Umbrella Testing

It had been my intention to go fishing Wednesday with a mate, as we hadn't fished together for a while. Unfortunate he'd made a bit of a pig's ear of his calendar and got his shift pattern all wrong. He was working Wednesday but had today off.  The weather forecast, for those that haven't noticed, was rain, rain, and more rain. While it would be a good test for my new brolly come advertising hoarding I dislike setting up in the rain. We were lucky with the weather though. It was only a slight drizzle when we arrived. We'd also chosen a spot where we were only a few yards from the car parking. Float Fishing in the rain under a brolly is no fun so I only set up the feeder rod. A simple running rig with a black feeder and a short 9" hook length.

First cast produced a good rattling bite. Which turned out to be a rather tatty roach. Followed by a tiny dace. These little things proved to be a right nuisance. They would give a really good twang of the tip which proved unhitable. The trick was to just ignore this and wait for the tip to start rattling about.

We both tried single maggot rather than double but this didn't produce many bites at all. After a couple of hours we'd both amassed a couple of dozen of these little things. Strangely both swims went quiet about the same time. The rain had eased to drizzle again so we had a cuppa and a natter. On resuming fishing I found roach had turned up in the swim. While my mate was back with the tiny dace. The roach were either hand size or tiny. The bites were well spread out though. At least they were hittable. While my mate had another couple of dozen of the little dace I had about a dozen roach over the next couple of hours.

 

With another break in the weather we decided to call it a day. Despite the rain it had been a reasonably pleasant session. No big 'uns, which was a good job as I'd forgotten my net bag with the landing net in. One thing that surprised us both was the lack of perch. They normally put in an appearance, or used to. The brolly did everything expected of it. Being a bit bigger than my old one it was easier to hide under and keep dry.