An Ornamental Bend In The Rod

Catfish Virgin (Still!) · #1 08-17-2008, 07:45 PM

Haven't been out much recently, too many family commitments (weddings and the such like), but I sneaked out for a few hours this afternoon to Gold Valley in the hope of putting a bend in the rod. Took the bare minimum of gear, just a feeder rod and a some pellet and headed for the Canal bank of Gold Lake. Fished a small cage feeder packed with damp 3ml pellets with two 8ml pellets on a simple hair at about 35 yards range.

Didn't have to wait too long as the tip flew round on the third cast, a nice little common of around 5lbs. I was pleased with the accuracy of my casting, far better than my usual spread it far and wide efforts. The carp soon homed in on the pellets and I landed mirrors and commons to about 7lb on a regular basis. By way of variation, every now and then, I would land a ghostie/koi which seem to fight so much harder than the normal run of carp:

A few bream to around 3lb also made an appearance but the carp dominated the entire show. Not particularly challenging fishing but I quite enjoyed putting my relatively new Drennan rod through its paces. Certainly plenty of power in this 12ft Series 7 feeder rod and it coped very well with a couple of low "doubles" as well:

It'll be back to reality after next weekend as I'm on holiday for a week and will be concentrating on the Stour and Avon and those hard to get barbel!