Local drain

Today I got the opportunity to try my hand on a local drain, this came about because the rugby team my daughter plays for were doing a sponsored walk to raise vital funds to buy new kit for the coming season. Before this morning I had no intentions of going fishing, I was merely the designated taxi driver for the day, I decided minutes before we were due to leave that I'd grab a bit of kit on the off chance that I'd find somewhere to wet a line. I dropped Jade and her friend Chloé off at the start of their 14 mile walk knowing that I had a good 4hrs to kill.

I had fished in this area once before but didn't stay long as the drain was in flood and very coloured.  On the way to my first choice venue all I could think about was the amount of rain that came down yesterday evening, as I drove over the bridge over the drain thinks looked promising,  I parked the van close by and headed over to the drain to get a proper look.  The water level and clarity looked good but there was quite a bit of weed coming down stream, this can be expected this time of the year with winter on its way, all the water greenery klinging on knowing that any time soon the first of the expected harsh weather will come and take it all away.
As I was looking for somewhere to start I bumped into a young man who had been lure fishing from early morning, we had a brief chat and explained that a few fish had come out up stream the day before but he'd had no such luck. I grabbed a few rods and a small bag of tackle and set of up stream, I found a nice looking spot by a derelict bridge and set about putting a couple of baits out, one rod to the left and the other to the right of the old bridge.  The water is very shallow and doesn't go much over 4' in this swim, I was using live bait paternostered so I had to keep everything short. I put the left hand rod in first about 25yds downstream,  the right hand rod I put 20yds or so up stream very close to the bank I was fishing from. I clipped it up and returned to my where my tackle bag was to get my radio out, has I turned on the radio the bobbin dropped on the rod I had just put out (ant music by adam and the ants must have triggered the take lol) I picked up the rod to make sure the fish was running, tightened up to it and set the hooks. As soon as I'd set the hooks I could tell it was a small fish but this didn't matter, it was a fish all the same, I soon had the jack in the net, a tatty little fish with an unusually green right eye, it was well hooked with both sets of trebles in its mouth, I unhooked it took a few pics of its eye and put him back before re baiting my rod and casting it a little further up stream.y

I sat down happy that I'd caught a fish and began to pen this blog why it was still fresh in my mind when my left hand rod went off. I quickly got to the rod and could see this fish was taking line, I picked up rhe rod and struck,  the line went slack and at first I thought I'd lost it but then realised the fish was running up stream, this too was a small fish around 8lb. I decided it was time to try out the remote release i'd recently bought for the digital SLR camera my wife and kids got me for my 40th birthday this year. The camera im now using is a Nikon D5100 DSLR and it takes amazing shots in the right hands, the down side is the cost, there around £450 with a standard lens which is more that good enough for taking pictures of your prized catch. One of the key features that steered me to choosing this camera was the flip screen display, this paired with a bankstick mount and a remote release purchased of ebay for a few quid each makes taking self portaits effortless.  I took a few photos of the little pike and returned it to the water, 2 fish in half an hour :)

A short while later the bobbin once again hit the bankstick on the right hand rod, I picked yhe rod to feel for the fish but nothing was there so a put the rod back down to clip it up. As I was clipping it up the tip of the rod pulled slightly,  this wasn't the bait so I struck and reeled in the smallest pike I've caught this season so far, 8oz at the most.