wanye's world of fun

I've been telling my mate wanye that i'd take him fishing for a year or two now, but as blokes do, we never got around to actually sorting out a time. Eventually a day came around that we had both booked as holiday, and the settled sunny weather of early august seemed to promise a comfortable and pleasant session.  Wanye had fished quite a bit as a kid, he had been a member of soldiers and sailors ac and had previously done his maggot dangling on the canal and river near Trent Lock. That was nearly two decades ago however, so it was down to me to make sure that rather than just going fishing we needed to go catching...hopefully he would get the bug back...

  The first thing to go wrong was the weather... I awoke to leaden skies with accompanying downpour. An examination of the raintoday.co.uk radar, cross referenced with the BBC forecast seemes to suggest that it would clear up after lunch, and I had to pick up some maggots in the morning anyway.  I had decided that returning to my bleak bashing swim should guarantee a few bites so by 14:30 we were making out way along London road towards the bend.

  The second thing to go wrong was the weather forecast - as it continued to rain - not just a bit - it F'in hammered down at times, however there were plenty of bright spells in between the torrential showers and at least it was warm.

  The third thing to go wrong was the brolly - which had clearly decided that we needed as a wash is it began to do a moderately good impression of a shower, there is something quite funny about needing to wear a waterproof jacket while under a brolly!.

However at least the fish came out to play, Wanye picked up roach, perch and a couple of bleak - and the float would dip under on almost every cast - though nine times out of ten the strike would produce nothing. I think that tiny fish were grabbing the maggot tip so a strike just pulled it out of their mouth, or pulled the maggot off the size 22 hook. It was only when i got home I remembered that in those circumstances hooking the maggot sideways rather then end on often started to produce fish (in the distant past when I used to do this kind of match stye fishing more often)

I was returning waynes fish to the water via a heavy braid trace coupled with a size 4 single hook. the rig was on a fixed paternoster so it would fish in mid water, a couple of feet from the edge of the canal. The lip hooked baitfish escaped with some regularity, and I did get one single take, but the strike just brought back the unmarked roach, perch I guess, though there are some good chub around here.

I was also tending a groundbait feeder rod which produced the biggest fish of the session, a small skimmer. But the objective of the day was achieved - wanye is back on board the fishy bus - all he has to do now is get himself some kit!