You'd Forget Your 'ead If It Wasn't Screwed On

Friday the 13th, what can go wrong. I set off for the gravel pit with the nagging feeling I'd forgotten something. I stopped at the end of the road and stared into the boot. The bait bag was there and full. I set off again then, a mile down the road realised the missing item was my wellies. Given the boots I was wearing are no longer water proof I had to turn back and get them. The journey there had an unusual problem that I haven't had for a while. The sun, straight in my eyes. A nice problem to have really. There was quite a bit of broken branches lying on the path round the pit and one or two still dangling up trees. This had me looking up as the pit is surrounded by trees. When I got there I selected a swim with the same problem, not that I minded. I picked up a couple of cans left at the gate.

The tactics were float fished sprat under the overhanging tree branch. The one nearest the water is very useful as it marks the point where there is a small drop off and has in the past produce some quite good hauls of pike. The other rod was baited with half a herring and flung out to the middle under a float. The rest of the herring was chopped up and catapulted around and with some chopped sprat under the tree. While the sun was out small fish dimpled the surface and while I had my lunch three carp breached along with another one later on. Quite why they do this is the cause of much speculation.

After lunch I injected both baits with sardine oil. Around three o'clock I had my first run which just resulted  in a missing sprat. At quarter past four I got my nest run on the half herring which resulted in a small jack. The picture of which is non to clever as the flash startled me.  I gave it another half hour, by which time I could no longer see the floats. Despite the full moon it was remarkably dark.

On the way home I had that nagging feeling again. Staring at the kit in the garage I couldn't see anything missing. While having my tea it dawned on me that the l;anding net wasn't there. Thankfully it was sill propped up against a fence post when I got back. At leat I caught today even if it wasn't very big and didn't put up much of a struggle. Another angler fishing had one small perch to worm in the couple of hours he was there.

The next problem I found was some of the video I'd recorded was missing.. The SD card appears to be corrupt. I managed to extract a couple of little bits. Not a great day in some ways, but a nice day to be out and a fish at the end of the day to make up for all the other problems.