A break at last!

 

I'm thoroughly enjoying the new job but I have to confess to feeling absolutely exhausted by the end of each day as it's 12 hours from start to finish with the near on 3 hour round trip commute! 

That aside I'm picking up the daily routine fairly quickly and settling in with all the staff. I've had a few good laughs and making friends too, which is great for my mental health. I've been suffering from extremely painful feet for around 18 months now and finally got to see a specialist last week about the problem. 

The appointment went well but unfortunately showed up a much deeper problem set within my back and not my feet. 

During my time as a courier for one of the large parcel delivery firms I worked 6 days a week delivering very large items often well outside legal health and safety restrictions and despite my worries we were told to get on with it or face being got rid of. Terrible company to work for and zero care for their staff. 

Long story short I badly damaged my back in 2 separate places and have 2 herniated discs, one upper back and one lower. Both will almost certainly need operating on. I'm hoping both can be done at the same time and maybe I'll have some form of relief from the ongoing pain soon. Anyway, apart from these woes all else is good and I'm at lest able to enjoy my free time still wetting a line!

The weekend arrived and I got to finish early on Friday. I jumped in the van and headed down the local urban pool for a bit more time. 

I'm kind of restricting my time on there to evenings/late afternoon sessions to get the best out of the fishing. Fridays session started with a small mirror from my usual spots taking my Nutty Bait Wafter. I'm fishing the wafter with the top cut off and a small fluoro pop up section put on top like a hat. Varying the colours on the day to test results. So far the orange seems to be best????

I'm presenting the bait on a spinner rig and a size 6 barbless curve shank hook The lead arrangement is simple with a 2 feet section of clay coloured tubing, hybrid lead clip and a 2.5oz flat pear lead. 

The boom section is one of the excellent fused low level Ronnie booms from Gemini which come in packs of 3. These are very good and have lasted lots of fishing trips so far!

Second fish of the evening was a very surprise Bream! The fish being one of the biggest I've heard of from the venue at 10lb 4oz. My second double figure bream from the venue. I rebaited and had to wait about an hour before bagging my last of the evening a nice little common.

Saturday morning was spent sorting out a bait delivery and grabbing some kit ready for other sessions this weekend. I left the house around 3pm to head back down the lake for another bash. The lake was a lot busier today and I was stuck a bit on swim choice as there was 8 anglers on taking up the majority of the good pegs. 

I opted to drop in on the end of the group and tag a spot just off my usual area. Unfortunately the ducks and geese spend a lot of time on this particular set of boards and to say it was a shit house was an understatement! 

After I spent a good ten minutes clearing off the mountains of shit I impaled some stage stands into the boards and finally got round to setting up the buzzers and rods ready for the evening.

It was very slow going on the lake and only Ben a few swims up was having any sort of success with 6 fish up to 18lb 14oz. I sat it out and finally got a run around 5.30pm only to have it come off! I rebaited and almost immediately received a take on the other rod only to have the same thing happen yet again! Very frustrating but it happens! The lads just up from me left at 6pm so I opted to move one swim up away from the shit and flies.....

It turned out to be a wise move as I positioned both rods on the money using the baiting pole, only to have the left rod rip off as I was retrieving the pole from said baited spot! It had literally been in the water for twenty seconds! The take was brutal and I had to drop the pole and take up the fight. Fortunately friend Darwin was on hand to come over and retrieve the pole for me as I set about battling a very good fish. 

After a good 5 minutes of tussling for priority I sunk the net under a fish I instantly recognised as one I had caught early summer of 2021. This fish is known as Number 2. I last caught her at 20lb 4oz but this time round she looked a fair bit bigger. Darwin was disgusted with me as it's a fish he's never caught and really wants her. (sorry Dar!) Pics were taken and I weighed her in at a great new weight of 23lb 7oz.

My next take came from a small common on the same rod just a few minutes after recasting it again....2 more commons also came in very quick succession before the light started to fade and I started to pack away my kit. After the last fish I decided to cast rigs rather than pole them out and spread a small helping of Nutty Bait singles around the spots. Around 9pm I had an absolute one toner of a take on the right hand rod which resulted in a very strong fight. I was making headway on the fish and about 2 minutes in the hook suddenly lost its purchase. 

I couldn't believe it! 3 loses and four landed. Oh well, can't complain to be honest as the venues been pretty kind to me through the last few sessions. I may pop back down this evening for a bit but I have a day out with good friend Simon tomorrow at Grange Springs, chasing small tench, perch, bream and small carp on float and feeder gear. Just a little bit of fun fishing really and chance to catch up with one of my best friends! 

Talking of best friends, I'd like to finish up todays blog with a little mention of one of them...Chris Davies, French fishing partner and all round great bloke! He's just returned from a trip over to Molyneux in France, a venue I fished back in 2016. He had a fantastic week with a PB common of 32lb 5oz and 14 other cracking carp for a total of 400lb 8oz! What a week bro! Well done!