Redfins On Bling

I bought a new centre pin reel via mail order last week, i couldnt help but laugh when i opened the box to find i had my first piece of fishing “bling”. The reel is supposed to come in a silver/grey colour but i had been sent the special edition gold coloured model instead for the same price. Should i change the name of the blog to “gangsta fisha”? – probably not.
Being keen to try out my new reel, i arranged a trip up to the river with Tony. The weather has been wet for the last few days and it was no surprise to find level up a couple of feet, and the river a dirty brown swirling cauldron. This rendered our usual swims unfishable so we decided to fish the swims closest to the car park for roach and dace.
As i have had a run of bad luck recently it came as no surprise that i lost the first two fish i hooked (both good sized roach) at the net. Funnily enough a change from barbed hooks to a new Kamasan barbless pattern did the trick as i went on to hook and land my next 7 bites which resulted in 6 cracking roach – smallest around 12oz and the largest well over a lb and also my first eel of the year.
It was good to christen my new reel by catching roach, as there are few finer looking fish than a scale perfect big redfin. The new reel worked like a dream, allowing me to hold back and run through in a far steadier and controlled fashion. It beats a fixed spool reel hands down when trotting through a swim.
Its good to fish when conditions are a little more challenging, you unlock a few more of the rivers secrets each time you go, sometimes you find out more when the going is tough than when the fishing is easy – i hope that was the case yesterday.