stevetheangler

Monday, 7th of April, Liz and I left the house at 0700 to head to the club’s tench and bream pool (AA-B).

It was a morning that started with a heavy frost requiring the windscreen heater to clear and enroute the fields were mainly white over but the journey was smooth and we arrived on the waters car park to find a car already in parked up. A bit worrying as we thought one of the swim’s we intended to fish would be already taken but a quick reconnaissance showed that the angler had taken up residence on the other bank to our relief…

So, car boot opened, Liz’s trolley and my barrow loaded up, we headed to our desired ‘offices’ for the day…

On arrival, I’d taken my thermometer to check the water temp as this particular water, I find, needs water temps of 18+’C to fish well and preferably into the 20’s … and checking it seemed that the water temp was 9.5’C … far too cold on the float IMHO and so, for me, legered large baits was going to be the order of the day whilst Liz was intending to fish on the feeder. Incidentally, air temp at that time was 11.5’C … and rose over the day (in a sheltered but open to direct sun spot to 28’C). Water temp when we left was 12.5’C. However, a strange occurrence with the water temp was noted at around 0900 – at that time the temp started dropping and over a period of 45 minutes or so dropped steadily to 5.5’C and then over the next 45 minutes rose back to 9.5’C.. only thing I can think of that could cause that is that the water from the thawed frost had leached into the brook that feeds into the pool and was making its way to the other end of the pool where it goes on to feed, via a pipe, the adjoining carp pool and hence from the far side of that pool back into the brook…

Water had been dyed blue on Thursday – last couple of years has worked really well to solve weed problems that in summer used to lead to a situation not unlike tumbleweed…

Pre-feeding my swim was first task of the day and was done with several catapults of mixed particles (the usual flavoured and coloured hemp, barley, wheat, rice, etc) and several ‘pults of suffocated maggot. Then the prep of landing net, unhooking cradle, rod rests, etc preceded the setting up of my leger rod…

• 11’ Fladen Collateral Feeder rod with the standard top.
  Originally purchased to use with the quiver tip section as a float fishing rod on the canal as I find all float rods these days are fitted with tip rings that are too small to use with sliding floats – even using when using stop knots as opposed to the rubber stops – and the knot catches and jars the passage of line on the cast especially with a lighter than usual float as one does on the canal.. I suppose I could have resolved the problem by using a fixed float but since mid 70’s I’ve always attached my floats as sliders attached bottoy eye only… find adjusting is far easier change from fishing 18” of water to 18’ in seconds.
• 8lb Daiwa HyperSensor main line with 6” of 8lb braid hook link with size 6 hook (Kamasan Animal Barbless) connected via size 16 snap link swivel to allow quick changes.
• 3/4oz (21g) bomb as weighting stopped to give an about 20” tail from stop to hook using a Enterprise Tackle type Adjusta Stop – I say ‘type’ as nowadays I use extremely similar items purchased from Ali Express or on e of the other direct from China online sellers – had no problem with them (with these and other purchases for items made) and far cheaper. Bomb is attached via a sliding swivel on the main line – the other end of the swivel has attached a 4” approx link of stiff feeder line terminated with a snap link to allow quick changing of weight to suit conditions. I also add a sleeve of silicon rubber over the nylon link to stop it wrapping around the main line on casting.

  [Best way to create this link – tie a approx 12” length of feeder line to a swivel – at other end of this line create a loop about 4”-6” from swivel – loop tyer recommended – trim off excess line – line up a piece of suitable bore silicon rubber to fit over swivel’s eye and cut slightly overlength – using a baiting needle in loop pull link line down through the rubber tube and pull top of rubber over the swivel’s eye – now IMPORTANT BIT – trim off rubber so that with rubber RELAXED the loop is about 3-4mm INSIDE the rubber – hook loop with baiting needle and slide/squeeze rubber up link line to allow a snap link to be added to the loop – once link added slide rubber over the top of the snap link so that rubber is smooth and not stretched … easy with a bit of practice!! How to know you’ve got it right: rubber sleeving is not ‘crumpled’ otherwise its too long AND when swivel and snaplink gripped and pulled away from each other the rubber does not pull from neither the eye of the swivel nor from the top of the snaplink otherwise the rubber sleeve is too short. Getting the rubber sleeve just right does make a BIG difference to the effectiveness of the anti-tangling properties!]

I carry several made up sliding links in my tackle box far easier to make up at home than on the bank and can be wrapped around to fit several in the average tackle box’s compartments…

• Bait – two large dendrobaena worms.

So, already to go, first casts were made about 0800…

Up to around 0945 a few little knocks and a possible, bigger up and down, line bite ensued … and then came the judder of the bobbin and beeps of the alarm .. followed by a proper slow bobbin lift and beep, beep, beep, of the alarm … and a lift into the bite met solid resistance and the realisation that this is a good fish! A few minutes of play and with Liz ready with the net for the final stage and a nice tench came to hand. Unhooked in the net and the net detached from its pole (as I use a quick release fitting) the tench and net were dropped in the unhooking cradle whilst attaching the scales – and found to be 7lb 3oz – which minus the 1lb 10oz weight of the net gave a final weight of 5lb 9oz!

A NEW PERSONAL BEST TENCH BY 7OZ! Elation or what!? :D

Photos taken … of which this was the best…

5lb 9oz Tench

So, continuing on, hook rebaited with worms ..

1000… another beep, beep, slow bobbin lift, rod lifted – fish felt and then hook pulled! :(

However, it only felt a small fish probably 2lb at most it felt like … but you never know… and will never know now! Barrummm…

I decided at this stage to change bait to prawn – a decision that Liz disagreed with and possibly was right about as after several hours and more feeding of the swim I had not a further touch – and after changing again to Bacon Grill for another couple of hours still not a touch – and even after a further couple hours having switch back to worm I’d not had a thing before home time.

Liz fared poorly … a few knocks here and and there but nothing decisive.

So ended the day at the pool and we tackled own at 1500 and headed home to wash and change before visiting our local for respectively congratulatory and commissary/sorrow drowning libations. The beers were good but the usual cobs were shunned in favour of having cheese on crackers back at home. It seems from when we visited last week that the cob/butty supplier had changed – it seemed good when initially purchased as the cobs were twice the size as they had previously had been (probably dearer too but as Liz purchased I don’t know)… however it was too big for me and so I gave half to Liz. And this week we decided against as it seemed although the size had increased the amount of filling didn’t seem to be much more than the previous version and hence too ‘bready’ and unbalanced even half portioned. So I settled for a bag of hard ‘Bostin’ (brand) Pork Scratchings (Bostin is a Black Country term meaning great or excellent as in ’them was really bostin owr kid’ and a bag of dry roasted nuts .. and we stopped off at Aldi in passing on our way home to pick up some Red Leicester and Shropshire Blue cheeses for our crackers.

OTHER

I had ordered a ‘new’ Chub 5-rod quiver with 4 rod sleeves – and although I knew it was described as ‘used’ when ordered I actually thought it was ‘new’ due given its condition when it arrived but some colour coded strings and some very faint biro labelling as ‘Rod 1’, etc do seem to indicate it is actually ‘used’. Anyway, it was ordered to replace my old Trakker item which was getting worse for wear. And I love the new Chub’! The Trakker held the rods unprotected in butt pockets and Velcro straps at the upper end – so that necessitated having to use tip protector sleeves on top of the folded down rods and neoprene reel pouches … but the main issue was the unprotected lines running down each section of the rod – easy to get snagged in transit in the car boot or on the bushes when walking leading to snapped lines and the need to retackle in such cases. To alleviate that problem required a number of things to be done – making sure the reels’s bale arms and handles were aligned correctly (time consuming and fiddly!) and then velcro strapping needed around the lines near the reel seating on each rod to keep the line as close to the blanks as possible to keep possibility of snagging at a minimum. Right game to do with even with just one rod and add another to be done… and then all that needs undoing when getting the rods out to use. The Chub with is rod sleeves – basically just a case of wind line in, put rod in sleeve, zip, put sleeve in quiver packet and strap down. Probably takes 5% of time!

PLANS

Hopefully back there next Monday 14/4. Weather forecast is showers on Sunday, dry Monday … hopefully showers will hopefully invigorate the fish! LOL