stevetheangler

Well, I was actually there on the evening of Monday 24th too… not fishing but eating BBQ burgers and drinking lager… oh yes, that was preceeded by a couple of hours grass cutting on a club work party… :) But I did make extra use of that visit by pre-baiting my swim for the actual fishing session the next day. Baited with 50/50 Sonubaits Choc groundbait and my homemade crumb supplemented with dried blood and mixed particles.

Weather over the course of the day was quite pleasant, warm with just a gentle breeze roughening the water’s surface from time to time.

So, I arrived at the pool and was set up and fishing by 0600. Added extra feed over the top of the previous night’s but, as I had run out of the Sonubaits Choc, I substituted for that with  a silver fish red mix bait. And during the day I regularly catapulted a small catapult (*) pouch of dead red and white maggots – virtually every cast and if leaving the line in water longer than usual then every 3-4 mins. Finally packed up at 1600 after getting my end tackle in a complete pickle when a fish I’d hooked jettisoned the hook, the tensioned line thus catapulting up a tree alongside the swim – got from the tree OK but shot and float had wrapped around each other in an unfastenable knot and the only way to recover from that was to cut out the knot  and strip and completely re-tackle but I hadn’t intended staying too much longer anyway and so decided to call an end to the day at that point.

As for actual tackle and method then then, using the tackle setup as described in ‘Session 28’s blog, I again used the laying-on method.

The catch for the day:

• 1 Bream (15oz)
• 4 tench (2oz, 1lb 14oz,  2lb 0oz and 2lb 8oz)
• 3 perch ( 2-3oz, 12oz, 1lb 0oz)
• 3 barbel (all around 3oz)

I also lost one good sized perch and 4 other decent sized fish (tench possibly) on hook pulls….

When I left I unfortunately forgot my weighing sling which I’d left hanging on a stub of a branch it seems. I’ve posted about it on the club’s forum on the web site but not many people read or are active on it… I think in my 2 years of membership that I’ve posted 10 times more messages than everybody else on there in total :D!! Oh well, not a major disaster – will have to borrow Liz’s when I go out on my own – but if we’re together then no problem anyway. I have ordered some bright yellow (don’t intend to lose again! :D) soft Airtex material for Liz to make me a new one… but don’t tell her!! It’s a surprise! :D

And I discovered the story behind the appearance of the mini-barbel too. The club president appeared on the pool yesterday and came for a chat. It appears that barbel were introduced into the pool during a major re-stocking program that we had for all our pools over the 2011-2012 winter, and it seems that the 1lb 14oz barbel caught by Liz on the last trip was one of that batch… and they again added some more over the past winter 2012-2013 and the smaller 3oz versions I’ve caught on the past few visits are specimens from this batch. Mystery solved!! :)

Pics of the day: