Most anglers look
forward to bank holidays yet I rarely fish on weekends or bank
holidays as these are spent with the girlfriend, so for me it throws
my whole week into disarray. I did spend a few hours over the four
day weekend preparing my tench tackle for a campaign soon to commence
yet even this preparation has been slow in completing due to the
weather conditions and the start of this, at least a week, if nor
more away from getting underway. One of the main jobs though was to
load reels up with new line. Choice of line hasn’t been a problem,
yet reels have been as although I have plenty, most are from my
previous sponsor, reels that I have to say don’t really hit the
mark when it comes to reliability. I was going to give them one last
chance, yet whilst loading up balls of groundbait into a Gardner
Sling-shot whilst bream fishing on Tuesday the backwind switch went,
a problem that has raised its ugly head on numerous occasions. Back
at home their was only one place for it and all the others, in the
dustbin! Luckily I have a number of Shimano reels and although these
are old, probably fifteen years or more, after a good clean up and
greasing I had them working like new. My advice to everyone buying
reels is to stay with manufacturers that have been making reels for
years; Shimano and Diawa are two of the best. Buy a cheap reel from a
lesser known manufacturer and the chances are you are going to have
problems far sooner than one of the two I have mentioned. Shimano do
small baitrunners for around £50 the same as the ones I have just
binned, yet from the Shimano you will get years of service, the other
a year at best! Let’s look at it this way. My local tackle shop,
Yateley Angling Centre only stock Shimano, why, because they rarely
get anglers bringing these back to the shop with a fault. Enough
said!
After such a
fantastic bream session last week I was eager to return on Tuesday.
The weather was similar apart from the wind which was stronger and
had some north in it. Luckily the same swim was free and with rods
all clipped up all that needed doing was get some bait out and
dropping the rigs over the top. Let’s just say last week was a one
of as come first light I hadn’t received even a single bleep.
That’s fishing!
Although I packed
up at first light on Wednesday, it was almost midday when I arrived
home as I had a few people to see on my way home. By the time I had
cleaned the tackle and organised it for another overnighter as well
as sorting out some float fishing kit for Thursday morning, the day
had passed.
Thursday morning
dawned raw and I suspected that the two keen young anglers that I had
planned to look after for the morning would have cancelled, yet as
eager as ever they were waiting at the gate come the 7.30am start.
With the wind reaching almost gale force and snow flakes in the air
we headed for relatively unknown day ticket water called Riverside
Farm located in Hollywater, Hants. Its one of those waters where even
on the coldest day you will get bites, usually from quality roach and
today was as expected, a bite a chuck. Fortunately Granddad was on
hand to keep the boys interested up and help with the tangles and
come 1pm, although cold, we had taken a mix catch of roach, rudd,
perch, gudgeon and carp.
I had planned to
head back for another overnight bream session but with the north east
wind getting stronger, snow falling and temperatures just above
freezing; decided that sensibility was called for.
Fridays all about
catching up on some paper work such as submitting ‘Where to Fish’
images for Anglers Mail, preparing kit for an ‘Action Replay’ on
Monday, ordering some items of Nash kit needed, creating some
leaflets to promote the barbel trips to the river Wye as well as my
book, sorting some dates out to do talks and slideshows as well as
sorting a few areas of my website that need looking at, so its going
to be a busy one. Come 6pm I’m going to pick up my mate Chris and
go and spend a few hours feature finding on the tench lake so we have
a starting point for next weeks first session.
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