Pink Power

Between gardening, decorating and visiting relatives I only had time for a short session, on Bank Holiday Monday. I opted for a small local pond for a spot of jigging. Opting for the pink 2" Power Shirasu  and a Shirasu jig head I was into small perch straight away, taking half a dozen close through a channel in the lilies. Due to the profusion of Duck Weed swims were limited, but those that were fishable produced up to a dozen similar sized perch. One swim, along side a fallen tree, produced a rather pretty little jack that put a reasonable bend in the HTO Rockfish T. A rather pleasant evening was soon brought to a halt by the biting midges though. I'd forgotten the repellent, so retreated gracefully home and onward to the pub.

Jigging for Minows

One of my favourite little becks has a stretch which is nearly unfishable with a fly rod. Low hang branches, high banks and it's width all conspire to prevent a fly rod being waved about. In the past I've wiggled fly line out of the rod tip in the hope of drifting a fly under the branches down to the fish, but the varying currents rarely allowed a fly to be presented properly. This time I decided to try flicking small jigs about.

With the beck being shallow and clear I decided to start with a natural, brown, coloured lure. After a few casts along side some tree roots a little trout popped out and followed the lure for a yard or so. It did this next cast so I changed to to something more lurid, chartreuse, which was quickly grabbed, but only by the tail. Further on another little trout popped out from under an undercut bank and followed the lure before dodging back under the bank. Again a change of colour, to pink, provided the stimulus for a take. Unfortunately it's acrobatics snagged the line on a trailing briar and by the time I'd got upstream it had shaken it's self off the de-barbed hook.

One thing I'd noticed this season was the lack of coarse fish, hardly any  chub, dace or gudgeon and an astonishing lack of minnows. This was to change in the next few swims, which were rammed with minnows several of which I managed to foul hook. Occasionally one managed to grab the hook and a few grabbed the tail of the lure seemingly unable to eject it.

As I neared the end of the stretch I dropped the lure into one of the deeper, 2 foot, holes and was finally reward with another small acrobatic trout.

At this point I was at the edge of the woods and realised what the background noise was. It had been raining for quite a while. A brisk walk back through the woods got me back to the car just before the heavens opened.

White Only

Another short, after work, session on the Aire and Calder Navigation which resulted in a shed load of small perch to a small jig. The only thing of note to report was the fact they'd only take white lures. Any other colour was just nipped at, but white was the only colour I could hook them on. It didn't matter about the retrieve, quick, slow, smooth, jerky, whatever.

Bugga T 200

Armed with a shiny new rod and reel I grabbed a quick, after work, session on the Aire and Calder Navigation to try them out. Being higher than the surrounding area the wind was a bit of a nuisance, I had to tighten the band on my cap up a bit.

I started off with a 5g jig just to have a few casts and bed the line in, before moving to a 1.5g HTO Bug-ga in pink. Despite the stiff breeze the rod, a HTO Rockfish T, cast it really well and accurately. After a few casts bouncing the lure along the bottom the distinctive feel of a fish grabbing the lure was felt, this occurred several times before finally hooking a small perch. The new tackle jinx removed, several more followed, all the same size, before they disappeared. 

The new tackle had behaved very well and even on the wider sections was able to throw the lure to the far bank , something the rod it replaced struggled to do. At £30 or so it's very hard to find fault with it, although I'm to overly keen on the white tip it wasn't as distracting as I thought it might be. The omission of a keeper ring, on just about any rod, is not good. I know you can get little plastic thingies for this purpose, but just how much would fitting one during manufacture cost extra. 

The reel, a Rockfish 2000, was equally nice although the handle felt a little bit chunky for my liking it performed it's task admirably. It comes with just the one, shallow, spool which to my mind would be better if it was half the depth as it would be mainly used with 0.1mm, and smaller, braid and swallowed 120m of 0.08mm no problem, I feel it's a bit under filled. In fact two spools would be nice. The current one for fluorocarbon and an even shallower one for braid. Having said that at £30 it's a reasonable smooth and unfussy reel with an instant anti-reverse and very little play in the spool.

None of the new tackle was truly tested as I wandered about catch a steady flow of small perch all around the same size, but it was fun all the same. I look forward to giving this set up a try at the seaside.