Tail end of the season - March 2017

I've now idea what happened, but suddenly it was March and the end of the river season was looming so a few short sessions down the local river seemed like a good idea.

One of my favourite trotting swims - this can produce anything on the day

The weather was unusually mild, the river colour and level ok, so I was hoping I might get a bite or two. I was not disappointed.

March 3rd - a few fish from trotting, including one better chub

A rare upside-down chub

March 9th - I tried dragging some bait along the bottom of the weir pool which produced chub (in the 3-4lb bracket) and a good perch (among others) and a few dozen small perch further up, thanks to a tip from another angler.

This perch went 1lb 8oz

A couple of quality chub

March 14th - buoyed by my success on the weir pool on the previous visit I was dying to give it another go, convinced there were bigger perch to catch. Only to find the peg was occupied. 

I fished some of the swims above and below and managed to bag a few fish as well as this chub that went nearly 5lb

The angler on the weir pool finally moved on after bagging a near-2lb perch, so I thought I was out of luck. 

But a short while later, the stick float went under and this little fella appear - a pb perch of 2lb 13oz. And that as they say, was the river season well and truly wrapped up. Result.

Arran's Lake 30-12-2016

I've had a few good sessions at Arran's. I'm happy to admit it's easy fishing, but it makes a nice change and in the depths of winter it's nice to catch a few fish.

So in the depths of a cold day there I was, bait and tackle at the ready with high expectations.

Man, it was cold, I think it just crept above freezing, but not much with a cold mist penetrating everything with cold. Brrrr.

A cold day on the far end of the lake

Apparently, it had fished well the day before, the owner had used a JCB to break the ice and the anglers had bagged a fair few carp.

My experience was somewhat different. After a slow start I started to put some nice silver fish in the net - mostly roach up to 8 oz in side responded well to maggot, but pellet was ignored.

Cold and misty, quite atmospheric if truth be told

I carried on with maggot hoping that the carp would show at some point and muscle the smaller fish out. They never came.

I had one carp at 11m that I hoped would signal a change, but it was a false dawn. I saw a few swirls on the 3m line later in the day, but nothing seemed to be working. So I chalked the day off and will be a little more selective when I go next time in the depths of winter.

A solitary carp, not quite what the doctor ordered

Still managed abut 100 silver fish which combined with the carp probably went the best part of 30lb though.

Sorry

Sorry, it's been a while. Not enough fishing and certainly not enough chance to do any updates. 

Hopefully a few catch-up posts will follow. 

Tight lines .