River Colne 22-7-12

Having my usual few hours spare on a Sunday morning (only after extensive negotiation :-) ) I headed down to the local stretch of the river Colne for a few hours. 

My plan was to do the usual - rove the river with a pint of maggot and a stick float rig and see what would appear. I didn't have high hopes, but since the previous trip had thrown up a barbel, then anything was possible. 

First swim was my usual trotting swim. Wade out to the gravel bar (trying not to fill the wellies too much) and trot down to the bend. 

This produced a few small fish, and one better chub of about 3lb (result). However, the roach were awol - some bleak and lots of minnows were showing, but not much else. So, after an hour or so I headed upstream.

Next peg up was the weirpool. Normally I don't bother with this peg, it's shallow, wide, fast moving and best fished with the feeder. But what the heck I thought, why not give it a go?

After a couple of casts to get the depth right (somewhere around 18 inches seemed to be ok) I found an easy run through just behind the main flow on the near side. 

And a bite. 4oz roach. 

Next cast, bite, 3oz roach. 

And so on. 

Over the next 90 minutes I bagged nearly 70 fish. Lots of roach, a few chublets, dace, couple of perch, gudgeon, bleak and minnows. All-in-all, for a river with very few small fish, a complete revelation. A peg that I've walked past and ignored for years, turned out to be probably the best trotting swim on the river. 

Lesson learned I think.

Fish caught:

Chub 8

Roach 40

Perch 3

Gudgeon 5

Bleak 10

Minnow 30

Dace 3

Total weight: 15lb

Thoughts on Fishomania, 14-7-12

I’ve been an avid watcher of fishomania for over a decade, the one opportunity we get in the UK to watch real live competitive fishing on the TV. I enjoy watching the programme a lot, the opportunity to see what’s going on, who’s catching and the regular half hourly weigh-ins take the guesswork out of the proceedings. I’d promised myself that one of these days I will go and watch in person – each year it comes around and it’s too late to attend or some other distraction, and that’s that. Still, I will go one of these days. 

However, and there’s always a however, each year I always come away feeling a bit disappointed for a range of reasons.

1. It always seems so desperately unfair. Granted that Cudmore is so much fairer than Hayfield, it appears that post draw some of the anglers know they are on to a hiding to nothing. I don’t know that this could be fixed, but when you see that last year’s champion came in last this time around, it’s hard to remove the lottery element from the match fishing result. This, incidentally, is one of the reasons I don’t match fish regularly – I’d rather the best angler wins, rather than the luckiest draw arm. At least this time it wasn’t an end peg (and nor was it at the home internationals the next day), or even worse the same peg as last year (as happened all too often at Hayfield.
   
   
2. There is often a sense of anti-climax at the end of the match, whilst it’s good to get the regular weigh-ins there is a distinct lack of excitement going into the last hour. I know Sky would like to stage manage the process to the last minute (and I recall a close finish with Nathan Watson a while ago is memory serves), I think it might make life a little more interesting if there was no weigh-in 9 – leave the last hour free and let the experts try to guestimate what's going on. Maybe we could ask the roving reporters for a fish or weight estimate to keep the interest up. 
   
   
3. Show us some proper action. I want to see a float go under or a tip wrap around. I know this might not make for great television, but I don't need to look at the angler (some of them are note exactly oil paintings to start with), but isn't there some way we could split screen with what's going on at water level rather than some fat bloke sat on box. 
   
   
4. Shut Keith up. Just a little. I know he has a point of view on everything and like many anglers he thinks he knows it all, but actually, he doesn't. So from time to time shut up and let us see what happening. Contrary to his comments, there were crucians caught on day one (it was in on the many film montages) and please come up with some new anecdotes (fish cant swim backwards) , it's getting a little dull now. 
   
   
5. Think about some better demonstrations – how about showing how a pole/elastic set-up works, but pre-record it. Show some underwater footage of a fish taking a bait, just add a little bit more interest.
   
   
6. Improve the vocabulary of the roving reporters, please. Its a little embarrassing, and for goodness sake, give us some of the key weights (like bigger carp) in pounds and ounces as well as kilos. I know we're trying to be modern, but there's really no need.

Those are my main gripes. I'd like to see a few more fish caught and a fairer pegging set-up, but that would probably be asking a bit much. 

But big thanks to some of the changes – no celeb match was a great improvement, now we just need a way to make the home international a bit more of a competition.

River Colne, 15-7-12

I’ve written a number of blog entries that start in much the same way, typically “and now for something different” etc. This session is somewhat similar. I set myself a target this year of fishing at least 4 new venues, partly to force myself away from the same old waters and partly to get away from the same old pole gear, and, maybe, to catch something a little different.

Although, by some standards, I don’t have a brilliant list of personal bests, they are not bad. I don’t tend to want to put significant time into hunting specimens, but I’ve picked up some nice fish along the way. I have, I suspect, lost some big fish too, by not fishing for them on suitable gear, but this comes along with the territory. 

Anyway, enough of this background, and on with some fishing. And, by the way, if you think the preceding diatribe was in some way a set up to tell you I’ve caught a whopper, it is not. Sorry about that.

Sunday 15^th July was forecasted to be a nice day. Given the recent mixed to wet weather, this seemed like a good opportunity for me to nip out for a few hours on the bank. With it being Fishomania weekend, I did want to catch some television as well, so a short session to use some leftover maggots seemed like a good idea.

I’m fortunate to live near the Colne Valley, (the one down south with the big fish reputation) and membership of the local club affords me access to a number of stretches. I decided to have a go at one these that I’d not fished before. In fact I’d not even seen in. I had, however seen a few catch reports, and a few match results and this suggested that there were a few silver fish to be caught. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t catch many roach on purpose these days. A combination of commercials and cormorants has seen to that. But the chance to catch a few by design always catches my attention.

I’d had a quick run through my gear the day before, this is my light travelling gear, and I had the remains of some maggots from a few weeks back to use as bait. These were not ideal, but they’d do for an hour or two. I had my usual light gear – one day I’ll run through this and for once I took my small chair, just in case I ended up on the feeder.

Anyway, ten minutes or so after leaving the house I was parked up and ready to go. There was one other car there already, but with 20 plus pegs this didn’t worry me. Wellies on, it had been raining a bit for the last three months, in case you hadn’t noticed, and it was over the stile and along the path. At this point, it struck me that I should have popped in one day to check out the venue (I drive past regularly), but actually, faced with the mud, I’d probably made the right call.

The first peg I came to looked sock on for trotting, nice glide on a bend, no obvious weed and decent access to the water’s edge. I decided that fishing the first peg was not the best idea though – what else might be up there? So I decided to head up towards the far end where I believe there was a weir.

I wandered up the stretch and looked at the pegs on offer. Most were weeded, overhung and offered difficult access, but you have to have a good look on your first visit don’t you? After a fair walk I found the other angler in residence, setting up heavy for barbel, the path was narrow, muddy and a bit tight overhead. This mostly ruled out fishing a few pegs in short stints. I was advised by the other angler that the weir was difficult to fish and the first peg was probably the best for trotting, he was right. I checked out the weir, on another day it might be quite good fishing, but the current flow rate was not an attractive proposition, so I started to wander back to peg 1 and hope that it was still empty. There was good news in that respect.

So happy that I’d had a good look around, I settle for a bit of trotting and set up. A 4 no 4 stick float fitted the bill, shotted short-button style with no 6s, fished on 3lb line to a 0.10mm hooklength and size 18 barbless hook seemed about right, trotted through on my 14ft match rod with the very soft action. I flicked in a few maggot as I set up, the river was only about 30 feet wide at this point (if that) so loose feeding was easy. There was about 3 feet of water out there, a few bits of weed in places, but all-in-all it felt fairly comfortable.

I started running through along the far side, just inside the weedy overhang, and then the float would cross towards the near side on the bend and towards and overhanging branch about 15m downstream. This overhang was perfectly placed so that however I fished I’d always send up with the rig or line caught in it. It was very annoying, and unreachable. But, I still had a decent clear trot until that point. 

The straight ahead line

The trotting run around the bend

Five runs through and absolutely nothing. I was starting to get a little worried. Had the cormorants wreaked there awful havoc down here as well?

Sixth run down and as the float started to drift towards the inside it sank. I struck, there was resistance. It wasn’t a big fish, but it tried to dive in the weeds on both banks. But a little constant pressure and a nice perch surfaced, maybe 6 ounces on a good day. That was a result – blank avoided. (I don’t blank often, but I hate it when I do).

Next run through and in mid-stream I got another bite, but this time a 3 ounce dace was the culprit. Nice. Maybe the steady feeding at the head of the swim was starting to pay dividends.

Next run through and a bite in a similar location. But this time a roach of about 4 ounces. This was very rewarding, as roach are a rare sight in the river. Now wall that was left was to see if it had a few friends.

I plugged away at the swim, a little bit of loosefeed, some targeted casting and more fish followed. And thankfully they were almost entirely roach. In fact after about an hour’s fishing I was up to nearly 15 fish. It was never frenetic. A couple of quick fish, then a lull; sometimes in mid-stream, sometimes on the near side by the overhang. 

Typical Colne roach for the session

Occasionally, I’d get the float to run past the overhang, and this did produce one perch, but more often than not I’d have to pull the line out sharpish, and this was not ideal.

I tried a few changes. Bulking the shot (since most of the bites were near the bottom) didn’t speed things up at all, deeper, shallower, holding back. They all got the odd fish, but nothing got me a bite a cast (I suspect a little more bait and a catapult for tighter grouping would have given me more options), but fish came in slowly, as the gaps between bites was getting longer.

Towards the end I picked up a couple of fish at the head of the swim. Just when I thought I’d relocated the shoal, these disappeared as well… maybe it’s just the kind of venue where you can’t catch in the same way all day. I dunno.

Soon the little hand started to point towards the 10 on my watch and I knew it was time to go. A two and a half hour session had produced a nice selection of fish. Nothing huge, but with my best bag of river roach for quite some years, I went home a happy man.

Catch:

20 roach

1 dace

3 perch

1 bleak

Total weight: 5lb

Small Victories - 1st July 2012

I'm all for adding a little variety to my fishing - it's all too easy to fish the same venues in the same way and, frankly, catch the same sort of fish. Now I'm not saying I don't like bashing out a big bag of match carp on the pole, because I do, but from time to time it's nice to mix it up a bit and remind yourself that there's more to fishing than just one thing. 

So, with two hours to myself early on Sunday morning I decided to do just that. Something a little different. 

Armed with a pint of maggots and my usual traveling light gear, I decided to dig out my 5 metre whip (something I don't think I've used for 5 years or more) and head to one of the lesser fished waters of my local club. 

It's an unusual water - a few years back there was a major fish kill (caused by icing over I believe) and now it's an intimate little pond with no more than 10 pegs, complete with plenty of weed and a few surprises. However, it is rarely fished and this was only my second visit. 

I quickly set up on one of the deeper pegs and found 3ft of water and weed at 10 metres out. So I shortened the whip down one section to find the a spot where the weed had been cleared. So that was the plan, a 0.3g float on 0.13mm line to a 0.10mm hooklength and size 20 hook, set just 12 inches shorter than the whip. 

A few maggots had been fed during the set-up and I got to work. First cast, bite, 3oz rudd. 

Stamp rudd - lovely clean colours

Second cast, bite, crucian carp. And so it went on. 

How can you not be delighted to catch a crucian like this?

In the first hour it was mainly rudd varying from 1oz to 3oz, a few crucians and a couple of tench. All delicious baby fish up to 3 or 4 oz mostly, immaculate condition and starving hungry for maggots. 

Tench like little bars of soap

After an hour the rudd seemed to back off and I started to put a regular run of crucians and tench together, the size didn't get any better, but it was great fun to fish and catch such miniature beauties. I had to wait a little longer for bites, but frankly I didn't care - it was a great way to spend a few hours. 

Eventually I managed to hook one of the resident carp - all 4oz of it - but this was the only example that appeared in the session (my previous visit had produced many more), but you cant complain. 

My only carp of the session

So after 2 hours it was time to go. 75 fish for about 8lb, but more importantly, a really enjoyable session. 

I don't know when I'll go back, but it made a really nice change to do something a little different. 

Catch list:

Rudd - 39

Tench - 20

Crucian carp - 15

Common Carp - 1

Total weight - 8lb

Local river 17-6-12

I have a love-hate relationship with my local river stretch – there are some fabulous specimens in there, but not much else. However, there are a few pegs where trotted maggot can produce, so this was my tactical choice for a few hours early on Sunday morning. I give each of my favoured pegs a bit of time and then move on – it's a nice way to spend a few hours.

I arrived at the venue at 6am and wandered down to the one of the bottom pegs – it's usually good for a few bites. A quick look showed the water level was up a good few inches and still tanking through. This was a bit of a shame as there is a gravel bar about 12 ft out that you can stand on in wellies to trot the far side, but with the extra water there was no way to reach it without waders. So I did the best that I could from the bank.

A 4BB stick float was paired with 0.10mm line and an 18 hook so I could attack with a single maggot. First swing in and the float landed short of the main run, however as I swung the rig back in it contained a ravenous minnow. Not a bad sign, there are some in the stretch, and some days this is all that shows.

A few runs through and I was starting to get the presentation I wanted, just tripping bottom and in and out of the fastest run. Towards the end of the run the float dipped, I struck and what I initially thought was a snag started coming upstream. A fairly long and difficult fight ensued, whilst flashes of flank showed I have hooked a small-ish barbel, landing it was a struggle. Although I had the fish beaten, getting it into the bank and towards the landing net was a game and a half. Overhanging trees, the gravel bank and a fish that kept reviving and heading back into the flow did not help. However, after far too long I waded down stream a little and found a slightly better spot, managed to get the fish above the net and finally landed (but managing the wrap the line around an overhead branch straight afterwards).

I spent a little while admiring my prize – 3lb of immaculate barbel – which still had plenty of fight in it. Duly weighed and photographed it recovered almost immediately and made off back into the river.

Try as I might, only two more minnows showed in the peg (it's normally much better), so I moved on upstream to some other favoured spots.

The 'inside' line swim, which is normally good for a few chublets and dace produced nothing.

The pub swim, where I normally blank, produced a minnow and then a bite and a half. Whatever it was weighed heavy and headed straight for the upstream snag, I did my best to arrest it's progress, but it was stronger than my hooklength and we parted company.

Next peg, 'the waterwheel', nothing.

Next peg, 'the ski hut', nothing. (Although I did see the back of a large fish tight to the nearside bank).

Next peg, '17', nothing.

Next peg, 'the confluence', nothing.

Last peg, 'above the weir', nothing.

At this point it was time to go home. One nice barbel, one good fish lost and a nice start to Father's day. Job done. 

Catch list:

  Barbel - 1

  Minnow – 3

Total weight 3lb

Sheephouse Farm, Maidenhead, 17th May 2012

And now for something completely different. (I'm sure I've heard that before somewhere).

Having had a trawl through a few websites, I came across a fishing venue site called spotfish. I plugged in my postcode and it suggested a few venues. Most of these I knew about, but one of the closest was new to me – Sheephouse Farm in Maidenhead. So, for a change I decided to give it a go, if I'm not careful I end up fishing the same venues, so I like to mix things up for a change and the attraction of fishing a tench lake sounded like an interesting diversion.

I arrived at the venue at 7am. Paid up (£7.50 for one rod) and wandered down to the lake with my usual pile of gear. I chatted to one of the regulars who advised I didn't need to go too far out, and that corn was the in bait at the moment. The things that struck me straight away were:

1. what a lovely peaceful place
2. how clear the water was (I could see at least 6 foot down)
3. how quickly it dropped off (it was 6 foot down just a few yards out)
4. how big the lake was – about 6 acres
5. the nice features on the far side that screamed tench (maybe next time)

I set up on a nice concrete peg with a view to fishing two pole lines. 11 metres straight out, and 11 metres to the left at the bottom of the slope (about 3 metres from the bank). I potted in a few 4mm pellets and had a go at plumbing up.

I had a suitable rig for the inside line (7ft deep) but I had to knock up a new one for the main line as it was about 12ft deep out there. A quick 0.8g float set-up to 0.12 line and a 16 hook and I was in business. 

Deep, clear water near the bank

 

I started with double red maggot - thought this might give me problems with the smaller fish, but you have to start somewhere. 20 minutes dead ahead and absolutely nothing. So I tried the left hand line. 

 

Five minutes later and the float moved a little, and 30 seconds later it dipped sharply. I struck and yards of no.12 elastic shot out. Contact. A spirited fight later and I started to see a tench coming up through the clear water – it was an amazing sight to see the fish coming up towards the surface (makes such a change from heavily coloured waters). Before I knew it, there was 4lb of tench in the landing net. 

 

I re-fed both lines (trying to concentrate the feed) with a few pellets plus a pinch of corn and red maggot and went back to the left hand line. 10 minutes later and a repeat performance. A lovely tench in clear water was just about to come into netting range when the hook pulled out. Not ideal, but not a disaster – if I could keep catching tench like this I didn't care.

I switched around a bit at this point. Tried the other line (nothing), and on a trip back to the left hand line I had another bite and another good tug on the elastic, but again the hook pulled. So I stepped up to a 14 hook. At this point another angler turned up to my left (about 20 metres away), although he was relatively quiet, he did bang some banksticks in and chuck out a few leads... and I never did get another bite on this line.

I persevered with the straight ahead line, and a bite on maggot produced a tench of 4lb 4oz, before losing another. I tried corn (nothing) back to maggot (small perch) and big pellet (nothing) but the fish were clearly moving around rather than settling, and the breeze that had picked up was hampering both feeding and presentation. 

 

The perch were tiny, but not so numerous as to be a real pain, and one switch back to corn produced another tench of 4lb 8oz. Try as a might for the next two hours, all I could manage was a few small perch. The few other anglers about had taken the odd fish too, but even they had dried up as we approach midday.

I tried a few more tricks, but only perch resulted.

At about 13:30 I called it quits. This is a very interesting venue and one I would like to crack – I can see how some folks could catch well over a dozen fish in a session on the right day. Great scenery, quiet venue, red kites overhead and well away from the usual carp-waters (although there are some big grass carp present). I will be back at some point.

Catch list:

Tench - 3

Perch – 10

Total weight 13lb

Three Island Lake, Stewkley, 10th May 2012

Having been frustrated somewhat with the poor weather of late, at the first signs of a dry day I decided to try and catch a fish or two.

Target today was a new venue that I'd found on the internet ages ago and always meant to have a go at. So Three Island Lake at Stewkley (near Leighton Buzzard) was the destination. Information was a little sketchy (bar that on fisheries.co.uk) but it sounded like a semi-prolific little commercial lake on a farm. Different to my usual haunts, so what the heck.

Arriving a few minutes after 7am, I paid the £8 day ticket and headed to the car park to find three other guys unloading carp gear. It was very wet underfoot, and the path to the lake was underwater, but the weather appeared to have broken, but there was a strong breeze blowing down the length of the lake. The three guys had set up opposite the islands with method feeder-type gear, so I headed towards the far end of the lake where the wind was less telling. This was not necessarily a great idea if the fish followed the wind, but if the rain came back, it might give me half a chance.

The lake is roughly oval, about 2 acres with about 30 pegs quite close together. The pegs are wooden construction, uneven, about 2 ft higher than the water level and absolutely lethal when wet (I set up extremely carefully). There are three islands on the lake, well set in the middle at 25-30m from the bank - well out of pole range, so I was happy to be fishing into open water with a little shelter. 

View down the lake

 

Opening gambit was 11mm expander and 11 metres over 4mm feed where I had about 4ft of water. This is my standard carp approach, if that doesn’t work I can go lighter / smaller, but if it works it deters the smaller fish that can be a problem on some venues.

After 20 minutes it wasn't working. I'd had a few knocks, but that was it. I was just pondering a switch to 6mm pellet when the float went under properly. A quick strike, firm resistance, and a 4lb common was in the landing net. Back out, same result but 2lb. Back out, bite 4lb common. This was starting to look promising. Bites were not instant, but there were fish present. Then, a baby common, maybe 6oz at a push. Then a quiet spell. Then a few more fish. 

5lb Common Carp

 

An hour in and I was pushing 25lb – which would be 40lb an hour if I'd caught in the opening 20 minutes.

I potted in some more pellets which killed the swim for 10 minutes. However, bubbles started to appear signalling the fish were back. Bites and fish continued to flow, mostly commons in the 3-5lb bracket, but the odd pasty that went 3 to the pound, but there were plenty of slow periods mixed in. 

 

What was noticeable were the swirls on the surface. Every time I hooked a good fish, another 3 would swirl, so there were clearly good fish up in the water too. I would try for them later.

I tried a few different things to try and improve the catch rate. Smaller pellet (no bites), shallow rig (one baby common), changing the feed pattern (nothing). Maybe it's just the time of year (given how cold and wet it's been lately).

One of the smaller carp

The fish kept ticking over, without ever really going crazy and after a little over 3 hours I was up to 70lb or so. The carp were typically 4lb, but a few smaller and larger examples to 6lb had showed. It was starting to slow down again, so I potted in some more pellets and fed a margin line as well and rested all the lined for 5 minutes while I made and received a few important phone calls.

Nothing really then happened for the next hour or so. A few smaller carp. The odd weigher, the odd foul hooker lost (from line bites). But whatever I tried, it didn't produce.

I plodded on. A few fish, but I never sussed it out. Shallow didn't really work (it was too windy to feed and fish properly) and when I did manage to have a go it produced two rudd and a baby carp. The margin briefly produced more baby carp. So I fed the main line heavy (two pots of pellets) and rested both lines for a few minutes while I grabbed some lunch and a few photos.

Eventually the 11 metre line started to bubble and a few bites developed. Not as fast as before, but steady. By 2pm I'd broken the 100lb barrier as the rain returned with a vengeance and by 2:30pm I'd made 110lb. At this point I decided to call it a day and go home – it's a fair drive and I really didn't want my gear getting any wetter than it already was.

Overall it's an interesting venue. I'm sure on the right day, if you can get the fish going, especially if you can catch shallow, you could put a really good weight together (at least 250lb). But today was not that day.

Catch list:

Common Carp – 40

Mirror Carp – 2

Rudd – 2

Total weight 110lb