First trip of 2015

So I was talking to Mrs Clunk about fishing, and she said she would like to try it.
So I decided a date to my favourite haunt, the Kennet and Avon canal in near Devizes.
We decided on our spot near Marsh lane bridge. Now under the Devizes AA rules, we aren't supposed to fish on lock operation moorings. I did not realise what these were, as the no fishing sign is missing from my usual spot and it wasn't till a fellow fishing fellow pointed this out that I was aware I was technically breaking the rules. However, it does not say it on the current license, so this is something that I feel needs clearing up.
So my spot was chosen on the lock mouth of one of the pounds. it gave us loads of space without being obtrusive, and it gave us loads of features to fish to. I set up 2 float rods, and a Ledger. Opting to keep the carp rod in the bag for this trip.
We got there nice and early as well, to avoid boat traffic. And after teaching Mrs Clunk how to cast, off she went. She caught a couple of nice roach while I was setting everything else up.
I finally got set up and started on the waggler. We caught a few nice fish. Anything tiny was released. Medium fish put into the net.
My fish of the day was a nice size bream caught very quickly.
I managed to get a perfect cast up against the weed raft, and just lowered my rod tip, and flicked over the bail arm to sink the line when the float disappeared, and a 'V' was appearing in the water where the line was sinking quite rapidly. I struck into the first fish to put a bend in my rod. Reeled it in without too many issues, and landed a nice bream.

I had another couple of nice bream on the feeder, and we bagged up with about 25 mixed roach/rudd and a couple of perch. But the highlight was the police turning up after a pair of fishermen on a pound down from us had given abuse to some holidaymakers on a boat, when they drifted towards their Rods.
I consider this unacceptable behaviour from a fellow fisherman and canal user.

To-Do in 2015

As I have said before, I am a pleasure angler. I don't restrict myself to one type of fish or fishing style. I will go for whatever takes my fancy on the day. That being said, I will be setting out to get new PB's this year. This also involves me making a spreadsheet of what I catch. Because of this, I will be weighing fish in grams from now on. Just because there is no decent formula for dealing with lbs and oz in excel. This in mind, I have decide to erase all my pb's so far. Which isn't much to be fair, but converting lbs to kg's isn't accurate, and things can go astray. As it is, I only have 3 notable pb's
Carp: 15lbs
Pike: 3lbs (I know. I have never specifically set out to fish them, so have only caught strays)
Perch 2lbs 1oz

Objectives I have so far set myself are:

• Fish Calne canal and find out what is really in there. It is a small streach of canal about 200 yards long. Back when I started fishing in my teens, there was nothing in it except tiny minnows and sticklebacks. I've heard its been stocked, but I have never seen anyone fish it. No idea what is in there at all. So will be trying various tactics. It also has a lot of duck weed on the surface, so I will mostly be using ledger tactics. Might invest in a small pole to fish small openings in the weed. 
• Proper carp session: It has never really taken my fancy. Throwing out huge piles of bait and waiting for a fish to find the hook bait. It seems more like trapping than fishing. But I cannot criticise it till I do it. And I know some people will be thingking 'but you have caught carp', yes I have. But I cast to an area I saw activity, with a single boilie on the hair, and a string of half a dozen on pva. I didn't bomb the area with gallons of bait. 
• The area where the Marden meets the Avon. Looking at google earth, this looks like a good place to fish. Lets find out. 
• Different areas of the Kennet and Avon. I usually fish the same four pounds. Yet my permit gives me 10 miles to choose from. I need to explore. 

That is my todo list so far for the year. It will change as and when things happen. 

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.

Still lacking.

So I was going through my kit in preparation for a fishing trip on Saturday, and I realise how woefully under equipped I am.
Don't get me wrong, I am not a tackle tart in anyway. Well, not yet. But there are still some parts I really need to get.
My fishing style is to put a carp rod out for large fish, in a fire and forget fashion, and use another more hands on style of fishing.
Float fishing, I have everything I need. Floats, shot, 2 rods, and loads of size 16 and 18 hooks to nylon. So no problems here.
Carp (specimen). I lack method feeders and weights.
Spinning and lures: Ok here, good selection and wire traces.
Feeder/ledger: Lacking method feeders, although I have maggot swim feeders. All the larger hooks I have are pre made hair rigs. I could cut the hairs off and use the hooks naked I guess.
All little things really, but stuff I wont be able to acquire before Saturday.

Taking a friend fishing on Saturday so I will set her up with a float rod with size 18 or 16 hooks. And I will ledger with a maggot feeder at first. But may replace feeder with weight to fish corn.

Kennet and Avon canal. My first trip.

So I was finally ready to go fishing. I had agreed to take someone with me, and I had to wait for her to get up.
11 am we finally get to our swim. One of the disabled ones in Devizes. The person I took was disabled so I figured we could get away with it.
Bloke on a peg 2 down from us informed us that it was dead and that we shouldn't bother. I informed him we would take our chances and set up anyway.

Now I must state at this point that I was very eager to get a line wet, and I was setting up 5 hours after I hoped to start fishing.

So we get to our swim, I get  her chair out, and set up her rod. Unfortunately this person isn't very good at paying attention, and it was really frustrating me. I set her up, showed her how to cast. She asked me to cast out for her which I did, I gave her the rod, knelt down to sort mine, and noticed her float was bobbing.
I told her to strike, and she replied with 'eh?'
I grabbed the rod, struck, and landed a small rudd of about 6 inches long. We put it in the net, I refreshed her bait, got her rod out, gave it to her and looked at her float as it went down again.
'Strike, strike the bloody rod damn you!'
'Where's the float?'
I grabbed the rod and landed another tiddler. Informed her while I was refreshing the bait that she should pay attention to her float.
'But I was watching you set up?'
'Don't watch me, watch the bleeding float!'
She cast out this time, as there was no one around to watch her (She is disabled after suffering a stroke. She has limited use of her left arm and leg). She cast out.
'Now what do I do?'
'Wind it in until the line is tight'
'ok'
I finally got my float on and tied on my hooklength and I heard a 'Erm. . . '
'Whats up?'
'Well I don't know. The float has disappeared, and the line has knots in.'
I turned to the canal, no float. I turn to the reel and a ball of line surrounded the bail arm. Turns out she was back winding. So I spend 20 minutes untangling the line, and winding it back to the spool. Finally the float re-surfaces and on the end is a tiny fish. Sadly it had been on the line so long that the hook was beyond disgorging. And it was already dead. I did not tell her this as I could see that she was getting upset that I was spending my time sorting her out, and had not yet got my own line wet after an hour of being at the bank side.
I have to get you a new hook link.
'No, set yours up first'
So I did.
At last, 90 minutes after arriving, both rods ready to go and we cast in together. Almost immediately, both floats drop. I hook mine, but she misses hers.
Another tiddler for the net.
for the next 90 minutes we were taking it in turns casting and pulling fish out. The hook was never in the water longer than 30 seconds before getting bites.
She decides she wants to have a break, so she sits back so I get the swim to myself. At the same time, I am fed up with the tiddlers. I had started baiting beside weeds with sweetcorn ready to switch to sweetcorn bait. (I had been using red maggots up until this point) I told my friend to watch this cast because I have a good feeling about it. I pulled the shot down towards the hook for a faster sink through the skimmers, put on a single piece of sweetcorn, and cast out. the float settled, then it did the bob as the bulk shot took the slack. there was a 10 second wait of nothing, then the float lifted slightly then started moving. then it purposely dropped down.
'Oh you caught something' came out of her mouth as I struck.
'This is a good fish' I say.
The clutch on the reel starts ticking for the first time.
'What is that noise?'
'It's the clutch'
'Why is it doing that?'
'Because this is a large fish, and I am only on a 2lb hooklength'
'oh'
It tried pulling into the reeds on my right, then shot out across the canal to the other side.I saw a flash of colour, but could not make out what it was.
after a few minutes, I found out something else I needed. A longer landing net. Mine is only 4 foot long, and the disabled stage is 2 foot above the water.
As I bring it to the net, behind me I hear 'Fucking hell, that's a big fish'
I chortled inside as I realise she has only just noticed.
We land it, and I get it out for inspection, and my mind went blank on what I had caught. For some reason, the head and broadness, made me think Tench. But the body said bream. I called it a bream in the end, due to the slime. But even now, I am still not 100% sure.
Here is that fish.

It weighed 2lb 7oz.
That was to be the last fish of the session.
There was a few things I realised I still needed.
1. Scissors.
2. Longer landing net.
3. Replace the line on the Dunlop reel (twice got tangled through backwinding, and I noticed it wasn't tight to the spool anyway.)
4. Get a bigger chair.

The Gameplan

So now I decide to sit down and decide what's the best way of getting kit, and in which order to get use out of it as soon as possible. Having mentioned my intention of going back into fishing to several people who expressed an interest in coming along, it was decided early on that I should get 2 float rods.
So the first one I ordered was a Shakespear pellet waggler rod, 11ft. The second, a 13foot dunlop waggler rod.
The reason for the 11foot rod was a little obscure. When I last fished 12 years ago, I used to use a 11 foot quivertip for float fishing. The reason being is that I broke my mates 12 foot float rod, and gave him mine in replacement. In hindsight, I wish I had done it sooner. The quiver tip was better at casting floats in my opinion, and that memory was part in me deciding to get this rod. The other being that my first rod was Shakespear and it lasted well.
The reason for the 13foot rod was because a local freewater I used to fish reguarly back in the day, was a bugger to trot through with a short rod. I thought that the 13foot rod would be handy to have if I decide to re-visit the free water.
I also needed another reel. The reel I got with the telescopic float rod was quite good, but the one with the spinner was loaded with 10lb line and I wanted 6lb. So I bought a dunlop reel and a mile of 6lb line.
Now back in the day, I used to set up 3 rods, and fish with 2. One rod was a waggler, the second a carp rod, and the third was a spinning rod. The idea being that if my swim went quiet, I would use the spinner to see if a predator had entered the swim and scared my fish away. With this in mind, I decided to get a 2 piece spinning rod.
With the rods sorted, I also needed luggage, a keep net, a chair, and more bait boxes. Plus terminal tackle.

My list was made, and over the next few weeks it slowly came together. .

First mistakes.

So to get back into fishing, I bought 2 complete sets. I bought a telescopic float set, and a telescopic spinner set. Both were cheap, and I bought them with the intention of just going back into fishing, and getting a line wet.

Big mistake.

Both arrived on the same day, and at first I was excited. The reels looked ok, and one of the sets came with a landing net which I quite liked at the time.
First issue though, was the 12 foot float rod. I wasn't expecting excellence in a telescopic rod, but this did not fill me with confidence. For a start, it only had 5 rings. At that point I realised that I would never use this rod. And it is still in my spare room gathering dust in the corner.
The spinning rod gave me more confidence. It too had only 5 rings, but at only 6 foot long that was ample. And playing with it I realised it was quite flexible and seemed to be quite good. However, I have only ever used this rod for winding spools. The other stuff that came with the kits were of a decent quality for the money I had laid out. (£30 for both sets)

It was at this point that I realised I really needed a game plan of what I needed, and how much I was willing to spend getting it. (everything has been bought with money earned from doing overtime. An adage I live with is basic wage pays the bills. Overtime buys the toys)