stevetheangler

Tuesday 26th May I again headed back to the silvers/tench pool…arriving at 0620 and intending to fish, not the usual peg (11), but the next one to it (12)… both swims face the same small island but located at different ends. However, I was stumped in this aim by finding I’d been beaten to the water by another angler who had set himself up in peg 13 – and rather than crowd him on the otherwise deserted water I set myself up two swims away in the usual peg 11.

Usual starting procedure of baiting the swim, setting up the nets and unhooking mats, scales and camera, setting chair, bait waiter and sorting out the baits, and rod rests before getting the rod out of the bag and setting the float to depth to fish the lift method, baiting the hook with maggot before making the first cast at 0645.

Tackle was my usual float fishing set up – 13’ Hardy Matchmaker clone, 6lb DuraCast line, 5BB Driftbeater float set 6” over depth for the 4’ 6” water and I started with a size 16 hook (later changed to a size 12) baited with maggot – and over the day I switched between maggot, worm and worm & maggot cocktail.

I didn’t have to wait long for the first fish of the day as two minutes after casting in an obliging 1oz perch was being swung in to hand. And throughout the day I continued to catch small perch (one was about 4oz, the rest 1oz or less) and also had a couple of small rudd (2oz biggest).

Anyway, at 1500 I decided to succumb to the very cool breeze that had been blowing virtually all day, have one more cast and then pack up and head home… and had a 2lb 14oz tench…

… and, of course, ‘another few minutes’ then ensued until I reached the time I had to leave (1615) to get home in any case… and on the ‘one last cast’ I connected with another tench of similar size but as I was to leave and didn’t want to re-wet nets, etc at that time I just unhooked it in the water without weighing or photos.

The guy in peg 13 had a good day – he fished float, feeder and pole tactics over the course of the day – and had a nice bream of 5lb 0oz plus several tench up to around 4lb and small silvers and perch.

Anyway, next outing is going to be a carp session with Liz on one of the club’s carp pools on Thursday 28th….