Another Friday

So it Friday again and I out fishing in what can only be described as near perfect conditions. I headed to the first swim of the day with high hopes of a frantic days fishing.

I arrived in the early dawn with the bird singing and a gentle breezy coming in from the west. So I decided to head to a nice shallow section of the water, thinking Mr & Mrs Pike would either be getting ready to spawn or be just heading out after spawning.

Quite swiftly the three rods were unbanded, assembled and rigs/baits attached. One in the shallows popped up, one at 40yds and a bait send to the horizon for good measures.

It was a nice morning, and soon I had a quacking female mallard at my feet unsurprisingly. What was surprising was the male tuffed ducked that was following her in. Both seemed amazingly tame to an extent that they started to swim or walk under the rods pecking away at bugs and bits on the ground.

For the next four hours saw me recasting baits, twitching them and even chucking the lures about, but alas the pike where not at home here.

So, with me going quackers, I decided enough was enough and with the arrive (at last) of the my piking partner, a change of swim was in order.

I upped sticks and headed around the bay and settled into a brand new swim. In my twenty odd years for fishing here, this was to be a new area. Soon enough baits were sent out, one short, one mid and one at range.

During the course of setting up, we seemed to have developed a crude obsession with brown sticky stuff and to say we were in floods of tears is an understatement. If you easily shocked, for the love of god do not goggle 2 girls and a cup. THIS IS A WARNING, ITS GROSS!!!! And no, I'm not posting a link to it you sickos!!!! LoL

Back to the fishing.

The wind started to pick up and with it no on my back, it was time to deploy ranger! No not an elite American combat soldier, but a drift float. Now for most of you a drift float is nothing special, but my setup is a modified setup to overcome some of the design issue on the ones on the market.

The basic rigs is a mrk 1 fox drifter, but the boom has been constructed out of stiff rig tube, silicone sleeves, kwik change adaptor and a nice big barrel swivel.

The whole rigs works perfectly and really does drift to the horizon if given chance. To make life easier and to maintain a solid connection to the setup I use a floating red braid from Hi-seas (Thanks Mr Ed). At 65lb bs, its a little heavy, but it floats really well and as said, it ensures you stay in good contact with the drifter which is crucial when a pike decides to pay attention to the bait going over head.

So the afternoon was spent drifting baits out across the pond, which is a pleasant way to fish. We get too hung up with sitting behind bite alarms and static bait at times, so its always nice to watch a float, even if it does not go under.

The bait was send on numerous drifts across the pond to around 150yds, which I feel is my limit. IN theory with this setup,  a 200yd drift is achievable, but I don't think it would be wise to fish any further than 150yds. Alas nothing showed and interest in the roach, which was a shame, but I think I was hampered by the shallow nature of this particular swim as I could only set it at a 8ft depth and would have been better with it being closer to the bottom at say 12-14ft.

My piking partner on the other hand had a screaming run, this was soon landed as it was one of the smallest jacks we have seen from this water. Most this year have been low doubles or high jacks.

The day ended at half four and we packed up and headed for hope.