It’s my Birthday weekend so I am allowing my family to spoil me. Back on the bank next Sunday for the Havannah Flash Club match.
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Gortini Pole Floats.
I have exclusively been using Gortini floats for over 6 months now and have a good relationship with Brian, who painstakingly makes these by hand, I have added to my collection ready for the warmer months and giving me plenty of time to rig them up. In the Autumn/Winter I was using the round body 4×12, 4×14 and 4×16 standard stem floats, short margin 4×14 and later into the year the mini margin 4×12. All of these floats have shotted perfectly and the balance and bite indications are superb. Brian released the Chianti style 4×10, 4×12 and 4×14 this year (2019). I have been fishing the Havannah Matches with the 4×14 Margin, 4×12 and 4×14 round body, each is suited to the varying weather and bait presentation conditions. With the introduction of the Chianti range I have also fished the 4×10 Chianti 4×12 Chianti, these are suited to calm conditions but can cope with quite brisk winds with the addition of back shot. I have just bought a set of 4×14 Chianti, along with a selection of those I already have. These will be predominately summer floats for heavier bait where a 3mm dotted stem will really show the bite indications. In heavy wind the 4×14 and 4×16 round bodied floats are superb and shotted correctly with the addition of back shot will keep your bait exactly were you plant it. The Chianti floats have a 1mm flexible glass stem, the Round Body and Margin floats have 1mm carbon stems.
I have a lot more time to spend fishing these floats but have no problems so far with their performance, durability and availability. Brian is also selling
30 x 50 cm hand towels with the Gortini Logo sown in.
Gortini pole floats and towels are available from eBay, just type Gortini into the search box.
4×12 Mini Margin and 4×14 Margin.
New hand towels with clip.
Havannah Flash 10/2/19 Club Match
After last week where the vannie was frozen solid it made a change for a forecasted dry day with a ‘light breeze’. Drew peg 3 along the towpath, not a preferred peg, but you have to take what you draw.
Set up with 2 top 3 and 1 top 2, all No3 solid elastic. (top 3) Gortini Chianti style 4×10 down to 0.06 24 hook, float dotted to 2mm with no back shot. (top 3) Gortini Chianti style 4×12 down to 0.08 22 hook dotted to 2mm No8 stotz back shot. (top 2) Gortini 4×14 round body down to 0.06 24 hook dotted to 3mm No8 stotz back shot. Plumbed out 8m @ 1.5m and 10m @ 1.9m Margins have been a waste on all previous visits on the vannie so didn’t even bother.
At the all in fishing 8m and it was slow, real slow. Didn’t get a bite until 1 3/4 hours in, tried all my lines and pinkie, punch and pellet with no success. The wind started to get pretty blustery about 11 and it was hard to determine what my float was doing, sat lifting for a while and eventually hit into a small skimmer. The wind was getting pretty persistent now so switched to tip and tried liquidised bread on my method feeder, still nothing! Had a cup of coffee or 3, some pork pies and a rethink. Switched to my Gortini 4×14 round body and added another No8 back shot. Now I could get some indication on what my float was doing and within 10 mins had landed a nice stamp roach and another skimmer, it was still slow but at least now I could manage my line at 8m, pulled this in to 7m late on and again started to catch some small roach. 3pm all out – 7 fish for 7oz, not a huge haul but enough for joint 3rd. Honestly thought the vannie was going to fish well today after the couple of weeks of dire weather.
Just waiting for Brian to release the Gortini towels and my box set up will be complete.
Sunday, puncture! fishing didn’t happen.
Woke up Sunday with every intention of getting the Vannie a bit early and help with breaking the ice around the pegs. Still a little dark but loaded the car up with my seat box and trolley, went round to the passenger side of the car to open the front passenger seat fully forward and drop the rear seat to get my pole bag in and noticed the nearside front tyre was completely flat. I had been out the night before to get fish and chips but didn’t get any indication from the TPMS that I had picked up a screw in the tyre! Informed Ian A that I wasn’t going to make it and sat around until 10am when KwikFit was due to open. Takes an F1 pit crew less than 4 seconds to change 4 wheels, but Kwik Fit take over an hour to fix a puncture! I needed to get it dome today as I am off to Reading at 5am Monday and the car has one of those skinny spares which are useless. Oh well there is always next week, hopefully the temps will have risen a bit by then as well.
Going for the monsters. Sunday (3/2/19) is another Havannah Flash Match.
I am going to fish the National Fund Raiser on the “vannie” this Sunday. After last Sunday I hope it is a lot less windy! Going to need some very light tackle so I tied up 5x No26 on Guru N Gauge 0.05 and 5x No 24 on Guru N Gauge 0.08. Still need to stretch and steam the hook lengths, to get them arrow straight, and tie them to the correct length (6″).
Hats off to those who stayed! Havannah Flash 27/1/18
Amber weather warning all week for Sunday 27/1/18 high wind gusting to 65kph, did we listen? well obviously not! Got all my rigs sorted on Friday, rigged up the new Chianti style Gortini 4×10 and 4×12 0.011 main line 6″ 0.08 hook length to 24 barbless. 7 turned up for the match, we must be the totally mad one’s. Chris Grehan shipped out his pole to plumb and a section snapped in the wind, that was a clue to get my tip rod out and not use a pole. I had set out my top sections with 2 round Gortini 2×14 and 2 Chianti 4×12, other than plumbing my swim they didn’t get wet again.
Nothing was biting up the top end, pegs 10 Paul H, 11 Me, 12 Jimmy C and 13 Tony S, it was a real slow start. Jimmy hit into a roach on pole and shortly after I had a nice stamp roach on tip, Paul and Tony were also starting to get bits. We could see down to the lower number pegs and as normal Ian A was pulling them out, Chris G and Ray R were catching more than us at the other end of the tow path.
Everything I put down was just getting blown off my side tray and I spent a good deal of time trying to retrieve my flask cup with my landing net. I wasn’t enjoying it at all, and decided to abandon the match. As I was packing up the wind got behind Chris’ trolley, which was loaded with ‘stuff’ this ended up in the Flash, he, Ray and Ian spent 5 mins retrieving that. I think my wimping out was a good idea at that point.
There is always another day and I didn’t break anything.
Footnote: This match was abandoned by the remaining anglers as I was leaving the venue. There were still some good weights recorded for the 2 hours fishing though.
New Gortini Chianti style floats.
I have been exclusively using Brian’s hand made floats for some time now. I even had the opportunity to be the first to trial ‘run’ the mini margin float last year prior to it’s release to the public. He indicated last year he was going to release a Chianti style range of 4×10, 4×12 and 4×14 for the new year. Well as promised he has, I bought a set of the 4×10 and 4×12 , requesting 2 red bristle and 1 yellow bristle per set, arrived in the mail today (24/1/19).
Working from home has the advantage that I do get time during the day to make up some rigs 🙂 .
I have another match on Havannah Flash on this coming Sunday and this will give me the chance to test run the 4×10 and 4×12 Chianti, judging by the weather forecast of high wind it makes me feel I should have got a set of the 4×14 as well! Again thanks Brian, great quality and finish on these floats as always.
