stevetheangler

Awoke to the alarm clock at 0530, looked out at a drizzly morning – and went and got dressed for my usual day’s fishing. Made flask, packed baits and butties, had a bite of breakfast and a mug of coffee and put the last of the equipment and sundries in the car – most of it (rods, barrow, tackle bags, seat, etc) already having been placed in there the previous evening.

And so it was at 0700 I left the house and ventured off to the pool arriving to the sun arising and the rain dispersed – exactly as the BBC Weather had forecast it to be. But they also forecast that heavy rain would return at 0900 and last until 1600 travelling up from the south and south-west (as it did… to the minute as usual).  So I elected for a north/north-west facing swim so that I could get maximum shelter from the brolly which I erected as soon as I arrived – preceding even my baiting-up routine. Yep, as long as the brolly’s up then the environment can throw me up whatever fiendish weather it likes! :)

So the swim was actually situated in a nice looking corner with water at my feet of around 4.5’ deep sloping down to 12’ and then levelling out and up to another 28’ deep drop.

Next operation was to bait up the swim with a ruby-dubby concoction comprising of bread crumb, lamprey oil, cod liver oil, blitzed sardine/herring/mackerel/sprat with larger strips of raw hake, and then fishmeal/bone/blood fertiliser added too. This mix was spread around the area I was to fish as an attractant.

And then the preparation of the support equipment – unhooking mat set out with 12” wire cutters and 12” pliers handy, the scales and weigh net put to hand and the landing net set up and positioned. And this was followed by the setting up of the rod pod and alarms…. And finally the rods were tackled…

Again two rods in use… 1 leger/pop-up rod which was baited with a whole herring (ca 8oz) and set to pop-up the bait at about 2’ from the bottom, and 1 rod to floatfish a ‘Xmas Tree’ of sprats at varying depths throughout the day… and so it was that my first casts hit the water at 0840… and the start of the non-stop rain arrived at 0902…

Still, I was by now safely ensconced under the brolly fully protected from the weather and complete with big flask of coffee and a big box of cobs, chocolate bars, crisps and bags of snacks… how much better can a day be? :)

And that was how things remained until the clouds cleared and the sky took on a golden glow and I started to pack down for the day at 1600. Not one ‘proper’ bite although there was *something* playing with my legered/pooped-up herring…. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeTswEnFfKI&feature=youtu.be … an eel? Small fish tugging at the entrails in the burst throat/belly of the bait? As Mavis would say, ‘I don’t rear-ly know’ :D.

Temperature readings for the day were a bit strange – probably due to water ingressing into the workings of my digital thermometer as I’m not sure that an original, pre-rain water temperature reading of 10.2C would have risen to 12+C with air temps at a max of 11C dropping to around 7C over the day??? So just the one reading here – the first and thus pre-rain one – 11.8C air, 10.2C water…

So now, a day later, I’m back home – unloaded the car earlier and most of the gear is now in the front room drying out with the thermometer on the radiator. When I got home the first thing I needed was a soak in a hot bath so tackle unloading was postponed to this morning.

TEMP TRENDS:

 FUTURE PLANS:

Tuesday, back to the canal most probably.
Friday – pike again :)