Pike

A call from Karl on Friday told me he had a Saturday afternoon Pass for fishing, so we planned the next day for Pike.
As plans often go astray, so did ours. A breakdown in the morning put us back about 2 hours, but we still got on the road. The quest for Karl to catch a Pike was too strong, so we finally got to the Canal - in the dark.
We had the area to ourselves, and soon had the bivvy up and the kettle on. Karl had taken his wagon (a huge van) and so we had the stove on the back plate. The temp was about 3 degrees C, so the kettle wasn't cold for long at any point.

We both had 2 rods out. Each with a Smelt or a Joey Mackerel.
The night was clear and cold, without a breath of wind in any form, and very bright full moon, so we sat and enjoyed a cracking atmosphere of winter Piking.
Not surprisingly, given our luck that day, we didn't catch a anything, but it was still worth the trip out.

Interestingly, we did have a few minor beeps and knocks on the baits, but we aren't convinced at all that it was pike. We do wander if it might have been eels, or even carp investigating the splash down of the baits. There isn't any flow at all really on this locked canal so it wasn't that, and there are a good head of large carp in there.

We packed up when it got to the point that Karl was hugging the kettle to keep warm.
We plan to return, and have another go at bagging Karl his first Pike.

Pike

I was thinking that now the weather was colder, I needed to wet a line for Pike. A mate, Karl, who I know from carp fishing mentioned that he had never been after Pike and really wanted to try, so we hooked up and went to a large complex not far from us.
Because of the light fading so fast now its November, we decided to go for a roving approach with one rod and a box of lures to cover more ground and save time.

We arrived at lunchtime and had a few casts in one of the smaller lakes, and discussed Lures and types of retrieval. No takes saw us move to the largest lake. We spent the afternoon strolling round under all the oaks trees, chucking lures and spoons along margins and into the distance, but nothing grabbed them.

After moving round to the top of the lake, we found a fantastic walkway that led around under trees over a foot of water, very reminiscent of a mangrove swamp. It was clearly made with a lot of effort and work.


We discovered a cracking swim, in a narrow inlet, with trees opposite. We spent the last of the day there trying all sorts of diff lures. No takes gave me the idea of trying for Perch instead, so I clipped on a tiny little 1inch Heddon Torpedo surface lure, that skims along just a few inches below the top. On the second cast, just feet from the bank, there was a swirl, and an angry jack pike thrashed the water in front of me.


We fished until it the light faded so much we could barely see the trees and gave in, but at least we didn't blank.
Karl had fun and seems very keen to try again. He wants a Pike!
Im sure we'll be going again soon :-)

River Culm

Well, I finally managed to escape last week. I bit the bullet and drove up to the river Culm near Exeter. I had a few things to do in the morning on this particular Sunday, so ended up on the road very late in the day. I arrive at 3:30, so only had a few hours till 7pm and the light fading on me.

I found a great many 'Chubby' looking swims on this particular stretch, and was soon sat with the quiver tip bent against the maggie feeder under an overhanging tree.
I was traveling very light indeed, so light I only had my bait bucket with a few spares in the lid, so I tried about 4 swims in my very short stay.

As it happens, I didn't catch a thing, but I had several knocks on the tip, which sent my heart racing as I haven't caught a chub yet.
However, I'm pretty sure the knocks were from very small fish attacking the maggots from the feeder.

But I shall keep trying :-)

Course

Managed to squeeze a couple hours in this week.
We didn't take it very seriously and just went light handed down to our local pond.

A few hours in pleasant DRY weather (I kid you not), and we had a few bites to make the day go nicely.

Mike had a couple bream to about 2lb.
I also had a couple bream to about 2lb on meat, a nice eel of about 1 and half lb maybe, on worm, and then I had a lovely roach of 1lb 12 ozs, equaling my personal best so far, on soft pellet.

New Pond

Mike and I escaped for an exploratory visit to a new pond we found that's remarkably local to us.
Its surprising sometimes what turns up on your own doorstep that you never knew was there.
In this instance, its a farm pond of a about 2 acres, supposedly dug and stocked in 2000 with Carp, Tench Rudd, Roach, and bream.

We turned up late in the afternoon, and tried a lightweight very general approach.
A single ledger rod each with a little feed went into the margins and out to an island.
Then in front of us, we both tried some basic float fishing on a lift bite rig.

We had failed to get any maggots, so used tiny lumps of bread, or soft little hooker pellets on the hook.
This turned out OK, and the floating produced a new species for me - Rudd. Fishing at a few feet depth in about 5ft of water, we both picked up a slow but relatively steady collection of the most stunning little bronze fish. I had no idea Rudd had such stunning colors. Its almost as if they had been created to complement and balance the blast of blinding silver that is the Roach.
After a while and gently flicking in a little hemp and ground bait, they got a little bigger, until we got fish of about 4 ozs or so.


I also had the only bite of the day on ledgering, which I had moved from the island to just off the marginal shelf, and had a nice one, slightly larger again. Perhaps 6oz ? Mike and I were both surprised at this, as we both had Rudd in mind (and mike from experience) as mid water or surface feeders.

As usual in this heady summer we are having the heavens opened and we sat huddled under the brollies as the day got even more gray and depressing and wet. Very wet...and very windy.
The bites soon disappeared and as son as there was a gap in the downpour, we bundled the gear away and scuttled back to the car.



However, I did have a couple of new little friends that were very tame and very funny.

Monsoon ?

Is this REALLY summer?
Its been like this for nearly the whole of flipping July.
I can only remember one sunny day!! :-(

The Path outside my office was under an inch of water this afternoon, and the sky was a dark angry sickly grey.
NOT very inspiring...

Mullet on the fly

Total disaster today.
Up late. Bad head. Missed the shop for the maggots.
Got to the fishing mark to discover that despite a good high tide, there wasn't a fish in sight.
Then 4 lads turned up and started yelling at each other and throwing stones in while they drank beer and practised swearing.
I made about half a dozen casts with my fly rod, with floating fake bread, having waded out, and quit when the amount of scum around me became unbearable.

I guess sometimes you just ain't meant to fish.

Still, I sat on the bank, ate my pasty and tried to enjoy the last of the evening sun.

Mullet Spotting 2

I returned to the scene of the mullet spotting with my decent camera. Using it at full telephoto, with polarising filter, I got some cracking piccys of the mullet.
Just standing and watching them for an hour or so certainly is a lesson in observation and makes you really think about your next fishing trip.
(These pics are heavily cropped, and also tweaked regards color and contrast.)



A friend turned up in his canoe, and drifting alongside the weed, the fish hardly moved. You can see here that they arent small ones :-)
Im guessing they are around 3 to maybe 5 lb.

Mullet Spotting

I had a wander down to the creek this evening, as I was in the area.
This time my time wasn't wasted. I spotted some cracking mullet, about 6 to 8 feet from the waters edge, in only 12 to 18 inches of water.
There was about ten in the shoal, and averaging about 3 to 4lb as far I could tell.
I was about 40 feet above them on the road, but my camera phone did me proud, and with a lot of tweaking in Photoshop, you can just about make out two of them right in the middle of this image, appearing as grey fishy backs an inch or two under the surface in a clear patch in the weed. They seemed to love hanging about right on the edge of the weed, or in the little clear pockets in between.

Ill be going back at the end of the week (if I can) to try for them on the Fly :-)

July Weather

July 2008.
Summer...no really, it is......

Unseasonal Flounder

Mike and I shot down to the pontoon on our local estuary last weekend.
We only intended to have a potter about for an hour or two seeing if there were bass or frankly anything around.
We fished simple running rigs with small ragworm.
Thing is, I ended up catching two small flounder. Its July, what the hell are flounder doing up in the estuary ?

Lure Componants

Here's a truly amazing site in the USA that supplies just about every component for making your own fishing lures you can imagine.
With these bits you could make lures for just about any predator you wanted.
Ive bought the parts to make 12 Big casting spoons for Pike, along with the hooks and rings, for just £20 :-) You could spend that on just one or two over here in the UK on Branded Spoons, and Stamina's spoons are very thick awesome quality metal.

Stamina Lure Components
http://www.upnorthoutdoors.com/stamina/

Coarse trip

A short trip to our pond had some interesting lessons.

Got there late in the afternoon, chancing the dreadful weather the MET office was warning us all about, only to fish all afternoon in high humidity and sporadic sun.

There was about 6 others on the pond, which is quite a few as its not big. We set up in what we though was the quietest of the swims that were left, and threw out our usual light ledgers.

After only a few seconds, I had a Tench of 5lb exactly (my second 5lb in a couple of weeks after me new pb of 5lb 6oz)and mike had an 8lb carp.

Then bites dried up and we had to think about a change of tactics.

My margin rod had little or no action, but the small feeder I was casting about bought me a couple of nice bream of about 2lb. I also had a huge run next to the island that shot off whilst I was still clipping the bobbin on the line, and smashed me right up. The way it took off and fought has me convinced it was one of the few double figure carp that are supposed to be in there of about 14lb.

After changing position from my left to my right, Mike had a pair of carp, both exactly 10lb during the evening. Pretty good for our little pond!

We are more and more convinced about how much the sound we make on the bank affects the fishing, and how the fish appear to shoal up in very diff places at different times. If only we could work out the pattern or conditions of these times....

Coarse trip

WOW. What a trip Sunday afternoon turned out to be !

Our local pond. It was wet and very grey, but we set up at 3pm, in warmish air and high humidity, which as usual makes me hot, sweaty and grumpy.

This time we were more careful about bait choice and its combinations.
An 8mml natural flavour boillie over a handful of our small particle / pellet mix went into the margin at a little distance so as to be undisturbed.
Our other ledger rods were set up with a small flatbed feeder. The idea being that these rods were to be lobbed out to various experimental spots, to see if we could locate any groups of fish. This way we gave a small amount of high attract ground bait on the spot, without bunging out handfuls of feed all over the place. Also, the different spots and ground bait attack was a different approach from the pellet and static margin rod. The feeder had a super sweet red ground bait mix, and a dipped pineapple or strawberry 8mm boillie.

We had a good feeling about the day, so set up the keepnet to see what our efforts were like at the end.......The approach worked wonders.

We had x6 carp to 9lb, and x4 bream to about 2lb. Both of which are good fish for our pond.
We also had a very nice haul of x6 Tench of about 3lb, with a new PB for me of 5lb 6oz, and x5 Roach, x3 of them over the 1lb mark and one of 1lb 8oz.


The Tench and Roach were keepnetted for a piccy at the end, but one or two were flapping about, so the piccy doesn't have them all in, as we only wanted to take a few seconds on the picture before putting them all back.


All in all, probably the best day of general fishing we've ever had on our puddle, apart from the endless rain, and packing up in the wet :-)

Out of interest, the Air temperature was 15C, dropping to 14C in the eve, but the Water temp was 19C, only barely dropping to 18C in the evening. I'm sure the overcast conditions and water being several degrees higher than the air temp made a huge difference, alongside the fact that we were alone on the pond and kept back and quiet.

Mullet / Trout

Sometimes, we get one of those trips that seems to be a failure, only to end up being a little gem.

Last night, I finally got myself out of the house after work, and headed down to a local creek, that feeds into the river Lynher, and then onto the Tamar.

I was told by a work friend who had recently moved down there, that he had seen big mullet (up to about 6lb or so) moving up with the tide in very shallow water.
This was enough for me - I planned to catch the tide just after it started to come in, and target the mullet as they came in with it. I got down there, but soon realised that the tide was too low, and wasn't going to be in till after dark.

Walking back to the car, I remembered the tiny stream that feeds in at the top of the creek. This stream goes down through all the houses gardens in the tiny valley, then follows the road, and goes under the road through a tiny 'bridge' of sorts (more like a small tunnel of about 4ft diameter) then immediacy flows into the creek.

I peeked over the wall next to the car, and saw half a dozen small fish scatter back under the road. I also spotted an 18 inch black eel of about 1lb or so slither away into the darkness.
My trip wasn't over then :-)

I tied on a tiny swivel, then 2ft of 4lb line, then a size 18 barbless hook. I pinched on a tiny pea sized lump of bread, and just peeking over the edge of the wall, lowered it down.

After a while I wandered if I was wasting my time, then I had that familiar pluck on the line. I had several little knocks like that, but wasn't hooking anything, and wandered about hook size and bait etc. Then I clearly hooked into something, and the little fella went mad, but lifting him out the water, he fell off. This happened 3 more times, and I realised that a micro barbed hook would have been a better idea.

With the light failing, I deiced to try the other side of the bridge, to took 4 paces backwards and looked over the edge. It was pitch black. The wall was higher here, about 4 ft, and surrounded by foliage, so I just lowered the bait down and let it trickle under the road to see what would happen.....dink...dink..... hello !
A couple more times, and then the rod plucked and I lifted into it. The exciting fast twiddling coming up the rod told me I was in. I lifted and realised that it wasn't one of the tiny fish Id seen earlier. There was splashing below, and I lifted before he fell off again. Over the wall came a wriggling fish to my hand.

I was very happy indeed. A lovely little brown trout, and a nice way to rescue a spontaneous trip that appeared to have failed.

I slipped him back, smiling like a fool.


I noted that these trout must be very tolerant of brackish water, as the tide comes right up to that bridge, and they cant swim up the stream, as it turns into a very shallow trickle.

Coarse trip

Another late afternoon /night on our pond.
Targets - Tench and Roach.
Arrive 3pm. Very Sunny, warm/ hot, and humid.

On Mikes recommend, we went to the far end, were the carp could be seen cruising in packs about 6 strong, Mike reasoning that the tench etc would be there too. I disagreed.

We didn't catch, and so mike agreed to move. We had got the choice of swim wrong and ended up moving swims at 7pm to where I said originally was better.
We then had 4 carp each, and a few snotlings (yukky damn things), and just like last week, I had a 3lb 4oz tench at about 11 pm. Very nice.......But no Roach....


One of mike carp was taken off the surface on his Match float rod - that fish led him a merry dance, right through all our other rods. ONLY recommend when you have space to play!
We then sat in silence as I grumped and we re-rigged the ledger rods from the 'knitting' he created.... :-(

One thing I noticed, was that although the carp were feeding well, and they fought very well indeed, they must have expended far more energy than in colder weather, because the amount of time it took for them to recover in the margin was noticeable longer than normal.


Not exactly the great catch I had last week, but its an interesting note, that yet again, we end up catching a good bag of half decent carp, when we are targeting smaller species.

By the same token, we've come here on occasion targeting the carp and caught some big roach, and on very 'carpy' tactics too. Catching a Roach and Tench on boillies of respectable size can be quite a surprise.

This can mean two things. Fishing is totally random, or, we should rethink our heavier carp tactics.

We know from experience and knowledge gained that margin fishing is good, (especially in warm weather) , but what was also a surprise was just how close in we ended up fishing. Literally dropping the baits over the the edge growth, about 8inches out, in about 8 to 12 inches of water. As long as we stayed back, and stayed quiet, whispering our chat instead of vocalising it, we caught.

Id say that the lessons learnt were....

- Use your instinct on choice of swim. Its more powerful than you think.
- Fish in close. Don't be afraid to fish one rod stupidly close in. It'll surprise you, especially into / after dusk.
- Be quiet. I cant emphasize this enough. I'm a Very strong believer that a huge amount of blanks could have been avoided if the angler paid more attention to keeping his mouth shut, his radio off, and his footfall cautious. Banging about on the bank will only catch you unlucky or stupid fish.

Coarse trip

....well well, the fishing fairy smiles upon me at last !

Sunday was originally planned for us to go down to another reservoir after pike, as its near the end of the cold season.

But best laid plans and all that - the weather was very warm indeed, about 16 degrees, so we stashed the pike rods at the last minute and grabbed light course gear, and headed down to our local pond for some tench and roach.

There was a couple of other people there, so we had a look round and decided to go with instinct rather than knowledge, and chose an open bank, with good margins either side of us.

A light baiting with small mixed pellet in the margins was ledgered over.
It was certainly my day today. I had a new PB roach of 1lb 12oz :-)

I had....
Roach of 1lb 2oz
PB Roach of 1lb 12oz

x2 Carp of about 8lb

x4 Tench of about 2-3 lb
Bream of 2lb
Tench of 3lb 2oz


Mike had.....
A Tench of 3lb
A Carp of about 6lb off the surface in true John Wilson style :-)

Overall a great day and a good decision to change plans at the last minute.

Fishing in tight was the key, and possible just being in the right place at the right time, but I think we are getting our small pellet mix right for Tench and Roach, especially when we use small boillies as hook baits, to keep from hooking the small nuisance fish, of which there's lots in our local puddle.

Mikes Afternoon

Working part time as he does (mumble mumble bloody part timers..mumble mumble), Mike sometimes has the chance to fish on weekdays.
He did this last week, and had a rather cracking day.
Here's his story....

--------------------------
An Interesting quick trip to Our little Pond

Wednesday is a half day at work and the warm sunshine provoked a craven desire to fish . No fuss grab the holdall, bait bucket and trolly bag. 2.45 arrive at pond.
A brisk summer breeze was blowing straight up the lake. Tony, a fellow angler, was set up on the dam wall sheltered from the wind and was just in the process of landing a 10lb mirror. After exchanging pleasantries I headed up to the oak tree and settled to fish with the wind over my shoulder.

Small amounts of pellet and sweetcorn were placed in a couple of spots in the margin to my left. A simple lightweight rig presenting 2 grains of real corn on a size 12 was lowered into place.
I settled into float fishing about 6m out in just over 2m of water. Corn and pellet alternating as hook baits small amounts of pellet and corn being catapulted in a tight zone around the float ever 5 minutes.

First fish, a skimmer to the float, then a classic screamer announced the arrival of a 9lb mirror carp to the ledger rod
The session continued with 5 more bream [slimy bloody things - mark] to the float rig and a fine pair of tench of 3lb 8oz and 4lb 2oz to the ledger.

At 6.30 I decide to try my favourite big roach bait on the float rig. A cut down boillie to the shape of a pellet. Seconds later a 12oz tench fell to it - a very good sign the tench are breeding well.
Four minutes later the float slipped away and I struck into what I first thought was a tench but the unmistakable dink dink fight and the size of the bend in the rod started the adrenaline flowing.

In the net was the most special fish I have caught in recent times. Perfect and in no sense a hybrid. Weighed once, weighed again, witnessed and photographed by Tony.



A 2lb 4oz roach. A fabulous specimen for this part of the world.
Exactly the same as The Newton Abbot Fishing Association record that has stood since 1978.

One more fine tench of 4lb 2oz closed the days catch and at 7.30 (possibly responding to a sharp drop in temperature) the bites dried up and it was time to retreat home.

It had been the finest spontaneous session in many many years and a true expression of the term “seize the day “ and to that maybe a reminder of a simple fact you can plan all you like but you cant beat being in the right place and following instinct.

Mike.
--------------------------

Thanks Mike :-)

Resevoir Pike

Last weekend saw us looking at the weather calming down a bit, and so while its still cool, we ran off to a local reservoir to bag us a pike.

We had rented the only boat on the lake, and arrived at lunchtime, so I could spend the whole afternoon rowing Mike about the 33 acres (being an old duffer, hes got a dodgy shoulder...)

We tried all sorts (fresh and sea deads and lots of lures) but to no avail, and truth be told we didn't feel 'in the zone' or particularly zen in our approach. It just wasn't a 'fishy' day - know what I mean? Sometimes you just don't feel in the groove.

After blanking all afternoon, and losing 4 dead baits to just flinging off on the cast, we ended up rowing back to the 'mooring' - a shallow gravely bit and a tree :-)
As we had about 45 min of light left, we dropped the anchor about 10feet off shore, and just lobbed our dead boats in the margins to either side of us.

We sat there just before dusk not talking, and just listening to the bird life settle.
I think what made the diff here was that we were very quiet, and didn't move about. I dozed off lying across the seat, and we had occasional chats in whispers.

Then Mikes bite runner ran off at a good steady pace, very clearly a fish and not the boat gently swinging against the rope in the breeze.
A very short fight, and one good solid splash later, and I was brave enough to reach down my (gloved) hand and get a finger under the gill flap, and look like I knew what I was doing as I lifted it into the boat and down onto the waiting mat.
It was very cool to have caught on a lake that is known to be very hard to catch on.
It fell to a dead roach, and weighed 9lb exactly (though it looks a lot bigger) and had teeth I wont forget in a hurry.
We continued to fish until there was just enough light left to punt back to bank, but had no other action.

Canal Pike

Last Sunday saw me driving up to the Exeter Ship Canal. Mike was busy, so I was alone.

I haven't fished it before, so it was all new to me. Here I was, with a box of lures, new water, and mental images of the monsters that the website and rumour mill told me about.

It was a bit chilly, but at least the broken cloud was allowing rays of late winter sun to peek through on occasion. The most annoying thing was the wind, whilst not too bad, had occasional gusts that stopped me casting, and put a right riffle on the surface.

Apart from the wind, it was very pleasant, and its always exciting exploring a new water.

The Exeter ship canal runs for six miles, and varies about 5 to 15 feet deep, and wide at some points, with a much narrower section further up. Plus there's the Double Locks pub halfway up, that's very nice indeed :-)

I parked up in the middle section near the old lime kilns, and walked down flow about a mile, then back up the other way the same. The lower section seems very reedy, and good for pike, but not as easy to fish. A small boat or skiff would have made all the diff, and in fact I saw a couple guys Piking in one. The section above the lime kilns is far more picturesque, and easier to fish. In fact one old chap explained that up by the lifting bridge, was usually a good shoal of roach, meaning the Pike aren't far behind.

At the last point in the day, and having a chuck here and there, I noticed a little concrete ledge with a bit of dry earth below it before the waters edge. I dropped down, and chucked the lure sideways down the reed line.

At this point I was retrieving very slowly and daydreaming about a cup of tea and taking my boots off. I felt the usual little knock of a rock on the bottom or weeds, when I realised the reeds were pulling back. This woke me up, and a tingle of 'yes!' ran though me and I'm sure I grinned like an idiot. It was only a little jack pike of about 5lb maybe, but at least I hadn't blanked.

Id tried big spoons on a recommendation, and fished them deep and slow, but no joy, so I started to try others. The jack came to my Megabaits Charlie, in trout pattern, fished very slow.

This lure has the most amazingly realistic action, and for all the world looks like a trout in trouble.

Unhooking was a nightmare, as I suddenly became all fingers and thumbs, and must have looked like a right nancy, plus I had 2 lads watching me across the water, with great sickly wafts of their 'Colombian roll-up' blowing my way - the audience putting me right off and making me uncomfortable. With this attention, I quickly slipped the little fella back into the water, forgetting to photograph it, hence the lack of a piccy.

I wandered back to the car, happy to have caught, and making plans to return and fish the other bank, which seemed to have better access.

Coarse Baits

Someone asked me about cheap readily available coarse baits the other day, so I thought Id do a little bait entry....

These are great established baits that should catch you fish in most situations.
Given some of these, you cant really go far wrong, as they are established fish catchers.
With no specialist baits available, I'd happily fish with these, and quite often do anyway.

Bread

Awesome bait. Famous angler Chris Yates said that if he could only have one bait to fish with, it
would be bread. It floats when fluffy, sinks when wet, is easily pinched onto hooks from small pea sized bits up to big lumps. Bits of crust can also be directly hooked and are a favourite for use floating on the surface. Very versatile with colors and flavours, and can catch most course fish species. A cheap thick white is the best choice.

Sweetcorn

Another one of the main cheap baits. Bright and sweet. Used for many many years and found in more tackle bags than you'd imagine. Probably the easiest bait to get hold of, use, and be successful. Hook it directly, or on a hair rig. Easily flavoured or colored if desired, but pretty devastating in its standard form. I would feel incomplete if I didn't have a small tin with me on any trip.

Luncheon Meat

Great bait for carp. Meaty and and fatty. Cut it into small cubes of half a cm across for tench or other small species, or even carp themselves. Cut into large 3cm cubes to select carp and keep smaller species off it. Again, takes colors and flavours well. Hook a small cube onto the hook or hair rig alongside a piece of corn for a mixed bait.

Worm

Probably the best known fishing bait of all time. Fantastic for Perch, and very good for carp and basically ALL species. Easily obtained, but a little time consuming. Simple enough to just side hook, but can be difficult when they are wriggling about all over the place. They can be bought from some tackle shops or online, but are not a cheap bait, and FAR better to have collected them yourself from wet grassy areas at night.


Specialist Baits
There are of course other baits that are available from tackle and bait shops, like maggots, castor, paste, boillies, and so on. Paste and boillies can be very effective indeed.

Coarse trip

The old bugger did it again.....

We went back to our pond on Sunday, with light gear, after roach and poss tench.
We tried 2 pnts of white maggies and a little groundbait to tempt the piscnine ghosts this time for a change.

There was a storm brewing, the like of which had not been seen in some time...apparently. Yet here we were, sitting in bright winter sunshine, with very little wind. It felt odd.
Mike was telling me all about the scary shipping forecast and the emergency services all being on super standby for the south coast to be submerged, with the hurricane winds forecast, 6ft spring tide, and 1.5 inches of rain etc etc.
Because of the weather warnings, we had the pond to ourselves.
We think the weather and the HUGE drop in pressure put the fish off, (apparently it was one of the lowest on record)

Despite this, we had a couple small carp, and Mike managed another lovely tench.


A brief day, but a stunningly nice window of sun and clear skies with very little wind, in otherwise dreadful weather of epic proportions both before and forecast for after.
Maybe the fishing fairy was just giving us a break :-)

Coarse Trip

I should probably call this "Mikes grand day out".......

We left at midday for our local pond, armed with light gear for roach hunting.

It was very cold, so thermals and layers were packed on. Thankfully it wasn't windy.

We huddled under my bivvy out of the cold, drinking tea, with both pairs of light leger kit out to the left (me) and right (mike).

All rods used a combination of small boillies, with either a small maggot feeder or small breadcrumb feeder to just add the smallest amount of attractant. No feed was thrown in.

To cut a long story short, it rained like hell for 5 mins, then hailed, then snowed for another 5, then stopped and a cold winter sun came out.....briefly....to be overcast again.

I only had a couple of small roach all day, and they were only when I drowned a couple of maggots to induce a bite, but I had a steam train run from the margin, which I hooked into. It was a heavy fish, probably a carp, but my knot on the end rig gave out, and I lost the lot - NOT happy.

Later, I had a great run, which again I hooked into. I reckoned from the more gentle plodding and plucking that it was a tench, of good size too, but then all went slack and I discovered my hook knot had broken - even LESS happy - Grrrrrr!!!!!

The knot had been my fault, but a pre-tied hooklilnk failing on a smaller fish wasn't.

Most infuriating.

Mike had a very different day.....

He must have been on the right spot, as through the day, he had 2 carp, one in amazing winter orange colours, the other a common carp, which is stunning as in 7 years fishing this pond, Ive never seen one come out. Maybe its the only one? :-)

Then he had a stream of bites, resulting in 4 perfect skimmer bream of about a pound each (slimy things bream- I hate them).

THEN the jammy bugger had the target species - a Roach!

Stunning silver armour shining, at 1lb 6ozs.

As if that wasn't enough, one rod flung into the margin in very shallow water, produced a tench. In the coldest weather we've known so far this winter, he catches a bloody tench!

All 4lb 8ozs of beautiful green silk.

So, after all this, what did I learn?
Check my knots Twice.

When we settle down to fish, make Mike swap swims.

Coarse Trip

Well, several days, maybe a week even of very cold clear days, so it was off to fish on the Sat, even with an Easterly wind....
Actually, it was very sunny and bloody freezing.
Armed with some new paste baits I made earlier in the week to test out, Mike and me headed to our local pond.
Arriving at about 2pm, we quickly set up, rigging for roach and tench. Within 30 minutes I had two storming runs and ended up with two carp of about 8 or 9lb each. As I was after tench and Roach I didnt bother with photos. Are we becoming 'blaze' to these fish now?
The afternoon was cold but very pleasent, and peaceful too with the lake to ourselves.
Later in the day, Mike had two carp as well, also both about 9lb.
So where were the Roach? If the Carp were feeding, the Roach should be surely?
The paste baits had the right feel to them, and were traditionally flavoured, but no Roach appeared.
By the end of the day, the light fading and the landing net being frozen to the grass told us it was game over.
So, 4 Carp, no Roach, and certainly no tench. Why was I hoping for tench in this cold weather? Well, a friend fished in the same place last week (hi Karl :-) and he bagged 3 tench, so we kept an open mind.
Was it the paste baits not working? The jury is out on that one, because maybe we just werent in the right swim, and were lucky with the Carp.
But I just cant shake the feeling that if the Carp were feeding, why the hell didnt we catch Roach?
It would appear on the surface of it (excuse the punn) that its the paste, but using a tried and proven recipe, I dont think it was.
I guess we'll never know, but the paste is going to get another proper testing, in less testing conditions.
Oh, on another note, I did bung out a double maggie for a trial run, and caught this thing on the edge of our baited area. We thought it was a big Roach, but we cant help but feel its another hybrid, and it looks rather 'Breamy' too, but was very silver (unlike in the picture), with 'Roachy' fins, but not as red as we thought they should be. What you think ?
1lb 12oz thingy...


After a good day in the sun drinking tea, a Cornish sunset made the day :-)

Trip to River Culm

A dawn raid was planned, but with one thing and another, didn't happen.
We left about 10, and after a trip to shops for supplies, arrived at 11:30.
It was crisp and cold, but with a bright winter sun to warm your back.
The Culm is my first (real) freshwater river trip, and it was worth it, just to be there and see it.
It was really nice to walk along a fishing spot like that, in cracking surroundings, with no one around.
There's plenty of roach and dace in there, some Perch, and a good head of Pike, but we were targeting the Chub (up to about 3lb apparently) and the elusive few small barbel that allegedly exist in there, simply because these are two species we have never caught.
The plan was to leger a small feeder with liquidised bread, with bread flake on the hook, or small chunks of meat for the barbel. We also had some worm and maggies to tempt whatever spotted them.
We walked and fished about a third of the 3 mile stretch that was on our book, and the day went very fast. It always does when your enjoying yourself eh?
Being winter, it felt as though as soon as the sun had climbed, it fell again, with no real 'day' to speak of, leaving us with a whole afternoon of evening light.
We worked our way back to one of the first swims near the car park, which funnily enough looked like one the of best. We fished that for about an hour and a half, and it was beautiful.
Given that the weather had been very mild, and then the last 2 days had seen a cold snap, it wasn't that surprising we had no bites, but the walk, the sun, and the scenery made up for it, and I certainly learnt a few things about river fishing.