A couple of quick ones!

Another busy weekend but there's always room for a quick session or two. We'd been busy preparing everything ready for Cerys's christening on Sunday and the knees-up afterwards, the rest of the family and friends weren't due to arrive from wales until Saturday so when an offer to go Zandering on Friday landed on my table I snatched at the chance.
Yes, we know, it was rather wet on Friday and only nutters go fishing in the rain but it had actually eased off when we got to the canal and was very pleasant. Several boats were moving through the locks but within the first hour I managed a run which resulted in a bit of a tussle with a head shaking Zed.

A very useful 3lb 6oz

The rain returned and I started to theorize with Barry about why the rain put fish off feeding and the fact that as soon as it stopped they would start to feed heavily again, I've witnessed this at Ryton and used it to my advantage, getting wet whilst setting traps then sitting back praying it would stop raining.
After a biteless two hours of rain had passed we had a break in the weather with a small patch of blue sky, this was quickly being followed by another patch of black stuff but at least the rain had stopped and no sooner than fresh baits were in place, Barry's rod was away. It wasn't too long before the jammy git had a very good Zed on the bank and then agreed with my theories.

5lb 9ozs, Jammy git!

That evening, Barry had a chat with a passing angler and was told about a place that neither of us had heard of or even knew existed, time to get the map out. 

Over the next couple of days between all the babysitting, cooking, sorting out family and friends, attending church and eating a belly full of cake, I managed a few sneak peeks at the internet searching for this place that I will now refer to as 'Area 51' because Google Earth doesn't even show this pool!. When Monday afternoon arrived and the last of my friends set off on their drive back to North Wales, we had a chance to search for this mystery pool. We'd both been looking at maps and had both come up with the same area to search and headed off on a recce, rods and some basic kit was put in the boot just in case.
To cut a long story short, we found the spot and gave it a go, within a couple of hours we'd banked three species, saw a fourth and seeing the wounds on the flanks of one of the fish we caught, there's a possible fifth.

A very useful half pounder.

The next visit will see some proper bait going in, not just worm and luncheon meat.