A Couple of cheeky practices

With the next group match happening on a stretch of river that I hold dear to my heart, well I had my first barbel, river carp and 30lb river bag from the stretches around Chippenham so I know them quite well. It was because of this that we decided that I should try and get the team down there as many times as possible on the run up to the event.

My first trip saw me sat along riverside drive in some truly horrendous conditions and I ended up finding a swim on the back of the wind and fishing a stick float taking about 5lb of half decent roach and some dace. I was using a 6Xno4 lignum stick in the 5 foot swim and found that the fish were not that line shy so I could get away with a 0.1mm hooklength which is always handy when there are a few chub and perch about.  I also found that having a no.12 split shot halfway along the hooklength improved bite registration no end and caught me more fish. This session was cut short by work phoning and me having to go back in to sign some paperwork, I wasn’t best impressed.

The next session saw me going to Melksham as I had a ticket for this stretch and it fishes similarly, again a lignum stick was my weapon of choice and I shotted it with over 20 strung no.8 shot, I struggled this time due to my choice of swim and it deepened off before shallowing up and this caused dramas on finding the feeding fish, it was also quite snaggy and this cost me a few hooklengths, I also tried the link ledger but the swim was far too snaggy for it to work and it just frustrated me more.  I still managed a few chublet, bleak and a couple of nice roach, but don’t try to swing everthing to hand!!

The next session was a week later and I took  Jim along Monkton park to help him get to grips with the waggler, Jim set up the waggler and I set up the kitchen sink on the next peg up.

Jim had a nice day catching quality fish on the wag, I had a swim fill of tiny chub and struggled to put any fish together, I tried the feeder, Bolo, stick wag and ink ledger, caught on them all for 2.5kg.

My bag

Jims Brilliant net

Jim had 5kg + all on the wag and learnt a lot.

What would I do different?

Find out after the next group match.