Well yesterday was a day I looked forward to as a good friend was joining rab and I on our quest for bream and since he had 70 miles to drive to grace us with his company I was hoping it was going to be worth his while.
As I left the house to pick rab up at the usual time of 6:30am I was pleasantly surprised by the stillness of the air,not a breath of wind.
We reached our destination in no time at all and all that was left to do before reaching the water was to negotiate the farmers field with its resident bull.thankfully he was calm enough because he only left us a small gap between him and the peat bog.have you ever tried negotiating a peat bog,trying to find solid ground whilst keeping one eye on a big black who is no more than 6ft to the left haha,it could have been squelch,squelch,squash.
Finally after getting through the gauntlet and over the next fence we were at our chosen swim,a little area of no more than 20yds in length that separated the two fields and their nuisance cattle,the goldielocks zone.
On observation I saw there were a lot of roach topping,the only thing to disturb the flat glass like surface of the loch.my mind was made up,I would float fish the 5ft deep margin directly in front of the swim til 12pm and then switch to the feeder at range.
Rab was straight in with the feeder rods,one at range and one in the margins.
Fraser arrived before I was finished setting up and since he had never fished this venue before,we thought it best to put him on the swim that has produced the goods for us this year,giving him the best chance to make it worth his journey,although one has to occasionally share the swim with thirsty cows,oh and a bull,I forgot to mention that
Back in my swim I managed to catch a few roach,nothing big but enough to keep my mind off the fact that a gentle northwest breeze had picked up which only made it a tad more difficult to cast.i could hear rab cussing the fact he had not brought his float tackle as by now he would have normally caught a bream or two but not today and what made it worse was the fact that there were nice bream rolling.
Fraser on the other hand didn't have any expectations and was sitting happily watching his tip,occasionally sitting up as if ready to strike then settling back down,oh those finicky bites,more annoying than no bites.
Time was now moving on and I was so concentrated on my float that I barely noticed the breeze had switched to a north easterly,only the distinct freshness of it on my face wakening me up to the fact the bites had slowed,now was a good time to go visit Fraser and see how he was doing.
He was relaxing with a cuppa having gave up trying to strike at almost impossible indications,I explained that they could be line bites and to sit on his hands until the tip swung right round.he seemed relieved to have heard that as he wasn't sure what indications to strike at.we chatted for a while and just as I was about to head back low and behold his tip swung round slow and deliberate,I didn't have to say a thing,he instinctively knew to strike and that was him into his first bream of the day that I obligingly netted,a good three pounder.he was happy to have caught it,I was happy to have netted it and rab was happy to finally witness some action,on a day that was getting increasingly colder.
Back in the goldielocks zone and I had no option but to switch to the feeder as by now it was more than a breeze,it was cold and blowing right into my face,besides,i gave it a good shot on the float and managed a few.
Feeder fishing at range is difficult enough but trying to cast at range with a 15mph wind straight into you is even more difficult,especially when it's cold
but try I did.my bait was simple brown crumb,black currant essence,chopped corn and red maggots.i used this the week previous and caught a few so why fix it.i managed to cast 80-90yds on full force mode but aiming was a nightmare and I reckon after 30mins I had laid a dinner table 25yds in diameter,not good but exceptable in the conditions,now all I had to do was sit and wait and wait and wait.there had to be something wrong,was it the conditions?i hadn't overfed as the bream weren't there in the first place or were they sitting mid depth,I couldn't figure it out.
Rab too,he never got a bite.we tried everything in the book with different baits,longer hooklinks but it wasn't to be.
By 5pm I had gave up and the three of us agreed it was time to call it a day as by now it was frrrrrreezing cold and Fraser had a long drive back.
On walking round the loch back to the car I'm sure I heard a duck laughing at us and even mr bull was standing staring in quiet amusement,by now I didn't care if he charged as by the amount of gear I was carrying he would have been the one coming off the worse.
back at the car we all had a quick chat and as we waved Fraser good by that's when we realised the day had worked out the way it should have,ok there was only one bream caught but who had caught it,Fraser,the guy who had the big cheesy grin on his face as he drove away.i guess it was worth his drive after all.funny how these things turn out
Brrrrrrream
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