🎣 A morning session on a pool and a lesson in perseverance: Keep going and you get there in the end
After a couple of excursions to the local canal, it was back to a small pool this morning, in pursuit of roach.
The weather continued to be stable: cold, damp and foggy.
As I settled on the bank and cast out, I was actually thinking about the number of times anglers have said to me over the years, ‘You’ll never catch anything in these conditions’.
Well, the reality is that you’ll never catch unless you go fishing.
It looked very good when, first cast, I connected with a roach, which unfortunately parted company with the hook just as I lifted it from the water.
That was followed by a dip on the float that resulted in a sucked maggot.
A quiet period was followed by a bite, where I pulled out of the fish, to discover that dead vegetation on the bottom had masked the hook point.
The next cast, the float bobbed twice in quick succession but nothing developed.
Then I saw a pike as it smashed into the small roach in the swim.
It just wasn’t going to work out, was it?
Well, right at the end, the float sailed away, I struck and I finally got a fish on the bank.
I kept going, didn’t give up and got there eventually.
A great life lesson there, not just an angling one.
Tackle, bait and tactics
Greys Prodigy TX 12’ rod. Shimano 3500M reel. Maxima Chameleon 4lb line.
Home-made 3” float. Drennan Super Specialist size 16 hook.
Fished about three metres from the bank, beyond the sharp drop-off.
Presented two white maggots over brown crumb and red/white maggots.
Nature notes
Two separate raven sightings, both birds calling in flight.