Trouble With The Wind

 The weather forecast for Thursday was for gusts above 40MPH. Not ideal float fishing weather but it made it a good time to try out the new feeder rod. I'd acquired a Daiwa N'Zon 12' Medium Feeder the other week but not got around to using it. 

I've know idea what an N'Zon is but the rod is of a three piece design and come with two tips rated 1.5oz and 2oz. It's supposedly capable of casting 80g. I reckon 50g feeders would be enough for today. After a bit of balsam bashing I set up a simple running rig with a two foot hook length and the lighter of the two tips. The intention was to sort of alternate between a cage feeder and a blockend feeder. I started with half a dozen casts with the cage feeder load with groundbait before switching to the blocked loaded with maggots.

It was quite while before I got any bites I could see. The gusty wind was wobbling the tip about despite the fact I was protected from the worst of to by a willow to my right. When the bites came they were very fast often leaving me with just a chewed maggot. I tried a shorter, foot long, hook length. This resulted in me being able to hit a few of the bites which turned out to be rather small dace.

I continued with three casts of groundbait then one of maggots as roach displaced the dace. The bites were few but more positive, again this was the ones  I could see. The roach vary in size somewhat. Half a dozen been caught in as many casts before things went quiet again.

After a couple of gonks put in an appearance a reasonable chub followed. It had a bit of a gash on its back. A couple of smaller ones followed.

For a while I picked up the of small fish. Now that the wind had dropped a bit the bites were easier to see.  It looks like a light 1oz tip may be needed though. Especially on slower rivers. I then started to get bites the moment the feeder hit the bottom. Although the tip pulled well round I just couldn't hit them. I tried striking the moment the feeder hit bottom but this didn't help. I still ended up with no fish or maggots on the hook. Except when a jack pike intervened. A rather battered beastie around the 2lb mark hooked in the scissors.

The jack had clearly managed to empty the swim as I didn't get any more bites. Not even a chewed maggot. l had managed 29 fish for a tad over 6lb, plus the jack. Roach, dace, chub, gudgeon, but no perch. This really surprised me as the fish had a good head of perch last year.

Despite the wind the rod had performed well. Not too stiff. The handle not too long like many these days. A softer tip is definitely needed, although I don't think it would have helped in the strong wind.

With out the wind I'm sure I could have doubled the number of fish but ti was still a nice session.