Upon opening the bedroom window this morning, the Scots word "driech" sprang to mind, cold, wet, miserable, grey and a host of other adjectives - mostly negative.
I,too,felt a bit negativebut nothing ventured, nothing gained so I packed a Drennan Tench Float rod with my recently acquired Darent Valley 11ft specialist rod, both tooled with Preston PXR Pro 4000 reels, 6lb main line with the Drennan, 4lb with the Darent. I planned to fish maggot on the lighter set up or possiblya single grain of corn, fired up by the recent tench reports and by my recent crucian conversion.
That said, though there are goldfish in the venue, I've never seen, heard of or caught crucians from there but here's hoping.
Although I had my doubts about today, I packed prawns which I felt would be my go to bait today, white choc and pineapple dumbell pellets, a few red maggots, some 8mm meat cubes and a tin of corn - with a long suffering plastic container of chilli hemp, its remnants anyway.
Arriving at the fishery, there were one or two already there - none looked inspired, though one guy admitted to a few on expander pellets.
I set up in a swim I knew well, at the end of an island with open water to cast into and reel back to the island margins. I didn't feel confident but I was there so I opted to try and psyche myself up. A big mug of coffee definitely helped.
Setting up, I opted for a straight Ultra waggler carrying 5BB down to a Middy 14 on 6.1lb trace on the Drennan. A single prawn was hooked up, cast and brought back to the island edge, rapidly accompanied by some cattied hemp.
The float did move once or twice with liners but nothing showed any interest, more coffee and the resident birdlife that dared venture out did provide a pick me up but I began to believe it was going to be a toughie.
Just about an hour and a half in and, suddenly, a bolt under pull that I couldn't miss - and, for once, didn't. A mirror around 4lbs soon fell into the net and I did feel a little better.
The session continued quietly and some time later another mirror, this time around 3lbs, rocked up. Bizzarely, by today's standards, as soon as I cast back in it went again - this time a roach around the half pound mark.
After the roach, I thought I'd try and christen the new rod. To the 4lb main, I fished a 3BB straight waggler to a Drennan silver fish 16 to 2.6lb bottom, starting with two reds and cast to the same point.
A semi succession of stunted roach, perch and the odd tiny skimmer followed until the float went and it was obvious Mr Carp had turned up. I'm delighted to report the rod behaved perfectly and, after a time, a small common around a couple of pounds got netted.
A few more bits came to the maggot but home seemed a good idea after five hours or so and home to a steaming bowl of Big Soup seemed even better.
A quick call to er indoors and the soup was a fixture not long after I got home, along with an internet print out on Corfu. My guess is that a period of negotiation regarding one week of 2018 will begin later.
I hope to be out tomorrow also so until then, cheers chums.
