My own writing on the site (apart from news reports, the forum and reviews) has taken a back seat for a spell, mainly due to the site growing so much and me finding it difficult just to keep up with the editing of so many fine articles by members. Which is why the Digital Diary hasn’t been keeping track of my exploits just lately.
I had such a good day with my grandson Calum yesterday though I just had to tell you about it. We were meant to go early morning until late afternoon but it didn’t work out like that. Calum slept at our house the night before and we got up early enough. But it was then he told me he wanted to fish with maggots, which meant we had to wait for the tackle shop to open at 9am. So it was about 10.30 when we finally arrived at the local pool. Calum was float fishing close in with 3lb line to a 16’s on double maggot by 11.00 and I had a carp rod out on 12lb line and a boilie half an hour later, fishing a narrow gap between two lily beds 30yds out.
For my own fishing I’d decided to get back to basics, which meant no PVA bag, no spodding, no particles, but just a couple of dozen boilies catapulted around the vicinity of the hookbait. My tackle was a Pallatrax Stumpy rig (12lb braid to a 6’s) with a black Stonze weight, with the rubber cut so that it was running rather than fixed. It was a dull, murky day (for a nice change after the heatwave!) and it rained with that fine drizzle that soaks everything intermittently for the 4 1/2 hours we fished. And we got wet through in spite of the Brotel we’d erected for we spent more time outside it landing fish than we did under it waiting for bites. Not that we minded for it was great to have so much action.
Every time I had a run I fired in another couple of dozen or so boilies until I ran out of bait by the time we had to pack for home. Calum got through a pint of maggots, which was the only thing he used to feed the swim. He caught carp, perch, gudgeon and his first ever catfish, a lovely little kitten of less than a pound in weight. We were both really made up about that; what a gorgeous little fish and a first of a species is always special.
I couldn’t go wrong, catching quite a few single figure fish, three doubles and my best fish of the day that I estimated at 25lb. No, I didn’t forget my scales, I have two sets of digis, one set that weigh to 22lb and one that weigh to 55lb, and I put the wrong ones in my bag. The estimated 25-pounder thumped the lighter scales down to their 22lb limit with ease and I reckon 25lb is a fair estimation as I tend to underestimate fish weights anyway. Not that it really matters. It was the biggest fish Calum has ever seen and he was as chuffed with seeing that as he was catching his first catfish. |
Welcome!Log into your account
