Time for something different

After a coupe of awful matches it was time for Team Kavo to get back out and enjoy some
pleasure fishing. We decided to head to Athy to fish a well known canal stretch and I was planning on fishing rod and reel for the day. I've never really fished a running float and I know it's one part of my fishng that
I'd like to be better at.
Rob was on his trusty pole and started off in the usual way down there and balled it in, big time.
After an hour and only a couple of fish to show for it, it just wasn't happening. He tried a couple of different
rigs and floats but nothng seemed to make any difference.
I wasn't having much luck either and was struggling a bit with the stick float but I was figuring it out slowly.
It's become a very very popular venue this and no wonder with some great bags being the norm,
By mid morning it was like O'Connell street in the rush hour. Cars all over the place, anglers every few yards
and then an oile delivery truck turns up and has to get passed us all. Time to go we said so off to the river
a bit further down the road to Carlow.
On the way we decided we'd just have a couple of hours of Rob on rod and reel. We havn't given this
enough time to date but this year is the year for him to leave the pole at home and get going
with some different skills. We settled in a lovely spot, just sat on the bank and had cast after cast
with a stck float and let it run down the river. It was a lovely sunny day so everything was looking spring like.
Thats great but it does nothing for the fishing and with a wind constantly blowing the float towards the
near bank it wasn;t the best scenario. We stuck at it for a couple of hours and by the end of it Rob's
casting was getting better and better. Each cast was followed with a pouchfull of mags and all though we
wanted to practise more than we wanted to catch we still tried to make sure that whatever we did would improve his chances of getting a fish. Changes of depth, upping and lowering the number of freebies that went in with each run through didn't seem to make much of a difference.
We'd been at it for a while when eventually on one of the runs down the swim. the float finally went under.
He struck and after a few short seconds had his first fish on a stick float, well pleased for him.