The early bird

The early bird catches the bigger rudd. On Monday anyway. I'd headed up to the away town stretch hoping for some Fen Gold but things conspired for a later start and though the tip rattled and jagged round, often on the drop the corn/worm and feeder only produced not or barely netters. Rudd of course, roach and a solitary skimmer and silver bream, both bait size. The one big rudd I contacted with snapped the hooklink.  These are the best from what would have been a fair netfull if I'd kept them all. Nice, but not as big as I had hoped for.

Plenty of predator action and  the small silver bream I had liphooked on a circle hook and legered down the edge near where I was swinging fish in didn't last too long as this plump Fen Tiger had the baitrunner fizzing. Put up a nice scrap on the lighter rod (1.5lb tc) much to the delight of the passers by. Are you going to eat it etc. A smaller roach came back with distinct signs of zander attention though I didn't hear any indication from the non-fizzing baitrunner.

I was bookended by two blokes who had travelled nearly as far as me, Epping and Sawbridgeworth. They had caught a much better stamp of rudd to nearly 2lb early doors but then had similar to me. An absolute nightmare of a journey home with diversions and tailbacks made worse by a timescale imposed by heavy Facebook traffic about a new-fangled angling club app that was supposed to make re-joining dead easy but had lured many members into joining for the current season instead. The pub, once I'd got there was full to more than overflowing with bewildered old buggers like me waving their phones with the folding card holders about in despair, or more often than not the floral covered tablets of their accompanying wives as the old buggers  can't use a 'pooter' or one of them smart thingies. Smugly turned out that I'd done my early bird application properly, even with a sideways mug shot. If only I could download and listen to one of The  Loafers excellent podcasts. Find Backwaters-A Podcast for Real Anglers where ever you download yours from. Unless you are a linear listening Luddite like me.