Pleasure chuck - eventually - at Sollom

We were on a bit of a magical mystery tour yesterday, looking around for a bit of cut with no lid on it.  We started out at the Ship, where we'd been told there was free water.  Apart from a couple of metres out from a boat on the disabled pegs, there was none.  After reading Pete's blog I realised later that in all probability, the cut had frozen over again on Saturday night.

I'd been and had a 'sken' at Sollom on Saturday afternoon and while I was there met up with Mark & Trevor, who were walking back down the bank.  There were three good. clear pegs up there and we also found another two at the side of Spark Bridge.  Armed with these as suitable back-ups, we set off across the sun-streaked flatlands of the West Lancashire plain.  I was out in front and got to Spark Bridge first, only to find the metallic blue surrender-monkey car parked on the bridge.  I did a quick U-turn and went on to Sollom, where the bank was clear.

We went past the boat (temporarily moored since September last year - perhaps Stalybridge is too far to travel home to in winter??) and quickly realised why the water was clear - the wind was blasting straight across the paddock in our faces.  Back towards the car park on the other end of the boat the far bank offered a few trees for cover and the temperature was about 10 degrees warmer.  I'd already setup in the wind, so I pulled my hood up and carried on.

It was extremely slow going for the first hour and I had visions of sitting in front of the telly watching the snooker for the afternoon.  As per usual, the old 'pouring a brew to trick the fish' routine came up trumps and the first pair of eyes of 2010 found their way to the ol' Polyrub.  I fished at 13m for the next hour or so and managed to eek out a few - the biggest of which was 4oz.

Back to the 6m line for a rest (the wind was sending me scatty) and I was rewarded with a string of much nicer roach on 5mm punch - including 4 good netters.  I finished up with around 2lb of all roach which left me feeling glad I'd made the effort.

The added bonus is that I've got one of our best engineers on my weekend work, so I'll be back again next week - new pole at the ready...