Late start ...but finally underway.

[TrentFisher]

Hello Gents,

the river season is well underway ,but I had a delayed start.

I have now managed a couple of sessions during the last couple of weeks.
My usual tactics is to float fish as much as possible normally long trotting some of the glides on my local stretch of the Trent.

First session.

With a couple of pints of wheat in the bait bag it was an out and out roach session.12ft Hardy matchmaker and aerial pin.
The Trent was carrying a little extra water, so with waders donned and the steep bank descended I was soon settled in.
The glide is around 10 feet deep with a nice steady flow.
After about 20 minutes of constant feed .....the old little and often approach resulted in the first fish of the season.
A chub of about a pound.
Not totally unexpected as the wheat account for a few last season.
A busy next hour followed ,mainly chub in the 6-12 ounce bracket, with the odd dace thrown in for good measure.
Things slowed down, but I continued with a steady trickle of feed.
I normally feed twice per cast on upstream and one in front.
The result was a return to bites and finally the first roach of the session.
Time passed quickly and it was soon early evening around 7.00pm .
By this time I had caught a good number of roach .Nothing spectacular but none the less very pleasing.
In a blink of eye the light had started fade and time to head home

Next session.
With the chub showing to the wheat, I thought I would edge my bets and fish punched bread.
When I fish this method I prepare the bait as follows.
One medium sliced loaf(for me Warburtons) remove 5 slices for punch.
The rest is dunked in clean water put in suitable container and mashed. Surplus water is removed. I then add porridge oats to firm the mix.
I don't use commercial punches but make my own from old fibreglass rod sections and glue them in to cork to form a handle or insert pieces of hazel which is shaped .
The punch size to day for the discs was to be 10mm and 16mm,I pre cut these and bag them for the session.
The bag is then popped in to the bait apron when fishing.
The punched discs are gently folded in half and lightly pinched and the hook pushed through the folded edge for a secure hold.
None of the above are my idea but I have simply borrowed them and made some slight adjustment!
The session itself was mainly aimed at seeing how the chub would react and it is a nice way to present the bait via my usual long trotting tactics.
Half a dozen balls of feed where introduced and it wasn't long before the first chub arrived, nothing big but it showed things were working.
This continued and only one roach had shown.
I decided to feed a small ball of feed every other cast.
The float was travelling along nicely and disappeared.
My strike was met with some resistance ,the old Shakespeare 13ft Champion rod took on a nice cure and the gears of the Mitchel match started to turn.
At first I thought it maybe a better stamp of chub but I quickly a bream was responsible.
This was duly landed a fish of around 3lb.
The roach started to appear and then another bream bigger this time pushing around 5lb.
So I was happy with how the session had gone and added some extra information for future use.

It was interesting to observe nearly all the fish taken on the punched bread were hooked centre top lip and I think I only bumped one fish during the session.

....as you can see my bait spend was at most £1.50 for both sessions!

I will be out with the 6m pole experimenting soon so looking forward to that and hopefully some more roach

I hope the season is progressing well...for all of you.

Best Regards
Nige.

[Moley]

Gotta love river roach TF.

An account of the vittels taken to the bankside would be in order too

Hopefully pies are the order of the day especially coming from the Notts area where pies reign supreme!

As ever,.....

Moley

[Liphook]

Good account TF Bread - what a versatile, ubiquitous and affordable bait it is

[Barbelseeker]

Well done Nige, nice to see some of my favourite baits used. Can we see future reports with tares and hemp?