Bossing the swim (part 2)

Doesn’t time fly! Looking back at the blog I realised that I had never had the opportunity to go back and do the second part of Bossing the swim – part 1 was January 2009!!!

The weather had been wet to say the least over the last weeks in November but the river was starting to fine down, although still up and pushing through. This time I opted for peg 13 above the top weir, a noted chub peg, but I was interested in picking up roach and perch at about 10m using an 18g Giant.

Set up was similar to previously except I had decided to try some 0.20 Fortex rather than my trusty Shogun, to see if it could cope with the rigours of Giant fishing. Hooklength was still 12 inches of 0.10mm Shogun to a 20 and the 18g was made up of small drilled bullets and a barrel lead that could move only about two inches between locking shot of BB (below) and AAA (above). A solitary no 4 was a dropper 4 inches from the hook.

2009 set up on right.

I decided to start with groundbait and 3 balls with some old squatt and home turned casters were cupped in at 10m. Bait was to be single red, I began by running the float through at the pace of the river just to get a feel of the swim then began inching it down the swim at different rates.

Third trot down I missed a bite (an improvement on my last attempt!) and finally found that if I held it steady in an area about 3m down the swim I would get the odd bite. It wasn’t until I put on a bronze maggot that I finally hooked into a fish, a roach of 3-4 ounces. Over the next two hours I managed to pick up 5 roach and two perch, topping up with a ball of groundbait every half hour or so.

Not a huge catch but satisfying as others were biteless and at least it showed the size of the float can work in adverse conditions. Lollipops, I hear you say, but I have found that the bites on the Giants are more positive than when using lollipops in similar conditions. Just another method in my armoury when a single fish is needed in a team match.