Big Catfish - Attempt No 4 (Grimsditch Mill Pool)

I've given up on the pre-baited spot - three nights with no eel or the main target of a catfish is enough of a hint for me. The carping books I'm addicted to at the moment talk of blanking in a swim for literally weeks before Geoff the Leather puts in an appearance but I've done quite a bit of predator fishing and in my experience they tend to have it straight away or not at all. Time to try another spot.

The new swim I've chosen has more open water but still the point of the pool's island to aim at and a nice overhanging willow in the margins to position a bait and hopefully pick up a patrolling fish in the night.

An hour's margin fishing with the pole and chopped worm produces a good supply of livebaits and out goes a 5 ins skimmer bream on a dumbell surface rig at dusk followed by the now fine tuned worm and leech rigs.

Straight away it's all action on the worms without a proper run, so much so that they are replaced with a sardine deadbait until it's really dark as I'm starting to think that the majority of the action I've had to date has been perch led.

The leech and worm rods are quiet through the blackness but the livebait has been harried and pulled all night providing continual bleeps on the ATT alarms - making the thought of work at first light an unattractive prospect - but not one full blooded run. An inspection of the skimmer at dawn shows the little blighter to be still going strong but covered in teeth marks which look very like the ones I used to get when trolling lives at Bala Lake for years. They always produced dropped runs as well and were good sized perch....I know this not because I am blessed with second sight but because they would often take a Mepps trolled through the same spot on the next run through.

No blank then but no eels or catfish again. However, for the first time, I did see a catfish strike on the surface in another swim when chatting to a carper - it was the next door swim nearer deeper water so that's the next target area when I can do another night. I'm reasonably confident that the baits and rigs are right so unless this place produces soon I'm off to somewhere a bit easier before the warm nights pass and I've missed my chance for this year.

Cheers

Mr Fish