stevetheangler

At the end of the last episode I reported the loss of my £200 Deeper Sonic Pro+ fish/depth finder with attempts at recovery on the day abandoned due to lack of wind or water motion – in an hour and a half it was still sitting pretty, on the centre line between the side banks of the elongated pool, about 10 feet from where it landed on the cast – and any motion was towards the end banks (a bit 5’ one way, 3’ the other sort of oscillation) and as the nearest of the banks in the direction of whatever little travel there was, was 200+ yards away then with those conditions the ETA was more to be determined in terms of days and weeks rather than hours and minutes … and hence I left…

However, the following day a fellow member was heading to the same pool and had seen the post I’d made on the club’s FB page about the loss and messaged me to say he’d have a look whilst down there fishing the next day – and the wind had picked up a bit overnight and blowing in a favourable direction towards the clearest bank of the pool so I was a little hopeful of an outcome. Anyway, on the day I received a message to say he’d had a look around but there was nothing to be seen …. but 10-15 minutes later I received a FB message containing a picture of a hand holding the sounder and a message ‘Is this any good?’ J

Thirty minutes later I was en route to a local pub car park to meet up – and the hand over was made… and not only that but I’d been using a Shakespeare Mega S lure to try and snag it … which also snapped off. Never thought to mention the loss of that BUT the lure was also returned to me!! BRILLIANT!!

So… the Deeper has now been re-charged (battery only lasts 5-6 hours and so had been used up overnight) and tested in a bucket of water in the back garden and all seems well with it. I’ve also ordered some 40lb mono and 60lb braid now for its use. I’m thinking of using two lengths of mono as a ‘shock leader’, one length being slightly overlength so that in normal use just the shorter piece takes the full force of casting but on the event it snaps then hopefully the ‘sting’ of the snatch will have been absorbed by the snapping and that the 2nd length will cope will the lower force and hold the sonar…. and the main line will be of 60lb braid as heavy mono tends to be stiff and thus limit casting distance – so I’ll be using a 10’-12’mono absorber connected to the braid main line on the 9’ 80g+ rated lure rod I use as my general spod/spomb/camera/sonar rod.

NOW … just need to get out and use it ..,. sub-zero temps and snow has put paid to any outing in the first half of this week but hopefully it might clear up later and make for a possible trip out on Friday 23rd…. but if that does happen then most likely I’ll head to a local stretch of the Shropshire Union canal with the lure rods … I made up a few 10lb wire lure traces for perch/chub – wire not necessary for perch/chub per se but the waters also contain pike and so I err to the side of caution – with light jig heads and offset hooks (1, 1/0 and 2/0) and also received the crayfish ‘creature’ baits I ordered during last week. And today I made up similar wire trace set ups with 30lb wire specifically for targeting pike. So, I’m interested in seeing how both lures and traces perform – and the stretch contains decent sized perch (3lb+), chub (5-6lb), and double figure pike so hopefully will have some good sport.

On the subject of weather … it could do with warming up a bit! We’re due a week’s camping holiday in Yorkshire in a few weeks time! And over the last 10 years or so, at this time of the year, usually this week or the one previous or later, we’ve usually been camping on the edge of the cliffs on the Gower … and when I say edge, I mean edge … the sea at high tide being only about 200 yards away but also 200’ below us… Had a few tents destroyed over the years by the winds up there!! But I think sense certainly would have prevailed over valour this year!!!