A hot and busy weekend as I was
attending my first Nash Tackle Roadshow that was being held at
Broadlands Fishery in Hampshire. With the temperatures reaching
almost thirty degrees catching off the bottom during daylight was
always going to prove hard so the floater gear was packed just in
case they showed interest in the odd floater.
Arriving early Saturday morning, first
job was to unload the tackle to be shown before setting up some gear
so myself and Stuart Jupp could do a few tackle/tactic
demonstrations. The bottom baits produced a few small bream early on
but as the sun and temperatures rose so did the carp. Setting up a
prototype Peg One lightweight carp combo rod, and with few if any
snags nearby, a reel loaded with just 6lb mainline we scaled things
right down with a small size 14mm barbless hook and low diameter 6lb
hooklink along with a controller float. It wasn’t long before a few
carp showed some interest and shortly afterwards the fist carp of
around 10lb was landed. A couple more smaller carp followed before I
hooked what felt like a much better fish and my instincts were right
as a 21lb 8oz soon graced the net, however it was Stuart who stole
the show with an immaculate dark mirror of 22lb 8oz. The carp boys
also managed a few with the bailiff’s daughter, Sky managing a mid
double; however the scaled down rigs proved superior in terms of size
and numbers. Saturday proved to be the busiest day and coincided with
a carp championship qualifier; however come Sunday it seemed that
everyone had either headed to the seaside or stayed in to watch the
final of Wimbledon.
I have to say a big thank you to the
Nash guys who made me feel extremely welcome over the weekend and I’m
looking forward to the next Roadshow. Keep an eye out for future
dates and if you have a weekend free come down as it’s a great
event with plenty going on.
Monday dawned hot again and I needed to
get on top of things such as weekly blog, diary updates plus a host
of other items, so it was well into the afternoon that I finally
managed to get out of the office and sort out the Thames carp gear. I
didn’t see any point in arriving till late as if any action was
received it would surely be after dark. Targeting a different section
to last week, below a lock cutting and weir we arrived to find people
everywhere enjoying the sun and some jumping of the bridge that we
had initially wanted to fish under. Finally we set up around two
hundred yards downstream and with all rods out finally settled down
for a comfortable night under the stars. My mate Chris had bought the
bait for the trip and by the time I had finished spombing found my
hands to be bright red due to loads of robin-red and colouring in the
pellets, so if anyone catches a carp in the middle reaches of the
Thames that looks as if its wearing lipstick, then you know why!
Unfortunately, once again the carp weren’t anywhere to be found and
just one spawned up bream came during the night.
I didn’t see the point of staying
late and then fighting the traffic so come 6am I was away and back at
home in double quick time which allowed for a couple of hours
shut-eye before the phone started ringing. With a customer booked in
for a spot of after dark waggler fishing at Frensham and a day with
Roy Westwood to create some images for future Anglers Mail questions
and answers the day was spent organising kit before heading of to
Frensham. Arriving at 4pm I was surprised to see so few anglers
around the lake, sixty acres almost to my self! Adrian arrived
shortly afterwards and with an easterly wind blowing decided to fish
the tow path bank. Our aim was to catch big rudd on the float and
maggot but it soon became obvious we had a slight problem as there’s
been an explosion of tiny perch, even at distance. Undeterred we
soldiered on and finally Adrian connected with a good rudd which
weighed 1lb 14oz. We fished till around 10.30pm when it was obvious
that it wasn’t to be a red-letter day, yet in between the small
perch and rudd the odd better fish came and our tally was three good
rudd, three good perch and two lost tench.
It was gone midnight when I finally
turned in and with the alarm set at 5.45am I awoke totally knackered.
Today was to be spent creating a few new library images with Roy
Westwood and Anglers Mail and although we had all day, luckily we
both got on with the job in hand, Roy taking images and myself
catching a few fish on bread under a stick float that consisted of
trout, dace and chub and come 11am we had things sorted.
Thursday morning started with a round
of golf with my mum and it looks like my games coming back as I
finished the nine hole course in just 38 shots, that’s just seven
shots over and taking into consideration I took seven on one hole it
could have been so much better. Back at home I spent a few hours
writing the words for the pictures taken on Wednesday before getting
my tackle ready for another Thames trip and by 8pm myself and Chris
were set up once more in a new area, one with a track record that
produced a thirty for me some years ago. As darkness fell a couple of
bream found my 15/10mm snowman bait so on went the 20/15mm baits
which quietened things down. If you want to make fuss free perfect
snowman bait setups along with a glug to match then The Nash Snowpots
are the perfect solution. In fact it was so quiet that only two
bleeps came my way with Chris hooking a loosing a fish in the night
that felt like a bream. Next trip I am going to persist with the
smaller baits, that is until six bream have found my baits then
switch over if needed as well as recasting the baits every four
hours, yet with hardly any weed and clean gravel in most swims I’m
not sure this will make too much difference as all our baits have
been coming back clean. Back at home the afternoon was spent creating
a final article on tench fishing for CAT.
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