Dear Reader, have a care. You see before you a bamboozled and beaten man. After a couple of weeks of a bruised ankle, I finally managed to convince myself I could manage hauling the pole, box and the rest.
Mind, it could be that Tim had mentioned a catch up at our Commercial get-together and we agreed on today.
After working a lot of hours recently, I was really struggling to gather up any enthusiasm and didn't cube any Spam, a potentially fatal error.
Arriving to meet Tim, it was great to see him again, really and truly.
Settling on to my usual swim, with Tim next door, I opened up on prawn. To nothing. After an hour, neither of us had troubled the scalesman. Tim struck first, a micro roach on chopped worm. I stole a handful of maggots to fend off the dreaded blank which worked in an instant, a roach of a colossal 3oz, a second before Tim caught the first of a dozen or so micro perch on chopped worm.
I switched to a grain of corn which brought nothing but a solitary liner and Tim kicked it up a gear landing a barbel around 2lbs and some nice carp up to circa 7 and a half pounds or so.
I was now really beginning to regret the "no meat" policy (must have been fooled into it by some earlier talk of vegan pike and the like....) and beginning to think I'd be too embarrassed to write about this session.
As I didn't have a flask to open, I opted for the next best thing. Now fishing prawn on my top five, I picked up my phone and did some online banking and, hey, presto, suddenly something attempted to steal and remove my right arm.
After a hell of a battle, a common around 5lbs put a big smile on my face.
I then took a decision which, frankly, several hours later I am still asking myself why. The water is not a pellet water, expanders can have their day but pellets "blew" several years back and have never been a big draw since.
Having some 8mm Skrettings, I banded one and poled it over to the far bank reeds to a quick liner then, miracles, a positive bite which resulted in another "radio rental" fight and a carp around 5lbs.
A repeat presentation brought another around half the size but even that fought like a rhino.
Back out and my rig was knotted and trashed by a missed bite, so I replaced it with another.
Back out with an 8mm and it dropped like a stone. This was definitely a different ball game, at first I thought it might be foul hooked but slowly it dawned on me that this was a big fish, seriously big.
It looked for and found every bit of vegetation between the banks but as the rig was 10lb main to an 8lb trace, I felt reallt confident and gave it some serious bifters, dragging it out of some serious jungle. I felt this was in serious danger of eclipsing my best, 4oz short of the magic 20.
I'd just dragged it out of some near bank brambles when the main line broke, not the slightly weaker hooklength or even at the rig loop at the pole top but about three inches lower. Must have just been a flat spot that gave out. Gutted.
I packed up, feeling flat too. Still, there's always the next time, eh?
Take care, all, and now the Summer's gone, please think about bankside safety, wet conditions, flooded rivers and the like.
