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- Mar 10, 2019
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So after making a bit of a hash of it last weekend I was back at boddington reservoir today in search of roach. It was a perfect day weather wise being warm but not hot with enough of an occasional breeze to keep it comfortable but not enough to mess up presentation. All it needed was for the fish to play ball and they certainly did this time and I got my act together and fished better so it turned out a really nice session.
I started fishing at about 8.30 on the deck at 11ft but instant fish on the drop saw me go pretty much straight over to my other rod which was set at 6ft and from then til about 10.30 it was a constant stream of roach and the odd perch but only in the 2-4oz range. I’d noticed the better fish were coming earlier on the cast so at 10.30 I shallowed up to about 4ft. This upped the roach stamp to 4-8oz plus added some bigger perch whilst maintaining the same constant stream of bites so really improved the session. That really good spell lasted till about 1.30 when the bites slowed but up until about 2.30 I was still picking up a few fish having now dropped back down to about 5ft. From then though it just died with no more fish until packing up at about 4. It was towing like mad swat from the bank then so maybe it just pushed the fish out of float range. Wasn’t too fussed by that though as I reckon I’d had about 75 roach and about 10 perch for I would think over 20lb which I thought pretty good for effectively 6 hours fishing given the barren last 90 minutes. Us probably my best ever bag from a fairly natural Stillwater so I was very happy with it. Was a fascinating session in how it took tinkering with the depth and varying the feed amounts and casting range to keep the fish coming and the stamp up. Didn’t get any of the pound plus roach of last weekend but had a couple Perch around that mark and was more than happy with the numbers of good stamp fish.
Tackle wise all fish came to the 14ft and 13ft drennan acolyte ultra float rods paired with the 2500 shimano sahara RD reels loaded with 3lb maxima to 1.5G drennan loaded crystal insert wagglers to size 18 to 2lb drennan silverfish hooks to nylon. Obviously the longer rod was used for fishing on the deck and the shorter one for up in the water. Hook bait was single red maggot over loose feed of red maggots over dynamite silver x black roach groundbait.
My grandad was with me again today and had a good day as well. He didn’t catch quite as many as me as he finds the constant casting and feeding of fishing up in the water hard work these days so just went at his own pace but I reckon he still had maybe 60 fish for pushing 15lb.
All in all it was certainly a lovely session and probably my best of the closed season in terms of enjoyability and execution of plans. The fish were clearly more up for it than last week and the conditions were better but I definitely fished better as well so good for a plan to come together. I’m away with mates next weekend so today will likely turn out to be my last Stillwater session of the year with the rivers open by the time I’ll next be on the bank. Very much looking forward to the rivers of course but have enjoyed trying a couple new Stillwaters in the last couple weeks so I’ll definitely be back on them next closed season.
Pics of the swim, a few roach that were about the stamp for the session after the first couple hours of smaller fish and a couple of the better perch.
I started fishing at about 8.30 on the deck at 11ft but instant fish on the drop saw me go pretty much straight over to my other rod which was set at 6ft and from then til about 10.30 it was a constant stream of roach and the odd perch but only in the 2-4oz range. I’d noticed the better fish were coming earlier on the cast so at 10.30 I shallowed up to about 4ft. This upped the roach stamp to 4-8oz plus added some bigger perch whilst maintaining the same constant stream of bites so really improved the session. That really good spell lasted till about 1.30 when the bites slowed but up until about 2.30 I was still picking up a few fish having now dropped back down to about 5ft. From then though it just died with no more fish until packing up at about 4. It was towing like mad swat from the bank then so maybe it just pushed the fish out of float range. Wasn’t too fussed by that though as I reckon I’d had about 75 roach and about 10 perch for I would think over 20lb which I thought pretty good for effectively 6 hours fishing given the barren last 90 minutes. Us probably my best ever bag from a fairly natural Stillwater so I was very happy with it. Was a fascinating session in how it took tinkering with the depth and varying the feed amounts and casting range to keep the fish coming and the stamp up. Didn’t get any of the pound plus roach of last weekend but had a couple Perch around that mark and was more than happy with the numbers of good stamp fish.
Tackle wise all fish came to the 14ft and 13ft drennan acolyte ultra float rods paired with the 2500 shimano sahara RD reels loaded with 3lb maxima to 1.5G drennan loaded crystal insert wagglers to size 18 to 2lb drennan silverfish hooks to nylon. Obviously the longer rod was used for fishing on the deck and the shorter one for up in the water. Hook bait was single red maggot over loose feed of red maggots over dynamite silver x black roach groundbait.
My grandad was with me again today and had a good day as well. He didn’t catch quite as many as me as he finds the constant casting and feeding of fishing up in the water hard work these days so just went at his own pace but I reckon he still had maybe 60 fish for pushing 15lb.
All in all it was certainly a lovely session and probably my best of the closed season in terms of enjoyability and execution of plans. The fish were clearly more up for it than last week and the conditions were better but I definitely fished better as well so good for a plan to come together. I’m away with mates next weekend so today will likely turn out to be my last Stillwater session of the year with the rivers open by the time I’ll next be on the bank. Very much looking forward to the rivers of course but have enjoyed trying a couple new Stillwaters in the last couple weeks so I’ll definitely be back on them next closed season.
Pics of the swim, a few roach that were about the stamp for the session after the first couple hours of smaller fish and a couple of the better perch.
honest ) I was just remembering the number of years we used to count of the days to the 16th ( even more so during the old close season days ) and then the fishing would be dire for the first month or so ( still went every opportunity though ! ) on the rivers but you could rely on the canal to produce
