God, that was fun! Couldnt find my pole elastic, so grabbed a few strands of Koosh ball rubber from my fly-tying kit. Set up slider, checked how far I could comfortably cast, marked spot with both rubber and wool.Removed bulk and fitted plummet, found it deepens just at the edge of my comfortable casting range (old river bed?).
Fired out about half my groundbait, proceeded to try and fish over it. Fat chance, it was like trotting. Here ended the first hour. Fed up. Morale below the ground. Wind in face, casting a matter of luck more than technique, and not a sniff. Stiil, the koosh rubber made good a good stop and marker.
Plan B: set up feeder rod, heave to same spot as slider, mark up with koosh rubber; jam end of rubber into line clip. Remove float rod.
Discover my bread has thawed wrong: I now have one slice of soggy bread, one bone dry, and one that's a bit of each. Use soggy bread on a 16. Cast to clip, get sidewinder set. Nothing happens. Pull on line, feeder moves but doesn't snag(!), reset sidewinder. Catch bream!!!. Repeat successfully eleven times - my best bream bag in the UK. Best two went just over four lb.
Plan C: towards tea-time, heaved a few balls of groundbait in near bankside cover.
Just as the light starts to go, the bream clear off, so I set up a Nottingham rod and 'pin, waggler and and one of the last few fragments of useable bread, and drop in the margin swim where I've noticed a nice common carp patrolling. Float vanishes, battle royal, call mate to help net fish, fish sees what an ugly b. he is and stonks off to the far bank, or so it seems. Mate goes back to own swim. Ages later, called mate back to net eqal P.B. carp of 18.5 lb. Removed rubber markes by pulling the tags off, whereupon the rest of the knot (quadruple overhand) unravels with a brief massage. Perfick. Haven't tried to undo the wool stop yet, will report back later.
Definitely a /forum/smilies/smile_smiley.gif!
