Southend Farm 28-8-14

I’ve fished Southend Farm only once before, this was earlier in the year when things had not warmed up properly. I managed a nice double figure carp on the pole and a couple of smaller fish on the pellet waggler to add to a few skimmers. However armed with only 4 and 6mm pellets had made it difficult to fish. The neighbouring angler who was properly set up was bagging. I hate being outfished in this way, but I put it down to lack of 8mm pellets and duff information. This return visit was an attempt to exorcise these ghosts.

Arriving at 7am ish, I had a quick chat with the owner. It was still dull, but due to brighten up later on. The advice was fish the pole for skimmers and go out on the tip - don’t bother with the pellet waggler.

My peg for the day

I set up the on peg 20 on the main lake near the car park and decided to fish pole at 11m while pinging 8mm pellet at distance. The skimmers soon responded to some cupped in pellets and bites slowly appeared on 8mm banded pellet, small expanders worked too, but there was lots of time wasted from liners and lost soft pellets. A few fish in and I hit something more solid, after a brief but solid fight and 11lb mirror appeared in the landing net –a nice start and a pleasant change from the small carp of the previous day which set off like lunatics when hooked.

More skimmers followed up to about 2lb, but the majority of fish were 4-8oz and I continued to ping out the 8mm pellets. Eventually there were some signs of life and I took the decision to set up the pellet waggler. (I’ve been dying to give my new Drennan puddle chucker a good work out).  

A few casts later, the float disappeared, the lined tightened and I was in. 6lb of mirror in the landing net. Result. 

I should explain at this point that I am not an experienced user of the pellet waggler. This has got something to do with my love of pole fishing and the lack of suitable venues for that method nearby. I’ve given it a blast at Boddingtons a few times, but results have been pretty poor, so this session was very much aligned to catching a few fish and trying to work a few wrinkles out.

More bites followed, but try as I might I was losing fish at an embarrassing rate – at one point losing 2 fish for everyone landed, and there was a moment at 2 rods lengths out when the hook seemed to pull regularly. I was using B911 in a size 14 as the hook, and to be honest despite all the good press about them I don’t have a great deal of confidence in them. Then when one of the fish did me around the water pump and the main line seemed to have lost all of its strength (it snapped whilst I adjusted the float), I decided enough was enough and whipped off the match reel. And put on one of my trusty 6010 baitrunners with stronger line, and a larger hook in a stronger pattern.

This had a small negative effect on bites, but I was landing a lot more fish. And then it went a bit quiet.

It was hard work, I could get the odd bite and twitching worked too – but every now and again it would go dead. And so it was, a little run of fish (including a 1lb goldfish and a 3lb skimmer) and the odd carp. Every so often the weather would brighten and I’d get a few bites, then a lull. If it had been a match I’d have done something else, but this was a pellet waggler session, so the idea setting up a tip rod didn’t really appeal to me.   

By 1 o’clock I’d caught about 60lb of fish and it went very quiet, so I gave the pole and the inside line a look. A few small skimmer showed up, but that didn’t really work, so I went back on the waggler. I gave myself 30 minutes  - If I couldn’t get them going then I’d set up a tip rod for the last 2 hours.

Well, slowly they turned on. I lost a few fish, caught a few bream and for a magic 15 minutes caught three doubles on the bounce – a 15lb common (that fought like a demon and looked a lot bigger in the net),  a 10lb common that came in like a sack of potatoes and a 12lb mirror. I topped that off with a couple of smaller fish and that, was that.   116lb was my final tally, but I probably lost a similar amount due to hook pulls etc. As a proper introduction to pellet waggler fishing I think I did quite well, now I need to get it working on a different venue – maybe another trip to Boddingtons would be a good idea.

15lb Common Carp that fought like an absolute demon

Catch List:

Mirror Carp: 9

Common Carp: 5

Goldfish: 1

Bream: 18

Roach: 1

Total weight: 116lb

Willows Farm 27-8-14

So the local tackle shop had advised me of some changes at Willows Farm. The Deep Lake had been drained, the big fish moved and it had been subsequently restocked as a match lake. A quick look on the web showed lots of photos of small carp and bream with match weights up to nearly 200lb for a six hour match. Clearly, this needed checking out. 

Match results: http://www.willowslakes.com/matches-groups/

I used to fish Willows a fair bit, but it tended to be a bit hit and miss on the main lake – you could bag up one day and struggle the next. So, it’s probably been two years since my last visit.

I arrived before 7am to await the gate to open, only to find 8 cars ahead of me, which is a lot for midweek. Six of those cars belonged to a group planning a knock up match on the lake – I was relieved it was just them and not a lake full. They headed for the near end so I headed to the far car park and based on the match results decided to look for the pegs in the lower thirties.

Peg 30 turned out to be the first peg on the high bank, so I settled for 31 which had options in the margins both sides. It looked deep with a sharp drop off and a high bank behind; it was going to be a long day of high shipping on the pole.

The right side of the peg - I never did get round to trying under the bush

The left hand view, that twig was just the tip of the iceberg - that snag extended out for a couple of yards and cost me two fish

I cupped in some 4mm pellets at 11m and started to set up for pole fishing an 8mm expander; a 0.8g float, 0.19mm line and a size 14 hook (B911). The depth was not as bad as I feared, about 6ft at 11m, a little longer than my top set, but not too bad. I set up just over depth to allow for a little tow.

After 10 mins I had seen no indications of anything (although there were the odd fish topping in the distance) which was a little concerning, when there was a sharp bite and the float sank. No 16 elastic kicked in, and soon an immaculate 3lb mirror carp was in the landing net. Next put in, another fish and so on and so on. It took a while for the bites to come, but it was very much a bite a chuck with a fish most put-ins, varying in size between 2lb and 4lb. All the fish were clean mirrors, with heavy scaling – only a few were fully scaled but most were heavily scaled.

A typical mirror carp from the new match lake

By an hour down I’d had 33lb of fish (all mirrors), but I knew I could do better – if only I could get the bites to come more quickly.

Hour two and the wheels fell off. The bites went iffy with the float dancing but not going fully under and I was striking the expander off the hook more often than not. I tried some other pellets (nothing), smaller soft pellets (striking off) and shallow (nothing). It was very frustrating – I could see bubbles in the swim, but when I did get a bite it was just the odd small carp. It didn’t make sense, I was getting concerned it might be crayfish.

Then after 45 minutes of messing about, in a moment of desperation I tried a banded 8mm hard pellet – this is not my usual weapon of choice, I find expanders get more bites – but it worked. Fished just on the bottom I started to get good solid, hittable bites. And, they were coming quickly. Bingo. Put in, bite, strike, land. You get the picture.

By just after noon, a little over 4 hours after I started fishing, I was up to 120lb. At this point the bailiff appeared and provided some good info on the water. 7500 carp had been stocked along with some bream, there were also a few (and just a few) bigger ones in there, but generally it was feeder that won the matches, but pole worked as well.

I persevered but at about 140lb it slowed up again and bites were harder to come by. As a quick experiment I shallowed up the rig to half depth and changed the feed pattern to a few pellets every 30 seconds or so. 3 quick fish followed to banded 8mm hard pellet, so I set up a dedicated shallow rig and went shallow.

Fishing shallow was productive as I started to put together another run of fish. Each fish needed to be worked for – they weren’t lined up, but they were a slightly better stamp on average (including a 7lber and a 5lb 8oz fish) and the weight climbed further. By 3pm I’d got up to 216lb and it was time to call it quits. Not bad for a first visit, if only I’d sussed it out earlier I think 250lb would have been possible. But still, averaging 30lb an hour with smaller match carp is not to be sniffed out.

Can’t wait to go back once these fish have grown on a bit.

Catch List:

Mirror Carp: 65

Common Carp: 1

Roach: 2

Bream: 2

Total weight: 216lb

Local River 27-7-14

A few hours and a pint of maggots. This is how all good short sessions on the river usually start.

I should be targeting barbel (I fancy a pb this year), but today I wanted a few bites and see what came along.

So, first peg was 'the bend'. The water level was a little lower than my last visit, so wading across in my wellies was easier as I started running the stick float down. It's a pleasant way to spend half an hour or so - small chub and dace followed along with one better lump, a chub of about two and a half pounds.

After the bend I tried the weir pool. I still couldn't get this to trot properly despite going for a heavier float. I'm going to have to have a think about this. Still a few more fish appeared.

Next up, the dog dip swim. Normally this fished well tight under a tree on the inside as the flow swings in close. But not this time - the fish were out in the middle of the flow and readily taking my loose fed maggots. A few chub and small dace followed with one small roach for good measure.

Then I bypassed my usual swims to head up to the confluence where the stream flows in from the far side. This is a desperate swim - it looks full of fish, but normally a few bleak would be a good result. I fish it on the basis that one day I might pick up a bonus fish. But not today. No, today it was a roach a chuck, not huge fish, but a steady stream of fish to 6oz were easily swung to hand. I lost one fish due to a pike attack - I saw the jack concerned, it was no more than a foot long - but other than that it was uneventful.

So last up was a go at the post swim. Normally this is devoid of bites (although the barbel anglers head for it every time). It was hard work - the flow is well over and that meant an awkward cast and the need for the catapult. I thought I'd feed heavy to see if I could trick a chub. I couldn't. But I did bag a fair few quality roach as well. Not as fast as the previous swim. But very encouraging.

So it looks like there a silver fish all the way through where previous there were none. Happy days.

Catch List:
Roach: 30
Chub: 15
Minnow: 1
Bleak: 5
Dace: 10
Perch: 6

Total weight: 8lb

Local River 20-7-14

I know... it's been a while. I have been fishing, just not had the chance to write up the catches. 

So a quick summary of last Sunday. I decided to try for a good fish or two from the weirpool. For three hours I alternated between trotting maggot and legering a big pellet (30 mins on each). Trotting was hard work - the higher than normal water levels, plus a change in the weir lip has made this difficult. You can catch but you cant really trot properly. It's a shame  :-( One of these days I'm going to take all the pole gear down there... but not today.

Nothing showed on the big pellet, but there were some really good telltale plinks on the line - I suspect I need a longer hooklength. 

Trotting worked after a fashion, although it was mostly perch up to 6oz that showed, although three small barbel put in an appearance aswell along with the usual suspects. 

Final half hour (that may have overrun a little) was further upstream above the playground. The pegs that were traditionally devoid of small fish had recently been producing small roach, and this was true on this visit as well. I assume the fish were washed down the river from the canal in the winter floods - but no complaints here. A good few fish before I bagged a six and a half pound pike that took a fancy to a small perch on the way in. 

Duly landed and released 20 metres downstream, I hung around for a few more fish before heading home. Great bag of small fish. 

Catch list:
Barbel: 3
Perch: 25
Roach: 30
Pike: 1
Gudgeon: 1
Bleak: 5
Chub: 10
Dace: 10
Minnow: 1

Total weight: 12lb

Last weekend of the river season (9-3-14)

It's been a while.

I have had a few session out, but this is the first trip down to the river for about 6 months. Following the heavy rains of winter, the river has been nigh on unfishable and a scouting trip yesterday on the mountain bike suggested it was still a bit iffy. However, with one last chance for this season, it was do or die. A pint of maggots and the hope of one fish - avoid the blank in a few hours and go home happy. 

7am and on the bank. A simple float rod, trotting gear (heavy at 4BB) and the hope of finding some fish in a slack or two. 

First peg: the bend. The river was tanking through - at least a foot up and the platform was just above the water, although the coating of mud on top was a little less than ideal. 

I ran the rig through (minus bait) on the near side to check the shotting and it duly buried. Job done, a suicidal minnow and the blank was avoided. So I packed up and went home. 

Well, actually no. I stayed to try and add to the total. 

The next 15 mins added two more minnows, but try as I might I couldn't get the rig to run through anywhere but the near side at anything like the right pace. Time to move on. 

Disabled swim: a flick to the far side, and the usual problem of holding the line out of the flow. As the rig drifted round to the left it bobbled and submerged. A chunky river roach of 3oz was my reward. And that was that. Try as I might nothing else was playing ball. 

The bend (again): I don't usually revisit swims, but I knew that good pegs were limited today. First run down and all went solid and a hulking beast stayed on the bottom and headed across into the flow. It all went solid, and a suspected big barbel was lost. Next put in and a little further down and the float went under and this time a fight ensued that was a little more balanced. Second time round a chub was in the net - 3lb 2oz. Not a barbel, but very welcome. 

Next the weir: I thought I might get lucky on the far side. 10 mins later and I gave up on luck. Nadda. 

The ski hut: Nothing. But nice trotting conditions on what was still a swollen river. 

Peg 12 ish: Lovely trotting conditions, probably the best conditions I've ever seen on this stretch. Shame about the lack of bites though. 

Peg 4 (above the weir): This was last chance saloon, could I tempt some silver fish that had drifted in from the canal? Er no. Despite and depth and reasonable pace, the usually reliable roach and perch were AWOL. 

But, as the float reached the bottom of the run, it buried. Suspecting the usual snag I struck. It went solid with a healthy kick and my quarry stuck to the river bed like a limpet. Convinced it was a big bream, I took my time worked it slowly upstream and a chub appeared. In the net, job done. 3lb 12oz. Another nice fish. 

And that, was that. 

It's a long time since i had two nice fish out the river in the single session, so I went home a happy man. Roll on June 16th.

Catch list:
Minnow 3
Roach 1
Chub 2

Total weight 7lb

Timberland Fishery 28-12-2013

I had great difficultly deciding where to fish today. I could have gone back to Finch Farm which always guarantees a few bites, I could have tried Southend Farm (a new venue for me), but for a change I decided to go to Timberland Fishery in Harlow. I’m not sure when I fished there last, but it was a good few years back. What attracted me was the head of F1s which feed well even in the coldest of weather and the chance to see how the fishery had matured.

So on a cold, frosty morning I headed off to shallowest blondest Essex (I used to say deepest and darkest Essex, but apparently that’s not PC anymore). I had decided to stop off for some breakfast on the way to fill the tank up, but when I got to the café it was closed. So a nearby Greggs filled the void.

I was first in the queue at 8am when the gates opened, and having had a look around the place decided to fish peg 14 (ish) on Baggers Lake with my back to the warehouse which would give some shelter if the wind picked up and offered a snag feature to the left and right margins. On balance this wasn’t a bad call, but it did mean I was in the shade almost all day, further up the short arm of the lake might have been a better decision in hindsight.

The right hand margin

I set up light (for me) with two K2s on 0.13mm line to 0.08mm hooklinks and 18 hooks. One 4x12 for the margins (about 3ft deep) and a 4x14 for the 11m line where it was 4ft deep.

By the time I’d tuned the rigs, potted in some maggots and a pinch of 4mm pellets on all three lines (left and right margins 2+2) and 11m it was 0835 – time for some  fishing.

Single white maggot at 11m and within a couple of minutes the float buried and produced a micro-roach. Three more put-ins produced more tiny roach, two of which didn’t stay on during shipping in, so I tried the left margin. Nothing.

Right margin. Bite. Solid resistance and a spirited fight produced a nice little F1 carp that went 3lb 8oz. That was more like it. A few more decent roach followed then another carp of 4lb and I was motoring. And then it all went dead. I fed a little extra and went back to 11m.

Micro roach again. 

I tried a 4mm soft pellet at 11m (partly out of hope and partly out of experience – pellet had got me through the micro fish on my last visit) and waited. It was only 5 mins or so and the float sailed away and a 3lb f1 was my eventual reward – they take a few minutes to land on a no 6 elastic.

10 mins later a repeat and suddenly I had 14lb of fish to my name. I was starting to do the mental arithmetic to see what I might do today – 4 fish an hour for 10lb for 5 hours… you get the idea.

15 mins later and nothing. And before I knew it (having had a look at the inside line) I’d not caught for over 30 minutes.

I played with maggot again at 11m for more micro roach, and one better fish that shed the hook, before  I started to pick up the odd fish through quiet periods. Putting a maggot on the hook helped bites, but they were always small fish (mostly one ounce type fish).

During on these periods I started flicking maggots to the left hand 2+2 line and after 15 minutes I had a look. Straight away a roach – but a nice roach of 6oz or so. I fished this line out for 20 minutes or so, this produced a good selection of quality roach in the 6-12oz bracket, one carp of 4lb and one better roach that shed the hook (I’d love to know how big that was, but it was easy a pound). Then it went quiet. 

One of the better fish - there were several that went 4lb

Out to 11m, small fish and one carp. Back to the left a few fish, and the roach were still better than on the far line and at 2 or 3 fish to the pound they made my estimated weight tick along.

As the left hand line started to die and had a look back at the right (it had been pretty dead since the early start). A quick quality roach followed so it was time to see what would happen if I fed a little more. Well, it turns out it was all about presentation – drop the rig in and you’d get nothing, lay the rig in and just as it settled it’d sail away with a roach or occasionally a fat gudgeon as the culprit.

By this time, I was starting to run low on maggots (a pint doesn’t last long if you’re feeding three lines) so I concentrated on the left until the bait ran out. I gave in ten minutes on pellet and missed one bite and then called it quits. A hard fought 35lb. Not bad for a freezing day in December.  

Some of the walks from your car to your peg at Timberland can be exhausting

Catch List:

Common carp - 2

F1 carp - 7

Rudd - 1

Perch - 3

Gudgeon - 8

Roach - 59

Total weight 35lb

Finch Farm 22-12-2013

Having finished work for the year, I had a chance for a few hours fishing. The weather forecast was dry with some sun (but very windy) so I headed off to Finch Farm for a few bites.

Lech the bailiff was there on my arrival, I paid my tenner and got a free cup of tea (most welcome I might add) and set off with my gear.

You can usually find some shelter there and with larger numbers of small fish present you can usually bag a fish or two, although the average size is a bit small. But hey, it's December and any fish is a good fish. 

I had the intention of fishing a different part of the lake to normal, but there was shelter on my usual island peg (hiding behind two pampas grasses) so that would do. 

The plan was to fish maggot and small pellet and catch what I could. I set up a pole rig with an old favourite, the Tubertini K2 float with the aim to fish light (no.6 elastic on a pulla, to 2.6lb line through to an 18 hook). I started at about 10 m, just where the far slope settles down. The far bank here has collapsed and the bottom is very steep, there's a shallow shelf tight for about 6-12 inches and then it drops off to 4ft or so very quickly - so much so that the plummet usually rolls down towards you if you're not touching the far bank. 

The plan was to fish to the right and left (where there's a bush) and hopefully move onto soft pellet as the day went on.

I settled for the deeper part, potted in a few maggots, added the cad pot to the pole tip and went for it.

 

First put in and the float went under as I brought in a nice roach of about 6oz. A good start. More bites followed as I put in a pinch of maggots via the cad pot each time, a chub, a goldfish, a rudd, an F1 carp of about a pound and a half - I felt like I was making good progress. 

One of the many plump goldfish in the lake

I was missing some bites, but by the time the first hour was up I was on 12 fish. Not bad for this time of year. 

Then, disaster, the hook pulled out of a goldfish under the top 3 and the rig flicked off behind me, never to be seen again. 

I re-rigged and started producing a run of more fish, but somewhat slower. I tried the bush a few fish, up the shelf (a few roach) down the shelf (odd bite) and so it continued. 

It was frustrating, just when you thought it was happening the bites would slow. Or I'd have a patch of bites that I couldn't hit or I'd pull out of a fish under the top 3. And a few times I'd connect with a big fish (probably foul hooked) and lose it as soon as it'd gone a few yards. 

I played with pellet - just the odd knock, but nothing special, so it was back to maggot to catch whatever was present. 

Perseverance kept the fish coming, but the rate was slow and intermittent.

Surprise fish of the session was a nice perch of 1lb 11oz, which is a fair but bigger than I've caught here before and one of only two perch on the day.

1lb 11oz stripey

At 1:15pm I lost my rig to a far bank bramble, so decided to give the pellet a bash on the far shelf on a new rig.

First put in a 4lb F1 - my best fish of the day. Next put in a mirror of about a pound. Then a quiet spell. Then another F1. A couple of small fish added and a few more bites missed. 

Best F1 of the day - 4lb

I was just about to call it quits when the float went under and one of the pools larger residents took the pellet. And shot straight under the bush. It shed the hook and left me tethered to the snag. I pulled for a break and called it quits. It would have been nice to have landed it, but with light gear and so many snags in the peg it was always going to be a challenge. 

Not a bad session for late December. 

Catch List:
F1 carp - 12
Mirror carp - 1
Goldfish - 20
Gudgeon - 1
Perch - 2
Chub - 2
Rudd -1
Bream - 2
Roach - 20

Total weight - 25lb