Last week i was sent two boxes from Pondip, one coarse and one carp for review here are my thoughts on the Pondip Tackle Box and what they offer the modern angler.
1. EXCITEMENT
Opening the front door after a long hard day in work i was met with the sight of two parcels laying invitingly upon the door mat, my tired eyes lit up as i realised it was the two pondip boxes for my review. Straight away the excitement of the unknown was there, i knew they were being sent out so their swift arrival was expected but their contents were still a mystery as in the past days i had purposely avoided researching June's contents to allow me to experience the full package Pondip Tackle Boxes has to offer.
2.BIG NAMES
I opened the boxes at the same time and upon looking inside and through the contents i was genuinely shocked not only at the quality of the contents but at the BIG names from within the angling world it contained. Across both boxes there was tackle from Kryston, Taska, Enterprise, Matchman and Kamasan to name a few, excellent stuff.
A lot of the tackle I recognised from my day to day fishing such as the Enterprise Corn and Kamasan hooks but the box also contained some exciting tackle i had never seen before such as the Kryston Doppel Ganger Real Meal Halibut Pellet that certainly got the Carp and Chub senses buzzing.
It was obvious this box not only offered the angler every day tackle to keep their tackle boxes ticking over but also tackle that could add that edge to their fishing. The box also offered a taste of the old school whilst also incorporating a means to try a different approach for example i am always and angler that uses eyed hooks the addition of the matchman hook tie will certainly see me purchasing some spade end hooks to learn a new method.
4. FUNCTIONAL
At first the boxes just looked to contain a mixture of different pieces of tackle but upon sitting down and inspecting the boxes further it was clear its contents where put together for a reason. The carp box contained all the items needed to put together a surface floater rig for carp, within the box was a controller float, float stops, hooks and imitation floating baits such as corn and dog biscuits while it did not take long for the river angler in me to notice the Coarse box contained all items needed to have a days fishing on a river with a stick float, float rubbers, weights and pre tied hook lengths all featured.
Being an angler who is out on the banks of his local rivers nearly every week of the year i was soon using this tackle on my weekly fishing trip and with the contents of the Coarse box i put together this nice net if dace, roach and chub.
5.VALUE FOR MONEY
For just the excitement of that Christmas morning feeling of a package containing the unknown arriving on your lap this box is worth every penny of the £15.00 per month and the fact this box contains fishing tackle only adds to the excitement. When you actually sit down and add up the value of its contents you soon see it stacks up financially as both boxes pass the £20.00 mark all this added to the fact its streamlined design meaning there is no waiting in to sign for a delivery makes this box an exciting, fun and sound investment.
To find out more why not check them out at: Pondip Tackle Boxes
On to this weeks fishing
Saturday 02 August River Bollin On the Stick Float
I always take great pleasure when talking about my blog to people when i say i am yet to meet one bad person through it and the people i have either shared emails with or actually gone out fishing with have all been a joy to both share angling experience or a bank with and it was one of the latter that contacted me this week with news of a Private stretch of the River Bollin he was fishing and would i be interested in wetting a line in her depths.
With more than a few weeks under our belt fishing the river dane and learning some of her secrets we were ready to give the big perch and silver nets a rest and if we were honest both me and my uncle were ready for a change of scenery so this opportunity was very timely indeed and with a few pictures of dace and roach in printed in our minds and just enough rumours of recent good sessions still ringing in our ears we arranged an early morning session on the Saturday but before then a was the dreaded long Friday in work.
The river Bollin is a river we both knew little about and is a river i have only been on on the banks of once and from that trip i remember a really really shallow river that was so shallow i could walk across it and not wet my ankles so with those thoughts of a shallow small river in my mind i was worried in work as all day Friday the rain came and went and come on heavy again and with it i knew our chances of getting on this river hung in the balance.
Waking up Saturday morning loading the car in the rain i made the sort journey to my uncles where we decided to bite the bullet and make the trip to the Bollin instead of visiting the River Dee which was our back up plan. Walking the bank in the pitch dark it was hard to make out where the shallow and deep bits of the river resided as in the dark it all looked deep but as our eyes adjusted we began to make out one or two deeper runs and also that the river had a lovely steady flow to it, full of excitement we unloaded the car and trundled to our chosen swims.
Feeding the swim as i set about my routine of setting up my bait waiter, landing net, keep net and rod it was a good 30 minutes of feeding before i was sat with rod in hand ready to plumb up and make a cast. Out into the gloom went the depth plummet and after weeks fishing 6-7 feet deep it came as a shock when the plummet registered on bottom almost instantly. As mentioned in the above review i was using quite a light float and adjusting it to the depth i found a depth of around 2ft, i was a little worried but i need not have been as first trot down the float buried and i was over the early morning departing moon to hold a bar of chunky silver dace in my palms the picture showing just how early it was.
It doesn't matter what river i am on as soon as i catch a dace or a roach i am a happy bunny as one thing you know about these species is they are very rarely alone and so it proved as the next trot down resulted in a chublet, again great to see as this capture raised my confidence that there could be some better chub specimens around the area. In the first exchanges i caught fish from a few ounces all the way down to this years fry and as the session went on it became very hard to get 5 yards down the swim before one of these hungry mouths snaffles the bait. The better fish would show around every 5 or 6 fish and it was great when one of these was a roach, another species added to the list.
The amount of fish in the swim was incredible as time and time again the float went under anywhere from under the rod tip as soon as the float settled to my bed of hemp but visits to this hemp filled area where few and far between but when i did i was always met with a better fish and on one of the runs down i struck into a fish that shot off down stream at a rate of knots before eventually turning and shooting back up through the swim before putting on an aerial display all over the swim, thrashing and crashing its way to my landing net and there in front of me was a nice trout i must admit they are much better on the eye than in the water thrashing about all over your swim, still another species ticked off.
The fishing went quiet for a bit after this and it in fact helped me out in the long run as the really small fish being young and naive stayed at the top of the run and it pushed the bigger fish down into the darker deeper water and as soon as i worked this out i was able to over cast the early part of the run and was getting some nice dace with great regularity and at this stage i reckon i had easily over 60 fish in the net.
The dace continued to come with the odd smaller fish but then the whole swim went quiet and the float trundled down further than it had all morning and down along some really dark water where it zoomed under striking i hit a fish that showed none of the panic of the trout earlier as it held defiantly in the flow, here i stand mentality. The fish, obviously a stubborn chub, was hell bent on getting me into a snag but thankfully i turned the fish and i must admit using a hook length from the box that i was unfamiliar with i did not know just how much pressure i could put on the fish but the tackle held sure and the fish surfaced its big white lips gulping as the net slid under its brassy flanks.
The very next cast i was shocked to again hook into another nice chub which had me thinking i was in for a extraordinary day as you can not help but feel after two chub like this in two casts you might have a nice shoal in your swim.
The time at this point was getting on fro 7.30am and the initial part of the swim where i had caught so well was clearly visible now as it had become illuminated by the early morning sun. Fishing from 5.30am till 7.30 i had caught a decent net of fish and over the next hour till we decided to call it a day i only added a few dace to the net as the bites completely died. With small rivers like this you have to take what you can get and although on most of our trips we fish till 2-3pm we both knew now the sun was up on the water it was time to make a move home and cash in those early return home brownie points ;-
my net
uncle net
We left two happy anglers having added another river to our armoury and caught well. The drive home we shared our excitement from the session and how we had enjoyed the morning and planned another session later on in the week.
The midweek trip will feature as another blog on its own to go live mid next week sometime.
Till then i wish you all
Tight Lines
Danny
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