Monday 19th August 2013 I visited Kinver Freeliner’s stretch of the Severn at Hampton Loade…
Arrived at my first swim of the three I fished at 0715, making the first cast at around 0730.
Basic tackle consisted of a 2lb TC TFG ‘Big Barbel’ rod, with 10lb line loaded on a Shimano 3500 Aero reel terminated with a size 6 hook to 12lb braid, 36″ hooklength, and a sliding 35g grip type lead which was enough to hold bottom in the flow but would move on with a lift of the rod top to a new position. Bait used over the whole day was predominantly of luncheon meat using 5 or 6 cubes of various sizes to create a ‘kebab’ type effect but occasionally a cheese-paste boilie was also added to the ‘kebab’.
Water was slightly higher than the previous visit to the same stretch a couple of weeks ago and held a nice amount of colour and looked very promising.
A few small knocks ensued from first cast in at and at around 0830 a chub of 3lb 8oz was landed. Not the greatest scrapper – in fact I wasn’t sure it was a fish and not a bunch of weed until almost at the bank and my line was slowly moving upstream. After that there was no activity at all despite casting to different lengths and different water flow types when at 1130 I decided to move swims – and when winding in my line I discovered an eel of about 8oz attached. A touch of ‘swim deja vu’ from the previous visit to that swim – which also produced 2 fish on that session – one chub (albeit slightly smaller at 3lb 3oz) and an eel of 8oz.
Anyway, I moved into a new swim slightly upstream for the next couple of hours – but not a touch there – before moving again up to the start of the stretch to a swim recommended by the bailiff, but after an hour of fishing there without result I eventually lost my lead in the very snaggy bottom. As it was now getting on to 1530, and Liz doing a ‘meat and veg’ meal for tea which meant my time was limited plus I was starting to doze off (not in itself a major problem as I generally start to touch-leger at those times and have often awoken to find myself connected to a fish that I don’t remember having a bite from, never mind having struck at :)) I decide to cut my losses at that point and head back to the car…
Next outing, is planned for Thursday of this week 22nd August) when Liz and I are planning to re-do last week’s doomed visit to Nordley Pools (hopefully just the ‘visit’ part, not the ‘doomed’! :D).
Today, I’ve been starting to prepare and make some tackle for the start of my pike fishing season. My pike season starts on October 1st each year and finishes on March 31st of the following year – no legal reason as pike fishing comes under the general fishing regulations but for me (a) pike are too frisky during the summer months and can get easily over-exhausted and die if due care is not taken to nurse them fully back to health before release and (b) in the spring/summer there are many other species that are in their prime fishing time but tail off in the winter months, so I prefer to target those at that time and then go for pike as they still remain active and are a viable target. This year it seems that my first pike fishing session of 2013/2014 will take place at Lakeside Holiday Park at Burnham-on-Sea where Liz and I will be holidaying from Monday 30th September until Friday 4th October – although we are hoping we can negotiate a budget deal to stay on for the Saturday-Monday when we are on-site. Anyway, what I’ve been doing is making the skeletons (ie bare bones that need painting and attachments adding) of 2 types of float – the dumbell and the winddrifter – and some drop off bite indicators. All based on polystyrene balls and eggs and bamboo skewers. So far, I’ve done 4 drop off indicators, 6 winddrifter floats and 5 dumbell floats – ready now for the next stages of adding attachment parts (eg rings to fix floats to line, clips to grip line for the indicators) and painting…. NOTE: if you make things with polystyrene that need painting then you need to apply at least 3 coats of emulsion paint if intending to finalise with gloss paint – otherwise the solvents in the gloss attack the polystyrene and start to melt it…..
Photos:
The black object is the body (polystyrene egg in my case) that sits on the body to supply buoyancy. The vane at the top catches the wind and is thus pushed along the water surface thus trolling the bait beneath. In my case, the vanes will be produced from segments cut from plastic spread cartons and painted a highly visible colour.
Fastened by a clip at the far end of the stem to a rear rest or rear bar of a pod. The line clip at the weighted end (with the ball to help visuals) is placed on the line just below the reel’s spool so that the line drops vertically and the tension on the line holds the indicator out horizontally. The reel is set either that the bale arm is open or, with a baitrunner type reel, that the baitrunner is set under very loose tension. In the event of a fish taking line then the line is pulled out of the clip and the indicator drops down under gravity OR if the fish takes the bait and swims toward the angler then the loss of line tension allows the indicator to drop below vertical, pulled by the weight by the sight bulb.
For deadbaits it is fished slightly overdepth so that the float lies flat on the surface. When a fish takes the float stands upright ….
On my version both of the balls will be painted top half red and bottom half white.
I also intend to make some with black (or dark green/brown) balls as in the photo for submerged paternoster use.
stevetheangler 
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