Afloat at last

My first launch of the year has been well overdue for some time now. I put the roof bars on the car on Friday night so I had no excuse. Two minutes from home it was nearly all over as a deer leapt over a hedge, had a refusal at the next hurdle and cut back in front of me. After two heavy applications of the brakes in quick succession I stopped to check the load straps before getting underway again.

When I arrived I bumped into to Derek who I’ve not met since we were in Norway together a few years back. It was good to see him again. We had a laugh and wondered what would go wrong as he too was launching ,in his case his Warrior boat for the first time this year.

I got myself afloat and played around with the Lowrance, looked for my first waypoint and peddled off. After having a look over the first spot I dropped in the H Blok marker float, drifted back from the feature and got in position making a few casts.

The first Perch of the year, what a nice one to start with as well. I was using a Berkley drop shot minnow for the first time, quite like the action and the little foil strip in the centre of the lure.

Last year I became frustrated with GPS lag when targeting what are relatively small features.  It’s amazing how far out your judgment is on open water, even in light winds. This will be invaluable, drop it on the feature and fish around it. I even switched the fish finder off the conserve power.

The size of Pike that gets you hoping your 2.5 inch lure has been snaffled by a really big Perch.

During one of the many squalls passing through I became snagged in the feature I was targeting. As I manoeuvred the kayak around trying to work the lure free I drifted directly over the snag. The angle became too much for the rod and with a loud pop I now find myself in the market for a new drop shot rod.

The loch was pretty busy today and one spot go a lot of attention from three boats. On the face of it I think they seemed to do better than me. I could have gone home after 1pm. I can’t complain really, ten Perch including a solid 2 pounder and a Pike isn’t the worst start I could have had. I also get to buy a nice new rod J