Day 20 - 2nd June 25

A day on the float

Having several successful days on the feeder I fancied float fishing on my last day. I fancied a Bream or two on the float so decided to re-visit Wijde Aa and fish the slider. You don't have to fish too far out to get a decent depth of 20 feet (on this trip I have caught most of my Bream at that depth both on Wijde Aa and Big Zalk).

I fished a peg near the footbridge here: - 

It is a bit of a walk from the car to this peg but my powered Octbox got me there without breaking into a sweat.



Peg analysis

I used the Deeper (sonar) to find my required depth. I could see that there was a fairly flat area around 25m out and it started to shallow once you came back beyond 24m. It did not detect any fish near the bottom but did show a few in the surface layers. 

There was a fair wind blowing right to left but the forecast was for it to swing round later and be coming from behind me. As it turns out, the forecast was spot-on.

I setup the slider and added 6m to allow for the depth and set the clip. I then cast to the clip and then quickly retrieved 6 - 7 turns to sink the line and draw the float over desired area (just before it starts to shallow). I then released the bail arm and allowed the olivette to do its stuff and head to the bottom right under the float.

It was apparent that there was some tow running against the wind direction.

My approach

I'd had success on the feeder here a few days ago. On that occasion I did not ball-in any bait but introduced it all via 2 minute casts on the feeder. I therefore planned to add regular small balls of bait to hopefully build up the swim in a similar way. 

Off we go

I had tried using the catapult but could not get consistent accuracy at 25m. I considered setting up a feeder rod with just a bait-up feeder (no hook) but then tried throwing a ball of groundbait. I was actually quite accurate with that so continued to add small-ish balls every 5 minutes or so. It took about 30m minutes before my first bite (which I missed).

Next cast I got a very obvious lift-bite (as you often do on the slider) and caught a nice Roach.



I continued getting occasional bites from the Roach on worm, caster and corn and hoped that Bream would move in on the feed. There was no sign of them by mid-afternoon. I was conscious of the float moving slowly in the tow so added a foot or so to the depth and added a no.1 shot 6" from the hook, hoping to anchor the float (and bait) in place. 

The next cast I got a bite and hit into what I thought was a Bream but it turned put to be a Tench that snagged my in some lillies close-in. I got it free from them only to have it snap my hooklink when I was getting ready to net it - I would estimate it at around the 4lb mark. I hoped I had found the secret and still hoped for Bream. Alas I was just getting Roach - no complaints though, they were stunning fish.


A change was due

I had about 90 minutes left. By this time I maybe had 4 - 6 pounds of Roach. It didn't look as if the Bream were going to show. I had been thinking about the sonar seeing fish in the surface layers and decided to put the slider away and use one of my shallow rigs instead (I do love shallow fishing). It would also give me a chance to use up some of the maggots I had bought (hardly used any this trip).

Right from the off I was catching quality Roach and at a much-much quicker rate. I was also getting the odd Rudd but so sizeable ones. This is typical of the ones I was getting fishing 2 feet deep in around 15 feet of water (the photo doesn't do it justice, I was bigger than it looks here - honest!).


End result

I ended up with 30lb of quality Roach. Most of these were caught in the last 90 minutes. I can only imagine what weight I could have got had I shallow-fished the whole day. 

30lb of quality Roach

So, that's the fishing all done. I really enjoyed today. It was something different and I still had a good result. I will be writing up a summary of the trip with my final thoughts but this will probably be published in a few days.