old ground revisted

baitmaster · #1 09-28-2006, 12:59 AM

well i was unsure whether to go today but by dinner time the urge was to great to stop me.
the weather was looking good with a southerly breeze and being over cast with a threat of a bit of rain late evening .
so the gear was loaded into the car and i headed off as i drove down i felt autumn had arrived ,like spring that starts when the swallows arrive and today with me following the first sugar beet lorry on its way to wissey beet factory told me autumn was now starting .
i took time in driving to a couple of drains stopping at a bridge that cross the drains to have a look to decide whether i wanted to fish on them but decided against .
i decided to go look at a third drain and on pulling up and taking a look i like the conditions with the rain on Monday had put colour into the drain .
there was two pleasure angler sitting up the drain about a hundred yards so i thought i go see how they were doing .
i find them wealth of information and they can give you valuable info on where bream are coming out and just general stuff like where the silver fish are coming out to and it was a pleasure just watching them catching one a chuck with ease .
soon i was back at the car where i put the rocky on my back and carrying the rod bag and bucket i set off on my way .
i decided to fish a spot that had done me proud in the past and also wanted to see if it would still fish as well as it did as i had not been back here for two year .
soon the rods were made up and i fished one on a ledger paternoster with a trace made up with size 8 trebles .
this was fished close in down to my right.
i fish a simple ledger rig with a trace with size 6 trebles using a dead bait and this was clipped up to the far bank .
and the third rod was fished on a fox ledger stem again with a trace with size 8,s this was cast over to were there was a trough, don,t know what caused this but it does hold the bait fish so i,m not going to worry to much .
i settle back and waited for dusk to descend and hopefully the zeds would come out to play .
just as it was going dark i freshened the baits and all were back in position
i decided to leave the baits alone and not recast them like i would normally do .
as i felt confident my past experiences with this area has shown that casting around here for some reason does not pay dividends like it does on some sessions .
it had just gone 8pm when the first sign of activity when i got an aborted run i sat over the rod for 5 minutes then reeled in to check the bait .
i was sent back down to my right and i settle back and waited in pitch darkness with nothing moving except the odd mouse scurrying about in the undergrowth.
suddenly the inside rod was of with a tentative pick up i waited patiently until i felt it had it and i struck sweeping the rod back and it curved over lovely and i knew i was into the first zed of the evening .
it battle well and i drew it over the draw string and safely scooped it up .
i quickly unhooked and weighed it and it went 8lb 6oz not a huge zed but a good zed at that and in good condition .

this was soon put back and i held it by the wrist behind the tail till it was ready to go and when it did it left in a spray of water which gave me a bit of a soaked .
i changed the trace rebaited it and it was back in the margin to my right always quiet for a next hour before the far rod to my left got investigated but again this was aborted .
at this point i thought i would recast it and check the bait but no marks or puncture could be found to be sure it was a zed this was sent back over to the far bank .
and i waited for more action to happen but it was slow going finally after a further half an hour the inside rod wassouf again with yet another tentative pick up and it dropped it i,i sat by the rod and waited i wanted to put the headlight on and see if there was movement on the tip but i daren,t as it was close in.
i sat back down and it went again i jumped up and waited for it to go again and it did not disappoint me and i was soon playing another zed .
this was banked quickly where it was unhook and weighed and with the camera being all set up a couple of trophy shots were taken of this spritely 6lb 6oz zed .

this was soon swimming away to go and sulk for a while i fished on for a further hour in the hope of a bigger zed that used to frequent this area but no more runs came my way but i was not overly bothered so i packed up and made my way back to the car .
as i approach the bridge i met another zedder who was set up for the night
we introduced ourselves and he told me his name was Darren ,his mate had all ready gone home as he was inundated with eel runs .
interestingly he told me he had looked at the zander fishing website and i told him to come and join this forum and he said he would pop in and have a look to see whats what .
i said my goodbyes and headed home and was happy with a result .

tightlines
Kevin