What a Load of Bolo

 For the last day of the month I headed down to the slow deep stretch of the Derwent again. This time I was (slightly) better prepared as I'd put a couple of bait droppers in the bag. I'd also dusted of an old Harlow 'pin. A big beast at 5¼" diameter. The reason it hadn't been used for a long time is that the reel foot is larger than modern reels. This means it doesn't fit a lot of modern reel seats but it did just fit the Greys 15'.

On the way to the swim I collected a bit of soil from a molehill to add to the groundbait. The ix was a simple one; dark breadcrumb, molehill soil and crushed hemp. Mixed firmly it should get down the bottom of the 15' deep swim before breaking up. I was also going to introduce maggots and hemp with a bait dropper in the hope this would not attract as many small dace or bleak. This idea seemed to fail as the first fish out was a minnow, but this turned out to be the only one of the session. My other attempt at avoiding the little bits was to use a 6g bolo float. I reckoned it would be enough weight to get past the bits.

After the minnow it was a little while before the next fish showed up. Mainly gudgeon with a few small dace mixed in. I put a dropper of hemp and maggots every half dozen casts and a ball of groundbait every thirty minutes, or so. Eventually some decent sized dace turned up but I had trouble hitting the bites at times. This was probably down to the size of the float. I think a slider may be a better option, even if I don't like fishing them, as it would allow me to strike through the float.

After another lull the roach turned up. Mainly hand sized or smaller. Their bites were a lot easier to hit being a lot slower. Out of no where I struck into to something bigger. At first I thought it was a perch but when it surfaced it was a larger roach. A rather nice fish around the pound mark. I managed a couple more smaller ones before are rather large pike turned up and snaffled one I was reeling in. I managed to play it for half a minute before it bit me off.

Obviously things went rather quiet after this, but I did manage three smaller perch before bites dried up completely. I did try down the edge but this just produced a lot of chewed maggots. I did manage 7lb 2oz of bits. Although 15% of the weight was the one large roach.

I think I'll have to sort the slider floats out for these deeper venues. Once they get beyond 10' they're a bit problematic. Especially when heavy weights are used to avoid the bleak and minnows.