Well, it transpired that I hadn’t seen off the lurgy that had troubled me before session 16 or maybe I gained another dose of it… but whatever, it meant that that the planned Tuesday session of the week never happened and so the next outing, a trip to a club mixed fishery (VV), was actually undertaken on Friday 1st April.
Forecast for the day was for air temps of 10C with a 16mph wind from the south and overcast skies – and so it would have appeared to have been BUT the breeze was a major wind chill influence. Without the breeze it would have been quite pleasant as evidenced by the warmer feeling on the few occasions that the breeze did drop and when the sun managed to faintly penetrate the high misty cloud but with the breeze it became very cool and was like this all session long.
I arrived at the pool at around 0800 and I was the first on-site and thus had my selection of swims – and I selected a swim where an island sat between myself and the breeze but which also had a bushy bank providing overhanging branches for fish cover and which was around 4-5 rod lengths away from my position – the perfect swim for the day IMHO.
As usual on arrival, before tackling up the rods – or plugging the two halves of the rods together as it is these days with my use of a quiver to hold my rods pre-tackled – I pre-baited up two swims along the edge of the island, one directly opposite my position and the other slightly off to the right by a bush at the end of the island. About 1Kg of dry crumb, dyed red, was split between the two locations and over the top of each a few catapults full of hemp/wheat/rice and a few catapults of maggot were added. Throughout the session more particles and maggots were put out into the swims too.
Tackle was 2 ledger rods, 8lb Diawa Hyper Sensor main line to 8lb Dyneema braid hooklengths and size 6 barbless hooks with 7g leads stopped at around 18”. Baits used were lobworm on the righthand rod and the lefthand rod was baited with bread, cheesepaste and caramel paste at various times.
From first casts it appeared that the day might have been more fruitful than it actually was, as within a minute of each bait hitting the water the bobbins shot up to the butt and the reels span in backwind at an alarming rate BUT each strike met no resistance at all – and over the day several other similar ‘unmissable’ bites ensued plus a couple where contact was felt momentarily but then lost. However, the bite rate soon decreased and I was probably getting one proper indication per hour or so and a few ‘twitches’of an inch or so.
Anyway, by the end of the day at 1500 I had 3 fish landed – 1 chub of 1lb 10oz taken on bread and a common carp of 3lb 8oz on lobworm which were taken within 2 minutes of each other at 1010 – and at 1215 a chub of 2lb 13oz was netted, taken on a bread/.cheesepaste cocktail bait.
So compared to my other recent results I actually had a red letter day!! With more and better to come hopefully :)
Also had a bit of ‘fun’ on the day … one of the angler’s car got bogged down on the car park when turning to park he hit some boggy ground and the car just sank almost to the axle .. he’d some rope so I tried to pull him out and did manage to move him a couple of feet but then the car sank again and I started to lose traction myself.. However, all got resolved relatively quickly by one of the guys going to a neighbouring farm and getting a farmer with tractor to pull the errant car to firm land without too much problem. I noticed the tractor also had a fail-safe method too – on the front it was fitted with a forklift so could have lifted the car out! LOL!
TACKLE TIP OF THE DAY:
Recently I’ve been using Wychwood ‘T’ bar scales…
… chosen for their ability to display in a ‘LB:OZ’ format. Many scales display only in Kilograms or some sort of hybrid bastardised imperial/metric system that uses decimal points… ie ‘2LB 8OZ’ being displayed as ‘2.5LB’ which to me is (a) NO!!! (b) WTF???
However, I do have a problem with the ‘T Bar’ scales usage – and seems other people have noted the problem on the internet – regarding the ‘tare’ system (ie the ability to place a bag or other container that the actual item to be weighed is to be placed into, and press a button which re-zeroes the scales so that when the item itself is added then the weight shown is solely that of that item). Yes, it is possible to weigh the bag, add contents and weigh total, subtract weight from bag, etc but too much hassle…
Anyway, back to the taring problem… you get the ‘T bar’, add the weigh bag, press ‘Tare’ and the weight registers ‘0LB 0OZ’ – fine! BUT then you have to add the fish to the bag… which uses 2 hands usually and thus means you need to lay the bag/scales on the ground, add the fish and re-lift… HOWEVER.. whilst doing that the scales have decided that the weight has changed (due to the bag no longer being suspended) and thus it must now determine the weight which it does by determining when the weight is steady for a few seconds – and then locks the display and ‘beeps’… and often this weight is ‘negative’ as the bag is no longer a factor … and as the display is locked now then simply lifting the scales does not change it… so you then need to remove, fish, fish, re-tare the bag, re-add fish and … usually the same has happened again … and so it can take several attempts (and thus time) to get a successful weigh.
BUT NOW – I’ve managed to get some super scales – cheaper than the ‘T Bars’, as as they are made by a USA company they do ‘LB:OZ’ displays, and they also have a perfect tare mechanism… and, in fact, the company (‘Rapala’ – famed mostly for their fishing lures) do several models of scales to choose from including the 2 illustrated below…
Mine are the Pro-Digital version which I got for £20 (second hand) off eBay… and I thoroughly recommend them. Put on bag, tare, then do what is necessary to add fish to the bag (lay ensemble on ground, etc), lift and weight of fish is perfectly shown…and also have a backlight facility for use in the dark….
TEMPS:
Water: 8.4-8.8C
TEMP TRENDS:
stevetheangler 
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