Mike’s Diary
A couple of chunks before winter sets in...
Posted in Mike’s Diary on 11th November 2010Well following our river trip to Belgium in September I was hoping to get some serious UK fishing done but unfortunately life at Springwood just got busier by the day. The plot where our new house is going was being occupied by Lee’s 35ft static caravan (Lee lives on site as our fishery manager) but this now had to be re-positioned on another part of the site before the autumn rains arrived!
I had to get the digger in and distribute 60-tons of stone, disconnect the static caravan from services such as water, sewage and electric and move it to the new area and re-connect all the services. If the rain fell it would have made the job impossible, but fortunately we had 3-weeks of dry weather. Anyway, enough of all that! By mid October this was finally completed and it was time to get the rods out on my Glos syndicate venue for the first time in five weeks.
The lake doesn’t give up its residents very easily so I was well pleased to bank a 22lb common and a 34lb 8oz mirror during a particularly barren spell. Unfortunately the loss of what felt like a very big fish put a slight dampener on the occasion, but three bites in one session on this venue was more than acceptable.
The following week I was back on the pit trying to take advantage of the low pressure front sweeping the country, but this time it was Lee who won top honours as he continued his remarkable season by banking a new UK personal best common of 35lb 12oz! What a cracking result and a very rare fish as well. A couple of nice early winter chunks was just what the doctor ordered before winter properly sets in and the lake closes down for its usual ‘winter rest-bite’.
It’s now time for me to start the building plans for the new house and finally get the new Essential website up and running. The launch date is December 1st and for the very first time, we will have full on-line ordering facilities and some fantastic winter deals, as well as the latest news on our latest new bait development. The next time I contribute to this section will be on the new site so I hope you will join us.
Backlead use
Back leads can be very advantageous in certain circumstances, particularly on venues that receive lots of pressure from anglers and you need to pin your line down to the lake bed. On such venues, any fish that bump into your lines, can often mean the kiss of death. To avoid this, it's best to pin your lines down. Yes, this can be acheived by using slack lines, but the big disadvantage there is that you will also lose vital bite indication. By dropping on a back lead, you can pin your lines down, yet still keep them semi-tight to register bites. They also minimise the chances of you catching your other lines whilst playing fish back to the bank.
The problem with most back leads however is that in the event of hooking a fish, they don't slide down the line very well, but we can assure you there's no chance of that happening with these!
