Indicators and short river sessions

In the past week I have had 2 new sets of indicators arrive, a set of Pete Fosters drop off's and a set of Zandavan Rollovers. The Pete Foster arms were a bit of an impulse purchase as I have recently started using some older Mark Houghton line gates, which seem to be spot on for what I need. Initial impressions of Pete's arms are really good, over engineered and look built to last, perfect for a heavy handed piker. I plan to use the arms directly with the backbiters. The rollovers will also be used with the backbiters whilst targeting eels in the summer, again these seem to be built to last and I'm looking forward to using them.

A selection of indicators (top to bottom)
Billy's Backbiter ball and PTFE arms, Mark Houghton's line gates, Pete Fosters drop off's and Zandavan Rollovers 

This week I managed 2 short session, both on different rivers. The first session was on Wednesday and was my second visit to this stretch. Tactics for the afternoon were 1 bait rod and 1 rod for the chub, conditions seemed perfect the river was falling, the colour was dropping and it was slightly overcast. After around 30 minutes I had a wrap around on the chub rod and stuck into thin air. Nothing else followed despite moving swims every 20 minutes or so.

New drop offs in action ( well sort of !)

On Thursday I had a couple of hours spare and after checking the river levels I decided on a quick session on a stretch closer to home. This is the first time this season I have been able to get onto this stretch as it has regularly been in flood. I arrived at around 11 and I would need to be heading home by around 2 pm. Again tackle was kept to a minimum with 1 bait rod and one medium lure rod. I spent around 15 minutes or so in each likely area before moving on to the next. On the third move I had a hard hit on the lure rod, a 6 inch orange Replicant was taken mid river. Unfortunately after 15 seconds or so the fish came off, after a quick check of the lure it seems that the fish hit the head of the lure as there was a lot of damage to the rubber. A few more casts in the same area followed, but there was no further takes.

River in fine fettle 

After a few more uneventful moves I had to call it a day and head home, I would like to be able to get another session in on this stretch before this season ends and hopefully the river will be in a similar condition.

During the last two unsuccessful sessions I managed to have a good play with the Pete Foster drop offs and they perform very well, due to the method of adjustment it is very easy to match the tension of the 'clip' to the flow of the river. Once setup correctly I didn't have any false indications caused by the flow of water and in some swims I was using 4.5 oz to hold bottom effectively. I am very pleased with these drop offs so far, hopefully they will get some 'action' of an actual take before the river season finishes. Currently I think I will use the new drop off's on running water as I like how easy they are to adjust to suit different conditions, but I will stick to the line gates for still waters as I have found they are very sensitive.

Plans for the coming week are for at least one full day session. This will probably be split over two waters as one of the still waters I fish follows the traditional close season and I would also like to get as many hours as possible on the river bank ( too many waters, not enough time to fish!) It is likely that I will grab a short lure session on a local water as well.