Twitter is a useful tool, what i mean by that is you can get some really useful tips off the stars of the angling world and meet some like minded people like i have so my story begins.........
Its now 5.45am on the Saturday 11th of January and I've packed the car to drive to the basingstoke canal to meet a friend i met off twitter he goes by the name of Paul. The place we are going to join up is a cafe in the town of Ash in Aldershot right by the Ash vale train station this is a convenient place to meet as it is only a two minute drive to the canal. I arrive just before 7am and Paul is waiting for me and gives me the bad news that the cafe don't open until 7.30 on a Saturday, and it's still to dark to go to the canal so we stand there chin wagging about all things fishing and about each others life's what we've done and what we do for a living. My life is dull compared to Paul's he's been in the army and now a teacher for autistic kids and that's a job not alot of people can do so i have the up most respect for him doing that. It's gone 7.30am and the cafe isn't opening so we decide to go fishing and have something to eat a bit later, the part of the canal we are fishing is right at the back of the train station which is good so we haven't got far to go with our tackle and our cars are safe unlike where i come from.
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| Paul setting up |
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| What a beautiful morning |
Now we are going to do some bait fishing first with prawns and krilled maggot's because Paul has had some success with these before so we set our self's up, i'm using my avanti carp waggler rod which does sound a bit much but it has a very forgiving tip but plenty of backbone should i need it. Now iv'e coupled this with my browning reel and 4lb main line, float wise i'm using a small drennen chubber float attach to the line by float rubbers down to a size 6 hook with a fat old prawn on the end lovely jubbley. Now we've been here for a couple of hours and the only action we have had is our floats bobbling about but no positive bites, but there's plenty of fish topping and splashing around and Paul suggest it could be the pike chasing the silvers about this could be the reason why we haven't had any action on the prawn because the top predators are about, so we make a decision to pack up and go and get something to eat from the cafe. Now this place is very clean and tidy run by two lady's who cook a very good fried breakfast which Paul said his paying for because i traveled all the way down here to fish with him great, and i thank you for that mate. While we are eating our food we are discussing what we are going to next, now there's another reason why I came down to see Paul using his drop shotting kit that he sold me at a very good price. I have never done this type of fishing before so i'm gagging to get going and give it a go but i'm not sure how its going to work or if it is going to work.
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| A selection of lures |
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| Lure rod |
So after filling our self's up with some lovely grub we proceeded to the same part of the canal as we fished before, because if there's pike about we might as well try and catch them and Paul is going to show me how to use this piece of nifty kit and work the lures and drop shot. I must say that for somebody that hasn't done it for to long has a very good knowledge of the method, Now the main action is to learn how to retrieve lure like jerking and twitching, so i go through the motions and watch different lures react in different ways. Some dive some wobble and some wobble and dive all very interesting to a newbie like me.
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| Drop shotting |
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| Me swinging out my lure |
Now after a good going through the swim with the lure's and the drop shot jelly's i can't get a bite and its looking like a blank and you know from my previous fishing trips i'm use to blanking, but there's a hero on hand as Paul says to me let me show how to do it again. With that he grasps the lure rod with the skill and finesse of top predator angler Mick Brown and drops it inches from the concrete wall right in the edge and proceeds to do exactly what i did and low and behold he gets a take and he lands a lovely jack pike all of about 3.5lb maybe 4lb, it must be his boyish good looks that helped him LOL.
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| Pretty boy Paul with his pike |
So thank you very much for having me for the day Paul i really enjoyed myself and learnt alot about a new method iv'e just got to keep practicing and i will get it, you never know it might even help me catch that four pound perch.
P.S just before i go i like to congratulate my mate Dave on persisting with the bad weather and catching a monster pike of 25lb plus great angling fella.
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| Dave 25lb plus |
