A Control And A Confidence

Thinking I would have surely angered the Angling god Izaak Almighty when profusely swearing directly at the river Anker after my last (blank) visit, I took my charabanc back to the golf course lake and deployed my bait left-overs in its general direction.

I needed a control in my Anker experiment and this pool fitted the bill perfectly being home to both moderate chub and barbel. 

It was a hooley of a day - pouring with rain and a water-whipping South Westerly.

I hunkered on the point swim in the lee of a ridge and cast my left rod to the reeded margin of the island. The right rod went out forty five degrees right and into open water.

I used empty feeder casts to find my range and mark up both lines with marker gum. The gum is tied to the mainline once the correct distance is found and then allows for the line to be 'clipped-up' before the next cast hence always plopping your feeder on the same spot. Once cast out the reel line is then unclipped so any running fish can take line freely.  

I'll let this carp chap explain it better.

I started with three tubs of bait; some cheesy maggots, cheesy breadcrumbs and chopped worms, but as the session wore on these soon all became combined into one tub to speed up loading the feeder.

First cast to the island first bite, which I missed. Thankfully my hit ratio was not the point I was trying to prove to myself today.

Second cast second bite, and I'm sure you can complete this simple geometric progression from here. But this time a bristling chub to the bank.

A very welcome number of chub and barbel then followed suit. All fell to a worm on the hook and no other species put in an appearance. It's almost as though the pool was doing its best to pacify me by offering up only river fish on the day!

The hardest thing proved to be hitting the bites as they were definitely bites and not runs. I found striking whilst the lightweight bobbin was on the up was by far the best way to connect with the fish. Leave it too long and the resistance felt meant they spat the bait and thin air was the only thing I connected with.

As I left the pools, kit soaking, I found myself singing, "Oh what a difference a day makes, twenty four little hours".

Am I ready for an Anker return? I've a keen eye on the river levels after our recent weekend of storms as think this might be an opportunity but hey if not then I'm already alight with back up plans.

Cheers.