Friday 27 January 2017

Gear death hell.


That title reads like the name of a bad death metal song and my most recent outing went down about as well as a bad death metal song. Worst of all though it was totally my fault as for days prior I had been planning on going to one venue and at the last minute changed venue due the recent drop in temperature.

I was initially planning on going canal chub fishing to a spot on the Coventry that seems to hold a few nice ones. Then the day before I went over the Coventry early in the morning and saw ducks walking on the bugger, so decided flowing water was going to be a better option. Now, I have been thinking of doing a bit on the LAA Lido stretch as I have heard on the grape vine that the dace fishing is pretty good down there and lots of silvers means lots of predators, which we all know I can't get enough of. But then in a moment of proper stupidity I thought 'oh what about that bit of the Leam above the town. I've been meaning to check that out'. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it was the wrong decision, but still I went along with the idea which turned out to be a decision I would regret.

Early in the morning after a short drive I found myself crunching across frozen ground towards the river. The sun had just broken over the horizon and golden light spilled all of the Warwickshire country side. The Leam looked resplendent in golden light with the banks shrouded in a hard frost. Literally it looked like a cold beer on a hot day, it looked that good.


How could I go wrong...

It was pike I was actually searching for, as I have heard the narrow upper sections of the Leam hold some quite good pike. So keeping mobile I opted to fish a large sea dead bait on a float rig in any pikey looking slacks or margin I could find. And to keep myself amused I took along a light lure rod and a load of lures to fish with in between landing double figure pike. To all intents and purposes this was going to be the case; in the very first swim I landed a couple of nice perch on a dropshot rig, my float bobbed a couple of times before moving off downstream. I struck and the half mackerel bait was ripped clean out of whatever took it. Hey ho, what can you do, you don't hook'em all and I had still had those perch...


It was in the next swim it all began going so terribly wrong. With my float-fished dead bait positioned nicely in a eight foot deep margin I happily fished away casting my lure rod all over the swim until I found a snag and promptly snapped off. So I set up again and noting where the snag was, avoided casting there. Two casts later I was snagged and promptly snapped off again. This time after tying on a new leader, new jig head and a new lure, I moved swims.

Once again I got the dead bait out in a suitable spot and started casting around. First bloody cast this time and 'doink', straight in a snag and the result as you can guess was new leader, new jig and new lure gone. So for the third time in less than fifteen minutes I was setting up again. Oh, and I moved swims!

By now I should guess you can see where this nightmare is going, and if not, I won't waste time with every detail. Needless to say over the four hours I fished I lost no less than eleven jigs plus lures, along with leaders and a two dead bait rigs. I was the single biggest lost of gear I have ever had. Worst of all is I couldn't honestly say that I knew how the river was fishing, as I had spent most of the morning crouched in front of my rucksack setting up instead of fishing.

The good thing I could honestly take away from this session is that I know now this bit of the Leam is more snag that water and that I should under no circumstances cast any more lures in beggar! And that's putting it politely...


3 comments:

  1. Well I'm now forewarned as been considering exploring this part of the Leam in the same way! We all have bad days now and again... that's a lot of gear to lose though

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  2. Did I read that right, 11 ? 11 ?

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    1. Yup 11! My light lure kit took a proper hit. Waiting for and agm order to replenish it :/

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