stevetheangler

Tuesday 27th August 2013 at 0700 and I was heading off from home to visit our club’s tench pool (as I’ve said before though its not purely tench but various species bar common carp really – crucians, barbel, perch, roach, rudd, bream, chub and even gudgeon are all resident in there) hoping for a bit of action.

Arriving at a little before 0800 I headed to a swim I’d intended to fish earlier in the year just at the open water end of an island at the pool’s far end but someone else had taken it then and I had to revert to my usual swim on the near end of the pool far bank – basically the swim’s are diagonally opposite each other on the pool. This time – as the only person there at the time (someone else did visit the water later the day but I didn’t see them, I just know by the car parked on the car park that someone was down there). Anyway, I managed to get the swim I wanted – as I said it faces just on the end of an island (probably 10-15 yards between bank and island) and a large patch of lily pads is to the left of the swim jutting out with a clear water space between pads and island of about 15′-20′. The island itself is overgrown and has bushes overreaching the water – in fact, a very stereotypical Mr Crabtree location if there ever was one.

I intended to fish two areas – straight in front and to the left with my float rod and I also intended to put out a leger rod on an alarm out to the right. So before tackling up I threw in a couple of handfuls of particle mix along with some dead maggots into both areas – and as I intended to leger prawn in the right hand swim I also introduced half a dozen or so prawns tight to the island there. During fishing I fed dead/live maggot frequently into the left/straight swim.

Tackle:
Floatfishing – I used my 13′ float rod, 6lb mainline with an 15″ 8lb braid hooklength and a size 16 barbless hook. The float I used was a drift/wind beater antenna (marked as 6BB – but to actually set it right in the water it takes 2SSG+2AAA+1 No4 shot, which on my reckoning, (1SSG=2AAA=4BB and 1 No4=0.5BB) is 12.5BB!! Anyway, whatever its rated vs actual loading that’s what I used.
Legering – 11′ Avon rod (fitted with quivertip top section – although I actually used an alarm/bobbin as the detection system, the rod was pre-tackled and being lazy I couldn’t be bothered to tackle down and put the Avon top on), again 6lb mainline with 15″ 8lb braid hooklength were used but the hook was a size 6 barbless to accomodate the prawns I was to use for bait. A standard sliding leger was used – a free running 2″ leger boom with a 1/4oz lead stopped about 6″ above the hooklength (giving about 20″-21″ from hook to stop).

So I started by putting my legered prawn tight to the island bank, slightly right of me and set up on the alarm. The float rod I set up to fish ‘laying-on’ with a 3SSG shot 3″ from the hook, 2AAA shot just below the float which was set to fish around 6″ overdepth thus allowing the rod to be set in the rests and the line tightened to set the float to cock correctly and double/bunched maggot was the main bait of the day on this rod with a change to worm and luncheon meat at times. A few fish on worm but luncheon meat was totally ignored.

Over the day, bites on the float rod were frequent – but hard to hit often, usually small roach/rudd type timid nudges and dropped baits and a few drop offs too on retrieval – a problem I find with small barbless hooks and small fish as there is no bulk to pull against to retain a hold and the bumping of the fish causes the hook to come free but there’s a club rule saying barbless only and in general I’m in favour of that – losing a few 3-4oz fish is not a big deal really… On the leger rod, I had quite a few good runs too but Murphy’s/Sod’s Law deemed that most came when I was dealing with the float rod and I was unable to take immediate action and consequently missed quite a few bites.

The float rod set up was changed too over the course of the day to a more ‘standard’ slow sinking bait, bait just resting on the bottom type setup with a bulk shot of 2SSG just below float, 2AAA about half depth and a No4 telltale to trim the float.

I fished until 1730 – but put away the float rod at about 1630 when I got into a big tangle that required the line to be cut and a full re-tackle required but rather than do that I packed it up and concentrated on the leger rod swapping the prawn over to worm. Over the hour I had two good takes but unfortunately both strikes met thin air.

Anyway, catch of the day….

The leger rod and prawn accounted for a 3lb 7oz tench (best fish of the day) and a 10oz perch..  but as I said I did have far more takes than that.

The float rod accounted for 7-8 barbel (mainly around 6oz, best 1lb 1oz), a good many perch of around 4oz, one small rudd and one small roach. And I did lose a tench of around 2-2.5lb in the lilies when reaching for my landing net and taking my eye off the ball :(

So nothing huge – but it was a wonderful day to be out on – aren’t they all though? :)

Right – Clouds/Linings Bad News/Good News…
Whilst attempting to sort out that tangle with the float tackle mentioned above I had a bit of an accident. I wear glasses for distance but don’t need them for short distance – and, in fact, to read or do close up work I have to look over/under – or remove them completely, which is what I did whilst trying to sort the tangle. However, having removed them I placed them on my chair…. and, yes, then went and sat on them. Bent? Well, let’s put it like this… the arms instead of sticking out at right angles to the rest of the frame and thus coming to rest on the ears when worn, then passed under the ears and the ends touched the angles of my jaw bone ie something like 45 degrees out of alignment. And the bend was at the arm/hinge joint AND also at the hinge/frame solder/weld… Looked like attempts at re-straightening would result either in breaking the solder/weld joints or the arm hinges ….. GRRRR!!! And was looking like having to buy a new pair…  BUT….  that’s the cloud/bad bit…. now the silver/good… I *WAS* able to very gently tease the hinges and arms back to their proper positions AND not only that but they fit much much better than they ever did before!! :) YAAA-HOOOOO!!!!! :)

Some pictures:

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STOP PRESS
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Just had some lures arrive from Hong Kong via eBay for some drop shotting on the canal shortly – a few more packs due to arrive shortly too!! :)