stevetheangler

Well it was a long time coming but I (accompanied by Liz too) finally made it back to the waterside on Thursday 13th July after being absent for 6-7 weeks? Sanity starts to be reclaimed!!! The interim weeks having been filled by the kitchen refit which we are very pleased with – although still the ‘old’ kitchen fridge still sits in the front room – offered on my club’s group for free if anyone wanted it for a bait or even for the kitchen as its in excellent condition but as I’ve had no response it will go on Freegle shortly – and the old freezer is to be on the front lawn where things disappear, usually in a couple of hours or so, as its not in very good cosmetic condition….

… and then, whilst the kitchen was being done my insides didn’t feel quite right following my colonoscopy in May and so I’d planned to visit to my GP as soon after the refit but Friday (16th June) I took a laxative to tide me over to making that GP visit on the following Monday … lax worked but 2 hours later I was feeling discomfortable again so Liz took me to the local A&E. And then …. arrived at A&E at 1900 … booked in and triaged fairly quickly … had blood samples and an abdomen X-ray taken probably around midnight … doctor comes and says would like a chest X-ray taken. A while later he returns and says no problems noted re the tummy … but that’d got Hepatitis E! He said the HepE virus is no problem and usually clears itself from the system with 1 or 2 weeks … BUT whilst its in the system it can affect the liver up to the point that it gets completely wrecked and a transplant is a necessity (NICE!). Looked it up, 1-4% fatality rate in males but mostly males with immune problems, pregnant women its a 25% fatality rate! Anyway, as a matter of course, I had two separate medical teams examine me that and they agreed it was a purely a medical matter and not surgical matter at that point. I had to give 9 tubes of blood for testing… but I was admitted for observation and monitoring and the following morning I was visited by the Speciality Medicines Team who took a further 6 vials of blood to test for Weils, HIV, etc)  and then I spent the next 11 days/nights enjoying the best of NHS hospitality with only the odd blood/temp/blood pressure/O2 measurements disturbing my rest – although usually just as I’d dozed off LOL.. Liz left me at 0530 on the Saturday morning and then went into work at 0700 so not much sleep for her that night. June 27th, after the liver enzyme tests had been falling daily it was deemed I was OK to be discharged although I needed to return for more blood tests to ensure all remained going in the right direction (I’ve received a letter since to say that all is going well but they would like me to have another blood sample taken in the next week)..

[HepE is quite rare – a notifiable disease, in 2019 (latest available figures] there were on 1202 reported in the whole UK. Rarely transmitted person-to-person the main source of it is via infected pork products with lesser sourcing being via animal effluent and contaminated water. Not put me off my scratchings though!]

And so it came to pass, that feeling better than I had done for a few months, a good weather forecast ahead and Liz off work using up some holiday entitlement at its use or lose stage we decided to fish on Monday 9th … but as usual the weather changed and it wasn’t until Thursday 13th that we actual wandered forth…

SO… Thursday 13th July, Liz and I set off to fish the tench and bream pool on the club’s Mike Day fishery, setting off at 0700 and arriving around 0740. A bright start to the day and not too bad all through with a just a couple of short showers around 1200-1400.

As is my norm at the venue using a modified 4AAA Premiere Driftbeater float fished in the ‘lift method’ style. My modification of the float involved is by the removal of the balsa sight-bob which I find too large in that its inherent buoyancy can cause difficulties in that a wave on the water can lift the float and cause the bottom shot to drag and lose the tautness in the line required but by adding extra shot to counteract that then a fish has that extra weight to move and thus more likely to drop the bait on feeling that… you could use a standard bodied waggler with a straight stem but then in windy conditions there is not enough buoyancy in the tip to stand against the wind and it would allow the float to tilt and the tip to submerge, hence the need for a moderate amount of buoyancy is needed to address that. So, on my windbeaters the standard bob has been removed and replaced by 2 small (4mm) polystyrene balls about 5mm apart with one ball painted fluoro yellow, the other fluoro orange (other colours are available :D) … which allows settling the float in the water so that the lower (yellow) ball is level with the surface and thus movement of the float is easily seen due to the changing distance between the orange and yellow balls and their reflections  (ie any rise in the orange ball is duplicated by the reflection’s apparent movement downwards and thus the observed gap increases double the actual change … orange ball lowers and gap twixt actual and reflection decreases by double the actual change). Anyway, it works for me! :D

Liz used her leger rod in conjunction with a frame feeder… using maggot on the size 12 hook.

I fed three ‘cricket balls’ of cereal feed mixed with micro-pellets, wheat, barley, corn, etc into the swim before tackling up and during the session I fed catapulted maggot… on the size 12 hook I used maggot, worm and worm/maggot cocktail baits.

First casts were made around 0835 and my first fish came to the net at 0850 – a 2lb 14oz bream.

Throughout the day the bites were steady although most of mine I missed probably due to small silvers – but you never know do you? At the end of the day (1500) the overall tally was:

Liz:

• 3lb 11oz bream
• 1lb 9oz bream
• 1lb 6oz bream
• 4oz tench
• 2 small perch
• 1 small roach

Steve:

• 2lb 14 oz bream
• 1lb 9oz bream
• 1 small perch
• 1 small rudd

…. and we both also lost what we thought would have been good tench who found the sanctuary of the lily pads edging our swims, myself losing two and Liz losing one… all of them leaving our hooks embedded in the lily stems and we both were forced to snap off, Liz losing her feeder and myself a float but one of mine I did eventually pull free with all end tackle intact.

Liz – 3lb 11oz Bream

Steve – 2lb 14oz Bream

And so at the end of the day Liz was leader on the honours list with Biggest, Most, Most Species whilst I had to content myself with First.

The pool was quiet in terms of carp activity especially given the conditions when they are usually cruising at the surface but not on this day. Also a couple of anglers fishing the far bank and a bit further up than we where, were commenting that they were catching too many bream so I expect they were after tench… to me any fish (apart from carp) are good! :)

PLANS

I’m hoping to go to AA-GH on Monday all being well to do a bit of legering for bream hopefully although carp are high on the probablility chart – but as they are expected I’ll forgive them their sins.. :D

CHIT-CHAT

I’ve set up a new leger rig on my leger rods – previously I’ve used a normal stop bead on the mainline with a large eyed swivel running freely above and to the outer eye of the swivel my lead/feeder has been attached via short link of line inside an anti-tangle sleeve terminated with a snaplink to facilitate easy change of weight/feeder… but even this has been subject to tangling around the main line at times.

The new system uses a chod/helicopter bead. I have the swivel/anti-tangle sleeve/snaplink and weight/feeder fitted on to the chod bead instead of directly to the main line thus it remains free running on the main line. Basically it just makes the line pass through a short channel that causes separation of the upper and lower parts of the main line and thus becomes more tangle free.