I woke up feeling pretty ropey today, so the planned up-early-and-home-by-lunchtime trip was out of the window, and instead I had a lie in and whiled away the latter part of the morning wandering around the mid-summer fete in Ilminster, with Beth. I wanted to fish the docks and try out pearl barley, having soaked some and brought it to the boil with a dash of turmeric last week. I started at the docks around 2pm but it was very gusty there, and I found it almost impossible to keep the float still with an eleven foot waggler rod which was barely able to sink the line when you are perched almost as far up on a high wall.
Plenty of small roach and rudd took a liking to the yellow coloured grains, but then I think that you'd catch on anything in the docks it's that prolific. I plan to try wheat at some point, if I can work out where to get hold of some in a sensible quantity (ie, not a 25kg sack), as it looks more selective. Still not feeling great, I wasn't really up to battling the elements for a decent presentation and so upped sticks and carried just my rod, landing net and loaf of bread with me along the canal itself.
A section only two feet deep was alive with fish. I saw lots of roach and rudd, and after peering at the water for long enough, made out the odd perch and even a golden rudd. Then the first tench, then another, and another. The best rig was no rig in these circumstances and I was soon into small rudd and roach on freelined breadflake. I didn't have lots of bread to feed but when I did, the rudd would attack the floating pieces and it wouldn't be long before the tench would recognise the commotion and come to take a look. There was no way I'd be getting a bait to them before the rudd snaffled it however.
After walking maybe a couple of hundred yards I located a shoal of really good rudd, landing a succession of fish from six ounces to about a pound and a quarter, maybe bigger. I must have had ten over a pound. I'd omitted to take my scales on the walk, but then I'm not satisfied that they are brilliantly accurate at those weights anyway. Quite often the rudd would engulf the bread as soon as it hit the water, and I don't suppose I put on a piece smaller than a 50p at any point. I always prefer bread that is sinking, rather than floating, as I find it is accepted more confidently by all species, however, on this occasion, I found a corner crust especially durable against the attentions of the smaller rudd. I dare say, a size 10 hook was almost too small in the circumstances too.
