A change of tactics and a change of fortunes

It was around 04:15 on Sunday morning when I arrived at my chosen swim, the blackness of night just beginning to succumb to the inky blue of dawn on the eastern horizon. The forecast had it being a cooler, overcast day, which suited me just fine.

Perfection.

 A change of tactics was in order, just to see what could be learned, so the prawns had been swapped out for lobworms. I had previously tried to move away from the worms due to the fact that even with a half worm on the hook, it’s too easy for fish to pick up one end of the worm and swim off without the hook in their mouth, leaving me (the frustrated angler) to strike into nothing and spend the rest of the session wondering what I’m doing wrong. Prawns on the other hand are a perfect mouthful, the issues with them being that they’re very soft, so they can be pinched from the hook easily, and, the main one, they’re just not as attractive as lobworms. So, the solution? Chop the worms up as usual, then instead of using a half worm on the hook, use four or five small pieces of worm threaded on to the hook, topped off with a fake maggot to stop them being removed, and bingo, probably the best days fishing of my season so far. I have tried “worm kebabs” previously, where you put small sections of worms on a hair rig, but I had the same issue with fish tugging at the worms without the hook in their mouths. I distinctly remember dad having this exact same epiphany when he was fishing for eels in the past “put the bait on the hook”, simple when you think about it. 

The action was fairly intense from the get-go, I had landed three perch to 1lb and 3 tench to 6lb before 6:30am, then the eels switched on once it got properly light (not the way round it’s supposed to be), I ended up catching 5 eels between 1lb and 2lb 12oz, which is of course not a big eel, but the biggest one I’ve managed by design so far, and it put up a great fight on the 1.5lb barbel rods. God only knows what a 5lb fish would fight like… 

2lb 12oz, must do better with the photography next time.

2lb 6oz.

It was the first day it had been cool enough to wear the jumper again,
coincidence?

These two tench were both in the net at the same time,
my attempts at a "brace shot" were terrible, so singles it is.

All in all, a fabulous days fishing, everything I owned was completely covered in slime and my shed smells like a fishmongers. Can’t wait for next week now! 

Tight Lines,

Benno.