stevetheangler

We returned from an excellent (again) Shrewsbury Folk Festival … excellent sets from Show Of Hands (joined at one point by Johnny Khalsi of The Dohl Foundation and the Afro Celt Sound System), Oysterband and many others – plus a couple I’d not revisit but no names, no pack drill and purely my personal ‘thing’. Top of the shop for me was Afro Celt Sound System who played the closing set on the Cuckoo stage. Also after 50 years of existence I saw Lindisfarne live for the first time LOL!

Just one last note on the music front and then into fishing …. last night I visited the local Cineworld to see ‘Mick Fleetwood and Friends’ celebrate the early Fleetwood Mac years and Peter Green’s contribution…

… the ‘friends’ including Andy Fairweather Low, Steven Tyler, Dave Gilmour, Noel Gallagher, John Mayall and more. And it was an EXCELLENT 2 hours plus… There are actually only 2 showings .. nationwide .. last night’s (7th Sept) and again on Sunday 15th, at 1930. I sincerely urge folks to get out there if fans of the blues and/or early Mac … you will not be disappointed! I’m waiting for a DVD of the concert to come out and I’ll be first in the queue! Shame that at my showing there were only 6 of us in the auditorium :(

OK, OK, OK … fishing!! LOL

Monday, 6th September, Liz and myself set off for the club’s tench and bream pool (AA-B). The weather was perfect having been warm with some sun over the previous few days and on the day the air temps were 25’+C ….

A couple of errors on the day – now Sept, when I start taking water temps but forgot thermometer – and due to my hearing Liz and I have walkie talkies to talk to each other but the batteries were dead in mine, and I’d taken out the bag of spare batteries from my tackle bag and put them in my camping gear for the SFF and forgot to replace them.

So we arrived at the water and ventured up to the swims we’d wanted to fish the past couple of visits but hadn’t due to lily pads, reeds and tree foliage extending into and over the swims but this time we went prepared with loppers to deal with the trees and my double bladed weed cutter on a rope (although the rope wasn’t needed as I used the cutter on my landing net pole) dealt with the pad/reed issue easily..

As you can see from my swim I set up facing the end a small island and Liz set up in the next swim to my left ie the other side of the lily patch to the left of the photo.

We both floatfished using the lift method … 6lb line, 13’ rods (inc my new pride and joy, my newly acquired 70’s Hardy Matchmaker), 6” of 6lb braid for hooklengths and 5AAA driftbeater floats … hook sizes were 16 for maggot baits, size 12 for sweetcorn and prawn.

On arrival I mixed up a small amount of groundbait with added micro pellets and a few maggots and deposited 3 balls just on the edge of the facing bush on the island … and throughout the day supplemented this with catapulted maggot and the very occasional small ball of groundbait.

Liz was first off the mark with a small perch and over the day she ended up with a tally of 11 perch, 2 rudd and 1 roach – best fish being a perch of around 6oz – all taken on maggot and when she tried sweetcorn that just produced knockings of the float and no decent bites.

Myself, I had a couple of small perch at first … and then a barbel … and another barbel … another barbel … It seemed to me as if every barbel in the pool was sat in my swim!! By the end of the day I’d accumulated 20 barbel and 10 perch. None of size though – the biggest of the perch was probably around 6oz, the biggest barbel possibly 1lb 12oz’ish with some level of certainity although none were weighed. Best bait was maggot – as Liz found just float tremors to sweetcorn and prawn produced one perch although it was one of the bigger ones.

So none of the hoped for bream or tench appeared but the unexpected appearance of barbel, at least in that sort of number, made for a interesting and enjoyable day.

PLANS:

Out again tomorrow (Thursday 9th Sept), travelling light with my small river ‘roving’ gear supplemented by my float box and float rod to do some more float fishing at one of two pool venues that I have in mind but am yet undecided about which to visit.