How did your season stat?

[markp76 0]

Couldn't make the 16th this year due to a poorly baby and poorly wife!! What a waste of a rest day from work lol. Any way managed to grab a few hours Thursday evening on the Trent at Beeston managed to open my accunt with 4 chub and 1 barbel, all a bit of a anti climax really but glad to give the rods a airing all the same.

[comanche 3,301]

Had every intention of being on the Arun at first light on the 16th -even dug the worms -but By the time I'd got back from wasp-nest duties , walked the dogs ,cleaned my kitchen of rubble after some DIY building work and dared to have a cup of tea before dozing -off at about 1.30 am I ,er ,overslept .

Finally I made it onto a little mill-stream last night. Just for fun I selected an elderly cane rod and centre-pin reel as long-casting isn't a problem . In fact the stream has long shallows and pools only about 18 inches deep and at most twenty feet across . In many places it narrows down to a trickle just couple of feet across . Not surprisingly the fish can be a bit shy .

Flicking out some sweet-corn I watched as a few decent bream and roach flashed after the grains as it bundled downstream of an old stone bridge over a small weir . I climbed under the bridge and keeping well back from the sill swung my tiny float supporting a cocktail of red-worm and corn on a size 14 hook into the current . The fish continued to snap up loose- feed but my bait went studiously ignored . After trying several subtle variations in presentation to no avail I decided to risk dropping down from a straight- through 4lb mainline to a 2lb trace . Before my float had trotted more than a couple of yards it shot under ,the line tightened and the rod-end belted round . I realised immediatly that unfortunatly I'd made contact with one of the carp that have a habit of slipping over the sluice of the mill-pond into the mill-race I was fishing . These things go into double figures and I know from experience that hooking one on roach gear usually meant a long ,slow and nerve-wracking struggle which sometimes ended in success but more often than not in disaster when the carp decided to take-off over the shallows into the next pool. On this occasion, perhaps because with only 2lb line I dare'nt apply too much pressure , the fish remained sullen and contented itself with swimming in lazy circles around the pool. After what seemed like an age I was neither dissapointed or surprised when the hook pulled free.

Amazingly ,despite the disturbance the roach were still keen to snap-up loose fed corn and rather than move to a fresh swim i decided to stay where I was . A flurry of firm bites produced roach up to half a pond -quality mill-stream fish - but just as dusk fell the float twitched in a slightly different manner . I let the bite develop and found myself attached to a decent bream of maybe 2 n half to 3 lb. Not a massive fish in the great scheme of things but a good fish from a tiny mill -stream that many folk don't spare a second glance at and a pleasant end to my first fishing trip of the new season .

[fireman 11,521]

Me and a mate went out just to get away from the kids really and had a few hours tidder bashing to use up a few maggots he had left over,chub,pearch,gugeon and a few little dace.When realing a dace my mate had a pike come after it so after a quick scrabble we set up his kids 3 ft rod with a live bait set up and set it out while we carried on tiddler bashing.After a few minetes the line tightened on the kids rod and a pike of 3-4lbs was on,when playing it another bigger pike came in to see what was going on.Once landed we put a liitle chub out on the live bait rig and in just a minete or two again the line on the kids rod tightened and i was in,due to the fact it was a kiddies rod i had to play it for a while and to be honest it made my arm ache lol,finally landed it and it was around 5-6 lbs.When it was on it's way to the bank a even bigger pike came in to look at what the fuss was about but by then the rain and light going had taken it's toll and with a pike each and dozens of tiddlers caught we called it a day.A good little start to the season and we'll be back for that biggy soon.