Overnight eel session

A water I have access to still follows the traditional Yorkshire close season, giving me access to it from the beginning of June onwards. Last night was the first opportunity I've had to get out for the full night. I arrived at the water at around half seven and was pleased that there was only one other car parked up, however the car belonged to a carp angler who was only at the water to do some pre baiting, that meant I had the water to myself.

I decided to setup in a corner where I had access to a couple of marginal snags and a lot of open water. I spent the first half an hour finding features and gaps in the weed, I set up a different rig on each of the rods (3) I was using, a JS rig, a JS rig with a bouyant stem and a dyson rig. The JS rigs were baited with worms and cast towards the snags in the margins, one was fished over a bed of dead maggots the other had no loose feed. The bait for the dyson rig was a roach and the rig was set to be fished around 2ft off the bottom. Before I could cast the dyson rig I had a take on the left margin rod, line was peeling from the reel, I closed the bail arm and struck into thin air. The dyson rig was cast into a weed free spot around 20 yards out and I baited and recast the left margin rod. I was unsure if the take had been an eel or small fishing picking the bait up.

A view from the swim

The next 3 hours went by without any indications, just before midnight I had a very positive take on the dyson rig. Line was peeling off the reel, I closed the bail arm, leant into what felt like a decent fish, then a second later there was nothing. Confused I reeled in and checked the rig and it was obvious that I had been 'biten' off, almost certainly from a pike. I had been using a trace of around 5 inches of wire and 6 inches of strong stiff mono (Amnesia) which is a pretty standard eel trace. The trace had been bitten off just above the mono to wire swivel, I was annoyed as this is the first bite off I have ever had. I made a new long trace for the rig and recast into a similar area. Around two hours later I had another take on the dyson rig, instantly I knew it was a pike.

A small jack taken at 2 in the morning

I decided to use worms on the dyson rig in an attempt to avoid the pike, the next take was on this rod. However the run was missed but I'm pretty certain that it was an eel.

This water has produced eels to 7lb to carp anglers in the past and I'm hoping to night fish it regularly over the warmer months. I think that the water has a fairly low stock of eels and I'm not expecting to catch many, but I've got a feeling that if I do catch one, it will be one to remember. Next session I am going to use the dyson rig on two rods and use a full length trace when using deadbaits. Hopefully I will be able to fit in my next night session next week.

Tench session

Last week I had a short tench session on a local water, again I struggled to find any tench feeding, as did the other anglers. I ended up with around 40 roach and a few perch.

Net of small roach caught during the last tench session