Tuesday was the first day off I have had for some time with no urgent preparation to do for the following day and I awoke that morning with a feeling that something was missing. I went to my bait storage fridge and freezers to do a stock take and found that I had several small quantities of various baits left over from coaching sessions, some frozen, some in the fridge.

It seemed to me that it has been a long time since I had a day to myself where I can do what I like. As much as I enjoy coaching I still like fishing more. I decided that a day on the Predator Lake would use up some of my frozen dead baits left over from last season, the lake had only just re-opened on the 1st September. I started to look for a heavy spinning rod to use in conjunction with a multiplier reel to “wobble” a dead bait over the weed beds that would still be left from the summer. During my search I found a rod that I forgotten I had, not as strange as it sounds when you are a tackle tart like me.

Last year when visiting The Tackle Exchange in Walton-on-Thames I had seen a second hand Italian made match rod with a very fine tip which I thought might be ideal for very light lines. I was not able to test the rod in the shop as it was quite busy and I was unable to put a reel on it and run the line through it. When I got it home and tested it properly I found it was very “floppy” and the logos and decals on the butt section were horribly garish.

The rod had only cost me £20 so I cut off the butt section just above the handle and removed all the guides. I then removed the bottom cork of the handle and pushed the butt section up through the handle until the ferrule just protruded, I packed it in position with some pieces cut from the wide end of the blank and araldited it in position. (Don’t try this at home, sometimes the result is a disaster!)

I ended up with a short (10ft 5ins) trotting rod which at the time I was a little disapointed with as it seemed rather stiff and unforgiving, so I put it up on a shelf and forgot about it. Yesterday when I set it up again it did not seem so bad and I decided to give it a trial run on the river Kennet while I was on the Wasing Estate. I found a couple of pints of Dynamite Frenzied Hemp and a pint of fresh(ish) casters in the fridge, some frozen casters and frozen Dynamite Frenzied Tares in the freezer and with two centrepins, my favourite Harrison GTI match rod and my new found “designer” rod I was on my way to the Kennet by mid morning. I also took the heavy spinning rod, multiplier reel and some frozen roach dead baits for the evening.

Before midday I was thigh deep in the Kennet having set up both rods and fed some hemp and casters, I started with the Harrison and a stick float (one of the few swims on the Wasing Estate where you can use a stick float) with casters on the hook. I was into fish straight away, roach and dace every cast, so I introduced some tares into my loose feed.

The new rod was then put through its paces with 2lb mono main line and a size twenty hook to a pound and three quarter hook length, firstly with a single caster and then with a size sixteen wide gape hook with a tare on it. All my reservations disappeared, the rod had a fast crisp action similar to my Drennan Superstick rod but being shorter was suitable for swims with overhead cover as often found on the Warren Beat. It handled good fish on light tackle and I was delighted with this new found tool in my armoury.

Roach of about a pound

The rod in question can be seen in the above photo but the floats are too heavy for the swim in question. The roach is about a pound but well on his way to becoming a big fish.

I fished for about four hours on and off, changing rods and baits regularly, I caught a fish nearly every cast with good quality roach and dace mixed in with smaller fish and little chub. Tares seemed to catch the better stamp of fish but as always were difficult to keep on the hook and only gave one chance to hit the bite. This is always a problem when dace fishing but the fast action of the new rod helped greatly with this and more dace were hooked with this rod than with the Harrison.

At about 6pm I packed away my float rods (none too soon, I was beginning to ache) and went to the Predator lake to try and catch a pike or two. The tackle was a heavy spinning rod with a multiplier reel with fifty pound braid. I always use very heavy breaking strains when pike fishing with braid as the lack of stretch can cause the line to break with a sudden shock particularly when casting big baits. The lake was still heavily weeded and I was only able to work the roach dead bait in the top foot or so and then only in the places where the weed did not reach the surface. I tried all along the road bank and was rewarded with one take only to have the fish come off as soon as I applied any pressure. These are always small fish, aren’t they?

A great day on my favourite river - I am so lucky not to have to work for a living anymore!

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