The curse of the new net

A little while back I was lowering a mid double figure pike I'd had on the waggler rod back in the 42 inch thing of beauty net to rest when obviously rested enough it kept on swimming. The hole in the net had become too big to ignore any longer so I bought myself  a replacement head from Go Outdoors for the princely sum of £9.99.  I hadn't intended it for piking as the trebles always catch and need cutting out. I do have one that has it's bigger holes round the net cord so that my piking one. Only I'd packed the wrong one so my lovely new net was bound to put the mockers on

    

I started at the top of cyanide straight where the acute 90 degree bend bought the flow under my feet. Two lamprey head sections were leap frogged down the stretch whilst I kept an eye out for roach activity. Not once were the truncated (car door accidents) Alvio 3lb tc rod flexed in anger. But fortunately no trouble from Ronnie and Reggie or major weed growth either. The curse if the new net remains to be lifted

I did however see some small roach or dace begin to top  and I figured that I'd have 35-40 minutes trotting light left. I was at the lower limits and the special place was still overgrown and I didn't want to open up an obvious swim so  had to squidge and splash about where the cows had poached the bank and stand to fish so it wasn't pretty or neat but the roach were soon on the red maggots, only one really needing the (different) net and three much better ones that really pulled back but didn't make the net.. The ones you  wish had but that's a known hazard with roach, especially  as they get opposite, having kited across the river and the tiny hook pulls as the angle changes. 

Today was brighter and even warmer out of the breeze so we spent the morning at Sheringham Park, one of Repton's finest houses and parks with lovely views to the coast . Glorious it was.

I made some judicious pruning in the special place and began to trickle in the red grubs, but it wasn't till well after the sun fell behind me in the copse and the rooks had made their noisy minds up were to settle that the light meter switch was tripped and after the umpteenth trot down the sane line the 5 AAA  Avon buried and fish on. 6 ort7 in they'd reached netting size when disaster struck in the gloom. I got line snagged in the tight confines of the slightly opened special place and try as I might I couldn't see to retie the line just above the float as roach began to roll heavily   all through the swim. It's one of the sights only an early or late angler gets to see, and not that often either.

I'd  been running a 2 and a half AAA waggler through earlier and reasoning the roach were active and chasing I sent it down a bit shallower on the shorter waggler rod to minimise false bites in the gathering gloom and picked up several more roach including the last and largest of the session  which perhaps I should have weighed or got something on the mat for scale then it was simply to dark to see, some isotope floats perhaps? Bats weren't needing them though picking off what the roach were switched o to.