New PB Plank

Thursday I intended to go a bit further afield, but the washing machine had other ideas.  By the time I'd persuaded it to complete the wash cycle it was getting a bit late. A trip to the Ouse seemed the best option as the tackle shop is on the way. Armed with hemp and two pints of best reds for a spot of float fishing again.

I'd brought the barbel rod with me so quickly clipped a maggot feeder on and stuck three maggots ion the size 12 to 10lb hook length. It hadn't been in long before the tip rattled round good and proper. I thought I'd missed the bite, but a shiny little bleak was impaled on the hook. I had several more real tip rattlers while I set the float rod up. Nearly every time it was a bleak, along with the occasional perch.

With a large Bolo float set up at around ten foot and feeding hemp and red maggots I started to get a few chublets, the odd dace, and occasional perch. The fish seemed to come in groups of five or six, before going quiet for there or four trots down. On more than one occasion a perch was grabbed by a pike as I wound in. There was barely a mark on the perch when the pike let go of it.

For the time of year the boat traffic wasn't too bad at all. Half a dozen white plastic tubs, paddle boarders and a few canoes. One group of three did witness me catching a rather fine blank. They, along with me, also witnessed a fish jumping near the snags on the far bank. It had been throwing itself out of the water for a couple of hours. It was very silvery what ever i was.

Near the end of the session I hooked into something very solid, which took the best part of ten minutes to get near the net. This was not surprising, as when I finally got to see it it turned out to be a decent sized pike which came adrift about a yard from the net. It's rampage around the swim seemed to have put everything of. A change back to feeder  produced nothing either, even though I stayed into dark.