Brief and to the point

As the year comes to an end I feel I should write about my last 3 sessions but 2 were practically write offs . The first was a short after work session for chub on the Trent , now as you will have read previous my style of steak and mince fishing is different to most as I only add predators plus and plug the feeder and use the blood and predator plus to seep out into the water , after having a chat with Lee Swords and watching his video I decided to try a similar approach in that I mixed the mince and predator plus with some groundbait to break up the pieces of mince which stopped it clogging in the feeder .I also moved to a swim new to me and spent 2 hours fishing before I had a savage take that found me attached to a large fish for all of 2 seconds when it came off , on retrieving the rig the hook had gone and on inspecting the line it looked like it had been bitten off , dont often have this happen but sometimes chub are good at it . that was all the action I got despite trying a couple more swims .

My next session was looking like a big bonus as my wife had suggested I have a few hours after work on xmas eve , now I was on an early start than usual which meant been at work for 3.45am but would be done for midday and at the river for 12.45 ish and planned to fish til 5pm ish , well the best laid plans and all that , now I can cope with fishing in high winds but I had been fishing in a gale force downstream wind for around half an hour and had one tentative bite that I missed and even had a couple of fish top in the area my bait was in but then the sky went black and yes rain dont bother me either despite no brolly but when the wind spins round to come straight in your face and the rain is horizontal straight at you its time to quit , the 50 yard walk back to the van was ok from the front as the wind and rain was on my back but god was I soaked .

Yet again the weather would play a part in my last session .I had a choice of 2 venues both involving different approaches . I have been a member of Newark and District Piscatorial s for the last 4 years and while I have fished some of the stretches of the Trent I have never even seen the stretch of the upper Witham but was hoping to change that unfortunately the weather again played its part , high winds greeted me when I left the house and not knowing the stretch decided not to risk been able to find a spot and took myself off to the small pond that I had my perch from at the end of last year and also some good roach , I settled on a swim that had the very high gusty wind on my back .

I had planned if I was on the river to fish liquidised bread with crushed hemp in a cage feeder with bread flake on the hook . I decided to stick to the bait plan but to float fish it and use bread punch , my choice of float would normally have been a bottom end only one to combat the wind but I had some floats that were made by Robert Lancaster of the ARA and decided to use of them . From the off I was catching small roach .

I had taken some prawns in case the perch put in an appearance but as the day wore on and the roach continued to come and get bigger I decided to stay with the punch .I must have finished with close to 100 fish with most 4-6oz but also a good number around 12oz and have since found out that some where roach / rudd hybrids .

.

I had nice enjoyable day and will be out for my last session of the year on monday 30th december and again have a number of choices .
I have some decisions to make about what tickets I will be getting for next season as I am dropping my Ashfield ticket for a number of reasons including the fall I had fiasco . I have 3 or 4 options and will be taking up at least 2 of them .