New stretch, short session

Last Thursday (16th) I had another try on the same stretch as my previous post, however it wasn't very successful and my baits didn't receive any interest.

I was on a course last week so hadn't had the chance to get on the bank for the last 10 days. I only had enough time for a short session today so I was on the bank for 05:30, it was dark for the first hour and as it was my first visit to this stretch I decided to stay in the one spot until it was light. The river was pushing through fairly strongly so I decided to just fish the margins. The first hour passed and as I was sorting my gear out to move upstream my backbiter sounded as a half mackerel was taken. The fish surfaced straight away and was probably in the 8 to 10lbs range but after another few seconds the hooks pulled. I put off moving and quickly recast to the same area, I gave it another 20 minutes but nothing happened so I moved further upstream.

The rejected bait

On this section the bank was a lot clearer so I was able to 'leap frog' the rods and cover a bit of water. 20 minutes later a large sardine was taken and after a short tussle (tail walking/leaping out of the net) I had a jack of 6lb 8oz on the bank. The jack had a bit of damage to its mouth, probably from poor handling, other than than it was pristine.

Ten minutes after casting a mackerel tail the backbiter sounded, line was peeling from the reel, I took up the slack and lent into a better fish. The pike fought very aggressively and I could see it was a 'lower double'. I had a couple of opportunities to net the pike but I struggled with the steep banks and the shortish landing net handle (need a longer one). I pulled the pike into netting range however the pike was thrashing its head from side to side and managed to throw the hooks. Again I quickly cast back to the same area, hoping to tempt the pike again. Unfortunately there was no further interest in my baits and I had to leave shortly afterwards, begrudgingly I was home by 11:00. I'm hoping to get a mid-week session in, but as it's school half term I might be pushing my luck.

New camera

I managed to bag an eBay bargain, a canon bridge camera for £13. It's an older model but it should be  more than adequate for fishing. I had a bit of a play with it today but struggled to get the self takes to focus, hopefully I can figure it out for the next session.