Good Evening.
Not a particularly interesting post but I just thought I would touch base with everyone. My bait arrived today after an early morning phone call from a lost lorry driver. After speaking in my basic French and giving him directions it was a great relief to see him appear at the gates some minutes later. Needless to say the day has been spent unpacking and organising my bait delivery into my van and as I have ordered more than enough to keep me going till the spring (so none has to be sent out to Italy for a few months), the game of where to put it all began.
My floor space in my van was converted before I left the UK and conveniently houses a large amount of bait. I decided in my infinate wisdom that another roof box would make life much easier for me, so after a quick trip to Troyes and some bargain hunting, a good 450 litres roof box was purchased for the small sum of 129 Euros; a real bargain. My van now sports two big roof boxes which apart from evening out the load, also makes it the ideal fishing vehicle. Was it not for my two dogs and their large travelling cage inside the van, that takes up half the load space, I would probably have more than enough room for everything, but I would certainly not be without Charley and Flash, and they both know that! The bait has now been thankfully packed away and it now leaves the main sorting job to begin which is the tackle, my bankside equipment, plus two boats and a trailer.
Yesterday was spent cleaning the boats and my tailor-made boat cover that I got in Germany. I have found if you regularly look after these items and repair things as you go, they will last you many years; general maintenance does go a long way! My boat cover has a few small holes caused from the straps I use, to secure it to the trailer. A puncture repair kit will sort those out tomorrow and then I will begin to load up the boats. I already mentioned that I place my inflatable inside the trailer boat. This then leaves plenty of room to put the kind of equipment that you don’t want to put in the inside of a van such as unhooking mats, sacks, petrol canisters, bait buckets and a host of other smelly or dangerous items!
Outboard motors are allowed at a few of the Italian lakes which therefore means my outboard motor will be coming along with us. They are such a very useful item and for example: if you have to travel a long distance to get to your swim and vehicle access is not possible, this is where they come into their own for towing a trailer boat. I remember fishing at lago di Varese last July and I was returning in my boats to where I had parked my van. The distance was about a kilometre and suddenly the weather turned rather nasty. My trailer boat was completely loaded and the dogs and I were in my inflatable. I was using my 12V motor and we only just made it to shore before a storm suddenly hit the lake. We all had a lucky escape, but with a petrol outboard motor it is always possible to get out of situations like that and there would have been no risk to our lives.
My plans for Italy are taking shape slowly. I would love to be there now don’t get me wrong,but I must ensure I have everything I need before I leave and I also want to have a good clear out of any items I doubt I will ever use again. I mentioned last week that I received my new bivvies last week. Well that means I now have an old one that I won’t use again and I prefer to give them away to someone who might use them, if at all possible. There are two college lads coming to do some work experince at Gigantica in January and they are ideal candidates to take away some carp tackle that still has some life left in it! When I left the UK in 2008 I probably took quite a few things with me, that to this day, I have never used. It is time to get rid of these things too, as I just don’t have the capacity to store spare kit that never gets used anymore. I have a philosophy these days and if you haven’t used something for a month or two and it is not a seasonal product, then the chances are you can probably do without it. I was probably a terrible hoarder when I lived in the UK; not these days!
It is now time for sleep, another long day awaits and Italy moves closer!
Cheers
Jake and the dogs.
