stevetheangler

So Friday 24th June and I headed off to the River Severn at Hampton Loade, primarily hoping for a chub or two with a possible barbel.

Two rods were taken – a 2lb TC barbel rod tackled with 10lb line and a 1.75lb TC ledger rod with 8lb line and a bucket of four loaves intended to be converted into a pile of bread mash to which was intended to be added a pile of mixed and wetted groundbait (crumb, hemp, corn, dead maggot, etc) leftover and frozen from the previous tench trip of the week. For bait I had what I intended to be my main bait, cheesepaste of a 5 year old vintage, along with luncheon meat and worm as alternatives.

The day started off fine …left the house around 0615, nice blue sky and sunshine, the drive to the water was without event arriving at 0645, parked up and paid the car park fee, unloaded the car, set the tackle bag, rod quiver and Korum Mat Bag on my back, picked up my bucket of bread and baits and set off on a nice leisurely stroll to my intended swim. I passed two other anglers set up and fishing en-route but other than those there was no-one else to be seen. Arrived at the swim, all looked 10/10 conditions wise, got tackle, etc down the bank and started to unpack and set-up…

And it was then that disaster struck … I discovered that an item of tackle that would fit in a container of 3″ square and 1″ deep was missing! And it was an item that made it impossible to fish without … the spreader ‘Y’ for my landing net … and no way could I land a fish without the net. So a few minutes were spent thinking through the situation whilst supping from the coffee flask and munching a few biscuits – and came to the conclusion, no choice…homeward bound… :(