Back out with dad to our club water and the river was fining down after being over the platforms and with it being the only dry day of the week we were surprised to find our favourite swims empty. The only other angler, a young lad had already had a 15lb carp floatfishing with an old cork, which he told everyone - and why not!
Spent most the day chilling as had a good first hour getting a few barbel and chub. Swapped with dad and ended up getting a few more in his swim
fortunately a small but stunning mirror carp gave him his first fish and he went on to get a couple of barbs and chubs although it was quite quiet on the lead for him at times.
Meanwhile the young lad has asked me to show him to float fish and even though I was in the worst swim for any tutoring he insisted he wouldn't hook the over hanging tree with my rod which was brushing the rod tips on the cast (Gulp!). At first he struggled with the light float but he picked it up really quick and was soon lowering it pretty well under the branches and mending the line straight away. Despite us making a bit of noise he was soon in to a fish and although my rod was a lot longer and the set up a lot lighter he played it like a natural and soon had his first float caught barbel in the net. He was hooked saying how relaxing float fishing was despite fishing a swim I find hard work and he didn't hook the tree once. I gave him a decent stick float and just before he went back to his swim he still had time for a small chub that got followed by an optimistic perch, me being the older wise one said it wouldn't take it but the optimism of youth insisted it would. Yep we soon had a 6oz chub in the landing net accompanied by a perch that wasn't even a pound, not sure it actually hooked up but was more lodged in it's gob. We both thought this was hilarious and it reminded me how the big stripeys were operating on the broads a few weeks back.
I checked up on the lad when we packed up and he had set up the float I had given him but it was a different affair with his tiny rod and big pit reel, it bought home the argument that better gear really does matter. He'll get a lot more help from the club members I expect, better than I could do but he's going in the right direction learning a new skill.
Bumped in to an old fella before the car park who straight away greeted me with an infectious smile and asked how my trip to Norfolk went - you know when you can't remember telling people things, anyhow we had a nice chat and I found out the river was over the banks at the crack of dawn when he arrived, which was the reason no one was fishing where we started. Despite this he had a decent day too like dad on the lead which was good to hear.
Three generations of enthusiastic anglers having a great day down the river and to be honest I'd have to check my notepad to see what I caught in total as it really didn't matter. :thumbs:
