One Last Hurrah

The final day of the season, still as special as always despite the close season rule changes on stillwaters. A last chance to sit beside running water for a whole three months. My chances to fish of late have been extremely limited but there was nothing that was going to get in the way. A whole day away from the business for which I owe my wife a large debt of gratitude. She will make me pay I'm sure!

I arrived late, the joys of getting three kids sorted for school but the whole day was ahead of us so I did not fret. Martin was already well settled in a swim, the first stage of his plan to fish the early morning for predators in full swing. I hadn't even finished tackling up before I was commanded over to his swim for photography duty. An excited Martin had a pb Zander in the net. At 9lb 9oz he had smashed his previous best by over six pounds, his half smile hiding obvious delight. 

My tactics were different, my target was Barbel and I intended to fill a swim with maggots and hemp, wait a while and empty the river of its slippery residents. A few Chub and a solitary Perch fell for the tactic, but they weren't exactly crawling up the line as I had hoped. 

Between bites I amused myself watching the lumberjacks trimming the tree opposite. With my vertigo I felt sick just watching!

On Martin's advice I chucked a second rod upstream with pellet and a pva bag and it finally gave me the prize I desired, not a monster but a Barbel landed and I was happy.

A Jenny Wren gave an opportunity for some playing with the camera.

Eventually as darkness fell the fish started to feed in earnest, Martin had sveral Chub and a solitary Barbel and I managed an Eel and a Chub of 4lb 5oz...

and finally a Bream of (strangely) exactly the same weight.

And so the sun sets on another season and I have just one target for next, to get more time on the bank!

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

Bullocks to Zander

11 foot of carbon feeder rod is probably not the most obvious choice of weapon for fending off a herd of inquisitive Bullocks but Steve thought it was. It worked for a while anyway. 

The rain properly arrived this week and we had a difficult session on the Avon. The river was a few inches up and with that came a constant barrage of weed through the swim making delicate presentation an impossibility. We had decided to cover all the bases and I had a small Roach dead bait cast out for Zander on one rod, a lump of luncheon meat on another for Barbel and Steve also tried for the Zeds plus a maggot feeder for anything else that came along.

We arrived mid afternoon and it took quite a while for us to get the first fish, a Jack Pike of about 7lb to my Roach rod. Steve followed this up with a cracking Perch of about 12oz and then another a bit smaller. The heavens opened around 5pm and that seemed to slow the fishing down.  Just as it was getting dark Steve had a big Dace at least half a pound. 

It was my turn next and I landed a 4lb 6oz Zander which had ignored the deadbait, preferring the Luncheon meat instead, fishing is a funny old game!

As you can probably tell from my jacket that by this time we were soaked through. The thunder and lightning had started and we know bolts of electricity and lengths of carbon are not good bedfellows so it was time to call it a night.

The trek back to the van is across three fields, two of which now had skittish Bullocks in them due to the storm. The first field we gave our bovine friends a wide berth and they ignored us. The next field was darker and we did not see them until we were virtually upon them. This spooked them and they set off for a run. They ran across and behind us which was a tad scary with the lightning flashes to illuminate them. They then turned and followed us but thankfully slowly and at a distance. We reached the stile in record quick time, I leapt over it and just as Steve was about to follow a Deer jumped out of the trees and ran for it. He nearly died, one more shock would have finished him off. We then drove home in a spectacular storm, via the Oddfellows for a nerve calming ale of course.