stevetheangler

Monday, July 29th July, Liz and myself set off for Barlow’s Pool at the Mike Day Fishery setting out at 0700 – later than usual start being dictated by Liz not liking to rise from bed earlier than my personal ‘midday’ LOL!

Consequently we arrived on the car park at around 0740 to find what is now the usual, but seemingly never the same car or angler, already there. Being a bit worried where that ‘other’ may have set up I used the time before Liz arrived at the car to pop through the bushes to spy on to the far side of the pool and saw said angler was on far bank but only a peg or two up … and Liz and I, if fishing that bank, usually fish halfway or more up.

[When Liz and I fish there together there I stop at the first, padlocked, gate and Liz pops out of the car, unlocks and opens that gate and, whilst she relocks that gate, I continue down to the second gate at the pool, open it and drive through and then continue on to the car parking area about 15-20 yards further on … then, as Liz walks down and closes second gate and gets to me I’ve started unpacking the tackle and setting up and loading my barrow and Liz’s trolley]

So with all being clear for us we take the tackle round to our desired area and prepare ourselves, tackle, bait, ancillary  items and feeding of the swim ready to fish …

I elected, as usual, to float fish by lift method to start (but actually did so all day) whilst Liz set up for her usual frame feeder on alarm …

Anyway, I started off OK … first two casts resulting in two fish … a small perch followed immediately by a bream of 1lb 13oz.

So, two casts = 2 fish, a good days results ahead?

NAH!!! Although I was having bites virtually every cast even when baits swapped to cheese paste, worm and sweetcorn … nothing else came to hand up to the end of session at 1600…

Meanwhile Liz had a slow start …. and caught irregularly … but did manage to land a tench of 2lb 11oz, a bream of 1lb 3oz, a smaller bream and a small perch plus had some small perch escape the hook on landing …

So I barely escaped a whitewashing on the day by reason of the ‘first fish’ with Liz winning ‘the best’, ‘the most’, ‘most species’, and ‘last’ categories…

HOWEVER some extended ‘fun’ happened around 1300 when C. Gosling Jnr deemed to put in an appearance in order to salvage loose bait from around my feet and also to try to delve into my bait and groundbait containers and whom I attempted to keep at bay via the pointy end of a bankstick… and at one point swimming along the edge of the bank he caught its head on my line and panicked and caused an even worse situation by getting the line wrapped completely around its throat causing even more panic and ultimately ended up trussed like a Xmas turkey with my line completely wrapped around neck, legs and a wing … and trying to keep it in control I was one handed due to having to hold the rod … but luckily as Liz was with me she  managed to grab it, control it and quickly with great dexterity she managed to untangle it all without need to cut the line as I’d been ready to do… all the time of the struggles Mr & Mrs C. Goose Snr where sat just over the other side keeping an eye on proceedings … the odd squawk but no aggressive display and seemed to realise that we were helping rather than being a danger. On release CG Jnr headed straight back to his parents where he/she/it seemed to get a bit of a scolding (teenagers! Eh? LOL) and for the rest of the day stayed close to the opposite bank… well, at least until we were packing up when a reappearance was made at Liz’s peg to snaffle spilt baits…

The day ended as usual with a trip to a local hostelry post going home to sort and deposit tackle and shower and tidy up.

PLANS

Not sure probably return to the pool on Monday … would have liked a Severn trip but levels are low … and Liz may come out to play again.