stevetheangler

Friday 31st July and Liz and I headed to our club’s ‘mixed’ pool – everything in there almost from goldfish to barbel and chub including gudgeon – and arriving on-site at around 0745 we were surprised to be the only ones there esp. on such a glorious day as it was. Another angler did turn up a little later and fished the far side of the pool to us, fishing floating baits, and Liz said he was catching well although he was blocked from my sight by vegetation and an island… but other than the three of us ….

Liz fished two rods most of the time – one feeder rod and one float rod – and also played with her mobile phone most of the day…

Myself, I used a float rod for most of the day fished laying-on/lift-method with maggot, worm and cheesepaste baits, but also set up a floating bait rod – basically just vaselined 8lb mono terminated with a size 6 hook and a small link swivel accommodates the addition of a small bubble float if extra casting weight is needed – and a couple of small cork balls either side of the link swivel counteracts the weight of the swivel and keeps the line floating. This was a specially set up rod for this particular pool as my usual floating bait rod has 15lb braid main line tackled in the same manner and braid main lines are not allowed on this pool.

During the day I was catapulting out dog biscuits (Pets Pantry ones are recommended – both the chicken and the beef ones – they float well and are soft enough to hook straight from the bag – no need to soak) in order to tempt the carp/chub to come to the surface on this perfect-day-for-floaters – very light to zero breeze, bright and sunny and warm.

And so over the day between us we had perch, roach, gudgeon, bream, chub and carp – with the three biggest fish of day – 2lb 12oz chub, 4lb 1oz Common Carp and 7lb 7oz Mirror Carp – all falling to my floating baits.

So, after an enjoyable day AND a thirty minute extension (we had decided to pack in at 1430 but I negotiated extra time with Liz to 1700) that allowed me to catch the 7-07 common which had been taking free baits literally at my feet and which needed a change in tactics – it was tail smashing/testing the baits before taking them and it decided that my hooked biscuits were right dodgy and, although the freebies were taken after testing, the hooked bait was consistently left out on its own. So I tried bread from my left over butties – but the bread didn’t survive the smashings as a standard floating bait – so…. a handful of bread pieces were thrown out and bread for bait was squeezed on the hook such that it sank slowly and, when the free pieces were smashed, the bait was cast into that area thus appearing to the fish as a piece of the liberated bread sinking… and wollaaahhh… the bread hit the water and, in less than one second, the line snaked off and the fish was hooked… :)

And so, on the way home, it came to pass that a visit was made to the Navigation at Greensforge for a pint of Pardoe’s Bumblehole (after dithering a bit over the choice of that or the Enville Ale or the Enville Ginger Ale… as you would :)) …