Its never easy

I managed a quick session on my local water today and it occured to me that I havent had a single carp yet this year! To be fair though I havent really had chance to put the nescesary time in either. This time I at least managed to get myself and my car to the lake without incident. I picked a swim in the furthest corner and decided to drop one bait in the corner against a reed bed to my right and the other slightly right and tight to weed bed. As a bit of a distraction I also set up a float rod with a single magot on a size 18 hook under a small insert waggler.
The float rod was a minor success from the word go bringing small roach and perch to about 4oz and a couple of small skimmers to 8oz.
The weed rod gave a couple of line bites before finally screaming off. Even though I was on the rods the fish was well into the weed before I was bent into it. Predictably with my luck a few moments of holding it hard the hook hold gave and it was gone. Should I have given some line and tried to win it back later or hold it hard?
After recasting both rods I was seriously contemplating recasting the bait against the reeds into a bay in the same weed bed as the other when the swinger twitched and dropped back. On striking I thought I'd managed to miss it but on winding in I discovered a bream of just short of 5 lb had taken the bait.
The reed rod was duly recast to the weeds and shortly showed a rapid line bite. It wasnt long again before another screaming run developed out of nowhere. I picked up the rod and struck.... nothing. I rebaited and was just about to recast when I remember something that Pete R had told me about a recent trip of his. On checking the hook point I found it turned out. I could have kicked my self and as far as I'm concerned that would have been a fish on the bank.
One day I'll remember to check all the small things that make for a succesfull session. Lesson learnt, THE HARD WAY!

sell sell sell

I've got my cynical head on today. If you read back through some of my ramblings you'll find me ranting against real tree cam and such like and I'm afraid I'm at it again.
I was reading through the Angling Times today and finally reached crital mass against advertisement dressed up as advice. Des Taylor and Martin Bowler are the two culprits who spring to mind but there are plenty of others.
Now we all know someone (not just in fishing) who will buy, go or do anything that is recomended, in angling its worse because we have such little time on the bank that we want to try to eliminate any dead ends to maximise our precious free time. The part that really annoys me is that angling journalists drop sponsered products into articles disguised as good old free advice. Mr Bowler went through a phase of recomending anything produced by Drennan, even floats. Now call me a cynic but providing it floats its a float. Good old Des is constantly plugging his own bait line. Now not only are these people pulling the wool over our eyes but theyre on a double whamey earner to boot. They get paid to write articles by the publication and in doing so also get paid by their sponser to get their products named and recomended.
Phew I'm nearly done. Dont get dragged in to following names and trends, take the methods on board, use them as part of your armourey and shop around. I'll give you one last tip, in the late 80's and 90's there were at least a dozen brands of line all advertising and drawing you in, but there were only 4 manufacturers producing them. Look around your tackle shop, the same item in the same design and many manufacturers but whats the difference between the most expensive and the cheapest? NOT A LOT!
Spleen vented.

Trent

Its been a funny old day and it will come as no surprise that although I managed to get onto the bank it wasnt a raging success. On my way to the River Trent above Long Eaton a car cam out of a side road and clipped the front of my van. And so the theme for the night was set and it didnt put a smile on my face. Now much as I rattle on about enjoying being on the bank a little success wouldnt go amiss. I opted for an open ended feeder with a pellet sandwhich and a 12mm halibut pellet on the hook.
There was interest from the off but it took a while for the tip to wrap around with any conviction, I struck...... and nothing. I reeled in and lifted the rod tip when I guessed the feeder was a rod length out, There was a lange bronze swirl and then it was gone. I dont know if it was a chub or a barbel but I guess it was swimming directly towards me, in an instant it was gone.
And that would be it for the evening, well almost. There was almost constant activety on the tip with some sharp raps but nothing else. A series of raps made me strike again only to find a bream about 8oz had manged to squeeze the size 8 hook into its mouth.
The swim I'd chosen appears to be full of snags and I lost 2 feeders in the proccess of the evening and was forced to switch to a lead and PVA bag approach. Interestingly the action seemed to stop when the feeders were no longer beeing used.
So, any lessons learnt? Well a couple I suppose, open ended feeders created more interest than pva bags, large pellets are a nightmare to keep on nylon hairs (I ended up threading on a piece of silicon tubing between the pellet and the stop), dont forget your torch and if you need to move.....move.
Grrrrr next time!!!

Darn it!!

I managed to grab a couple of hours on my local water tonifgt and came over all Mr Crabtree esque! I settled on fishing a waggler lift method style against reeds in a corner. Only, unlike Mr Crabtree I blanked! I did get a couple of lifts and dips on the float but I'm guessing they were just small stuff licking the bait about. Anyway back to semi fixed leads next time!