stevetheangler

Friday, 7th April, I headed off at 0615 to my destination of the day, a club fishery in Rugeley (SP) for the day.

This is only the second time I’ve visited this water as the club only acquired it last October and at that time there weren’t many spots available to fish from (possibly 4) with the banks very overgrown but the club in the interim has done a lot of work on bank clearance and now there seems about 10-12 easily accessible swims.

The weather was good, warm and bright without too much breeze – and its a very sheltered pool anyway as it lies in a deep hollow and is also surrounded by trees.. and the ‘millionaires’ bit? Well, I had the whole pool to myself for the entire day … and I only saw three other people during the day – a couple walking their dog up the path on the far side of the pool and an estate worker who popped for a chat…

First thing I did once I reached the swim I elected to fish was get out my depth/fish finder to ascertain the depths and contours around my area – and this showed a depth of 8.5 feet at around 10 yards out and then rising slowly into shore … however, when actually fishing, after casting, there didn’t seem to get much line being pulled out as the lead sank and so I reverted to old technologies (float and plummet) to re-check … and discovered the depths to be more like 3 feet rising towards the shore, and this was confirmed by the estate worker later who said depths were around 3-4ft.

So, arrived, checked depths and the next thing was to bait up my chosen areas to fish with the usual mix …. one rod to be fished directly out in front 10 yards out, the other to the edge of overhanging bushes that protruded 5 yards out over the water well to my left.

I decided to ledger both rods – 8lb line on both – but one with a size 6 hook which was baited with bread and with mussel (the ‘in front’ rod) and the other a size 12 (later changed to 14) hook baited with worm/maggot, maggot and worm (the ‘bush’ rod). First cast were made at 0800.

Over the day I had not a single touch on the bread/mussel rod … but the worm/maggot rod was getting small trembles and quick twitches of its bobbin … and the first fish was a small (ca 3oz perch) actually discovered on the hook after winding in to re-cast. The same twitches/trembles persisted without result and so I started to slack line/touch ledger which was more successful and I ended the day having added 20 or so small roach (up around 5-6oz) to the tally before packing up at 1500.

I could have been more successful in size of catch really, I think, by fishing a float rod with finer line (4lb) … but trees overhead forced sideways/underhand casting with an 11’ ledger rod and a 13’ float rod would have been even more limited … plus I decided to use the occasion to have fun hone up and practice my touch-ledgering and slack line ledgering techniques…

So an enjoyable day out for me…

Probably venture out again on Monday…..