I LOVE IT WHEN MY CAR STINKS IN THE MORNING.
It means that my last trip was a good'un. It might even mean that I've learned something useful and today was my first chance to find out. Dawn, then, found me squelching along an ever more claggy towpath in pursuit of Roach and Hybrids. My recent trips with casters and worm had produced some nice Perch but as much as I love catching them, they aren't Roach.
With that in mind I bought Friday's tactics to the cut; blockend feeder and maggots on the tip. The only real change was a step up in refinement by changing down to a 4lb mainline and a 2lbs hooklength. I stayed with the 18 hook; if the bites I'd failed to convert on worms were tiddlers then I'd have a better chance of finding out.
It was half an hour before the tip registered signs of life and rather disappointingly it was more of the same. The tip might rattle once or twice before pulling round slowly for three or four inches. If I struck, I missed and I really suspected crayfish at first but employing lessons learned on the club pool did the trick. If a bite didn't develop I slid the rod across the rest by an inch or so feeding a bit more slack line to the fish.
It never stayed slack for long; drift and undertow just tensioning it enough. Eventually the tip would go round and stay round. A beautiful Roach of 15.5 ounces was my first visitor; just what I was hoping for. All Roach are beautiful in my book but when they get to about a pound that beauty comes with a certain heft that sets them apart from the tiddlers. A pound plus Roach is a big fish in my book and is thus
recorded. One has to have a limit and while I was more than happy with this one, 15.5 ounces misses the boat, just. I find it inexplicably irritating that was my second in two days to fall a half ounce short.
Of course the next fish weighed exactly a pound but it was a Hybrid; typical. That is the problem with targets and boundaries. Only just offside, is offside and the more accurately you measure these things the more marginal the 'just offsides' are but I digress. The next fish felt bigger but the refusal to give up had identified it as a decent Hybrid long before I saw it. It cleared two pounds by a small but definite margin. The fourth fell off as I readied the net which was a shame.
I was still getting interest on every cast but before I could put the hook in another, a boat came chugging around the corner. I only had 25 minutes left anyway; Sunday mornings for me consist of a moderate
angle that ends with the first boat or 10 am, whichever comes sooner, then home for a late breakfast. Three good fish landed and one lost in an hour and a half is a perfect Sunday morning for me; I ask nothing else of life.
With that in mind I bought Friday's tactics to the cut; blockend feeder and maggots on the tip. The only real change was a step up in refinement by changing down to a 4lb mainline and a 2lbs hooklength. I stayed with the 18 hook; if the bites I'd failed to convert on worms were tiddlers then I'd have a better chance of finding out.
It was half an hour before the tip registered signs of life and rather disappointingly it was more of the same. The tip might rattle once or twice before pulling round slowly for three or four inches. If I struck, I missed and I really suspected crayfish at first but employing lessons learned on the club pool did the trick. If a bite didn't develop I slid the rod across the rest by an inch or so feeding a bit more slack line to the fish.
It never stayed slack for long; drift and undertow just tensioning it enough. Eventually the tip would go round and stay round. A beautiful Roach of 15.5 ounces was my first visitor; just what I was hoping for. All Roach are beautiful in my book but when they get to about a pound that beauty comes with a certain heft that sets them apart from the tiddlers. A pound plus Roach is a big fish in my book and is thus
recorded. One has to have a limit and while I was more than happy with this one, 15.5 ounces misses the boat, just. I find it inexplicably irritating that was my second in two days to fall a half ounce short.
Of course the next fish weighed exactly a pound but it was a Hybrid; typical. That is the problem with targets and boundaries. Only just offside, is offside and the more accurately you measure these things the more marginal the 'just offsides' are but I digress. The next fish felt bigger but the refusal to give up had identified it as a decent Hybrid long before I saw it. It cleared two pounds by a small but definite margin. The fourth fell off as I readied the net which was a shame.
I was still getting interest on every cast but before I could put the hook in another, a boat came chugging around the corner. I only had 25 minutes left anyway; Sunday mornings for me consist of a moderate
angle that ends with the first boat or 10 am, whichever comes sooner, then home for a late breakfast. Three good fish landed and one lost in an hour and a half is a perfect Sunday morning for me; I ask nothing else of life.
Stinky car is good
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