On Monday 6th November, at a little after 0700, I was headed off to Pike Water 3 for a short session with the lures. Lure/roving sessions for me generally do tend to be short – usually around 2 hours, and very rarely reach 4 hours, long. Not that that is by choice – for me I feel a ‘normal’ session is around 6 hours and normally I wouldn’t even consider going out for a lesser time – when the time spent prepping/loading tackle and baits and the travel time to/from the venue exceed the time on the bank then its a no-go for me. However, if I want to lure fish I ‘bite the bullet’ – and prep time for lure fishing is far less (reserved rucksack with lures/traces/etc permanently at hand) as I just need to make a flask, put in a few odds’n’ends (eg camera, forceps, etc)… but more damningly the back can’t stand up to lengthy lure sessions and after about 2 hours the ‘ache’ sets in. I’m perfectly fine with the walking and carrying the tackles no problem… its the holding of the rod which is unbalancing and the twisting and turning associated with casting and retrieving that puts a strain on my lower back. I think I may be having to have a look into acquiring corsets…. age strikes all!
Anyway, as I left the house the car thermometer was registering an external air temp of 1.5’C which was confirmed by the heavy frost on the grass – later it dipped to 0.0’C but for about a ½ mile stretch it registered 2.0’C but then returned to 0.0’C. I don’t know why that sudden rise/drop occurred, it was in the middle of the countryside travelling past frost-ridden fields…
And so, by 0800 I had arrived on the car park and had walked to my starting point of the day….
…., and as the 2 rods I took to use were carried wrapped in a couple of quick-release straps and pre-tackled with reels, lines and spinning traces, it took only a couple more minutes to get my lures out of the lure box and be ready to make my first casts. One rod (30g-80g rated, 3 metre) was fitted with 30lb braid and used in conjunction with a Zebco twin-bladed, luminous, bar spinner….
… and the other (40g-100g rated, 8’6”) was used with 20lb mono in conjunction with a black/bright green shad body on a 7g jig head – reason for the mono on this rod is that it is used as a multi-purpose rod when generally coarse fishing – eg it acts as my spomb/spod rod and as the rod for launching my sonar devices and underwater cameras – and I have found that expensive items like those can be easily lost if braid (even 60lb) is used if for some reason the line snags on the cast as braid has no stretch to act as a cushion to sudden shocks like that and sudden shocks can easily snap the braid, whereas 20lb mono has stretch and this cushions any shock and its rare, if at all, that any breakage occurs even eg with a full spomb at full belt out and having forgotten to take the bale arm off… as I have often done LOL!
So, the first cast was probably made around 0815 … and the first fish caught … on the Zebco spinner was a small jack of 3lb 3oz…. and about half an hour later, in the next swim, I had another small jack of 2lb 10oz on the shad…
But thereafter, despite changes of lures and visiting other swims nothing else showed any interest and so at around 1130, and with aching back, I called it a day and headed back to the car….
CHANGE TO PLANS:
I did say that I was intending to river fish for pike on Friday but I’ve now decided to go back to last Friday’s water. Partially due to the Severn not being in good condition – seems a lot of rain has fallen in North Wales as the level was rising rapidly yesterday with murky and cold water anyway – so that left only the Avon as a choice. BUT the main reason is that I’ve, despite years of belittling pole anglers, etc, now bought a pole (expected to arrive later in the week). It won’t be an item that will be used greatly though (although one never knows! Thinking of perch jigging with it on the canals already!) as I’ve specifically bought it for the catching of small silvers for live bait purposes. I’ve been missing too many ‘fine’ bites on my rod’n’reel kit and its been taking me far longer to get sufficient bait than I’d like. Hence the pole…. and why the change of venue … to give me chance to try it out – and to learn a few of the nuances of pole fishing – and to that end I’ve been watching YouTube videos too :)
The pole is not a ‘specialist’ item – 6 metres, pre-elasticated, and comes with 2 end rigs ready to go…. and all for the princely sum of £19.99! Here it is: 6 metre pole
So next blog, undoubtedly, there will be some tales of my pole trials and tribulations!
WATER TEMPS
None taken – when roving it’s too much hassle to keep putting in the probe and removing it again to move on… and usually gets forgotten after a few moves and lost anyway!
stevetheangler 
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