on its own sinks only the body of the float and so until the float rises to that point all that weight is still being supported by the float and the fish only feels the ‘extra’ weight that is not supported – and thus if the antenna is only showing halfway up then the weight felt by the fish is half a No. 1 shot (plus the No. 1 shot used to overshot). OK, so much for the technique used.

Bait was maggot, caster and bread – sometimes individually sometimes as cocktails (mixed).

I did have a few indications – but all quick ‘float lifts and stays’ (generally fish lifted bait, dropped it quickly but relieved line tension in doing so) or ‘dip unders’ (same as first but fish moved slightly away before dropping bait meaning extra tension in line holds float under).

BTW… despite pool being nominally ‘carpless’ I did see one dead body of around 2lb in the margins but think it may have been a crucian – difficult to tell as manky and bloated  and so I wasn’t going to disturb to check for barbules…

Then I went on to the carp pool for an hour… legered bread and floated bread offered but not a nibble nor touch ensued. I may have stopped a little longer but temperature seeming to drop combined with the return of drizzle sapped my resolve.. :)

No pics for the day – forgot to take any!