A Jack & a bug

[MrMakk]

managed to get out for the day,
despite me having the comings of a summer cold and a banging headache I'll try my best for a write up.

we got at the bankside for around 09:30, my good friend Bazz fished the feeder whilst I roamed around with the lures. The weather was a bit miserable, low cloud, spotting rain & a chilly wind gave me doubts that it'll be a decent day for us both.

so I started to make my way along the bank of the reservoir casting and swapping lures to get a way of the action and running depth (with the canal its averages around 4ft whilst the reservoir was a lot deeper at over 10ft at places.) I finally settled for a MH 3'' fat belly shad in a pike pattern, this little'un goes quiet a depth if cranked good enough I'm guessing 6ft is the deepest I got out of it. But I wasn't interested in the depth, in fact I wanted to see how well it'll do when reeled in along a marginal reed line.

well I can certainly say it worked a treat, I cast along a margin and worked the lure along with pauses. It must of dived around 2ft so it's just out of visibility from the polars but as soon as it started to come up to the surface, WHAM!


6lb 4oz

This jack didn't put much of a fight up, but gave a couple of lunges. Upon unhooking it somehow managed to get into a mess, one treble under the gill flaps and the other set at the top towards the other side of the jaw in a diagonal sort of way. well man made side cutters to make life a lot easier, a quick snip of a couple shanks and it released the pressure allowing me to carefully remove the hook close to the gills and soon enough a delicate procedure was a success and the fish swam out of my grip with heed.

By the current time it was getting on for a quick lunch, so i went back to where Bazz was fishing for much needed refreshments, whilst letting the lunch go down I began to play around with Bazz's fujifilm bridge camera.





Neat eh? unsure on what insect it is so it's a 'bug'.

even manage to zoom in on a great crested grebe's nest


& one fishing,


after the play with the camera I got back to chucking lures only to not have another sniff. I even tried the other half where there were a whole row of uniform bivvies on the horizon. Sadly for Bazz he only had two twitches on the quiver, not even a skimmer, it got to around 16:00 and we decided to call it a day.


at least my headache is gone now and I'm ready for my pit.

Also in the blog clicky

[Jrob78]

Nice report, nice fish and nice pictures. The one's of the bug came out great. I find it very interesting how we speak the same language but many of the words are quite different. I especially enjoyed these two lines, even though I have no idea what they mean. Great report as always.

I even tried the other half where there were a whole row of uniform bivvies on the horizon. Sadly for Bazz he only had two twitches on the quiver, not even a skimmer, it got to around 16:00 and we decided to call it a day.

[Bassboss]

Good write up Mark! Thanks for sharing.

You Brits got some nice looking rods, love the cosmetics on that one!

[lilmule]

Nice report,your bug appears to be an aquatic (immature as wings arnt full length) stonefly.

[keithdog]

Thats a nice Jack Makk! Did he make the dinner table? I always enjoy your posts and photos. Looking foreward to reading more.

[Bubba_Bruiser]

I can't get the pictures to pull up, but I enjoyed the day trip and the fact that you didn't use the metric system for us simple folk hahahahahaha. And we hear a holler from the other side of the pond....FISH ON!

[kennethdaysale]

It doesn't look like you're using a leader, do you lose a lot of plugs to those pike? Are they your target fish? Is that an over the counter crank?

[MrMakk]

sorry for late reply chaps,

yeah despite the language being the same (English) we do have our differences, (soda-pop/ football-soccer/crisps-chips etc.) not forgetting we have out northern,midlands & southern accents like you chaps do.

Most if not all of my fishing is catch and release as with many British anglers. except the trout and salmon of course. the rod used for that session is a 'savage gear butch light XLNT' it has a cast of 10g up to 30g, I love it it's made in the far east but the quality and feel of it is 'wow' it's 1 of 3 models available & I'm looking at getting the other two when funds allow.

Tracewires are always are used when I'm out fishing, (probably the way the picture is taken) so no need to worry, most of the lures i loose is in in snags under the lake/river/canal or out in the overhanging growth.