stevetheangler

OK … so I *HAD* planned to be out today (Friday 6th October) but as they say ‘ the best laid plans of mice of men…’ and so my session today has been postponed due to the need to prepare for next week’s Somerset holiday. And that means sorting out not only the pike gear but also the ‘general’ stuff too and that means mix’n’matching the gear from several bags … the lure bag, the pike bag and the general bag – into one mixed one. Plus the need to get general touristy holiday wear and other stuff – food, toiletries, bed linen, towels, etc – sorted too. So no fishing today.

All going well so far – rods, reels, lines (mine and Liz’s) are all sorted and ready to load into car – 1 float rod, 2 ledger rods, 1 pike rod and 1 spinning rod each plus my general purpose spomb/WaterWolf/FishSpy/Deeper Sonar rod. Landing nets and poles and banksticks that live in the rod quivers all present and correct … the Korum Mat Bag is loaded with the net float, groundbait bowl, float box, hook wallet … and today is ‘booked’ for sorting the gear in my rucksack and doing a prelim check on Liz’s fishing bag….

Tomorrow is designated bait day – so will be off out to get a couple of pints of fresh maggots for hookbait which will be bagged with the air squeezed out to put them in statis and fridged – already got about 3 pints that are 7-10 days old bagged in the fridge and in statis that’ll be used for free feed, etc. Plus a quick check what I’ve got in the fridge with regards to particles, pastes, etc and replenished if need be. And as weather was good yesterday (‘strike while iron is hot’) I dug up enough worms from the worm pit to suffice the week ahead…

Sunday will mainly be double checking the gear. Also general packing of clothes, etc through the day… and in the evening putting the baits in a coolbag with a few ice blocks and loading up the car ready for an early Monday start… Also have to take the cat to the cattery – oh fun and joy for them!! LOL! Previous comments have included ‘Not the friendliest cat is he??’ … and last time he wouldn’t let him change his bedding or litter tray attacking them when they tried and to feed they just dropped his bowl inside the door… But when we get there he purrs and just lies in our arms as good as gold … He spends most of his life outdoors and doesn’t like being cooped up and we usually had friends come and feed him via a timer feeding tray but he’s got back leg problems and needs to be given pills twice a day now to alleviate that hence the cattery

Monday, hopefully arrive at the ‘village’ around 1300, pop to reception and show our EA licences (no licence, no fishing!) and generally book in. However, the caravan keys are not officially available until 1600 although they usually do get made available by 1530 … so in the interim we’ll pop to the pool for a spot of lure fishing with the lure equipment that will have been conveniently packed on top of all the other luggage … LOL! And also a pint in the onsite clubhouse.

And the plans for the rest of the week – Tuesday 0600-1130 I’ll be off down the pool pike fishing then back to Liz and the caravan for breakfast followed by an afternoon out … one of the other days Liz comes fishing with me for a full day … and hopefully I’ll manage a couple of other sessions too. And we have to fit in our traditional holiday Wetherspoon’s breakfast too one of the day’s …. something really decadent about breakfast with a pint of porter/stout along with it! LOL!

So that’s it then … probably not blog over the week as I’ll only have my android tablet with me unless I have a good ‘un and maybe a short mention will be posted, otherwise it’ll be a multi-session post made on our return home.

BTW … the broken reels from last time … made one good reel from the pair by replacing the broken handle with the good one from the one with the broken gearing and actually improved the reel as the newly fitted handle is a double paddled one which I find far more effective than the original single paddle type. And mentioning that – spare/replacement generic handles are easily obtainable for reels via places eBay/LightInTheBox/Banggood for about £2 or less each BUT I’ve only managed to find single paddled ones. The only double paddled ones I can find are for Shimano reels which, beside being expensive (£15+ each) will not fit any other make of reel as Shimano use a square cross section shaft whilst all the others use a hexagonal (possibly octagonal?) shaft. And I cannot locate a source of ‘general’ double paddled handles anywhere despite several makes of reel being fitted with them… and, in fact, Dragon Carp have a deal of 2 reels for £15.99 (https://www.dragoncarpdirect.com/avanti-twin-reel-pack-84-943015?colcode=94301590) that have double paddles and I am considering getting some just for the handles and throwing the bodies and spools (unless they fit any of my other reels) away. But £15.99 for 2 handles still seems a bit steep to me….