Deep river, short rod...

Tim's personal best skimmer bream out of the river to date - made his day!

Well, what a daft day yesterday was. The plan was to visit my brother and repair the jetty that had become rotten where the ladders had been. We decided to remove the ladders a few weeks ago as nobody was using them and, from our point of view, they were in the way. I had recovered what was left of the end support timbers and replaced/refurbished them here in the workshop. Refitting them was much easier than I had expected, as these things usually throw up the odd unexpected problem, but for once, the job went exactly as planned. Now for some fishing.

Even Tim's roach was not that small

It was at this point it all started to go wrong, at least for me. Tim has his rods hanging on the wall, made up and ready to go. All he has to do is pick them up and walk the few yards to the jetty, and he is fishing. Me, on the other hand, more intent on filling the van with the gear to repair the jetty, had just thrown a couple or three rods, along with a good selection of tackle in the van and left all my floats behind. Oh dear! (or words to that effect) That's a shame, I will have to borrow one of Tim's. This was a real pain as I had intended to have another go with the Polaris, slider floats. Undeterred I decided to have a go at straight ledgering, using a hair-rigged pellet.

After an hour or so, this was not showing any signs of success. I retrieved the lead and hook-bait after a bit of a tug. It was buried in the silt. I need to seriously rethink this approach. Maybe some kind of buoyant bait and a longer hook length... More pondering for next time.

That's a nice looking perch

Meanwhile, the other bloke has hooked a pretty decent perch. To say he was feeling a bit smug was an understatement. "Wow! That is a nice looking fish" I said. Have you noticed how hard it is to speak, smile and look happy for someone while clenching one's teeth?

I had given up on the ledgering and thought it might be fun to try out my new little telescopic rod, I had brought down to show the other bloke. It didn't take me long to realise that a rod that is only five feet long is not very useful when fishing a twelve feet deep swim. After agreeing that it was not a good idea, 'Little Brother' had another good sized perch on the hook and was now becoming just a tad irritating.

Okay, you have made your point...

Time to do some proper fishing, no more messing about, I rigged a float rod and proceeded to plumb the depth - twelve feet deep, give or take a bit. It was at this stage I started to have problems. It is still impossible to cast a long length of line from the jetty at the moment. Even though a lot of the overhanging trees have been trimmed, there are still some branches left. This will be rectified by the end of the month as tree surgeons have been booked to pollard the remaining trees that are in danger of collapsing into the river.

I realised that my four years of fishing experience had not included any deep (relatively) water fishing. I had either been fishing shallow commercial lakes or small rivers. The river here was going to take a bit of experimentation and a considerable learning curve.

Tim was happily fishing away, and although it was not easy, he was catching fish and managing to land them. Me, on the other hand, I was having a nightmare day. I was using Tim's floats, none of which I was happy with, and no matter what I did, I could not avoid getting in a mess. Moreover, I was having trouble getting the line out of the water. I did catch one tiny perch, but it was caught on the drop, almost by accident. Furthermore, its size would have been a poor candidate for inclusion in a can of sardines!

Now, call me a bit thick, but last night I woke up and realised what had gone wrong. The rod was too short. For some reason, passing on this information at 03:00 AM, to the missus, did not go down too well...

It just had not occurred to me, I know, obvious, but I have never been in this position before, and I was thinking of all the other reasons I was having trouble. I had packed a 'Carp Waggler' rod as I was planning to use heavier gear and a slider float, but as I said above, I had left all the floats sitting in there tubes, displayed nicely on the work surface in the fishing room - Grrr! This rod is only ten feet long. With a depth of twelve feet, even if the fixed float is against the tip ring, the bait is still a couple of feet below the butt even when the rod is held vertical, risking getting the tip caught in the trees.

Standing up helped but I was still getting in a mess. Frustrating it was, but also got me thinking and planning how I was going to sort this out. For a start, I will be using a slider float next time I use this rod. I must look into how to use an 'ordinary' float and stop knots to make the fishing easier. I do enjoy a challenge. Next time...

The day was different, not much in the way of fish on the bank for me, but Tim had a good day, landing some nice looking perch and a PB skimmer bream. He also discovered how slimy bream can be and why you need to wash your landing net out. As he said, "My net looks like it is full of wallpaper paste!"

We finished the session with a hook-tying session ready for next time. Tim had not tied any of his own before, so I had made him a length gauge from an off-cut of walnut and some modified panel pins, looked a bit posh, but it does the job. After that, it was a quick change and off to town for a meal to celebrate his birthday! All in all, although my fishing did not exactly go to plan, I had a perfect day discovering my shortcomings and opening up another opportunity to experiment with my technique.

Ralph.