I’m pleased to say that my run of good form has continued from last weekend with a recent session on stillwater, having spent the previous few sessions stood in the river I was ready for a bit of a change and a sit down.
Having agreed a venue earlier in the week with my mate, I picked him up at just gone six this morning after a lighter than usual Friday night on the vino due to being out early and we were beside a large, twenty acre plus lake by around six forty five and the only consideration I had was getting on the end of that warm southerly that was blowing up from the continent and boy did it pay dividends!
I set up a heavy bodied waggler rig comprising of a bulk of 3SSG around the float, a BB at half depth and it took a string of 8 x no.4 just dragging bottom to combat the tow along with a single no.4 halfway between the bulk droppers and the hook which was set around twelve inches over depth.
Groundbait was mixed, worms chopped and I’ve now started adding the groundbait to my chopped worm instead of the other way around as I find the chopped worm doesn’t tend to get lost in the entire mix so much and I can gauge it better just how much is actually going in, quite easy too as I use a round pint bait tub for chopping which offers plenty of room to add the groundbait…
I baited a size 12 Kamasan B911 barbless in the usual way by nipping off a dendrobena just below the saddle and working the broken end around the bend and up the shank of the hook so that even a size 12 was well hidden and sitting nicely into the worm…
That was it really as far as the set-up and preparation went.
All quite straight forward and it was now time to cast into that head on, warm southerly and bait up with three tangerine size balls of feed before sitting it out for the first bite which is always a bit of a test of faith for me and it probably took around forty five minutes for that to develop but I never looked back from then on in as some quality roach showed in numbers.
I was more than happy catching these but dare I say they then got bigger as the swim began to build…
It soon dawned on me that I was enjoying some real red letter roach fishing here and by midday I had taken around sixteen fish of a pound and a half plus with plenty in the half a pound to a pound bracket along with one very special fish taken at around nine o’clock which gave me a new pb roach at 2lb 3ozs…
To say I was a happy chappy is an understatement!
The roach were still feeding albeit not so aggressively by early afternoon and this is when I decided to switch to a dibber rig right under the rod tip, still with the large piece of worm on a size 12 and my hunch, namely that the perch would be using the steep marginal drop off as a patrol route, came good and I enjoyed an extraordinary afternoon taking good size perch right at my rod tip with one nudging two pounds, several around a pound and three quarters and I lost count of the half a pound to a pound and a half size fish that I took, I’m guessing around thirty or so in all…
Quite a remarkable session and certainly one that will go down as a red letter day!
As per last weekend that’s me about fished out again now, I can cope with my temporary situation of just one session a week if they’re like this :w
nearly ended up swimming in the river again...not good but wouldn't be the first time, hard fishing for one fish. pleased with my fish but very relieved to be back home after that, physically and mentally drained after that session, maybe my expectations were to high.....
