stevetheangler

Today, being Monday 4th February, I have been preparing for my 4th outing of the year and my tackle bags are packed, rods set up with optimised end tackles and sundries all sorted – only thing left to do now is take baits from the fridge and prep my food and flask which will be done later – as I’m having a break with a coffee whilst writing this :)

So… my planned destination is Patshull Pool again which has been fishing well recently – a pike match held on the 26th January had good catches – winner had 42lb and 2nd had 25lb and 3rd 12lb…

… and day before yesterday a pleasure piker fishing from a boat had 4 doubles and a few jacks … but write up says ‘braved cold and 2 inches of ice’ so I’ve just posted on their FB page asking what the current situation is like for bank fishing tomorrow and I’m awaiting the response. However, I have heard that my second choice venue is now ice free and so I have that avenue to go if necessary … and I will now be visiting there on Thursday all being well anyway :)

I managed to get a few sprats on Saturday from Wolverhampton market, pretty small ones though but should be OK for a ‘Xmas Tree’ under a float. It seems that the future of the acquisition of sprats from supermarkets seems to be poor … I’ve heard Tesco are re-organising and part of that will be the close down of their in store bakeries and fishmongers … and when I tried Morrison’s the fish guy said that they’d stopped having them but it was a bit ambiguous as to whether just for this season or forever, hopefully the former. Anyway, as I end pike fishing at the end of March until October, I should have enough sprats and other baits now to see me through….

I have acquired two useful devices recently:

• A 500,000mAh power pack for mobile phones. It has 4 USB output sockets and a torch function too. It’s used to power the mobile phone I use for wireless connection to my Deeper Sonar (which is also my ‘fishing phone’ – I’ve lost/dropped too many good ones so its an old smartphone (Sony Xperia XA, I think) that I upgraded from at end-of-contract time – whilst my normal phone is now kept safely in the car) and also powers my action camera (GoPro clone). The charger works well and powers the ‘GoPro’, which only lasts about an hour on its own battery normally, for an entire 5 hour session easily. Well satisfied as it was only £13 off eBay. CHARGER
• The second addition to my kit is a ‘selfie stick’ … but a selfie stick with a difference … its also a tripod that extends (via 3 telescopic sections) between heights of 16” and 48” … and the phone holder head can be unscrewed and, as the screw is a standard camera threaded one, a standard digital camera or small video camera can be mounted in its place. To now when using my Deeper Sonar I’ve tried round the neck holders (get in the way on cast and retrieve and break easily too) and holders that clip on to the back of my fishing chair (awkward to get camera/chair sited at times to suit need and if walking from area to area its very cumbersome – and prone to breakage)… However, this stick/tripod has an aluminium body with plastic cam type clips for locking at required heights – so both sturdy and light – and easily transportable when moving from place to place… also the facility to attach a standard digital still/video camera is a great bonus too as up to now I’ve been using a bankstick-to-camera screw adapter which is not without problem especially on hard or frozen ground and the tripod alleviates those problems entirely. AND … if you use a smartphone as your camera the tripod comes with a clip-in bluetooth wireless shutter release – just ‘pair’ the phone and remote release (1 minute to do) … take up your pose … press the button on the shutter release … and picture taken … and assume that if the phone is set to video mode it will start/stop video recording too but not tried that… and £13 once again! TRIPOD.

And I have another bunch of items for testing on the way …. TONGUE/NAVEL/BELLY BARS!

• If you use Savage Gear’s Soft 4Play, or similar, lures  in conjunction with Lip Sculls… which are like plastic helmets that you fit the head of the lure into and then hold in place with a plastic pin (the red dot in the picture) that passes from side to side through the helmet and lure head… then I have found on a couple of occasions that the pin can ‘work’ free from one side and when the lure is taken and the hooks fail to find hold then the lure can be ‘stolen’ by the fish and lost… not ideal. So, for some time I have been using twistable wire to replace the pin and thus ensure that body remains firmly held at all times – but this is a bit of a pain if needing to change over the body as you need to untwist, remove wire, remove body, fit new body, re-insert wire and re-twist…. So, trying to think of a better way I’ve thought of using tongue or belly bars that have a fitted bead at one end and a screw-on bead at the other (and the beads would emulate eyes? Especially if glittery?). So, I’ve found a couple of cheap packs of differing types of these on eBay at £3 each – one pack has 50 off 2.5cm curved bars and the other 8 off 1.6cm straight bars – longer ones will work for the bigger lips, the shorter for the smaller ones I’m hoping. So watch this space as they say for results of the testing! :)

So… signing off now … those final tasks for tomorrows expedition needing to be done :)