Hartleylands Farm Fishery. The Reservoir. October 16th, 2004.

Today I had an opportunity to see an Angler suffering from Poleitus.

A good friend of mine, Andy (The Hat) Spreadbury has been a confirmed specimen Carp angler nearly all his life, but last season drifted towards the Dark Side with the purchase of an Zyrium Margin Pole.

This tool of the Evil Empire exerted its full force on this unsuspecting innocent, tempting him away from the comforts of The Bivvy and the matched Harrison Ballista’s, even to the extent of entering 2 matches!!!!!!!!! and purchasing a Seatbox !!!!!!!!! complete with his name on the back.

Now there appears to be no going back, as today he was to be found at the reservoir at Hartleylands playing Light Sabres with his latest piece of kit……13 mtrs of Maver Encounter.

Actually I had promised Andy that if he ever brought a pole I’d spend a day with him, showing him the ropes so to speak, and during the week he had messaged me to ask if I could make it on Saturday.  Now Andy has spent the last 35 years as a serious member of the Bivvy and Boilie brigade, notching up some notable fish including “SHE” from the School Pool at Faversham at 34lbs 12ozs way back in 1977.

Andy with “SHE”.

On arrival I was pleasantly surprised to find that the weather had relented, and although overcast the incessant rain of the last couple of days had stopped. Andy was already setting up in peg 1 and I dropped into peg 2 next door.

Rather than going for the full monty straight away, I persuaded Andy to start at about 10mtrs, so that he could get a feel for the pole. He has had a Zyrium margin pole for a year but this was his 1st time using a full sized one. Some time was spent going through the basics of the set up, ensuring he was comfortable with shipping in and out and mastering feeding with both catapult and pole cup.
After about half an hour Andy lifted into his 1st Carp on the long pole. His face was a mixture of excitement, anxiety and relief as it slid over the net.

NO1 in the net.

The day as a whole was great fun, with Andy picking my brains throughout, as he attempted to refine his approach. Thankfully the fish co-operated with a number of Carp for both of us in the course of the day………

All in all a fun day, and interesting to watch an angler from a completely different discipline, trying to get to grips with my type of approach.

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To give you all a bit more insight on the day, this was the report Andy posted on the Maggotdrowning.com forum about our session……….

A day with ‘Polemeister Peter’  


Peter Morton (Peter) had very kindly offered to spend the day with me giving me some pointers on the use of the long pole. As I think I have said on the Forum before, you just cannot beat the hands-on experience of spending time with someone who knows what they are about and today proved to be no exception. It was a day full of hints, tips, and little tricks in setting up and using the long pole and I must thank Peter for giving up his time to come down to Hartleylands for the day.

We had originally agreed to go on Finches Pond; mistakenly, I had thought there would be a match on the Reservoir but it turned out that other lakes were being used for this purpose. I was first on the lake and chose Peg 1 – The Willow tree. This is the peg Peter won the Southern Area MD Knockout Final so I assumed it would be a good place to start. This however proved to be a bad choice as choosing a peg with a margin feature was hardly the best place to try out the long pole! I hadn’t long been set up before Peter arrived and he dropped in beside me at the next peg. I managed to get the pole sections sorted out and used my carryall with a towel over it as a makeshift ‘Pole Roller’ (a tip Dave the Fish had shown me). Peter soon pointed out however that this arrangement was not nearly high enough to support the pole and he came up with the idea of this:

a rod-tube supported on two bank sticks and rod-rests, positioned an appropriate distance to the rear at a point to support the rear end of the pole at the point at which it just starts to feel overbalanced when feeding the pole back. I thought it was a cracking idea and will serve admirably until I can get myself a proper pole roller. I was also interested in Peter’s front pole support system (PUPSS) – a front bar with a roller on it which enables the pole to be fed forward with a full pole cup – but which also enables support of the pole when feeding with a catapult etc. I’m going to need one of these too!

This is not merely copying what other anglers do (being a ‘copycat’) – but a matter of recognising the virtue of the principle embodied in what the kit achieves.

My ‘Pole Roost’, although a little unconventional (and drawing smiles from Peter), did the job of keeping the spare top kits conveniently to hand; it also gets them off the ground where someone as congenitally clumsy as myself is sure to tread on them.

I confess to being a bit worried about hooking a large carp on the long pole; Peter had warned me that it was a completely different experience to hooking them on the margin outfit and so it seemed. There is control of the pole itself for one thing, they are a lot longer (obviously) and heavier than margin ‘wands’ and extremely unwieldy in the hands of the inexperienced and I felt it was as much as I could do to manage the thing on its own. without having a large carp thrashing around on the end of it as well!

Peter was first away with a fish so I had a good opportunity to watch exactly how he played it at first hand;

some thought needs to be given to how to handle large fish – you can’t bully them like you can with the short outfit and it is a matter of following them with the pole tip and letting the elastic do the work for you. I also asked Peter about shipping back when playing a fish – at what point do you start to ship back and try to get the fish nearer the net. This is a matter largely of instinct and a feel for when the fish is ready, there are also considerations of the angle of the pole in relation to where the fish is and the fact that on no account must you ever point the pole at the fish or you could see your top kit flying through the air!

Peter’s rig was also very interesting and elegant in its simplicity. A Fox Match series Carp hook with just a single No.4 shot a few inches from the hook, this was fished dead depth although I immediately thought ‘Lift Method’ when I saw it. This could be something else to try on the pole rig front – Lift Method style with a shot three inches from the hook, the float set so only a scrap of bristle is showing, the ‘strike’ (although obviously you don’t strike when using a pole) when the float rises in the water and lays flat. Hmmmmmmm…….

All day it was food for thought and little hints and tips.

Don’t bother using bristle grease – use a Chap Stick instead (Chap sticks are the things ladies use for putting on their lips in the cold weather to prevent them getting ‘chapped’); I suppose the more effeminate amongst us might find a use – but it hardly goes with the macho, hairy-arsed image of the hardened angler does it?!

Pellets – keep them in empty plastic milk bottles rather than in their packets; they are easier to pour out and either cup out or put through the pellet pump if that’s your thing.

Be comfortable. Holding a pole all day can be arduous, not helped by poor posture on the seatbox which can cause the upper body to adopt unnatural positions causing muscle strain. Your posture holding the pole must be as near effortless as possible, with all twisting and turning (which is also bad from an ergonomic point of view) kept to a minimum. This sort of thing is studied in the workplace to reduce effort and increase efficiency and there is no reason why the same principles cannot be used for pole fishing which involves very long and unwieldy kit. Not only does it increase efficiency, it can prevent back strain and put more fish on the bank and in the net. As Peter says “If it’s not in the net, you can’t weigh it in”.

There is no doubt in my mind that if you want to learn how to use a pole, go along to a match and watch how it’s done; better still, arrange to have a session with someone like Peter who knows what they are about and can identify what you are doing wrong or what could be done better.

My grateful thanks to Peter for giving up his time to spend the day with me. The weather was kinder than it had been all week and we even managed to catch a few fish.

Thanks mate!
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