Drop Shot Danny and the Bloggers

The salubrious Coventry canal. A venue packed with Zander but sadly I could not muster even a baby 'Zed'. Still it was an interesting venue to while away a few hours of daylight with a plethora of fellow bloggers some of whom did manage to get their strings pulled.
It was great to meet up with some old acquaintances and some familiar faces that I have never met before but feel I know well anyway.
Also watching Danny putting his drop shot technique to devastating effect landing more fish than the rest of use combined has given us all food for thought. A moving bait is definitely the way forward on this and similar venues for me in the future.

Drop shot Danny

Rain Stops Play

In the interest of blogging balance blanks are always posted, as well as red letter days. Sadly this weekend was the former.
Martin and I took a short road trip down to the Wye valley on the outskirts of Ross on Wye. Our target was Pike and hopefully huge ones. The trip had been booked three weeks previously so obviously weather wise we were completely at the mercy of the gods, they were not kind. The previous day was a wash out across the whole of Wales. Torrential down pours emptied into the river system and when we arrived at our chosen stretch the river looked perfect but it was on the rise. And boy did it rise quickly!
To add to a rapidly rising river(in my opinion the worse possible conditions for Pike) within ten minutes  of our arrival the heavens opened and it did not not up. It was so heavy it caused the river surface to bubble up.
Despite the conditions I did manage to hook a Jack Pike within ten minutes of casting out but sadly it threw the hook just as I was about to net it. That was the some total of the action and after four hours we beat a soggy retreat to the car for an early lunch.
A change of venue was decided upon and we toddled off closer to home and our favourite river Avon. We both knew that the odds were against us again as the Avon was a foot and a bit above normal levels and a lovely chocolate brown, lovely for Barbel not so good for Pike. We gave it our best shot but yet again we were sent home with our tails between our legs, a couple of right blankers!
Did manage to get a nice shot of a pheasant though......

Max Enjoyment

Last week my eldest daughter joined me, this week it was Max's turn. All week he was as keen as mustard, "how many more sleeps 'til we go fishing Daddy?". He had no idea how happy his constant questioning made me.
Now Max is only four years old and with that in mind I knew consistent action would be required to keep him interested so whilst I put a rod out for Pike I set him up with a maggot feeder in a swim that would hopefully produce lots of bites. There is nothing certain in fishing but thankfully the fish played ball(and the weather was lovely)!

Max certainly looked the part! 

Patience my boy patience!

Casting was my domain but he insisted on reeling in even though he was not strong enough to hold the rod but by leaving it on the rest he could manage to bring in everything he hooked. I thought it wise to keep the anti-reverse engaged to avoid tangles and it worked, not one birds nest all day!

Smug!

We managed to fish for about four hours and ended the day with a pretty decent haul consisting of Roach, Chub, big Dace and a decent Perch. As you can tell from the picture he was pretty pleased with himself.

The Pike rod remained dormant for the duration so I suppose I blanked but it was the most enjoyable blank I have had in a long time!

Too much fresh air?