Taking the Pin for a Spin

Taking the Pin for a Spin

I treated myself to some toys this month, I got myself a Shimano Hyperloop fast action 13ft match rod, and a very cheap (£9.99) Shadowlanda Centrepin reel.

The reel is a press steel body but has a very nice bearing in it, heard very little about it, but for a tenner I thought I would give it a try.

I have never fished a "pin" before so today was a bit of a training day. I did not realise what a pain they are to cast! after about 10 attempts I managed to get the float roughly where I wanted it without snarling the line up, I had watched a short video on youtube showing the Wallis cast, I did my own version of it and it seems to work.

I found the reel worked very well, the river was moving reasonably fast and the reel responded well to the flow. I continued casting and practising in what I knew was a poorly populated swim, I did not want to hit anything too big until I had got used to the setup. After about an hour of repeated trial casts I finally got a tug on the float, and fumbled the strike and lost it!

Still on the learning curve!

about 15 minutes later I connected with a small chub and landed it. That was the rod and reel christened, and my centrepin Cherry popped!



I stayed in this swim for another hour and a half and continued to get small chub, my casting and playing was getting better so I decided that I could carry on and try some of the better swims.

My next stop was a swim with a fallen tree in it and a deep hole with slack water just behind it, I know that some good grayling hang around here usually so I fed the swim gently and plopped the float just in behind the tree, and straight away I was into grayling.

I had 7 out of this swim over a pound, the best being this one at 1lb 7oz



I also managed a reasonable perch



The bites seemed to dry up so I moved down a bit, here i kept getting small dace and chublets, and I had at least a dozen of these salmon parr



I was just about trotted out now so I moved down to my favourite chub swim and switched to a 16g feeder.

Here I kept getting small chub, good perch and the odd salmon parr. The swim kept getting invaded by swans, there was a family and a lone male that were arguing over territory, that just happened to be right in my swim.





I did get a couple of reasonable roach



I managed to hit something a bit larger, but it snagged me in the tree roots and I lost my only small feeder ( the rest were too heavy for the match rod), so I improvised. I went to a small hook and just used 4 AAA shot straight on the line and then catapulted maggots upstream of where I cast in.

This method worked almost immediately and I had 6 chub between 3 and 4 pounds



By now the light was fading and the swan were continually trashing my swim, so it was time to head off home.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing with a centrepin, they are hard work but it is fun playing fish in on them, I also enjoyed being on soft rods and light line (4 lb main and 2 to 1 1/2 lb hooklinks), made the playing a bit more of a challenge.

I will return and try and develop a bit more skill with the centrepin, not as easy as a fixed spool, but far better for trotting.

Sounds like an amazing day was had there

Well done on trying something new, it is always hard to do

Some great fish as well, what a day

very nice mike, some good shots there.