Recent rod thoughts

I'm not a fan of ALPS reel seats, although I do think they look nice and are well made. What I dislike is them being cold and heavy. They're not cheap either.

When a customer asked if I'd build a set of Bait Blasters with ALPS ARD wave form seats (which he would supply) I said I would if they'd fit the blanks.

Well, they did fit but not with as large a gap as I like between blank and the inside of the seat. Although it's perfectly sufficient I like a little more 'wiggle room'. The inside diameter is a bit less than that of an 18mm Fuji pipe seat.

While the inside is slim the outside front of these reel seats is much wider than a comparable Fuji seat. or indeed other ALPS designs. This posed me a problem of how to make anaesthetically pleasing cork handle to go with the seats.

My solution was to use slightly wider diameter cork for the rear portion with a chunky 'cone' at the front.  The butt was finished parallel with a large stainless button, while I fitted an black anodised aluminium winding check at the other end. The final result looked pretty good, the burgundy (garnet) thread and Union Flag pairing well.

I was surprised how noticeable the extra weight of these particular reel seats was. By the way, the hint of red by the hood is a rubber band which is supplied with the seats to prevent them rattling in transit, not a part of the design.

An earlier build was much simpler. The only changes from a near standard build on these two P-5s were the Ultra Matt finish to the blanks, Alconite rings, olive thread, stainless winding checks and American Tackle reel seats. I'm undecided about the reel seats. They seem to be asimilar quality to Fujis but they are sized slightly differently. The outside diameter at the front is a tad larger. I'll not be making a permanent changeover, but for those times when the Fujis are unavailable for an indeterminate period I'll be happy to fit them as an alternative.

 

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No eels

When this blog goes quiet it means one of three things: I'm catching loads but don't want to give away any clues; I'm fishing lots and catching little; I'm not fishing much. This latest silence is down to the third reason brought about by the second. Eels have been frustrating me this summer for a brand new reason. They aren't playing.

It's gone from a few twitchy takes down to the unheard of no takes at all on one recent session. I have no answer for it. Worms on or off the bottom have always been an eel magnet everywhere I've fished when the light begins to fade. Not this summer on this water. I'm now regretting starting late. The idea is to hold back from eel fishing until July so I don't get burnt out before the usual peak of activity in August and the hope of a big eel as late as September. These best laid plans have indeed 'gang a-gley'.

With the dismal returns to the pike rods over the last two or three winters I'm not looking forward to more waterside inactivity. I suppose I should have a change and try for something else during the autumn. Get myself on a river somewhere perhaps, or look for some perch fishing not too far from home. Maybe have another try for that sturgeon if it's still around. If only I could get myself motivated...

My mater Nige phoned me the other week to ask if I had any pictures of his brace of thirty pound pike in my files. This prompted me to drag my slides out and root through them. Inevitably it became a descent into nostalgic memories and I ended up scanning a load of pictures of other fish and scenes. Those golden days came flooding back. Travelling all over the place at daft hours of the day and night. Long walks, boat trips in precarious little boats, weather fair and foul. And what looked like pike galore.

Something struck me from a photographic angle. The quality of the scanned pictures was often pretty dire. At least when compared to what I expect to see from a modern digital camera. This reflects what the late James Holgate told me about how digital cameras had improved the quality of pictures submitted to accompany articles in Pike and Predators. Film shots had often been dodgy in the extreme. My slides being more than acceptable at the time makes it obvious how bad the bad pictures were! Compact digital cameras not only made taking pictures easier, the technology was better than in cheap film cameras, but even the jpeg files were more easily corrected/improved for publication.

Judging by the photos I see on fishing forums these days, however, things have gone full circle. Most anglers appear to be using their phones to take fishing pictures now. While the results look great on a phone screen, when blown up (either on a larger screen or for print) they can look worse than pictures from film. Strangely enough Nige said that he was looking for a new camera as the one he has is getting on a bit. The reason he wants a camera is that it makes better prints than his phone.

Here are some of the photos I scanned. I might scan some more during the long winter nights.

 

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New boots and anties

The weather forecast lived up to itself. Thursday was warm and humid promising to stay that way into dark. It had to be worth a shot at eels again. If that wasn't enough I also had a new pair of boots to try out.

 

I arrived with great expectations about half an hour earlier than I needed to as I had nothing else to do. A short walk saw me pretty much decided on fishing a swim I've fancied for a while but always shied away from at the last minute because it's a bit tight to fish. Less overgrown at one side. Back to the car for the gear and I was ready to get settled in.

The rod quiver was dropped handily on the bank above where I'd set the pod up while I got my chair and rucksack in place. Reaching for the quiver to get my pod out I saw it was crawling with ants! hundreds of the busy little buggers. I brushed a load of them off and put the quiver on the other side of the swim. Then I moved my bag and seat out of ants way.

By the time I had the pod up and the rods out the ants had disappeared. They must have been disturbed by the quiver landing on top of their nest. At least I wouldn't have to spend the session sweeping ants off myself and my gear. Even so I had the itches for a while!

 

 

Once more I stuck to the usual two rigs. The off-bottom worms went to the pads on my right and the legered squid section straight out on a decent cast. Once more I found myself surrounded by those daft mallards. I'm sure they weren't in the swim when I had a look at it on my inspection walk.

By nine thirty it was getting dark and I hadn't had a single sign of an eel taking a fancy to either of my baits. Time to refresh and recast them. Still nothing by ten when it was properly dark. It was twenty past when I had my first tentative take to squid. That didn't signal the start of activity. The moon had risen by now so I got my camera out and started playing around with it to keep my occupied.

 

This meant a take would be imminent. It was. At 11.20 line was taken from the reel with the squid on the end of the line. This take was met by a strike which removed the bait from the hook. No eel hooked, of course. A brief flurry of two runs to the same bait followed over the next half hour. All frustratingly missed.

 

There didn't feel to be any wind yet the clouds were moving fairly quickly across the moon as it slowly rose and swung to my right. I put the camera away and waited for more action.It wasn't forthcoming though. Midnight came and went. Another half hour. If there was action before half past I'd stop on until one, or longer if the action continued. If there were no more indications I'd give up.

Sure enough I gave up. Conditions seemed ideal, although maybe the moon was too bright (he said clutching at straws) but again there was not much eel activity, and again nothing to speak of to the worm bait. In some way this is good because it means I'm not up and down wasting bait all the time. I'm wondering if the bootlaces have done a disappearing act. Daft as it sounds I'm contemplating an afternoon eel session. When I was a kid we always fancied our chances of catching eels on lobworms from the canal on red hot summer days.

The new boots didn't get much of a testing. They'd been comfortable worn round the house for a couple of hours. I didn't walk far enough to find out if they'd rub my feet but I wasn't aware of them while I was fishing. This morning I went for a walk of over three miles in them and the result was the same. They felt like I'd had them for ages. 

 

Looking back it was only December 2018 that I bought my previous pair of boots. I'd have expected them to last a bit longer before leaking, even given my lack of care given to them. That said the tread is almost worn out in places too, so they've put in a good few miles I suppose. They were Harkilas. A brand I'd had before and found wanting after twelve months. I guess I should have known better but it was a case of needs must and a local supplier.

This time I did some research by asking the combined wisdom of  The Pikers Pit what they'd suggest. Two people (who I know in the real world as well as virtually) and one cyber-aquaintance  recommended Alt-Berg boots. I surfed on over and browsed their website. I knew what features I wanted in a boot and the Warrior Aqua looked like it met them almost perfectly. For some reason the idea of buying military boots struck some Pitsters as amusing. I don't know why, these boots miht have a militaristic name but they look much like the stalking boots I usually wear which I prefer to those marketed for hiking. I like a higher boot than walkers as there's less chance of rain running down overtrousers and into the boot.

 

Alt-Berg offer a fitting service, either at their factory or at approved stockists, but with the current Covid situation and the distance involved I decided to take a punt and order on-line. As the boots are handmade in Yorkshire (spit...) they aren't all available in all sizes off the shelf. There'd be a wait of a few weeks. I'd have to suffer wet feet for a while longer.

As there is a discount code provided if you sign up for the Alt-Berg newsletter I did just that. I also ordered a boot care kit. It remains to be seen how much use the care kit gets...

For British made footwear the prices are remarkable, and for people who can keep the uppers in good repair they offer a resoling service.

The new boots are a little higher than the ones they're replacing, but a smidgen shorter than the Le Chameau's which preceded them I liked the Mouflon's a lot so these Warrior's should suit me. And they are considerably cheaper than the Le Chameau's.

 

As already stated, they've been comfortable from the off. One thing worth noting is that I took the advice of one Pitser and ordered larger than my usual size. He suggested a whole size larger for wearing with thick socks. Alt-Berg recommend a half size extra for the same. As I've stopped wearing thick socks in boots I went for the half size extra and I'm glad I did. those are my initial impressions. How long they last before succumbing to the Lumb Lack of Boot Care regime remains to be seen. I'm full of good intentions to lovingly wax them whenever they need it. But...

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Mallards and meadowsweet

When the weather warmed up again after my first session  I was keen to have another try for eels. Planning ahead I got myself some squid as I have more confidence in that as a bait for eels than bits of smelt.

I checked my worms on the Saturday and they were fine. When I went to get my gear ready the following evening they were a mess of slimy corpses. Bugger.

Naturally the weather turned cold and miserable again on the Monday.

Not to be beaten I waited until things picked up and bought a smaller tub of worms on the basis that if they all croaked it would not be such a big loss. Last week I picked a warm day to take them out. The lake was in glorious high summer fettle as I walked round it to choose a swim. The lillies are up and in flower, the banks thick with wild flowers, great swathes of foaming meadowsweet all around. I was spoiled for choice but decided to settle myself in a corner swim with a couple of eely features to cast to.

When I returned with my tackle it looked like I had chosen a roosting place for a bunch of young mallards. They seemed intent on hiding under the willows to my right, but were wary of my presence. They spent most of what remained of daylight alternately swimming towards me and away again. I don't think they were expecting to be fed, they just wanted to go to bed!

My set ups were pretty much the usual. One rod with the off-bottom rig to fish worms - I had to lengthen the lead link for this, and a simple leger for the squid section. One was cast close to the mallards' bedroom the other to some nearby pads on my left. Nothing much happened. In fact nothing happened.

As the light fell the rigs were swapped over, and eventually the squid cast out towards a shallow bar. There was a clear and starry sky accompanied by a dramatic temperature drop. even so there was silage making going on in the field at my back until well after dark which is starting to come earlier now.

The alarms remained quiet even as the light grew faint. Shortly before ten I started to get takes to the squid at prolonged intervals. After a half hearted take to the squid at eleven twenty a more confident run came on the recast. I struck and felt a fish. Then I didn't feel it. This was strange as I usually miss eel takes completely or hook them well. What was just as perpexing was the complete lack of interest in the worms. I stuck at it until quarter past midnight as the cool night wasn't encouraging me any more than the light mist rolling across the lake. That bottle of cold water I'd brought for refreshment wasn't too enticing either and I fancied a brew.

Naturally enough the up and down weather that followed did nothing to make me want to shelter from rain or shiver by the water side. When the forecast suggested an upturn was on the way I made my plans. Thursday night would be eel night. After a slightly delayed start I was checking out swims by eight fifteen. The air was still, the sky cloudy but bright, and the air was warm. I expected it would stay warm after dark. But was the moon, already in the sky, too near to full for eeling? I don't set much store by moon phases for other species, but eels aren't like other fish. I'm sure I've heard that their migrations are governed by the moon, so it strikes me as reasonable other aspects of their behaviour could be.

After discounting a swim I really fancy because it looks a bit awkward to fish - I'd have to sit above the rods, and I prefer to sit next to them when eeling - I plumped for a swim near the car which I don't remember fishing for eels before.

Once more it was a swim full of immature mallards. These, however, thought I was a source of food and kept approaching me. When I threw stones in to make a splash I hoped might scare them off they chased after them. It was futile!

I didn't change my tactics. the rigs were the same and one was cast to the left by some pads, the other to the right by some pads. It might be a boring approach but the rigs work, and the locations were as good as anywhere. When it comes to squid and eels I sometimes wonder if it matters where they are cast as eels appear to be attracted to them regardless.

It wasn't until the sun began to set that I had any indications. Initially they were all to the worms on the left hand rod. It was the old story of line being taken with a strike failing to connect. The worms bitten through.

While 'my' mallards were either reluctant or unable to fly, darkness saw two lots of mallards come in to land, wiffling their wings to slow them down for a scudding splashy landing. Thinking about it, other than a single moorhen, there wasn't much birdlife about. One warbler in the hawthorns and  a tawny owl hooting late on.

Action did come to the squid, another case of line peeling out and a strike into nothingness. I'd give circle hooks a try so I could leave takes to develop for longer without risking gut hooking if I thought they would. Somehow I can't see it. If they were taking the bait down I'd be deep hooking them instead of missing altogether. As with the worms I think the eels are avoiding the hooks. Either that or it's bootlaces to blame.

At eleven a run developed to the squid rod. No different to the others yet the strike met with resistance. Nothing spectacular but sufficient weight to make me reach for the landing net while keeping the line tight in case the eel dropped off.

Success! Worth getting the weigh sling out for to confirm my guesstimate of its weight but not as big as I'd initially hoped. The eel dropped a pound or more as it got closer in!

After sorting the slime out and rebaiting I was encouraged to linger longer. With just one more missed take by midnight prospects were fading. even so as it was still warm I hung around another half hour before the attraction of a mug of hot chocolate and a cosy bed became too much for this old git.

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Trumpet blowing

It's no surprise that my eel session saw the weather change for the worse and temperatures plummet. I've got a few packs of squid now so I'm prepared for my next session - whenever the mood will take me to get the rods out again. getting motivated is the big stumbling block. If this summer doesn't throw up something special from the water I'm fishing I'm going to have to look elsewhere. But where?

I've been lax in adding stuff to my dlst.co.uk website for a long time. There's not much that I can add really unless I add a new rod to my range - which isn't a regular occurrence. Any thoughts I have about fishing end up on here. However, I noticed that it was six years since I added any testimonials from satisfied customers! So I dragged some out of my e-mail inbox and put them up on the  Nice Words page.

Getting praise is always nice, but I think being told that a customer has caught a big fish, or better still a personal best, on a rod I've built for them gives me a warmer and fuzzier glow.

If only I could catch another PB on a rod I've built!

Taking photos of recent custom build has also been neglected. Daft, because I've done a few unusual ones recently. The pic here is from last year.

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Still blue

As the Covid-19 lockdown eased fisheries have opened up. The pit I fish opened a week or more back but I left well alone. Mainly because the weather had turned less eel friendly . Eel weather returned on Monday so I started making plans. I'd already bought a bag o' worms and was sure there was some squid from last year in the freezer. Wrong. I had to scrape up some dregs from my pike baits to use on the non-worm rod. Blueys and smelt don't really fill me with confidence for eels, but they take smelts when they are fished for pike so there's a chance.

This season I'm restricting myself to two rods. It might make me work a bit harder and it'll cause less problems fishing from the pod I'm forced to use because of the stoned pegs I have to fish from. With no brolly required having just a pair of rods in the quiver sure does lighten the load!

No early start required I left home around quarter past eight and was surprised to find one van in the car park. A quick look at the water to see what the clarity was like provided another pleasant  surprise. It was still blue, but quite clear. It didn't take me long to walk round and find a swim, one which lets me cover a fair bit of water and which has produced some decent eels in the past. A bunch of dendrobenas went out to my left on the off bottom rig and a short smelt tail on a leger towards the pads directly in front of the swim.

 The leger rig is dead simple. A short coated wire trace to a single hook is tied to the line which has a large eyed swivel running on it. The stop is a small cork ball pushed over the trace swivel eye. The lead is tied to a length of hard nylon which acts as a bit of an anti-tangle device with a rig sleeve tidying up the knot where it's attached to the small eye of the large eyed swivel. It looks crude and inelegant. But it works.

It took less than twenty minutes for some action to occur. The bobbin on the smelt rod was twitching. A strange sort of take which wasn't taking line. I struck anyway and connected with something. From the way the fish was pulling I suspected it was a jack rather than a snig. No head shaking, no pulling back. Just a fishy weight coming in. When it kited to my left my doubts increased as I reached for the net. that's when whatever it was dropped off. The bait was lightly marked but in a pikey kind of way, even though it wasn't slashed by sharp teeth.

The willows were alive with the chiffing and chaffing of chiffchaffs, A mallard brood was almost full grown. A grebe vacated the area as I laid my gear down. The sky was clear and the wind light. Even so the air temperature was set to stay high after dark. Even by the time I left at midnight it was still in teh high teens and no fleece was required. Other than the light traffic noise, the roads are still strangely quiet, it was a peaceful evening. That was until the starlings arrived to roost. Around nine, as dusk was thinking of turning up, they began to arrive in small flocks, gathering in the tall firs where they chattered to each other. Only a passing tractor would disturb them, cars and motorcycles didn't bother them at all. After flying up they'd circle the firs a time or two before settling back.

It was around ten to ten, just after sunset according to the tide table I keep in my fishing bag, that the starlings upped and left the firs. They began circling the pit before descending into the reedbeds I've seen them roost in during autumn and winter. Being closer to me their noisy twitterings were much louder.

It was about there quarters of an hour later when there was a couple of bleeps from the Delkim with worm rod resting on it. I left it a few seconds to see if anything would develop before winding in to check the worms. They were still there. I'd previously spent the first hour with the worms wrapped around the polyball when my first cast had tangled. the worms were intact so I recast them to the same area.

The next take wasn't so long in coming. A typical up-down-up-down twitchy bootlace take to the worm rod. Sure enough it was the bane of an eel angler's life. A writhing, sliming tangle-master. How it got the hooklink and leadlink knotted up and covered in slime is one of those mysteries of the eel. When I eventually managed to flick the hook free, it was lip hooked, I had to cut the hooklink and leadlink to salvage the hook. What a mess.

With a fresh Kevlar hooklink attached and the leadlink retied I baited up and cast out again. This time I put the worms out to the pads and dropped the smelt tail close in to my left on the reed edge. They both remained untouched until I packed up and called it an early night.

This had been one of those 'feeler' sessions to check the gear out to make sure everything was in order as much as anything. And to get me back into the swing of fishing. I've been taking a lot of photographs since fishing stopped and have been really enjoying it. So much so that I haven't missed fishing at all. A few hours by the water as day turns to night, though, was a real tonic. It's still a bit early for concerted eeling for me though. Another week and I might start in earnest.

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