Out With The Boys

Again, please accept my apologies for the lack of photos to accompany this post – i keep forgetting to take my camera with me, I can only download photos from my mobile phone onto my laptop – which has recently packed up. Once i get my laptop working again – i shall share some of the pictures I’ve taken recently with you.

Saturday was spent with Phil-K at Bradshaws lake 2. I started off fishing hemp and tares on the pole but didnt get a bite for over two hours – so swapped over to a shallow pellet waggler rig which brought immediate success. Both Phil and I both caught a good number of carp to 12lbs.
It was interested to note the action of my Drennan rod compared to Phils Hardy Marksman. The Hardy rod was as stiff as a poker with all of the action in the top 1/3rd of the rod whilst my Drennan floatmaster has a through action with the rod bending all the way down to the butt section.
I have often wondered if this rod is too light to use for powerfull fish such as Barbel on the Ribble, but after it coped admirably with these hard scrapping carp i am now reassured that i will be able to control decent barbel in the Ribbles strong flow.
Another interesting point of comparison was the fact i used banded pellet and Phil used hair rigged pellet. We both caught an identical bag of fish – which proves that carp at Bradshaws are just plain greedy rather than crafty.
Matt has been after beating his carp pb of 6lbs so I now have a nice easy venue to take him to next weekend.

Sunday afternoon was spent on the Ribble with Phil-K & Tony. Recent rains had put a good 18 inches on the river levels meaning that our favourite swims were unfishable. This lead us to try out a few other areas for the nice roach which we know reside in this area, and it wasnt long before we were all catching roach, dace and chubletts at steady rate.
Tony and I moved upstream for the last hour or so to see if we could get any sea trout from one of the streamier runs. I didnt have much luck but Tony caught i nice brownie and a Barbel of about 4lbs late on.
The constant rain made for miserable fishing conditions, but fishing the Ribble brings out the young boy in me – i just cant have a bad day when I’m fishing there. The highlight of my day was having a sea trout clear the water less than 5 yards from where i was fishing – a magnificent fish of well over 4lbs. I wish, I wish, I wish 🙂