The Big Erection

The long weekend was a welcome break from work and was to be a weekend off wetting a line, hard to believe I know. Apart from going for a few days out with Sharon and Cerys and just spending time with my little girl, there was another underlying reason and that is my bait shack. All the sections have been ready for several weeks stacked under plastic but still getting either very wet or drying out in the hot sun, I've been waiting for the right time to stick all the bits together and find out if all my maths has worked and the whole thing fits together how it does on paper.

Being a bank holiday it had to rain, it was raining as I put the main shell together on Saturday but it did ease off through the day, the shack's erection was very smooth and very quick with only a couple of minor adjustments to the roof as it was being fitted.

Short back and sides.

Front on.

Roof in place.

Plenty of headroom.

The big test for the roof was with the rain on Sunday and it appears to have passed the test as everything has stayed dry inside since then. I only have windows and a door to put in next and the whole thing should be secure, that's when I can get some of the boilie making kit out of it's box and into it's new home.

The view from above.

It'll soon be time to make smells that I'm banned from making in the kitchen.

Bream - On the fly!

I'm playing catch-up with Barry at the moment, he had a really good day at Jubilee last week with ten Carp off the top to eighteen pounds. We headed up for a late afternoon/evening session and being four fish down my aim was to close the gap, I caught the four fish I needed to draw level but Barry had a single fish to stay one ahead and time ran out as we had to leave the lake.

I returned on Sunday with the intention of getting ahead as much as I could for Barry to play catch-up in the week. Things started slowly, the hot weather keeping the fish in a lethargic state. The constant feeding brought a couple of fish onto the feed and it wasn't long before one of them graced the bottom of my net.

The next take I had was very unusual and gentle, I lifted into the fish half expecting the water to explode but it didn't, there was a fish there but it wasn't big and came in very easily, it was a small skimmer Bream, a first for me on the fly.

Bream - On the fly!

I carried on feeding the swim and the fishing improved into the evening with another four fish on the bank to fourteen pounds and six ounces, the biggest of the session which fish stripped all the fly line off the reel, I ended up playing the fish on the backing praying that the join wouldn't slip.

Fourteen six of hard scrapping common.

At the end of the session I was four ahead but no doubt, as I write this, Barry has been bagging up again on one of his mid week sessions.