Monday, July 8th at 0600, I was away again to the club’s tench and bream water (AA-B), at the club’s ‘Mike Day Fishery’ again …. hoping to hook into the inhabiting bream and tench…. or perch, barbel, gudgeon …
Arriving at the water at around 0630’ish there was already one car on the car park … and its occupant was already setting up in the swim next to the one I’d intended fishing … and so from the point of etiquette, plus the fact the swim’s lily pads had started to encroach in and getting out my cutting pole to cut them back would have disturbed the neighbour, I elected to fish a couple of swims further along where the water was clear but had a platform island in front, slightly to the left side, that housed the solar panels, batteries and pump of the pool’s aeration system.
The temps over the day were warm with little breeze at all and mainly dry except for a short period of showers around midday…
Baiting up was the first task as usual … about 20 cricket ball sized groundbait balls consisting of crumb, particles (rice, barley, corn, hemp, wheat), dead/suffocated maggots, hemp oil, Coffeemate, etc were deposited all around the area to be fished.
Tackle for the start of the day was to be my usual ‘lift method’ kit … but I’d also pre-tackled an ‘on the drop’ setup at home to be tried later in the day consisting, like my ‘LM’ tackle of a 13’ Hardy Matchmaker float rod (albeit a ‘clone’ one that a moonlighting Hardy’s employee of the 70’s used top make – exactly same blanks, whippings, etc as the pukka gen and the only thing missing was the Hardy’s decal/badge), and I used same Daiwa Hyper Sensor 6lb mainline and 6” 6lb hooklength … difference really between the 2 setups being that for the ‘OTD’ I used a 3AAA antenna float bulk shotted just short of halfway to the hook, a No 4 shot halfway between the bulk and the hook and another No 4 just on the quick change adapter for the 6” hooklength I use … and plumbed and set so that the bottom shot was just shy of the bottom.
Anyway, I started with the ‘LM’ rod with double maggot on size 16 hook … and had takes from the first cast, many missed but a fair few connected with and over the first hour I’d landed 12-14 small roach and perch (most around 1-2oz)… then it went quiet for quite a time … and around 1030 I switched to the ‘OTD’ rod and spasmodically caught … and from then until the end of session I switched between rods catching more ‘fry’ inc the 2nd smallest tench I’ve ever had and the two best fish of the day – a tench of around 1lb and another of 2lb 8oz.
Skimmer 2lb 8oz Tench
I packed in at around 1430…
PLANS
Thursday 18th I’m planning a trip back to the pool … I’ve got some Amchoor (dried mango powder) to add to my groundbait as an attractant so will have to see how that goes :)
I’m hoping to get into my usual swim before anyone else arrives and get my ‘lily cutter’ apparatus set up and in operation and also to get a ‘sleeper’ leger rod out to my left baited with prawn and/or calamari. I’ll also have my usual worms with me – took them last time but my medium was too dry and weren’t looking good and so I never used them.
Today, I split my worm box contents into two lots in woven plastic bags… large versions of the bags the worm suppliers use to post them? Worked ok when the council changed our wheelie bin colours and I used the then defunct ones for my wormery containers… The now container is a flatter storage crate that both bags fit into.
stevetheangler 
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