Needing to recover from the disaster that was my last trip out, I set off out on Monday 15th June to a club pool (AA-BP) that usually provides a good result. I say usually as it can be a bit moody and tends to be a ‘hot’ water, in that the warmer the water is the better the results and winter time it can be ‘very hard’… but even that is not a given as a few years back, in late October, with water temps still being too high for my, and it seemed the pike’s too, piking at around 10’C I decided to switch to perch fishing (worm/maggot) at this water until the temps dropped to 8’C or below… and all through the rest of October, November and December, fishing it at least once weekly I could not catch a single perch BUT I was having tench after tench after tench every session EVEN when the water dropped sub 8’C! So not only had I been catching in these cool temperatures but also catching the least expected species…
But no deviation from the expected on this session…
I left the house at 0500 … arriving at the pool at 0545 … and was, unsurprisingly, the first there… (only one other arrived during the rest of the day too, the club president, at around midday IIRC) … and headed off to my intended swim of the day, or rather swims, as there were two I fancied next to each other but which I rarely fish. However, both pegs were a bit overgrown – not too badly but needed a bit of work to clear some reeds around the sides of both to allow a decent angle to fish and one swim’s reeds had fallen over across the gap. I had the tools to be able to do this (small weed rake and doubled bladed cutter – both of which can be used either on the end of a landing net pole or on a rope/cord and thrown out – and the rake I actually use mostly on my heavy spinning rod with 60lb braid which is my general purpose rod used for throwing out my Deeper Sonar, spombs/spods, and other such tranklements. So they WOULD have been easily cleared BUT then I wandered to the next peg along – my usual ‘off island’ one and it was so enticing so immediately grabbed my gear from the car and set up station there… :)
And I hope you can see why! :)
Directly in front is a small island – and, in fact, one the neighbouring shunned swims faces the other end of the island, the other one faces out into open water twixt the island end and the top bank and to the left is a corner covered by an overhanging bush…
So, usual pre-cast preps completed – bait up, set up unhooking cradle, get out scales, camera on tripod, etc – I plugged the three sections of my float rod together and was ready to fish… thanks to already having been pre-tackled with 6lb main line to a 6″ of 6lb braid hook link with size 10 hook and with a pre-weighted 6BB crystal waggler (1 x 2SSG shot in order to fish lift method ie overshotted, overdepth) on the line. A minute or two was then spent plumbing and adjusting the float’s stop knot to stop the float at the right distance.
0615 the hook was baited with a worm and cast out…
… and first cast having first indication of interest was very pleasing! :)
In fact, I don’t think I made a cast ALL day that wasn’t responded to by our fishy friends…
However, initially, it seemed that the interest came from small fish (probably mini perch and rudd) just grabbing the end of the worm as no contact was being made despite allowing bites to develop and for float to be actually gliding along/under the water… and it was at 0745 that I actually made an initial contact, a small fish, possibly rudd about 3oz or so (although it did look crucian’y). I did use to catch a fair few crucians in this pool up to about 5-6 years ago but I’ve not seen one since then, suspected victims of the cormorants, but hopefully it was a crucian and the beginnings of a comeback! Anyway, the hook bounced out and it wasn’t landed so it’s all speculation on that point.
0800 a small perch (ca 2oz) came to hand…
This set off a number of hook size and bait changes over the session which improved matters – and at this time I changed to maggot on a size 14 hook…
0805 Several small rudd
0820 Bream 3lb 4oz
Followed by another few small rudd…
0845 – a good fish but shed the hook :(
0900 Switched to prawn on size 10 hook…
0920 4lb 5oz Mirror Carp
0950 A switch to sweetcorn and – 2lb 5oz Common Carp
Then a period of bites galore – all missed bar one – and the hook pulled free….
1235 After switching to bread – a 3lb 1oz Bream
1425 Another hook pull from a good fish after a switch back to worm…
1500 Effectively packed in although I had intended to fish until at least 1530 in my original plans and, as things were happening, possibly would have done another half an hour or so more BUT I overcast, one of three over the day, into the edge of the island’s bushes. The first two times I was lucky and escaped penalty free, however, this third time WASN’T lucky at all except that it did pull free under a bit of pressure but as it gained it’s freedom the terminal tackle sprung away with a very unwanted Victory Roll resulting in a nest even the greatest nest building bird would have been proud of! So, with the prospect of a bankside cut off the end tackle, rescue the component bits and re-tackle from scratch and a short time left to stay I decided that the re-fit would be easier in the comfort of my armchair… and was done this morning… :)
One thing I discovered as I was fishing – my crystal waggler had a leak between the tube itself and the bottom fitting and the body was 1/3 full of water – meaning that it wasn’t as sensitive as it should have been due to the extra weight of the water having been added. I swapped my float at some stage to my usual driftbeater when I discovered the problem. I’d bought 10 of these crystal wagglers and have subsequently found two had loose fitting bottoms which has now been rectified with a liberal smearing of a Bostik like (other brands are available :D) adhesive. Just my luck to pick a 1 in 5 chance of a bad float! LOL
PLANS
Well the river season is upon us but I’m delaying my first river season for a while – probably 29th June with a visit to the Warks Avon with Liz. BUT I’ve just located a place on a much loved small river I last fished in the 80’s that does day tickets (£5), weekly tickets (£10) and season cards (June 16 – March 14 – £30)…. I think I may just have to get a season ticket and possibly go there next week!!
However, I’m planning on making a trip to the BAA’s Nordley Pools on Thursday (18th) after another local blogger (The Angling Rev aka Stewart Bloor) visited there last week and his post jogged my brain about it having not visited there in probably 18 months or even more.
Hopefully I’ll get to rubberise Liz’s new landing net this week/weekend too – hoping to make a video for on YouTube when I do it.
stevetheangler 
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