No, not those that you see in the water when fishing on a calm day but the ones you have when you haven’t been fishing for a couple of weeks and are thinking what to write for your blog which also hasn’t been updated either!
Firstly, I was away then my newly acquired hay fever got worse again so I switched medicines and it slowly improved and then I got a bad back as well. Next my dad, aged 93, decided that he wanted a new laptop so I had to take him into town and choose one. He has been on about a new one for some time so I have been doing a bit of research and decided that as he can’t manage a Windows machine a Chromebook would be straightforward for him to operate. And it is, I have set it up for him and with the help of the Internet changed the settings to make everything bigger so that he can see it but he still can’t grasp it! It has made me realise just how far he has deteriorated and how I haven’t got that long to go until I find myself in the same position!
So, what has this got to do with fishing? Nothing except that it explains why I haven’t got anything angling related to write about this week. I really must go fishing next week but I ought to go and see my mum who I haven’t seen for a few weeks, and my sister and both my daughters and their families before the kids are all back at school and we have a Tesco delivery on Wednesday and the missus has a doctor’s appointment on Thursday and I ought to at least go and check my boat and there is all the bird poo to wash off the caravan awning due to being under a tree when we were away and…………………..
You get the picture.
So, back to fishing. One of the things that I have noticed is that I am using fewer maggots recently. Bread, sweet corn and pellets have been replacing them in my attempt to catch bigger fish. And it has worked, mostly. On the venues I fish, maggots will catch you small rudd and roach but I have done that for a year and want to move on. Of course just as you think that you have got a rule in angling something comes along to break it. In my case it was the 11lb carp that took a single red maggot on my float rod that I wrote about in the blog before last!
I have also found myself moving away from using my float rod as my preferred method of fishing and using my feeder rod. I tried lots of different ways with feeders and never really felt comfortable with any of them as the feeder would often get tangled in the line so I have been trying a small inline hybrid method feeder and getting better results. I will persevere with this for a while and see if I can get a consistent improvement.
I have mentioned buying stuff off eBay in previous blogs and have been looking for replacement arms for my carp net after one of them broke last time out. You can get them, when they are in stock, but for the same price I bought a brand new complete net. Not the best quality being NGT but it seems to be fine for what I want it for. I have also been looking for a smaller landing net and pole for silver fish as my current one is very old and the pole is telescopic but the securing wing nut doesn’t work so there is the chance of it falling apart while landing a fish! eBay has a few secondhand but when you add on the price of postage for separate net and handle it is cheaper to go to Angling Direct, so I did!
I also ordered a new pair of forceps as I couldn’t find mine. They were in a job lot of tackle from eBay and they were very good but when I came to use them last time out they weren’t in the box. I wasn’t worried too much as they would probably turn up and one thing I managed to do last week was to tidy up my tackle bags and boxes. I turned everything out but didn’t find them. It is a bit of a puzzle as the last thing I do before finally leaving a swim is to have a good look around.
I will finish by telling you about the Nash H-Gun Bivvy that I bought from Facebook Marketplace. I had learnt to respond quickly if something was advertised and so managed to get it. The door had been subject to heat and was a bit melted at the bottom hence the bargain price but it will be ideal for me as a day shelter so I am not worried. I took it over the park to set it up and have a look as there was plenty of space and it was fine. I haven’t used it yet but feel sure that it is going to come in useful during those cold windy days that are on the way!
So, I did end up talking about fishing after all or at least fishing gear. I sincerely hope that I will be able to write about actually going fishing next week!
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