New swim, first cast result...

Having sat in an air conditioned committee room all day, stepping out of work a wall of heat hit me instantly. Rushing home from work and frantically getting the gear together I was physically dripping with sweat. After making up a feeder mix consisting of crushed trout pellet, bread crumb, bread and Hookbait Company micro pellets this was then flavoured with a new test flavour- Nimrod. I was soon on the road, windows down and heading towards the Tidal Trent.

I have been targeting a swim fairly close to where I am able to park, though have found this swim only produces when the river is carrying some extra water as the fish move out of other features. Arriving in the car park the river was clearly very low with exposed banks. The suggested swim was out of the question from viewing the river. Loading the barrow up I walked upstream a fair distance with sweat dripping from my nose at regular intervals. I had put equal time into another couple of swim in the area I was heading towards but had had limited success in them when the levels are low. However throughout the time I had spent in these swims the vantage point upstream and dowstream allowed me to plot on an Google maps image where fish crashed. After a few sessions plotting on the image a consistent area emerged where fish were crashing at dusk. Arriving at this ‘crashing’ swim it is an area I haven't targeted before so was unsure on the bottom structure. With boulders at my feet and very shallow slate bed going as far as I could see with the polaroids, on the far bank there was a gravel/sand/silt bed. It was on the edge of this gravel/sand/silt bed where the slate bed begins that I wanted to target. With a clear crease in the water it was this line that I targeted. Moulding up 6 or so grapefruit size balls these were thrown upstream so they were feeding the top stream rod.

Over the last few seasons I have been playing around with how to keep scent in the swim for longer once the feeder had emptied. Therefore I have started to mould paste to the inside of the feeder and then fill with a few free offerings and plugged either end with the feeder mix. The idea behind this is that the past will breakdown much slower than the plugged ends and keep scent leaking from the feeder and over the hookbait.

Fishing feeders on both upstream and downstream rods they were cast onto the line where the balls of groundbait were thrown. I purposefully fish a heavier feeder on the upstream rod as this is the mark where I want the feed and scent to originate from consistently and this will be compromised if the feeder is bouncing down stream. In comparison I fish an oz lighter feeder downstream, on this rod it doesn't phase me if the feeder bounces further downstream.

After around 20 minutes of the baits been in the water I brought the upstream rod in to refill the feeder, the 20mm Hookbait Company Nimrod test bait re-glugged and the feeder re-pasted and re-filled. I had just nicked a PVA bag of micro pellets onto the size 6 hook when the heavy swinger dropped and the downstream rod banged violently then bent over into a single tone on the alarm. Dropping the upstream rod I lifted into a powerful run which brought the fish to the surface very quickly indicating the shallowness of the swim. I made several meters of line on the fish before it would turn and run again bringing it back to the surface. Unsure of how far the boulders and slate bed extended into the water I stayed high on the bank as long as I could before negotiating my way to the water's edge once the fish came up stream of me. This allowed me to slip the net under the fish at the second attempt. Seeing the 20mm boilie in the barbels mouth as she slid in the net I knew she was a decent lump. Resting her for an extended period due to the heat I lifted her from the net into the sling and worked my way back up the bank and to the unhooking mat. Peeling the sling back she was a very clean short stocky fish and a good double. A few quick photographs and I was resting the fish again ensuring she was strong enough to kick away. With a flick of her tail she was on her way as I splashed water over the top of her she kicked again instantly and went back to the rugged river bed of the Tidal.

Noting the time of when I received the take and when I was ready to cast back in, the tide had clearly turned and river had began to fill back up. As previously mentioned in another blog post this period of the tide I find very unproductive though I gave it another hour to see if there would be any interest. To my surprise I received 2 savage bangs on the downstream rod, sitting on my hands I left the rod on the pod. With such a still warm evening it was very evident as a breeze emerge from nowhere looking into the distance I could see a storm rolling in with lightning flashing through the purple tinted clouds. Weighing up the situation I decided to call it a night and packed up fairly quick to avoid getting caught up in the storm, it was at this point when I brought in the downstream rod I found that the hair had twisted and turned the hook backwards hence the 2x bangs could have possibly been converted to runs if the hair hadn't affected presentation.