Confession time. Although I’ve long been a proponent of the Pallatrax ethos – and in particular of their Multiworm boilies, squabs and carp groundbaits – I have, I’ll freely admit, dismissed the company’s Stonze weights as something of a gimmick.
After all, I reasoned, whilst a ‘pebble’ might not be out of place on a crystal clear barbel run, what possible kind of camouflage could it offer in a clay pit like ours?
And how could I cast an over-sized if lightweight (not to mention, utterly misshapen) rock any distance, anyway?
Thus it was, despite (Pallatrax owner-MD) Simon Pomeroy’s insightful and oft repeated lectures into the perils of dropping leads – and indeed regarding fish welfare as paramount (ahead of any direct commercial interests) – I continued to use my preferred (absurdly heavy) drop-off setups.
Until, that is, a few days back when – packing down the old shop, ready for the move to the new Rum Bridge complex – I happened upon a somewhat dog-eared Stonze display, containing the (many, it has to be said) ‘swivel-pebbles’ that had attracted, from our customers, a wry smile, an ‘isn’t that clever?’… and no sale.
And I was reminded of Mr P’s most recent monologue on the ways in which Stonze can be glugged to take on a flavour; can be fished method style (being a luddite, my go-to approach when – and usually before – all else fails) and – you know what – actually “they can be cast a reasonable distance”.
Oh, really, I smirked; well let’s see. (No skin off my nose, really, since I can’t cast for toffee, and generally catch ******-all anyway.)
So, having glugged my fake leads for a week or so, I chose the hottest day of the year to wang three baits out into a couple of feet of tap-clear water, on a lake from which I’d yet to entice anything other than the odd myopic tench… And guess what?
I had three runs.
Landing two decent carp.
In five hours.
At which point, I ran out of Stonze, having – safely – ‘dropped’ the lot (thanks to Korda’s heli-safe lead release wotsit, which IMHO may, occasionally, be a little tooo sensitive).
And then… I didn’t have another touch.
So what do we learn from this?
A simple case of right-place-right-time?
Maybe – though my third rod, which was set up with a traditional flat pear, and positioned just a few feet away, remained inert throughout the short session.
Or does, as Simon suggests, lead actually repel the carp?
Well, I’m not entirely sure about that.
I am sure, however, sure that I’ll be ordering-in a stock of Stonze. For myself, if for no one else.
And taking into account the sheer volume of lead that gets dumped into fisheries every day… and which is, let’s face it, toxic… I may actually consider banning ‘conventional weapons’, on our specimen carp lake, altogether.
So, there; I’ve said it.
Armchair aquaculturalists, take your marks…
