Day 15 - 28th May 25

Mission(s) Accomplished

I guess it's no surprise after yesterday's session that I am back on Widje Aa. That PB Tench is still obtainable and a large Bream haul is on the cards too.

I was ready to start fishing about 10am. The early part of the day was going to have rain and winds slowly moving from westerly to north-westerly. This would mean that it would be blowing at me later in the day but hopefully that rain would have ceased by then meaning that I would not need the brolly then.

Today I set up my groundbait feeder rod at a similar distance (about 21m) and I also set up a method feeder rod to the same range. The idea being to feed one spot and then occasionally try the method feeder in the same area that I had been using the groundbait feeder.

Yesterday I waited over an hour before a decent fish showed. Today I got my first Bream within 20 minutes so thought it was going to be a good day. However I then waited about 90 minutes for the next bite. This time, thankfully, a few fish had turned up so I started catching quite regularly. As yesterday, I had a couple of spells where the fish took the bait as it hit the bottom.

In the following video you can see that I have just finished tensioning the tip when it pulled around: -

This one was filmed by Bertie and shows a bite around 30s after casting in: -

After many Bream I had a Tench of around 2lb. Was this a sign of things to come?

New PB

I had previously set my PB Tench on this trip with a fish of 5lb 15oz. About 1pm I hit into a fish that started stripping line. This felt so nice after so many sedentary Bream. It was a Tench and weighed 6lb 2oz. It also had a deep wound across its back that had healed a long time ago. It looked like the kind of injury I can image braid inflicting.

A new PB of 6lb 2oz

I was already delighted with this session and wondered if I had hit the magic 100lb and even if I would beat my best catch of 105lb (caught in Ireland a few years ago fishing with my sons).

My best weight yet

It takes me quite a while to weigh my fish. I use a 2nd keepnet and extract the fish (5 at a time) from my main keepnet using a pan landing net head. Then I weigh them in a sling on a tripod. I then place those fish in the 2nd net. I repeat this until I have weighed all of the fish.

My end result was 118lb 2oz for 40 fish. I also had a few nice Perch but they went straight back (they are out of season) so didn't contribute to the total . Maybe another 2lb there.

Due to my weighing procedure, the following video shows me releasing them from my 2nd net. However they were retained in a larger diameter and longer net for the session: -