PILLAR TO POST

 Getting to College pool can take anything up to an hour from Pete's place but it can be well worth it. Fishing hemp, tares and wheat close in has produced nice roach and bream for us both and personally, I find few things as enjoyable as short pole fishing. We were both keen to get away from recalcitrant canals and see if a few fish could be persuaded to feed in the pool. It's not your usual pool with plenty of depth close in and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

     Yet again, the weather had the last word. College pool was only identifiable as a gap surrounded by semi-submerged trees rising from the water. Some of the roads leading there had so much water on them that I daren't risk returning the same way. Wandering off the tarmac could easily have led to a desperate search for a friendly farmer who, palms greased with silver, might tow my poor, sump-damaged car back onto terra firma. We had to admit defeat yet again and head off back to the cut.

     Of course by now we not only had all the wrong baits, we were late for the best of the inevitably abbreviated feeding period, nevertheless we had to try. We both had wheat, hemp and tares, and following a last minute conversation, a few slices of bread. That turned out to be a great decision because other than a couple of knocks all of our, admittedly few, bites came on bread. Mostly they were small roach, but I did get one half decent canal bream of 2-4. It wasn't much but it did serve to remind me how much I enjoy pole fishing for roach and bream.

     Spring is weeks away and a couple of sunny days have served to remind me of the good times to come. Hemp and wheat for roach and bream on the pole, carp on the Mk IVs, tench and crucians on the avon rods; and then there's the rivers. Billy Lane's delightful commodore and Mitchell match, trotting wagglers on the Avon and the Trent. Maybe a summer Wye barbel on the Matchmaker and Speedia, or Match Aerial, or Conquest. Decisions, decisions. Actually I fancy trotting on the Leam as well. I remember some nice days doing that on the Soar and other small rivers in the past. Jigging for perch and pike from the kayak on Rudyard. So much to look forward to, no wonder angler's are an optimistic bunch. If only it would just stop raining for a while.