A blast from the past!

I've just had a very interesting weekend, I had arranged for a very good long standing friend in the form of Barry Robson to help me replace a failed valve in my heating system and make a weekend of it by fishing the Sunday as he lives some 3-4 hours drive away.

Now as it happens things were not as easy as we first thought, a few wiring technicalities and a boiler with loose connections made for a very difficult and fraught few hours. However this was soon forgotten after steak, chips and a few beers.

Unfortunately we probably chose the wrong weekend for fishing as we have had some very cold and constant weather leading up to Sunday meaning most venues have had a lid of ice on them for a few days. We drove to a local tackle shop and bought a few bits and some bait just in case somewhere was ice free (otherwise the ice breakers were going to have to come out) Thankfully Woodland View has its bubbler's and aerators on, meaning that the majority of the lakes were in fact ice free or had ice free pegs. 

Thankfully Adrian Mason said why not go onto Ghost pool and catch some of the newly stocked F1s, ranging from 6oz up to around 1lb 8oz. This sounded like a good plan, at least a few bites could be had and we could have a good natter and try a few different things.

We settled on pegs 6 and 7, this was relatively ice free and a feature was recently shot on here using the same pegs by pole fishing magazine, (you can youtube it and look on their social media sites)

This was also going to give me a chance to try out my new  Colmic Airon F66 pole, although F1's wont test its strength, they can certainly test the rigidity and responsiveness at longer lengths.

So setting up,

Very simple day ahead as I had 2 different sizes of expander pellets (2s and 4s) 2 pints of maggots and a bag of woodland views new blue coloured micro pellets. These new pellets are quite unusual as the dye comes off and you can use it to colour your expanders... your fingers, towels and anything else. They remind me of the original big blue pellets you could get at Stafford Moor that did the same thing.

I decided on 2 lines at 13m, one directly in front of me and one at the 2 o-clock position. The lake is only around 4ft deep so very light floats were the order of the day, 4x10 and 4x12 handmade floats on 0.125mm Stream mainline and a size 20 T213 hooks mounted to a  0.09mm hooklength. The shotting pattern's differed however, I have gone for a small bulk and 2 droppers on the 4x10 float and a strung out bulk above  the hooklength on the heavier 4x12 rig. Both matched to either Colmics light blue hollow or orange hollow elastics.  (3-6 rating) Which would be perfect for the new stock fish!

Ive decided that on my line just in front to fish a few micros and add a couple of maggots just as a change hookbait and feed solely maggots on the 2 o-clock line, giving me 2 quite different lines. Now being new stock fish I was also quite aware that they were likely to be pellet fed and reared so maggot may not be the right bait yet.

Barry however had gone for a slightly different approach and an even simpler plan than me. He had decided to solely fish pellets at 13m, but not feed any bait initially, rather using a very small tosspot and feeding 10 micro pellets and fish an expander over the top, exceptionally negative!

My approach was completely wrong on the day....I sat there for 45 minutes without an F1 to show for my efforts, a few roach and small skimmers were all that fancied eating the maggots I was dribbling in via a tosspot. Whereas Barry was quite content catching F1s fairly regularly.

Not big fish but at anywhere between 6oz and 1lb they were good fun on really light elastics. I've decided to change my feeding on the 13m line to just pellet but still keeping with actually using a cup to feed an initial dunp of bait and put my hookbait over the top. This eventaully started working for me and finally began catching these pretty new ghost carp style F1s!

I've caught a few fish over the pellet line but it still wasn't right, Barry was still catching regularly by lowering his hookbait over the 10 pellets hes been shaking out of the tosspot and following them down. This has also resulted in bites that have come just as the float settles properly. Something else that wasn't working for me was my expanders which were a bright blue, for some reason the fish although I'm sure were coming over or eating the feed pellets, they were not interested in mine.

Time for a change!

Ive set up a new line at 14.5m and found a little more depth, using Barry's method of just putting 10 micros in and following them down with the hookbait I was soon playing F1s regularly, great fun on these light hollows!

The Colmic F66 was very much at home at this length, stunningly stiff and responsive, it also remains super stiff when playing fish, see picture above! The finish on this pole is silky smooth all the way up to the 14.5m section, as the graphics for pole only reside on the 16m extension, this helps reduce the weight of the pole. The joints are all reinforced with the distinct Titanium wrap on the Airon F66, the male joints now also have an eye catching crossweave carbon  finish that helps with section wear and strength. This is apparent on the 16m section through to the number 4. This is a very very nice pole, easy to use and has bags of strength to offer. It has a very fast taper meaning the sections do get quite big very quickly form the top kit back, this improves the rigidity of the pole, especially at length.

After around an hour on this new line I have finally found some of the bigger residents, again great fun on light hollows. Feeding just tiny amounts of bait very regular has definitely been the winning method on our pleasure session, its not often I have a day out but we have discussed every move, every shotting change, even how we are laying the rig in to determine what was the best method. This has resulted in us both catching the better fish towards the end of the day which unfortunately would be cut short as Barry needed to get home at a reasonable time, although I'm sure we could have both stayed on catching some of the bigger carp and F1s showing.

Thanks Barry, for all your help and a great catch up!

Here's a little from Barry!

"It was a great weekend Pete, and long overdue.
Getting the system back up and running was a challenge (there's only so many times you can test things until the obvious issue becomes apparent - the boiler that we hadn't touched !!)

The fishing was great. I chose a 4x10 RW flexi dink for the slightly more positive rig with a bulk and 2 no. 11 droppers to 6" of Guru N Gauge 0.11 to a 16 F1 pellet. I also set up a 4x10 RW Maggie with a small spread bulk and 2 no. 11 droppers. This had the same size hook and line. The elastics were the middy purple and orange solids.
My thoughts were that they may not be having it right on the deck but want a slightly slower fall.
I opted to feed very negatively due to the sprinkling of snow and the sustained low temps but it worked.

I was astonished with the F66. When we put them on the rollers side by side, the Airon was definitely stiffer. The glaringly obvious difference was the diameter of the sections. The Airon was much thicker but amazingly well balanced. That is one heck of a pole.

It was great to catch up again and to fish together for the first time in about 10 years."