stevetheangler

Monday, 3rd April, Liz and I were off to our destination of the day, a mixed club fishery (VV).

Setting off at 0800 on a bright and certainly warmest day of 2017 yet we arrived at the pool at around 0845 and I was actually surprised to find we were the first there – although over the day another 4 or 5 appeared.

Anyway, we elected to fish the bush/peninsula swim we’ve fished the last few visits as its a good area for chub normally – and as you’ll have realised I’ve issued a bit of a spoiler there by using the word ‘normally’ – with Liz fishing the end of the peninsula and myself half way along.

I decided to start on the float, fishing ‘lift method’, which I was having difficulty with for some reason. When setting the float to the desired level it seemed that with highering/lowering the float only 2” seemed to make it sink or stick 10” up with a lot of slack line between float and bottom shot … Anyway, after a poor cast into the bush on the opposite bank, which resulted in 5-6 yards of line being lost, I decided to quiver tip instead using worm/maggot cocktail, worm, and maggot baits – and also tried bread which elicited not a single nibble in 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, Liz decided to use one swimfeeder rod and use maggot on the hook…

Results when we packed in at 1630….

I had a lot of small perch (1-2ozs), gudgeon and a couple of small rudd up to 4oz.

Liz also had rudd to about 4oz, gudgeon and the best fish of the day – a 3lb 9oz chub.

Anyway, from what I’ve heard since, it’s been hard going on that pool for the past few days and it seemed the others fishing with us weren’t doing well either although there’s a possibility that a reasonable fish was taken out of our sight by the sounds of splashing heard.

So we come to the ‘punt’ bit of the title…

Packing up and the broken line of the floatfishing start of day had been bothering me as the large length of line had become a tangled mass hanging from the bush and was a danger of entanglement to the ducks and other wildlife – I thought to cast across with my mini-weed rake to try and snag to free it but as there was the club’s small rowing boat close alongside I decided it may be quicker and easier to row out and free that way – which I did. Probably the best way anyway as I doubt the ‘snagging’ method would have been successful as the line was wrapped in several places around small shoots and twigs of the bush and although the main tangle may have been pulled out then pieces of line would have remained in the bush – at least by boat I was able to completely retrieve all the trapped line.

Next outing – Friday 6th… destination unknown ….