As I said at the end of my last piece my intention is to do a full night for carp one session and a short river session next . Well my last session on the lake was another bleepless blank but I made a couple of mistakes , firstly with low temperatures and possible frost predicted I totally picked the wrong swim , it had no cover and I really should have gone for one of the swims with overhanging trees with the chance of deeper water and also the temperature be a little higher under cover . I picked 2 spots to put my rods on , one was put on a gravel patch at 25 yards and the other up the margins on the edge of a small patch of lilies . Despite watching the water all through the day until dark I never saw a sign of a fish of any species .
The following morning I decided to gamble and put the lily rod at distance , as I wound in a fish crashed out at 90 yards and I immediately put the rod on the spot , within minutes 2 more fish crashed in the same place and my confidence went up then my 2nd mistake became apparent as either a large perch or jack pike crashed through some fry next to the lilies , at this point I regretted not bringing my lure gear . Despite leaving the rods out til the last minute nothing happened .
3 days later and I decide on a river session that was to be short one of just 4 hours . On arrival I found 3 anglers already on the stretch one of which had been there overnight and not one of them had managed a single bite !!! . I took myself into an area with no one near me and having surveyed the swim and conditions I decided there was room for 2 rods , one was to be fished with some cheese squabs I have decided to try the other wold have my home made boillies on . Everything set up and a dozen baits pt on each spot at this point the wind was starting to get a bit strong and swung straight into my face . About an hour in and I get a bang on the boilie rod and then it went over after a spirited scrap a beautifully conditioned chub of 2lb 6oz was landed .
The rod was re-positioned and I settled back in my chair at this point the weather took another turn for the worse as the wind moved slightly round and started hitting the inside of the brolly , I made the decision to put the brolly away and put everything in the van and sit in the back of it , having just got the brolly down it started spitting and hurriedly got everything into the van and settled to sit in the back now it looked like this would be ok but the rain got heavier and was swirling round so I spun the van round so I could sit in the passenger side and see the rods . The rain was now at its heaviest and the wind was rocking the van and completely out of the blue the boilie rod alarm went on a one toner I leapt from the van and expected to be connected to a barbel but it was thumping and plodding in front of me , then my mistake of the day occurred there was room for 2 rods as the tip of the rod I had the fish on caught the line of the other , it took at most 5 seconds to free it but in that time the fish had dived into the reeds in the margin and appeared to be stuck fast , releasing the pressure and suddenly I spotted a nice chub flashing just below the surface , I could work out why the fish was not taking line as it seemed the lead was snagged and I was using my usual running rig , I tried going above and below the fish to free the lead but to no avail , as a last resort I decided to try handling while having the landing net nearby as my fear was that if the line broke the fish would be tethered . The rain was now bucketing down and making my hands numb I began hand lining and suddenly the snag began to move the fish got close enough to get the net under and as I it went in the hook fell out , putting the net with the fish in safely in the margin I continued hand lining and out came a large tree branch , lifting it out I put it at the side of the rod rests and then set about sorting the fish out which turned out to be a scale perfect chub of 3lb 15oz .
Having returned the fish , I set about sorting the tree branch out , now we all know how good chub are at shedding hooks and leaving you attached to weed or snags , well this one had somehow in a matter of seconds wrapped the braid hooklink round the lead swivel and then the mainline round the tree branch about 5 times . Had the hand lining not worked I had already decided I was going into the river to free it .
I recast the boilie rod and wound the other one in out of the way . I made a brew and sat in the van as the rain continued after about half hour the rain eased and I decided to call it a day and go home .
Bad weighing or downright lying
You will see that my biggest chub weighed 3lb 15oz , not 4lb as some wold have claimed . Now this has been going on for years but over recent months it has become almost standard for some to either make a mess of weighing their catches or deliberately lie . Now we all make mistakes but not to the extent of some of these guys , 20lb barbel that at best are 13lb , the only way you can do that is have scales that have multiple rotations and misread but a discrepancy of that much wold be obvious , not deducting the weigh sling can add a couple of pounds , to make matters worse these fish are been sent to the weekly magazines and are actually winning awards and cash prizes , why the people at the magazines accept these is a mystery . Any one on any of the forums or facebook will have seen the debates and even people defending these people but for me there is no defence and this wont ever stop until the magazines grow some balls and refuse them , if they opened their eyes they would see its one of the main reasons why people like me refuse to buy them.
Stealing ideas and passing them off as your own.
Most of you will know where this is coming from and thats people who come onto forums and ask advice and then pass it off as their own ideas . Over the last 4 years one particular individual has not only done the above but has also used bait recipes given to him in good faith and not just used them but started marketing them as his own , most of the baits have been successful but he started trying his own recipes which dont work too well but he has testers who have the same standards as him and catch fish on other baits but state that they have been caught on his . Any questioning of him is met with derision and people are blocked then slated with no chance to reply . I have at times got too involved in trying to expose him not out of jealousy as he and his testers state but since he charges more for his baits than proper more reputable bait makers do , I feel ripping honest hard working anglers off who are looking for an edge but for the most part are been duped needs exposing .
There yo are a some what different blog to normal but I felt I needed to say these things .
Til next time tight lines to all
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