Botch Job!

Through the week i had made up some new rigs to try at Ryton and i was looking forward to a short session on Sunday morning. But as the week passed temperature began to fall again. I was still hopeful that the lake might by some outside chance not be frozen yet...

my fears were realized when i arrived at Ryton pool Sunday morning and stood looking at the quarter of lake that still remained ice free. At this point i was torn. Should i bother to fish it or not? With the only bit of lake i could fish being occupied by the entire waterfowl population of Warwickshire and last weeks incident still fresh in my mind the decision was made.

If i wanted to fish my only choice was to head to a river. With only a short amount of time on my hands i made the rash decision not to go home and fetch some appropriate tackle but to head straight off with my carp gear, a bait box of month old maggots and a barbel rod that was still in my rod bag from a previous outing, hoping that i could just make the most with what i had got.

I wasn't exactly tackled up for light roaming so opted to fish a deep stretch at Wasperton and stay put for a few hours, hopefully to try and get a few bites.

The river didn't look in bad nick at all, running steadily with a nice bit of colour. I fished a small feeder filled with the only goundbait i had with me, some rather expensive stick mix i had hoped to use to attract carp. Then i even put out one of my carp rods with a 10mm boilie and a pva bag of goodies in a vain hope something big or stupid might chance by and gobble the bait up.

I felt like a right berk as i sat by a carp rod, with a massive 36" landing net whilst everyone else fishing was fishing light gear scratching for bites. I did get a few bites through the morning and even converted a few into welcome little roach which did help to alleviate my berkishness. But by twelve noon i was done with this session.

All in all it was a bit of a cock up on my part and maybe before i go on my next fishing trip i should be a little more realistic and change my tactics accordingly to the weather.