Rarely do I have the desire to fish a Pole as the method does little for me, but yesterday, had a tackle shop been open, I would've gladly paid good money for one! I jest of course, but the sight that met my eyes when I reached my chosen still water almost had me in tears as the leaves on the surface had broken up into small islands and completely covered the surface. The lack of any form of wind or breeze that might influence how the leaves moved around meant only surface drift was in action and this was never going to mean clear patches of fishable water.
I dumped the gear in a swim and went for a recce to swims that I might be prepared to walk to, but everywhere was pretty much the same and back at the gear I thought about going home, the only thing stopping me was fighting the rush hour traffic again.
What to do? Well, I tried using a large landing net to push the masses away from the bank but within minutes they were back so I had to come up with a method that might offer some form of fishing no matter how trying, and to this end i dragged out the seldom used 14' Ultralight, which, at best, might just act as a Pole in its broadest sense. I thought about floats and came up with a bird quill fixed top and bottom (to keep line off the water as much as possible) but knew it would be very tricky trying to drop it under the rod tip without actually 'casting'. I bulked the shot with just two droppers keeping the rig vertical, positioned myself close to the waters edge, plumbed a couple of spots, (about 5') and set about fishing.
If nothing else it meant not being too clever and I have to say the method worked quite well from the off, and within 30mins I had banked four roach of around 8ozs each. I even allowed a bit of fishy surface splashing thinking it might influence the floating stuff............Over the course of the next three hours I moved my chair several times to reach other parts of the swim and keep bites going, going back to original spots as and when.
At one stage I tried a bottom end float, sinking the line and rod tip ( the top fixed float tended to drift and spoilt presentation) but this hardly worked well as striking became difficult. In the end I found it best to have the rod in the rest with line off the water, as far as possible.
I ended up with some 15/20 roach to 12ozs or so, but missed countless other bites when the line/float caught on leaves etc., but overall I was pleased with my efforts and 'never say die' approach. All fell to red maggots fished in various ways, the best being overdepth (to stop movement) singly or doubled.
I have a days fishing booked for Sunday as my wife is London shopping and I'm hoping some form of breeze will help move the leaves into solid masses before then. In the likely hood that doesn't happen I shall drag out a very, very old 18' cane pole (complete with Japanese twig top joint!) from the bag and give it a try. Not ideal as it hasn't seen light of day for some time but it could offer a bit more flexibility.................On second thoughts it will be used as a last resort in case someone comes by and starts to laugh!
Next week looks like all change on the weather front with temps as low as 4/6 degrees. I don't expect to see many on the bank from now on!
That looks like a vast expanse of water Kev!
