stevetheangler

Thursday, February 9th, it was a trip out to a local club pool (AA-GH) to try my luck with the pike rods setting out from the house a little after 0700 and arriving around 0730..

The venue is part of an equestrian centre and there was plenty of equestrian activity around the stableyard on passing through with stables getting cleaned out and horses being walked on reins … but the pool itself was devoid of any activity at all. And surprisingly, with it being a calm bright day with barely a ripple on the water all day long, it remained so all day with just myself in attendance … as I had expected company as the previous 3-4 days had been quite cold with heavy frosts but this day was frost free, even the car was free from it and no windscreen defrost was required at all. A beautiful day…

I had intended to fish on the far side of the pool but with current fitness problems and so on I didn’t feel I’d make it so I dropped in on a closer favourite swim.

[I’m currently awaiting an appointment with a diabetic specialist and on the waiting list after referral from the doc for a ‘Keep Healthy’ course (12 weeks) for nutrition and an optional exercise class although I doubt the exercise I’ll do the exercise bit as my hernia makes even putting on lower body apparel (sock, knickers, trousers) an exercise and so I’ll just continue with my 3 times a week walks (supplemented by carting tackle around on fishing days, of course :)) for that …]

Tackle consisted of my two 80’s homebuilt (well, the rings are whipped on, there’s no handle per se with the Fuji reel seatings just attached directly to the Northwestern 2.75lb TC fibre glass blank by an insulation tape wrapping) pike rods… 5000 model NGT reels loaded with 30lb Spectra braid … 30lb wire traced standard snap tackle (2 treble hooks) … sliding link of 8lb mono with 3oz leads.

Both rods were fished with sardine on a straight leger setup … one rod cast 30 yards out, the other out about 3 rod lengths onto the slope where the pike tend to patrol and most of my pike on this water have been taken at that range or inside that, some within 3′ of the bank. The water at the bank is 3′-4′ deep and slopes to 11′-12′ and is fairly flat beyond the bottom of the slope…and I’ve been told the island has almost vertical banks.

After several hours with no sign of interest despite the occasional draw of the baits to add movement, I added a balsa pop-up stick into  the closer rod’s bait allowing it to float about 30″ up from the bottom…

Two hours later (around 1400) – still nothing – the sun had drifted behind the trees (well, actually the Earth had rotated and moved on its orbit a bit) and it was getting rather cool and with my hands turning numb despite the rather excellent handwarmer turned to 60′ (a single handwarmer is OK but with two hands to warm…ummm … see later for a perceived solution … I decided to call it a day and tackled down.

As I was tackling down I became aware of a unusual surface disturbance – a 12′ long, 3′ deep stretch of water parallel to and just off the bank was shimmering and dippling and moving outwards against the slight ripple that had appeared and it continued out towards the island and then did small circles for a few times before disappearing… probably a big shoal of fry?

WATER TEMP:

Min: 3.7’C – 4.5’C

OTHER ‘STUFF’:

Latest acquisitions … Korum Counterbalance rod rest heads…

I’ve always used these type of front rest heads – the ‘V’ rotates in the frame so that its always vertical, something that’s important to me as if using  ‘lift method’ or a slider float especially as adjusting line tension is smoother and easier due to the line not being subjected to friction if the bank stick itself is not vertical and also alleviates the manual adjustment of non-self-aligning types of head. I do have some cheaper ones but they are subject to the ‘V’ dropping out of the frame in carriage, etc and aren’t as free in the rotation either.

One handwarmer – two hands … I’ve ordered a ‘Faux rabbit skin’ muff off eBay. With handwarmer within, one hand ither side, job done – and easy to withdraw a hand to deal with a bite?