Friday 14th July I headed off to a club’s mixed fishery (AA-B) in the hope of a good day with possibly a mixed catch of perch, tench, bream, barbel and chub – and possibly gudgeon, crucian carp – the only missing common species are king carp (common, mirror and leather carp) but they are in a separate pool that sits alongside this one…
I arrived at the pool at around 0630 and headed up to my selected area for the day – basically at the other end to my previous visit to this pool when I had 60+ perch in the day albeit not sizeable ones. As I was the only one there – a couple of others arrived sometime after midday but from where I was I couldn’t see new arrivals and only know as I’d had a walk back along the pool at that time and no-one else was there then but I passed them in the car as I was leaving at 1630 – I had a wander to look at the swims that I was initially interested in…
… but I finally settled on this swim…..
… as it allowed three distinct fishable areas…
- Just off the near bank lily patch to the left…
- Across to the bushes straight ahead on the island…
- Into the right-hand corner towards another lily patch
So, having decided my swim – which was also convenient for access to the car and I could have actually fished from inside the boot! – I fed each lightly with a couple of golf ball sized groundbait balls each plus a couple of small catapult pouches of wheat/hemp/maize mix and a couple of pouches full of maggots whilst I tackled up and prepped my mat, camera, etc before actually fishing.
Over the day the feed in each area was supplemented with small balls of groundbait, and catapulted maggots and particles from time to time. I also introduced small cubes of meat as I find meat is a good tench bait that they’ll accept when others are ignored…
So, I’d originally thought of feeder fishing, but on arrival, it being calm, I decided to floatfish at first and then possibly switch to feeder/ledger later in the day – but in the end the feeder rod remained in the bag all day.
The float rod was set up with 6lb main line, a 5AAA bodied antenna waggler float and size 16 hook attached to a 6” hooklength of 6lb braid connected to the main line via a quick change link… I use a short hooklength and link as, particularly when using worm baits, I often prefer to put on baits with a baiting needle and having a removable hook length facilitates that – and a short hook length also means that when fishing in the lift-method style that the bottom shot can be fixed above the link and thus allows the bait to be put on with a needle without having to remove the shot from the hooklength each time.
Normally, I’d have set up to fish ‘lift method’ but the lily patch to my left – although below the bottom of the picture shown – extended across in front of me with only a narrow clear path that pointed to the centre of the gap between the right hand lily patch and the near bank – so, other than when fishing that right hand gap, the line passed over the left hand patch and so the rod tip and line couldn’t be sunk properly, so I elected, as the weather at that time was calm, to shot up in a ‘fish on the drop’ style.
And so the day progressed …. and the wind picked up a little and was causing my setup to drift too much for my liking and so I switched the shotting slightly and changed over to ‘lift method’ – and it was actually OK. A bit more fiddly getting the float to set correctly and the line to sink due to the lily pads but not too bad … and it actually seemed to result in more bites….
Anyway, for the majority of the day (99%) I fished maggot with occasional tries with sweetcorn and meat but nothing was interested in the meat or corn at all – and the fish that did take an interest in maggot were small (< 6oz) perch and small (< 4oz) rudd … and gave me a final tally for the day of 60 perch and 4 rudd….
So, the expected other species never showed up again … not even a lost decent fish…
Oh well, just means I’ll have to go back and try harder!! Probably put out two ledger rods with larger and more selective baits for the day next time… :)
As for plans – Monday 17th I’m off with Liz to the Warks Avon in search of bream and hoping that we both up our bream PBs – and Thursday will become the new Friday as today I was given a Friday appointment for my dentist’s check-up … if I can arrange with Liz to get access to the car that day I’m thinking of a day’s outing on the Severn…
OTHER STUFF
I went online to a local auction the other day – been there in person before now but first time I’ve bid ‘over the wire’. Actually it was a ‘commission bid’ I made not a real time action one (although I did look in and watch the goings on during the day). Items I bid on were a box of reels, 6 of them, bidding £30 but getting them actually for £20 (£24.20 inc buyer’s fee and VAT on that – sale price itself VAT free). And I got a good lot…. all clean and in good working order!
Contents:
A Crane Pro – 160 yds/6lb capacity
An Okuma Access A150 – quite a big reel, wording faded on spool but looks like 160yds/15lb?
A Shakespeare Aerial 2000 – 250yds/6lb
A Zebco SE4 – 240yds/8lb
A Taurus SL35 Match – 110yds/4lb
A Shimano DX3500M – 110yds/0.18mm = 5lb Hyper Sensor
stevetheangler 
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