Today saw me renew my membership for Newland Angling club, this clubs waters are on the Linear complex, gravel pit type waters..
I went with the intention of trying out my newly acquired Speedmaster feeder rod and one of my Aspire float rods, Also took Matrix MTX margin pole I bought in February but not had chance to use,
The feeder rod was set up with a 20g hybrid feeder and 4" hooklength of 5lbs line to a 14 hook with bait band, reel was shimano 4000 DL baitrunner loaded with 5lbs mainline.
The float rod was set up loaded crystal waggler and light shotted with number 8 stotz, reel was Preston Innovations Inception 4000 loaded with 4lbs mainline to a 3lbs hooklength and 18 hook.
The topkits on margin pole were elasticated with 10/12 , 14/16 and 16/18 Drennan bungee, and fitted with side pullers,
The 2 rigs on the lighter elastics were Preston Innovations Tyson 5 and took equivalent of 4 x 14 shot, these were on 0.16 guru line and 18 tubertini 808 hook,the rig for the 16/18 elastic was an inline Middy carp 0.3g shotted with stotz as bulk and couple of droppers, line again was guru and hooklength was 0.16 to a 14 hook.
I started off on the feeder casting around 30 yards out, bait was settings 2mm micro pellets in feeder and an 8mm Robin Red drilled pellet.
After a few casts to get a bit of feed in and some hard pellets catapulted in the area I settled down to see what happens,
After half an hour and one slight knock on the tip, I reeled in and put feeder in rests and cast the waggler rod out, bait was red maggot,
Roach and perch were being caught steadily, I was pleased with the performance of the rod,
Next up was the lighter elastic topkit on pole at 8.5 metres in 8' of water, the float was set at 5' bait was again red maggot. More roach and perch of various sizes were swung in,
The method to catching was to drop rig in the flow created by the aerator and let it run ,
Next up was the other PI float rig, this was set at dead depth in 8' of water to th left of my peg and away from aerator. Bait was worm. A few larger perch and a couple of skimmers came to the net,
As I was trying these methods out I was priming a margin swim to my right next to some lily pads, this was primed with 2mm pellets and red maggot.
So off to try the margin, again a succession of perch and silvers came in, not much of a fight on 16/18 elastic.
I changed bait from bunch of maggots to a Bait Tech sweet flavour durable hooker pellet,
Plenty of bite from small fish, pellet was too big for them to eat, Then the float dipped and started to move away from lily pads, Lifted into it ,and the fish changed its mind and headed back to lily pads, I managed to get it out, only for it to head for under the platform I was on.It ended up swimming round one of scaffolding poles and line snapped,
On with new hooklength and same bait and swim fed with a couple of bait tech pellets and 2mms. Again float dipped and off it went, This time the hook pulled out,
So again a handful of 2mms and new pellet on the hook after checking to see if it was ok.
Again a few tentative bites before a proper bite, and again ended up getting seen off.
These fish could have been large carp or good sized tench,
As for hookpulls I am thinking that the 16/18 bungee could have been set a little to tight.
I will be going back this week, with rigs made up on 0.21 line and see what happens . Only taking margin pole plus beastmaster 4 metre margin extreme with 18 solid elastic through a short number one ,plus shok stick margin pole with again 18 solid through a long number one.
The reason for taking these is to compare the solid elastic to the bungee. I think if I had Preston Innovations 17h in margin topkit I would have stood a better chance, if catch and pull out again on the 16/18 bungee it will be changed for either a solid or 17h.
