stevetheangler

Monday, 14th of April, I left the house at 0630 to head again to the club’s tench and bream pool (AA-B) on the Mike Day Fishery.

I arrived onsite around 0715 to find a car already on the car park (A) so my heart dropped a bit as I suspected the occupant(s) may be in my desired swim LOL… However, the chain that had prevented driving further up the pool so far this year had been taken off and so I was able to drive to park in the area of my desired swim (B) without needing to barrow my kit up … pleased about that!  (C) and (D) are the other permissible parking areas on the pools. Anyway, when I arrived I had a good view for most part up and down the pool and I couldn’t spot the earlybird and so assumed that he/she had taken up residence on the adjoining carp pool down by the car park…

… but it transpired after I’d been fishing for 30+ minutes that I spotted that he was fishing on the opposite bank a couple of swims closer to the island than I was but was well hidden behind the foliage of a tree that has half fallen into the water.

Anyway, back to me… I started off identically as I had on my previous trip with almost my same setup… the one exception being that the braid hooklink was replaced by 8lb mono – solely as the loop on the original braid link had been catching on the snap link when attaching leading to splitting of the fibres… one of the annoyances of braid and quick change attachments – must find a suitable way of creating a braid link that uses a mono loop!

• 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 MONO 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.
• Bait – initially large dendrobaena worm but did try squid tentacle for a while.

Weather was blustery for most of the day and overcast with some darkening of the clouds that came and went but there were moments of sunshine and unrippled water. A chilly breeze…

So first cast was made at  0745 with worm…

0835 – a scream from the alarm – missed…
0905 – a tench of 2b 11oz landed…

1030 – a small, palm sized perch

At this point I thought I’d try a switch to a cube of squid tentacle as bait as in the past I’ve used a strip of squid hood as bait quite successfully – and there are many commercial ‘squid’ boilies sold to the carpers. So, on went the cube for 45 minutes without so much of a touch before switching back to worm and within a few minutes…

1140 – a tench of 2lb 4oz hits the net.. followed by..

1240 – a tench of 3lb 1oz.

After this all went quiet without a single nudge for an hour and a half without a single nudge – and the breeze was picking up – and in the distance the clouds looked to be getting darker – and as the forecast had predicted afternoon rain I decided to call it a day. And after packing up and whilst sat in the car ringing Liz to say I was starting out back home a few rain spots hit the windscreen… however, as usual, before I’d travelled half a mile the skies lightened in front of me – but still darker from whence I’d left … so I was happy with the decision :)

OTHER

My fellow angler on the other bank seemed to be having a few evidenced by the splashing and occasional view of a landing net in action although I didn’t see any monsters in the net. It seemed he’d two rods out – one float fishing the margins and the other a feeder tackle cast to the point of the island.

PLANS

Not sure yet, hopefully next Monday … might try another venue … but then again may not!! LOL!