What a calamity !!!!

It didn't go too well the weekend, Saturday morning I tried various swim at Hampton Lucy Brook with bread, cheespaste and maggots, another blank, only one swim produced bites and I couldn't connect to any fish. With a strong cross wind it was bitterly cold and if I'm honest not that pleasant. Only lasted 3 hours before I had enough.

Sunday I was back down the Stour again, this time I was planning to try out some new swims upstream of the Wimpstone bridge. The day before I checked my Stratford-Upon-Avon book and there wasn't a match listed, great. However upon arrival, the carpark was already full with anglers, and yes you guessed it, it was already pegged out and they were fishing upstream of the bridge. Apparently they were meant to be fishing Stannels on the Avon but a carpark dispute and the fact a field was flooded, they decided to change venues.

Was a lovely morning though and I could fish my usual swims so not a total disaster. I loaded the car the night before, my TFG compact 11ft feeder rod and my Pike rod set-up with a float, I also brought my bigger landing net as the Drennan one I have is a bit small for long Pike. After unpacking the tackle from the car I realised I left the Pike bait at home, damn.

I shut the tailgate however the quivver rod that was leaning up against the car slid down just as the tailgate was closing CRACK !!! . I didn't realise the rod was broken at first, it was only when I was mating the two pieces together that I discovered it was broken beyond repair. It's not going well is it.

Bit of a dilemma now, go home with my tail between my legs or try and fashion up a Heath Robinson fix, I chose the later and within half an hour trying sticks for support, even a discorger, hey presto.

Only problem was the rod was now about 7 ft not 11ft foot, I put this to my advantage though and it allowed me to try some swims I otherwise wouldn't have tried.

There was ice in the margins and when the sun came out, it was lovely. If I didn't catch it was a far better day than the previous and was nice to be out.

10 minutes in each swim and then move was the plan, I must have tried 7 or 8 swims before even having an indication on the rod tip and after about 2 hours I thought another blank was on the cards. I changed from my usual link ledger set-up to a running rig with a Stonze weight. Bait was an air injected lobworm or bread discs and with liquidised bread as feed.

The swim above had a crease down the nearside bank and managed a few small roach, nothing of size but very welcome considering I hadn't caught a fish in the last two sessions. I was surpised how well the botched rod performed and I'm glad I fashioned up the repair. As I said before with a smaller rod it's suprising just how many more swims become accessible. The one shown below was between two trees with
branches hanging down that would be difficult to get past with a much longer rod.

I popped a lobworm just under the small raft and within seconds a fish took the bait, a good fight and the rod remaning intact a Chub was on the bank. 4lb 2oz's and a nice long fat fish. For a day that started badly it ended well.