It was great to catch up for a bit before we started fishing and at half five we ventured on to the fishery and headed to our respective chosen swims.
I opted to fish the same swim as on day 1 only because I had put a good head of bait in and it appeared to be the going swim producing every day at present.
Last week I picked up a new feeder chair from Daiwa. It's an N'zon feeder chair which I have to say is rather good!
I own lots of chairs including the Korum accessory chair which is great but has too low a back for me as I suffer from neck pain. The N'zon has a lovely high back and deep seating area which is really comfortable.
The front legs have a huge range of extension for use in awkward swims and there is a flat seating position for summer sun bathing if required! My favourite feature is the front leg knobs are fully rotatable through 180 degrees which makes it really easy to use with feeder arms etc! I'm a little sceptical as to whether the rear legs will last that well as the locking mechanism is not as good or strong as the front but we'll see how it goes!
I also purchased a pair of new Drennan Acolyte Feeder rods in 14ft Distance Plus and 12ft standard plus. Both are lovely rods and being a true advocate of the range already, these had to be added to the vast selection I already own! The 12ft was to be my weapon of choice today as I decided to completely stick to a single feeder rod all day rather than the float etc which I felt spread the feed around the swim a little too much the day prior.
My other tactic for the day was to do something totally off the cuff and introduce a large pile of groundbait to my chosen spot. I'm not sure many or even anybody has fished it with this approach, so it was shit or bust to be honest.
The groundbait was a combination of Sensas River 3000 Noir with Brown crumb, crushed hemp seed, Dynamite Chilli hemp and a good helping of red maggots and some caster.
I initially introduced 10 balls into the swim and to be honest they made a hellish noise going in and I wondered if it would ruin my chances or just piss all the other anglers off? Well, we were about to find out!
I set up the feeder rod with a new rig that I had been shown by a good mate Rupert, who is an amazing Roach angler! He's had more big roach than I've had hot dinners and if he says it's the way forward I'll listen!
The rig is basically a converted Kamasan Black Cap feeder with a small hole drilled or melted into the base of the plastic.
The elastic is passed through the new lower hole and a bead pulled up onto the elastic.
Then a quick link is tied on at the base using the same 3 turn grinner knot I used above.
The hooklink is a very short 3 inch section of 5lb fluorocarbon to a size 12 hook.
I put the helicopter set up above obviously with no hook link on, this gives me two rig options depending on the feeding of the fish and whether they are very wary or not.
The new set up is very aggressive and bites are literally a case of just wait till the fish nails itself! I started the session off with the new approach and didn't really expect much to happen straight away due to the introduction of all the groundbait but to my surprise my first cast ended up with a hooked fish and a roach of 12-13oz finding the net.
I rebaited the hook and went straight back out with a feeder full of reds. It took about 3 more casts before the next fish came in and at 1lb 15oz it was a cracking start to day 2!
As the morning progressed I made my way through the shoal of fish that were seeming to be grouping up in front of me and by midday I had 30 plus roach in the net!
I decided it was time for some more groundbait as the bites were starting to fizzle out. A further 6 balls were distributed around the spot and within minutes they were back with gusto. I couldn't really believe what happened next as there seemed to be a good head of larger fish suddenly turn up. Each cast yielded a better fish than the previous cast!
Another 1lb 15oz fish, then a 1lb 13oz, 1lb 11oz, 1lb 14oz, 1lb 14oz, 1lb 12oz, 1lb 10oz, 1lb 15oz.....they just kept coming! I introduced another 4 balls of groundbait and the swim died off for about an hour. Another 4 balls were introduced and around 3.30pm the fish were back again!
A few nice dace to 12oz to start with then a nice couple of roach around the pound mark. My next cast went slightly past the baited spot towards the back of the swim to see if anything had dropped back at all.....
Well, within a few seconds the tip hooped round and I felt the strain of a much better fish. This one hung low in the water and did all the right things. I kept my cool and held the rod low to the water applying just a light amount of pressure to avoid a hook pull and gently played her out.
Eventually she tired and I was able to sneak the net rim under her, gasping a sigh of relief!
On the scales she went 2lb 1oz! My second two plus in two days!
What a day this was turning into. A further 3 of 1'11, 1'14 and 1'12 made the tally up and I left the day elated with the finest roach fishing experience of my life!
Surely I couldn't repeat the same again on my last day at the venue tomorrow?
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