First Trip in 10 years.....

[PoleMaster]

GUC - Fenny Stretch - 06/08/05

 

Report:

 

This being my first fishing trip in near on 10 years, i arrived at the fenny Stratford Stretch of the GUC in

Milton keynes,armed with the basics that I had managed to accumalate in the last 2 weeks or so since i

wholeheartedly decided to take up the sport once again.

Walking along the bank i stopped at a swim that i had fished many years ago and had good memories of. A swim

that was approx 14.5 metres wide to the far bank with a max depth of around 4 1/2 feet.

Far bank features consisted of an overhanging willow tree with a few branches that stuck out a few feet and hung

2 feet above the water surface, and near bank was featureless, only other noteworthy points about this swim was that

30 metres to the right was a bend with a few moored boats.

 

Today i had bought with me a pint of casters, a pint of Red Maggott, a pint of Bronze Maggott, some chopped

dendra worm and a bag of VDE Supercup groundbait.

 

The weather today was warm and muggy but overcast with alot of cloud cover and the odd brisk breeze, therefore

i envisaged that the fish may be feeding slightly up in the water if bites were hard to come by on the bottom.

 

After setting up my shiny new seatbox complete with levelling system and side trays, i went about the task of

laying out my pole sections, only to tead on my no 3 section of the match kit, splintering it slightly a few inches

below the join. GREAT!!! i thought, its going to be one of those Days! years away from the sport, weeks looking forward

to being on the bank again and CRUNCH. As it happens it wasn't that bad a splinter and was still perfectly useable.

so with box setup, tackle laid out and pole sections at the ready i was almost ready to begin.

 

I mixed up some VDE Supercup laced with casters and chopped worm and fed 2 decent size balls, mixed quite stiffly

to the far bank at just under 12metres out, then plumbed up the near shelve swim.

i fed a handful of bronze and red maggot into the near shelve swim and lowered my float in for the first chuck.

i was using a drennan .25g float with 1.9lb mainline and 1.2lb hooklength with a bulk of no 10 shot just above half way

and a no 12 dropper just above the hooklength knot, 10 inches from the hook, which was a Drennan specialist size 22

Barbless.

 

I started off fishing the bottom, at about 4feet, had a few 'knocks' and a couple of positive bites which i bumped,

probably due to my time away from the sport, forgetting how to strike properly and being a bit impatient.

the next 30mins didn't really produce anything solid, apart from a few twitches which i accredited to 'liners'.

However during this time i kept constantly drip feeding 6-10 maggots every 30 secs and a handful of casters to the far bank.

I then shallowed up to approx 2 and a half feet but that didnt produc any improvement either so after an hour i reverted

back to fishing an inch off bottom.

 

This immediately started to produce positive takes, due to a combo of finding the right depth and attracting fish into the

swim by reguarly feeding, action was hotting up.

small 'bits' of perch and roach were being taken every cast on red/bronze single maggot and after an hour of this i decided

to start trying chopped worm and maggot on the hook.

 

First cast in and a nice sized roach, around 12oz, came to the net, followed by a perch of a similar size.

Bigger fish had obviously entered the swim and the worm was inducing them to feed.

the following 2 hours produced more roach, rudd and perch, and a few nice skimmers just under a pound each and a decent Bream.

 

I had 30mins left when i decided to chuck a rig to the far swim i had fed with groundbait, caster and worm, just to see if

anything was about. A couple of chucks and a few twitches didnt provide much, so i thought id give it one last go with

caster and worm on the hook, 10 seconds later the float slammed sub-surface and i was into a fish that felt solid.

Definitely bigger than anything i had previously caught. keeping the pole tip low and trying to guide the fish wasnt working

this fish had other ideas. After 10 mins, several boats passing and trying to keep the fish away from the snags my elastic shot

out to around 4 metres and i felt a bolt and everything went still, the fish had snagged me on some form of underwater

obstacle, not before i got a glimpse of its back as it surfaced, looked around 12lb and was a Carp.

 

Suppose it serves me right for not bothering to change my gear to match the fish, i had a power top 2 kit fitted with no.10

Elastic ready to dip at the far bank but decided to see if anything was over there with my match kit fitted with no.5 elastic.

 

At least i know for the future!

 

All in all my first trip for 10 years was very pleasing with a nice mixed bag and a few hours of enjoyable sport.

would just like to thank Will, Andy and anyone else that suggested a few tactics in my previous post.

 

Until next time.... !!

 

Paul.

[Newt]

Sounds like you had fun PoleMaster and that's the whole point. Thanks for posting your results.

[old novice - jeff]

Sounds like a Good day and a very nice write up,

It would be nice if more people would do write ups.

I have only been fishing for a few months and I could learn so much more if more people did this.

[jeepster]

you could do us a write up next time you go out jeff

[kendo]

enjoyed reading your post it was a very nice write up.

[old novice - jeff]

but then you would not be able to reply for hours as you would be rolling around the floor laughing at how crap i am

i dont catch many, but im learning and one day i will be good at this sport.

[PoleMaster]

Thanks for your comments guys.

i always enjoy reading about other peoples experiences, think you can learn so much more from others and adapt it to your own methods!

 

would love to hear other's writeups!!

[Alan Stubbs]

I was really interested by this, as I've never fished with a pole. The longest I've fished is with a 5m whip and, Boy! Did I struggle!

 

It was only when fishing the Leeds and Liverpool canal at Rufford a month or so ago I realised the benefit of pole fishing. I could see the fish up in the water, but to get to them you'd need to have the line no more than a foot away from a dense reed bed. My casting's OK, but not that good!

[Casey]

I'm curious why you had 30 mins left?...

 

good read on yer tactics.

[tommo666]

Nice write up pole, I enjoyed it a lot. Keep it up chap.