The Monday after Tidefest is usually a wash-out and this year was definitely no exception. But by Tuesday I felt up to a fairly lightweight outing so popped down to Hendre for an afternoon/evening session. There was a decent chop on and I really fancied the carpark bank but that appears to have become occupied territory at the moment, so settled for peg 9 on the railway bank.
The reel was clipped up for 40 turns so I stuck with that, 28g Hybrid feeder with bandums/wafters on a bed of micros and fishmeal groundbait. I managed to snag up a couple of times and I should have picked up on the warning signs, but casting slightly right seemed to put me in a clear spot so I persisted. And 45 minutes in, dead on cue, I started to get some indications, followed by a series of pulls wwhich, in hindsight,must have been liners, because I failed to hook up on any of them. But very difficult to tell the difference between a method pull and a liner. I should have sat on my hands to see if the rod was really going to be pulled in.
Picking up on liners appeared to spook hem somewhat, but I eventually had a proper bite and nailed a smallish Bream. A better one followed, but I’m also certain that I hit a few more bites but found myself with the feeder firmly wedged up in a snag or snags. And all in all it was slow, at the 3 hour point I still only had 2 Bream and a decent Roach. But then it started to pick up and I nailed a further 5 Bream, all proper ones. But even then, I had two more ‘events’ where I picked up on what seemed decent bites only to find that the feeder was snagged. I can only think that I’d inadvertently landed myself right on the old Reen which is still detectable on the first couple of pegs into the lake. Anyway, whatever it was it was the snaggiest line I’ve ever fished there and it cost me a few fish and, even worse, two very expensive Guru Hybrid feeders. Fortunately I was using the X-safe system so the fish won’t be dragging a feeder around with them.
My seven Bream would have pushed 25 Lbs, so about half of what I might have expected in the conditions (altough the wind did have a bit of a bite to it), but that’s fishing. Plenty of times in years gone by when I would have killed for 25 Lbs of slabs.
26 Year ITCH 