Show Him How It's Done

Took Mentalor over to Beeston to try and get him picking up some of the bits I'd found here last time...

after 20 mins had passed without a bite, and with no fish topping it wasnt looking good. My master plan had been to spend the first half float fishing for small stuff, then switch to target the pike that had been so active here on my last visit. Of course with the shoals missing the thought crossed my mind that the pike had probably also followed them.

my single pinkie hanging from the size 24 went untouched for the whole session, I tried from overdepth to just under the surface and every combination of colour and size. The fish just didn't seem to be there. Finally Mentalor got a  bite and swung in a bleak. Taking the fish from him I hooked it onto the single size 2 attached via a steel trace to a paternoster rig. This was designed to keep the fish near the surface and prevent it from seeking refuge in the weed and debris at the bottom of the canal. This rod was placed on the alarms and we turned out attention back to watching the biteless floats. Mentalors float occasionally dipped and dithered in a half hearted way from time to time but mine, 12ft or so away remained stubbornly stolid.

Then, bingo! mentalor was in again, and it would prove to be a first of species on rod and line. OK, only a minnow, but as I was getting out my micro-species scales to check its weight (It would be a new PB after all) my alarm bleeped into life and I lifted into a much bigger fish... which soon began to peel the line off the clutch as the rod hooped over. As I played the fish I also talked Mentalor through the finer points of fitting a net into its spreader block, and he had the net assembled and into the canal in plenty of time to net out a mean looking pike of five or six pounds.

Of course now were were out of livebait - and with no further action on the maggots I decided a switch was needed, so we packed up the rods and moved a few hundred yards over to the River Trent. The river was probably a metre or so above summer level, coloured and rising.

Mentalor put a rod out legering with a found worm, while a second rod floatfished maggots in the slack water at our feet. I went all out for barbel, with halibut pellet on one rod and a spicy shrimp pop up on the other. At about 6pm the spicy shrimp did the business, and as the alarm sounded I lifted into a strong fish that headed well out into the flow. It took three good runs before Mentalor did  the honours & netted it for me. A Pike/Barbel double bill, No monsters but I was pleased, Mentalor has had a glimpse of what this fishing lark is really all about