Friday 11 October 2019

Up sticks

Had a couple of hard won hours off , no rain forecast and a couple of choices. Pint of Wherry and a bar snack amongst the well heeled next to my first choice duck pond stop off. Three big white stains of guano on the big willow and three big ghastly pterodactyls drying their wings on the geese shorn grass. A few hopeful handfuls of pellets in the margins. Mobbed by ducks but no hungry runt mudpigs smashing into them. Not worth risking a fiver to find out the place had been decimated by the croaking horde. No time now to pull down the bumpy chalk and flint track to the method madness venue. Time though for the bypass pit.

No tins allowed and I hadn't decanted any corn or meat and didn't fancy the method approach now with time short so the trusty mini Source over Spicy Sausage, float nestling by the pads. Several dips and nudges but nothing to strike at. Over gunned? Off with the boilie and on with two strawberry glugged fake maggots. Bingo, float is away and the strike hits home, no tear off so no tinca or mud pig but not  a bream surely? Long silver flash, have they put chub in? No, it's a roach. A bloody big roach.

As I picked it up it felt rough and light. Mis-shapen with signs of a battering.  Keepnet(s)? Old? Congenital abnormalities? A touch of chub round the big head? It's a much bigger net and  a bigger reel (2500 size) too than the biggest river fish from the other day for scale. Don't think it's an ide.



Definitely less choachy here but the mouth is funny. bit upturned. Either way an old warrior past its prime and maybe pushing mid teens in age. Didn't think removing any more scales to find out would be cricket. 1lb 10oz though. And home in time for tea. Mum's the word...









No comments:

Post a Comment