stevetheangler

Today, Tuesday 11th November, saw a later than usual start of the day for a short lure session on the Staffs-Worcs Canal with me leaving the house at 0900 and arriving at the stretch I was fishing for the day around thirty minutes later.

The weather was not the best – a bit gusty at times with droplets of rain in the air but it felt quite mild – however, I did wear some of my thermals and luring is an active method of fishing and so you are generally on the move all day. Temperatures were not recorded due to the rain of Friday’s trip having killed my thermometer – one of the display digits is missing 4 segments and with the thermometer and its external sensor together there is a discrepancy of 4C between the displayed internal/external temps when they should be showing the same. The thermometer problem has since been resolved with the acquisition of a new one this afternoon. See the end of this posting for info on that.

Tackle was my trusty 9’, 10-40g rated, spinning rod with 12lb braid main line and 6” 25lb BS wire trace. Note, when lure fishing its ALWAYS advisable to use a wire trace even on waters where pike are unknown or are a rarity – you never know what may take the bait!

For lures I started off with a Shakespeare ‘Devil’s Own’ 16.5g blade spinner in silver with a green/red patterning and with a red flag attached to the treble of which the barbs had been squeezed down slightly. Unfortunately, this became the victim of a far bank overhanging shrub and was changed to a similar blade spinner but with a holographic type scale patterning…

I covered about 400 yards or so before losing this lure, this time to an underwater snag, which seemingly was sharp edged as with only a very slight pressure the line gave way…

At this point, with the skies greying over further, I decided to go directly up to the limit of the fishing rights and then work my way back as this furthest point is a large intersection between canals which creates a small ‘pool’ area – and I have had pike from this area previously – and thus the area I most wanted to have a go at.

And so, on reaching this area I attached a 13cm fluoro-yellow Savage Gear Soft 4Play lure in a red scull lip and started casting around … and eventually, after about 15 minutes, after one retrieve and just as I was lifting the lure from the water a pike of about 5lb appeared behind it but turned and disappeared. Further casting for 5-10 minutes did not elicit further response, so I decided to ‘rest’ the water and have a cuppa from the flask for a short while and whilst doing this I also switched the lure body to one of similar size but of a mackerel pattern.

Another 10 minutes of casting followed and then, as the skies greyed even more and the wind-borne rain droplets became actual light rain I decided it was time to call it a day.

So I finally spent around 2 hours on the water in total and only had the one follow to report.

THERMOMETER… as I said my thermometer of recent use had suffered irreparable damage on last Friday’s outing and I needed to source a replacement. So I had a look on the MAPLIN website (as we have a local Maplin store) and came across a model that I’d previously used and liked –  the Atech Indoor/Outdoor thermometer…

.. which I had liked very much for its features… (a) internal/external temp display (b) clock display is handy (c) records max/min temps over a period and is resettable manually or automatically and (d) has a long 3 metre lead to the external sensor, a must have for fishing purposes, I find. And best of all… when I bought my first one it was £9.99… but now, as I think they are deemed clearance items they are being sold at only £1 each. So I decided I’d get 3 at that price as a couple of spares would not go amiss with my history of dropping them in the water, standing on them and generally destroying them  … However, they were not in stock in my local store… BUT you could order online as a’Click’n’Collect’ item ie buy online and have delivered to your nearest store at no extra charge for you to pick up… which I did.. and I picked them up this afternoon. Can also have Home Delivery but for orders under £10 total there is a £2.99 shipping fee (free over £10). But, £3.99 is still a good price?

 FUTURE PLANS:

Friday – pike again… but aiming to try a new area on the usual pool :)  And I’ll be on my own as Liz has her driving test mid-day…

Next week – a trip to the canal with maggots, worms, bread, meat for a bait fishing session is being mooted