Eee Lad, These Young 'uns

I told my 15 year old grandson Calum about the great day I had on Border Fisheries, fishing the margin pole with Eric, Ed and Jon. Course, he couldn't wait to go and as it happened he had a day off on Monday from his work experience from school.

It gave a false impression though, for they proved much more difficult to tempt with hookbait than they had last Friday. The several degrees overnight drop in temperature didn't help, nor the incessant rain that at times pounded on the surface like a million fingers beating a drum - which is just what I imagine it would sound like to a fish. No wonder it puts them off their snapping!

So although it did nothing but persist it down from the minute we got up to the minute we got home we did have a very enjoyable, if wet, day.

Image by Graham Marsden via Flickr

There was no one else on the lake (probably nobody else daft enough to venture out) so I put Calum in one of the swims where we'd had that good day on Friday, and helped him set up. I didn't have to do much as he's got the hang of this pole fishing now. I showed him just how close to the edge we were fishing, throwing in a handful of micro-pellets just six inches from the boards, and blow me if two or three carp weren't swirling and scoffing the pellets within two minutes!


No matter, we caught a dozen or so carp each (and I had my first tench from the water) including a couple of low doubles and one or two F1s, plus a few nice rudd on Sonu Baits new Fibre Paste which I'm very impressed with. But more about that later when I've given it a more thorough trial.

I told Calum not to strike at all, even if the float was sailing away, for most of the time they're line bites when you're fishing the margins in extremely shallow water and you end up hooking nothing or foul-hooking a fish, and almost certainly scaring the fish out of the swim for a short spell or more.

Course, these young 'uns don't always listen and he spent the first 15 minutes or so hooking nowt.

"I've told you," I said, "when it's a proper bite from a carp the elastic will be flying out before you can react. Just leave it, no matter how good the bite looks, and the carp will hook itself."

So he resisted striking, carried on trickling the micro pellets in, and and within a few minutes was playing his first fish of the day, a decent carp of about 8 - 9lb.

So that was another good day, with my only real problem getting him to pack up and go home.

 

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