Fun with germs!

Half a pint of germs were purchased and with tackle in hand and a short session pass in my pocket I headed off to Ryton for a few hours float fishing. I went armed with both a float rod and an eight metre pole, the pole was to fish as close to some overhanging trees as I could without getting every other cast snagged in the branches, it worked as the first two Perch came to this method but I found I could tease them out by moving the baited area away from the safe haven of the branches, this allowed me to swap to the much preferred float rod. 

Barry was in the same swim as Saturday and was struggling, the wind had changed direction overnight and was blowing across our swims and the tow was in the opposite direction, he still managed to bag a couple of Orfe, Perch, a small Tench and a Roach.

Barry's bag.

I felt a bit of a cheat after using someone else's tackle to up the weight of a fish for the challenge so I was hoping to bag a bigger Perch on this session and it didn't take long to amass a group of likely candidates.

Fifteen ounce Perch

In the space of a few hours (time flies when your having fun) my keepnet contained eight Perch, biggest fifteen ounces beating yesterdays nine oncer, one Rudd and a small Roach.

Good scrap on light tackle

Before the big weigh in I had my tackle and fish playing skills really tested by a good Tench of five pounds which gave an excellent scrap on light gear.

Target species.

Saturday, an early session at Ryton with a Tench in mind. I was fishing with my normal Carp set-up, one rod cast to the island as a sleeper the second having scaled down end tackle and an alternative to boilies as bait with the intentions of catching a Tench, I had a take on the first chuck with this rod, shame I missed it. The rod was freshly baited and back out onto the same spot, after about twenty minutes I had a couple of unusual slow lifts on the bobbin, this continued for a while so I decided to hit it, it was a fish but it's fight wasn't the same as a Tench, when It came to the net it wasn't my target species at all but a Bream, rare for Ryton but they are in there.

Unusual for Ryton.

It wasn't what I'd set out to catch but it was more than welcome at 4lb 6ozs.

Immaculate condition

A few hours later the sleeper rod that was on the island margins sprang into life with a screamer of a run, I was sure it was a Carp the way that it took off. The fish gave a good account for itself and I was convinced it was a Carp until I saw the paintbrush tail of a Tench and a good one at that. It rolled into the net and when weighed, pulled the scales round to a very satisfying five pound and eight ounces, with my fishing time so short, if this is the only Tench I catch this year, I'll be very happy.

Things went quiet mid morning, I had a few dropped takes with one smaller Tench failing to drop the bait quick enough, I lost another good fish on the sleeper rod which felt like a Carp, I was gutted as I haven't had a Ryton Carp this year.

Barry was in the swim next door float fishing with maggots and having a great time. He'd had a huge bag of Perch, Roach, Rudd and a couple of Golden Orfe, 

Goldfish anyone!

I've not seen these in here before, possibly a new addition from someones pond?

 

I was talking to Barry about upping my two ounce Perch weight for the challenge and he handed me his float rod and told me to catch one. I gave it a go and ended up with three Perch to nine ounces and a small Roach.

Nine ounces has got to be better than two!

I had such a good time I thought I'd go out and get some maggot's and return on Sunday.