Monday, 2nd September, saw me heading to a club pool (AA-GH) that, as I said at the end of my last posting, I’d not visited since mid-June and for no other reason really than it fell victim of ‘so many waters, so little time’ …
Predominantly a carp water it does hold bream, chub, roach, rudd, a few perch seemingly and a good head of pike and I’ve heard tench although in 6-7 years of fishing there I’ve never caught nor seen/heard first hand of anyone catching one.
I arrived at the water around 0730 and headed to what used to be a good, and still looks like it should still be good, area for chub although the club had a clean up all around the pool around a year ago after complaints by the owner of old line being found in areas. One of those areas being along the bank on which the peg I fished is situated as it had many overhanging trees with branches that dipped into the water and as a consequence some broken line had become entangled on some of that overhanging vegetation due to either mis-casts or hooked fish seeking shelter. The club’s clearance and prevention measures were to cut out the branches that actually dipped into the water and generally anything less than 4’ from the water’s surface was taken out although the overhangs still protrude out over the water – but it seems that this change is not to the chub’s satisfaction and they’ve moved elsewhere – but where remains a mystery as there is no other place of similar vegetative cover elsewhere on the pool, the banks being mainly of short grass elsewhere although there is an island that has trees and bushes on its banks albeit they also having been trimmed… and the original tree-lined bank still looks the most likely chub holding area.
I initially started fishing at around 0800 on the float, fishing on the drop with a bodied antenna set to depth in a sliding float manner as the water along this bank is around 12’-13’ deep a couple of rod lengths out. Line was the usual float fishing line of mine – 6lb BS (Daiwa Hyper Sensor) – and 3-4 maggots on a size 14 hook was the bait. At around 0945 I changed my method to lift method with a 5AAA driftbeater float.
Pre-tackling etc the usual pre-feeding of the swim was done…
I was pleased to see plenty of bream bubbles in the area as I made my first casts and over my curtailed session I did have a number of small bream to around 8oz or so, none of the bigger specimens showing nor any chub per usual. A couple of roach and a pair of common carp of 2lb 14oz and 3lb 9oz completed the catch of the day…
I did lose another carp, larger it felt too, to a line snap probably due to damaged line after several tussles with tree … read on.
I left earlier than usual at 1330 – due mainly to the frustrations mentioned in the title caused by overhead/hanging trees and that lost fish …. just to my left that overhanging canopy had a few stray branches/twigs sticking out, just enough to catch the line TOO many times but well enough to entangle the line enough that break-offs were needed – I didn’t lose any tackle as I was able to grab the two ends of the line (rod side and hook side) and pull from both – and occasionally the line stripped the leaves off the branch/twig and bent it enough to slide off but more usually the line snapped but as I had hold of the tackled end I got float/shot/hook back and re-used them to re-tackle up – about 6 times I think! At one point I did manage to bend the vegetation close enough to grab and actually snap off the offending woodwork and thought I’d solved the problem once and for all – but no! I had a bream on, just over the net when the hook pulled – end tackle was catapulted like a vertical take-off jet, straight up into the highest point of the branches from which another pull-for-break was required – did that, then immediately packed tackle away and went home.
Couldn’t get worse could it? Well, actually, yes it could …. at the end of July I was diagnosed with rectal cancer so I’m awaiting an operation to remove offending growth within the next few weeks… after which my fishing is likely to be curtailed for a while too :(
Anyway, on Saturday (tomorrow, 7th) Liz is off to Lanzarote with friends and family for a week – and so I’ve a week that can be devoted to just myself and my fishing! I was intending to go out on Monday (9th) but the weather forecast is heavy rain and strong breeze on the day so it looks like I’ll give that a miss … however, the rest of the week is looking pretty good so… :) And I might sort out my light lure tackle and have an hour or so mini-jigging on the local canal on Sunday (8th)…..
stevetheangler 
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