Hoogeveense Vaart, Meppel, 28 September 

A little match on the Hoogeveense Vaart today with Ingo Becker and Roger Licktfeldt. This is a stretch of the canal that none of us have fished before. 

We fished on the south bank with the car directly behind us. Can't get more comfortable.

It will be the pole only for me today, and I've found a nice spot at 11.5 m. It's going to be an easy approach today, just fishing one line at 11.5 m. 

I was on the left, Roger in the middle and Ingo on the right.

I've had some time now to get used to my Shimano Aero Competition X7 pole, and I continue to be impressed. It's a very strong and light pole - I've even gone and bought the 14.5 m section for it.

I set up just 2 rigs:

Rig 1: a Preston Innovations Inter Carbon 1 g float with an olivette about 75 cm from the hook and a tapered string of No. 10 Guru slots. Main line is as always 0.14 mm Akku Power and I used a ready tied Preston size 18 N10 hook. 

All ready for the off. The bank was quite high with the box legs at least 1 m above the water.

Rig 2: a Preston Innovation Power 1.5 g rig, with an olivette about 45 cm from the hook and 3 spaced No. 9 Guru slots. Main line again 0.14 mm Akku Power and a size 18 ready tied Preston N20 hook.

The elastic through 1 section (1.25 m) for the 1 g rig was Drennan Hybrid Solid Pole Elastic in 1.0 mm (blue). For the 1.5 g rig, I used the same elastic in the 1.2 mm version (pink).

I am using this elastic for all of my fishing now.

Groundbait was a 2 kg bag VDE Black Earth passed through a 3 mm riddle, a bag of Sonubaits Sweet Skimmer, and a bag of Sonubaits Deep Water. I also added a little bit of grilled crushed hemp and some Sensas Bremes liquid. This makes for a great mix. I used about half of the mix, the rest I used the next day. 

Live and dead maggots and pinkies and a few Casters.

Bait for today was live and dead white maggots and pinkies, casters, hemp and worms. 

Five balls that went in at the start. I loose fed hemp over the top regularly and also used about 250 ml of chopped worm.

I added some dead pinkies casters and 125 mm of chopped worms to 5 balls of groundbait and fed these at the start on the 11.5 m line - about 1 m spread apart along the line.

It didn't have to wait long for the first fish, a small Roach of about 2 oz. The bites were more or less continuous all day long (5 hours).

Most of my fish in the first 3 hours were caught on double dead white maggots on the 1 g rig. During the lather part of the day, the two halves of a small worm did the trick - also helping me to catch an old 4 lb Bream - on the 1.5 g Power rig.

I managed to put 10.05 Kg on the scales. Roger had 4.500 kg witht he help of this nice Perch.

I had 120 fish altogether - Roach, Perch, skimmers and one Bream of around 4 lb. It was a really nice days fishing - I enjoyed this one quite a lot. 

Roger had a few fish too, and the nice Perch in the picture above helped him to 4.5 kg. Ingo had about 4 kg, but I didn't managed to get a catch shot of Ingo.

It is a nice venue, and we never saw a single boat all day. I don't think I'll return because of the really high bank, but it's not that difficult to fish. 

It's worth a day out for the nice Roach and Skimmers.