Another days fishing.

Had another session on the Kennet and Avon today.
Got tot he bankside and I set up my friends rod first. It was her first time fishing, so I gave her a guaranteed catch rig. A basic waggler set up with a crystal 3aaa float, and a size 18 hook on a Shakespear 11foot waggler rod with a Linaffe reel.
Showed her how to cast, put her maggot on the hook for her, and let her rip. Turned to set my rod up, and she had already hooked a fish. Nice little roach of a few ounces. We put it back as the keep net had yet to be set up, so it was set up next.
Went back to my rod set up. A 10 foot feeder rod, 1oz quiver, starting with a maggot swim feeder. Before I finished settimg my rod up, my guest had already landed a few tiddlers.
Finally got going with my rod and used the maggot feeder for about half an hour with no bites. Switched the feeder for a pear lead, maggots with sweetcorn, and fed the swim by hand. My first fish a small bream of about 1lb.
All the while my guest getting loads of bites, but her striking technique was still a learning curve. Being a bit abrupt with the rod in the 'answering the phone' strike so asked her to strike with the 'star trek communicator' method. This was giving her more positive strikes, and resulting in more catches.
Then the first of the days bizarre takes. I had a positive knock on the quiver, and struck into a fish of not a huge size. I was reeling it in with no bother then the clutch started screaming, and the rod bent double. Fought it for a good 10 minutes before I saw colour, and was startled to see that it was a green flank. I had hooked a pike. Then as it come near the surface, a small roach lept from its mouth and swam off. Then I realised that the pike had struck the fish I had caught, and somehow hooked itself on the size 10 hook, with 3lb hook length line. I was not confident of landing it at all.
Eventually, I did though. A small jack pike of 2lb 10oz hooked neatly in the side of its mouth away from its teeth.

After that, I thought nothing could beat that on the day.
After another 20 minutes of fishing, I hear the clutch screech on my guests rod. I look over to see the rod bent right over and cries of 'erm. . . what am I doing?'
I grab the landing net and go over to her and slowly guide it in. A roll on the surface showed it to be a carp of about 6lbs in size. I put the net in to grab it, then the hook length snapped.
She was gutted.

Put a new hooklength on her line and settled down to watch my quiver.
Another few skimmers later, and she had quite a large roach on. Too large to swing to hand, so I got the landing net in the water ready to catch it. I see the silver of the fish just under the surface, above the net, and lift up the net. At the same time, there was a large splash and the landing net got very heavy.
Looked into the net and we were both shocked to find a pike in the landing net. The hooklength had already come out of the fish so we have no idea if it was hooked or not, or whether the pike went for the roach just as I lifted the net and caught it by chance. Either way, I let her have it. A double net of a roach and a 4lb 3oz pike.

A few more small fish were caught before finally calling it a day. All in all a good days fishing.

Things I learned from this trip:
1. The Linaffe reel and the line on it is shit. It kept tangling up.
2. I still need a longer landing net.
3. My brolly needs upgrading to a shelter.
4. I need to be more organised. Our swim was a mess and we were always looking for stuff.

5. I need more bait. We ran out of corn, and used most of the maggots.
6. I need to stock up on hooks to nylon. We ran out of the size 18 hooks to nylon. I did have a second pack of hooks to nylon, but for some reason the size 18 hooks in the second pack were the size of size 8 hooks.
7. I need a proper quiver rest.
8. And a better carp chair.