Helmond Industrial Harbour - 19 June 2022 

Use the VISPas App to make sure you are allowed to fish the venue - dark blue = OK

Another trip to Helmond, but this time I sought shelter from the forecasted rain and strong northerly wind. After the past few days of 30°C plus temperatures, today's rain will be a refreshing change.

With the wind more-or-less off my back I will be fishing the pole today as well. I use the Preston Competition 3000 for my silver fish fishing up to a No. 7/8 elastic (Dura Slip/Original Slip). If I need to go heavier I use my Carp 1000 pole - so the Competition 3000 is out of the bag today.

I store the poles in a Cresta Infinity 190 Hard Case and the top kits in a Preston Top Kits Hard Case. Perfect protection for the expensive poles, but more importantly, they are much lighter than a holdall with plastic tubes!

The bank was very good and it was easy to set up. I put the brolly up today as there was some rain forecast and I wanted to keep dry - prefer the brolley to wet-weather closing when it works. 

Depth was about 2.5 m at 9 m going out to 13 m it was 2.8 m deep. The Deeper sonar showed me a clean bottom and there were a few fish around - the water was crystal clear though, so we could be in for a hard day. 

Bait for today is white maggots and pinkies, casters, hemp and a few worms - and the rest!

Cosy peg - and the car was just 15 metres away :-)

With human grade food dye these should be OK (?)

 Coloured Maggots  I also have a few red maggots with me - which are now for sale in the Dutch tackle shops. I believe that the law states that you are not allowed to use maggots dyed with dangerous (carcinogenic) dyes. As the red maggots these days are coloured with human food dyes I guess they are OK. When you see all of the other coloured pellets and baits in a tackle shop, it sure makes me wonder why they just single out the poor red maggot. Hopefully the Dutch authorities will make it a bit clearer soon and allow us to use maggots coloured with human grade dyes.

I have mixed up 1 bag of Zammataro Rotaugen with 1 bag of So Natural Black Lake. There is no movement in the water here so this mix should work really well. I mix the water in with a whisk and electric drill so I don't find the need to sieve the groundbait after mixing.

More than enough groundbait for today - maybe too much, we'll see.

I have set up 2 rigs today - a Chianti 4x14, and an Inter Carbon 4x18 (0.75 g). You can see how I shot the rigs in the diagram below. 

The 3 basic rigs that I use cover most of my pole fishing - there are always exceptions, but usually when it starts getting technical on difficult hard-fished match venues.

I began by cupping in 9 balls of groundbait at 10 m with a few casters and dead maggots mixed in. It is unlikely we are going to bag up today, so I'll just trickle in some hemp and casters over the top as we go along.

I cleared a small path for the fish and the rig. Plenty of weed close in but not past 5 metres. There were plenty of small fry amongst the weed - a good sign for the future.

It took me about 2 hours to get my first bite from a small Perch - it was hard fishing. 

Enough bait to fish almost anywhere - what was I thinking!

Perch first - happens a lot.

I went as light as I could on the 4x14 Chianti rig and the 4x18 Inter Carbon rig. I used a size 18 with 0.09 mm Accu Power - didn't want to go too light or I might lose a good fish. 

Elastic was Preston Original Slip No. 5 (Blue) for the Chianti rig and the new Dura Slip 5 on the Inter Carbon rig. 

Bites were hard to come by, but after a few small Perch I caught a nice Roach on double white maggot on the Inter Carbon rig - sadly the only one today.

I fed light, also cupped in loose groundbait to try and cloud up the water, but it was very hard. 

It rained off and on for about 2 hours but brightened up in the afternoon. All-in-all a nice day. 

I only managed to catch a few Perch and the one Roach. I think going out into deeper water at 13 m will help, so next time I give this swim a try I'll go out to 13 m - I stayed short today because of the forecasted strong winds that never came.

The first Roach of many - alas no, this was the only Roach of the day.

Most of my fish were caught on the lighter Chianti rig, with about half of the fish taking the bait on the drop. 

My catch today - 1 lb 8 oz - could have been much better at 13 m

It's a comfortable peg - there are a few along the stretch - and a nice area of the canal. You will probably catch a few on the feeder here as well. In the clear water you need to be a bit stealthier. It's worth a few hours fishing anyway.

Tight lines,
Steve