Our reel line isn't a particularly glamorous item of tackle, you don't tend to look forward to using it like a new float, it's not nice and shiny like a new packet of hooks and it doesn't capture the imagination like a new gadget, but it is probably the most vital part of our set up.
Reel line is the link between the angler and his terminal tackle, it is in contact with the reel, rod, bite indicator and connects to the hook, swivel or hooklength all at the same time.
It must be trusted by the angler above all else.
In simpler days the choice of line was limited to just a few brands, this suited me fine and my reels were all loaded with either Maxima or Racine Tortue. I would use Maxima in various strengths for the majority of applications and the Racine would get an airing if I was fishing a stick float.
Some anglers at the time swore by the other main brand at the time Bayer Perlon but I never got on with it, I found that it deteriorated very quickly in sunlight and could snap like cotton after just a few uses.
Slightly later I changed from Racine to Drennan Floatfish for stick float fishing and would occasionally buy Drennan Specimen + (I think that's what it was called).
Nowadays the selection of line available is mind boggling, leaving aside braid which I have never used, you can still get Maxima etc but now you can buy flurocarbon line, abrasion resistant line, pre-stretched line, low stretch line, camoflaged line, red, black, white and yellow lines etc etc from a multitude of manufacturers. I don't pretend, after years away from the sport, to know anything about it but I do realise that such a wide selection, confusing as it is, is a good thing and can only help anglers to catch fish.
Right at this moment as someone very stuck in his ways most of my spools are loaded with the faithful Maxima in strengths from 3 to 8lb the only exception being a couple of spools bearing Fox Soft Steel, look at me going all space age !!!
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Monday, 24 August 2009
Hooks, Lines and Sinkers (part 1)
When I was younger I used to play rugby, my boots of choice were Adidas Flanker a well made, lightweight and durable boot, I considered them to be the best on the market. Some of my team mates disagreed and they would favour Cotton Oxfords, Nike or Le Coq Sportif boots, each of us believed we wore the superior rugby boot of the day.
By the same token there are people who have bought nothing besides Ford cars throughout their car driving life in the belief that Ford are the worlds best manufacturer of cars, conversely if you were to buy a Bush television and it broke down inside a month it would be the last Bush product you ever bought. It all comes down to reliability.
In fishing faith in your terminal tackle is vital, most anglers will seek out and tend to stick to reliable products. I'm like that, I'm very much like that !
While I readily admit I'm not the best angler in the world, in fact I'm probably not the best angler in our street (and it's not a very big street) I do like to be using products I have come to trust over a period of time in order to have the (very essential) confidence to convert bites into fish on the bank.
When I took my first faltering steps as a fisherman my initial set of tackle was given to me by my dad it included two glass match rods and an old Mitchell 300, a collection of hooks he'd tied himself and a variety of home made floats. From that point on I began to establish what I liked and didn't like and most importantly which products I trusted.
Although I still carry some of my dads floats today (the canal darts are brilliant) I tend to use Ultra floats for a lot of my fishing, having flirted with the Drennan Crystal range for a while, I have a set of stillwater blues (long tapered body & equally long very slim insert) which cover close range work on lakes, further out I usually plump for an onion as they cast well and retain a good degree of sensitivity, for float fishing at distance I use missiles.
I have never owned a pole.
Mustad hooks were considered to be the best by the majority of anglers when I started out and naturally I followed the crowd, dad had a huge selection in boxes of fifty and I would tie my own at home. Without warning at some time in the early eighties Kamatsu hooks appeared on the scene and they quite literally blew Mustad out of the water, the new hooks were slickly presented, very sharp and they boasted micro-barbs.
Like many others I converted to Kamatsu (later to become Kamasan) almost straight away mainly making use of the excellent B520 pattern.
Later still Peter Drennan launched a range of hooks which made hook selection a simple affair, rather than being known by individual pattern numbers, as was historically the way, Drennan's hooks had names Carbon Chub, Carbon Feeder, Super Specialist etc, I was seduced again and still use Drennan hooks today almost exclusively.
When buying hooks to nylon my good mate Phil and I generally bought National Champion which were VMC hooks to un-named nylon, the 18s and 20s were decent maggot hooks while the 12s and 14s suited our Winter lobworm fishing. We steered well clear of Pegley-Davies hooks to nylon which were not only unreliable but also prone to tangling themselves up as you were taking them out of the packet.
Nowadays with much more choice available we can buy hooks to nylon for every occasion and for every type of presentation, I have a real weakness for buying hooks to nylon and have a large and interesting collection !
By the same token there are people who have bought nothing besides Ford cars throughout their car driving life in the belief that Ford are the worlds best manufacturer of cars, conversely if you were to buy a Bush television and it broke down inside a month it would be the last Bush product you ever bought. It all comes down to reliability.
In fishing faith in your terminal tackle is vital, most anglers will seek out and tend to stick to reliable products. I'm like that, I'm very much like that !
While I readily admit I'm not the best angler in the world, in fact I'm probably not the best angler in our street (and it's not a very big street) I do like to be using products I have come to trust over a period of time in order to have the (very essential) confidence to convert bites into fish on the bank.
When I took my first faltering steps as a fisherman my initial set of tackle was given to me by my dad it included two glass match rods and an old Mitchell 300, a collection of hooks he'd tied himself and a variety of home made floats. From that point on I began to establish what I liked and didn't like and most importantly which products I trusted.
Although I still carry some of my dads floats today (the canal darts are brilliant) I tend to use Ultra floats for a lot of my fishing, having flirted with the Drennan Crystal range for a while, I have a set of stillwater blues (long tapered body & equally long very slim insert) which cover close range work on lakes, further out I usually plump for an onion as they cast well and retain a good degree of sensitivity, for float fishing at distance I use missiles.
I have never owned a pole.
Mustad hooks were considered to be the best by the majority of anglers when I started out and naturally I followed the crowd, dad had a huge selection in boxes of fifty and I would tie my own at home. Without warning at some time in the early eighties Kamatsu hooks appeared on the scene and they quite literally blew Mustad out of the water, the new hooks were slickly presented, very sharp and they boasted micro-barbs.
Like many others I converted to Kamatsu (later to become Kamasan) almost straight away mainly making use of the excellent B520 pattern.
Later still Peter Drennan launched a range of hooks which made hook selection a simple affair, rather than being known by individual pattern numbers, as was historically the way, Drennan's hooks had names Carbon Chub, Carbon Feeder, Super Specialist etc, I was seduced again and still use Drennan hooks today almost exclusively.
When buying hooks to nylon my good mate Phil and I generally bought National Champion which were VMC hooks to un-named nylon, the 18s and 20s were decent maggot hooks while the 12s and 14s suited our Winter lobworm fishing. We steered well clear of Pegley-Davies hooks to nylon which were not only unreliable but also prone to tangling themselves up as you were taking them out of the packet.
Nowadays with much more choice available we can buy hooks to nylon for every occasion and for every type of presentation, I have a real weakness for buying hooks to nylon and have a large and interesting collection !
Monday, 17 August 2009
No Show Barbel
Reporting on the bad days is the hardest part of writing a blog like this, while it is easy to wax lyrical about your successes or the days that you really enjoy it is very hard to motivate yourself to write about your failures and days you'd rather forget. Never mind, lets get it over with....
Buoyed by my recent capture of some sizable carp I was looking forward to this Sunday evening outing to the river with Phil, visions of 'doing the double' in catching a 20lb personal best carp and a personal best 10lb barbel in the same week crossed my mind !
The private stretch of river that Phil fishes holds a good head of barbel with a few fish in double figures, there is also a decent head of chub present but prospects didn't seem so good when we arrived on the bank, the river was very low and clear, this coupled with a very bright afternoon seemed a bit dismal.
Phil settled down in the weir pool and I dropped in just below him, we fished legered meat hookbaits all evening and just into darkness without so much as a knock, and that's just about all there is to say really. Back to earth with a bump !
Buoyed by my recent capture of some sizable carp I was looking forward to this Sunday evening outing to the river with Phil, visions of 'doing the double' in catching a 20lb personal best carp and a personal best 10lb barbel in the same week crossed my mind !
The private stretch of river that Phil fishes holds a good head of barbel with a few fish in double figures, there is also a decent head of chub present but prospects didn't seem so good when we arrived on the bank, the river was very low and clear, this coupled with a very bright afternoon seemed a bit dismal.
Phil settled down in the weir pool and I dropped in just below him, we fished legered meat hookbaits all evening and just into darkness without so much as a knock, and that's just about all there is to say really. Back to earth with a bump !
Friday, 14 August 2009
Flat Batteries, Inadequate Scales & The Biggest Fish I've Ever Caught !
It was a beautiful Summers afternoon, warm but not too warm, hazy but not too bright and ideal for fishing, so we went fishing!
As quite it quite often works out Thursday afternoon suited both my dad and I for our regular piscatorial effort, we set off more in hope than expectation with recent trips having produced less than spectacular results culminating in the rain soaked, ant bitten, dismal, blank of last week.
We dabbled with fishing Jubilee Pools early season, it was still quite cold at the time and results were less than encouraging, but that was then and this is now and it seemed like a different place altogether, fish were moving in the surface layers all around the lakes and prospects looked wholly encouraging.
We opted to fish the same pegs we fished on our last visit, at the far end of Horseshoe. Dad was in the furthest corner, a swim situated between two sets of overhanging trees, I was one peg to his right, a more open peg with a bed of dwarf lilies to my right.
Choice of methods on a water you don't know well is a very hit and miss affair, to my mind, based on what we already knew, it was a straight call between floatfishing shallow and spraying maggots or fishing an open end feeder with a variety of hookbaits, having discussed it on the drive over we both went with feeder tactics.
I decided to fish at about 30 yards with sweetcorn hookbait, dad was on maggot, while I was only getting the occasional line bite dad managed to winkle out a couple of small fish. Fish were still very active all around the lake and we both encountered big carp cruising past us in the margins, this activity continued to manifest itself in the form of line bites. Receiving a more positive pull on the tip I struck, only for the margins to erupt as I spooked a large fish close in.
During my next cast I fed a handful of corn close to the lilies but deliberately in the area bisected by my line, within minutes my quivertip was dancing continually as unseen fish buffeted my line.
Off came the feeder and I clipped on the smallest bomb I could find, It landed some two feet to the left of the bank of lilies with a satisfying plop and I set the tip, I didn't have to wait long..... Whack! The tip hammered round and a sizable carp screamed towards the centre of the lake, the fight was frantic and exhilarating.
Now I am someone who has never seriously bothered with carp fishing and the main reason for that, at the risk of being controversial, is that I find mirror carp particularly ugly creatures and I have always in the past placed them on a par with eels. However, what lay in my net now was a world apart, a common carp of about ten pounds and a breathtakingly stunning fish.
Dad and I both had cameras with us in readiness for such an occasion, unfortunately we both had cameras with flat batteries, bloody typical !!!
Topping the swim up with corn I got back to the fishing and shortly had a smallish tench on the bank, then I lost another carp as it made for the trees to my left, next cast I pulled out of another carp as it bid for freedom in the centre of the lake. Quickfire stuff.
Short range quivertipping for big fish is a hair raising experience, a motionless tip often being wrenched to it's limits, rod bucking and reel churning without any prior warning at all, a fantastic, hair-raising experience.
My next fish was a common of around six pounds which nearly got away having at one time made it into the lilies, then came the big one.
A typical express train bite then heavy, sullen resistance marked the arrival of a serious carp, plodding and determined as opposed to the breakneck runs of smaller fish, an arm aching battle ensued which could easily have gone either way, fortunately it was a battle that I finally won.
Scale perfect with huge bronze flanks, broad shoulders and vivid orange fins, this common carp was a stunner, we both agreed that she would certainly weigh somewhere between twenty and twenty five pounds but unfortunately (similar to the camera fiasco) I didn't have scales suitable for weighing such a fish. So with no photos and no accurate record of weight I reluctantly slipped her back.
I will happily settle for a weight of 20lb as my previous best was a stumpy mirror carp of 12lb some years ago.
Back to the fishing and shortly after dad was snapped up by a carp I hooked another which fought like a demon and turned out to be a very lean eight pounder which looked to be a wildie. That fish was followed by another immaculate common of around twelve pounds, another fantastic looking fish.
To round off dad took a turn with my rod and was quickly into a fish which, after a spirited fight, was soon on the unhooking mat, a mirror carp (leather carp?) with only a few small scales at the base of the tail, about seven pounds.
So after a few short hours, a big shot of adrenaline and a clutch of wonderful looking fish including a big personal best, we were on our way home at 6pm with the fish still feeding hard.
Jubilee Pools see you soon!!!
As quite it quite often works out Thursday afternoon suited both my dad and I for our regular piscatorial effort, we set off more in hope than expectation with recent trips having produced less than spectacular results culminating in the rain soaked, ant bitten, dismal, blank of last week.
We dabbled with fishing Jubilee Pools early season, it was still quite cold at the time and results were less than encouraging, but that was then and this is now and it seemed like a different place altogether, fish were moving in the surface layers all around the lakes and prospects looked wholly encouraging.
We opted to fish the same pegs we fished on our last visit, at the far end of Horseshoe. Dad was in the furthest corner, a swim situated between two sets of overhanging trees, I was one peg to his right, a more open peg with a bed of dwarf lilies to my right.
Choice of methods on a water you don't know well is a very hit and miss affair, to my mind, based on what we already knew, it was a straight call between floatfishing shallow and spraying maggots or fishing an open end feeder with a variety of hookbaits, having discussed it on the drive over we both went with feeder tactics.
I decided to fish at about 30 yards with sweetcorn hookbait, dad was on maggot, while I was only getting the occasional line bite dad managed to winkle out a couple of small fish. Fish were still very active all around the lake and we both encountered big carp cruising past us in the margins, this activity continued to manifest itself in the form of line bites. Receiving a more positive pull on the tip I struck, only for the margins to erupt as I spooked a large fish close in.
During my next cast I fed a handful of corn close to the lilies but deliberately in the area bisected by my line, within minutes my quivertip was dancing continually as unseen fish buffeted my line.
Off came the feeder and I clipped on the smallest bomb I could find, It landed some two feet to the left of the bank of lilies with a satisfying plop and I set the tip, I didn't have to wait long..... Whack! The tip hammered round and a sizable carp screamed towards the centre of the lake, the fight was frantic and exhilarating.
Now I am someone who has never seriously bothered with carp fishing and the main reason for that, at the risk of being controversial, is that I find mirror carp particularly ugly creatures and I have always in the past placed them on a par with eels. However, what lay in my net now was a world apart, a common carp of about ten pounds and a breathtakingly stunning fish.
Dad and I both had cameras with us in readiness for such an occasion, unfortunately we both had cameras with flat batteries, bloody typical !!!
Topping the swim up with corn I got back to the fishing and shortly had a smallish tench on the bank, then I lost another carp as it made for the trees to my left, next cast I pulled out of another carp as it bid for freedom in the centre of the lake. Quickfire stuff.
Short range quivertipping for big fish is a hair raising experience, a motionless tip often being wrenched to it's limits, rod bucking and reel churning without any prior warning at all, a fantastic, hair-raising experience.
My next fish was a common of around six pounds which nearly got away having at one time made it into the lilies, then came the big one.
A typical express train bite then heavy, sullen resistance marked the arrival of a serious carp, plodding and determined as opposed to the breakneck runs of smaller fish, an arm aching battle ensued which could easily have gone either way, fortunately it was a battle that I finally won.
Scale perfect with huge bronze flanks, broad shoulders and vivid orange fins, this common carp was a stunner, we both agreed that she would certainly weigh somewhere between twenty and twenty five pounds but unfortunately (similar to the camera fiasco) I didn't have scales suitable for weighing such a fish. So with no photos and no accurate record of weight I reluctantly slipped her back.
I will happily settle for a weight of 20lb as my previous best was a stumpy mirror carp of 12lb some years ago.
Back to the fishing and shortly after dad was snapped up by a carp I hooked another which fought like a demon and turned out to be a very lean eight pounder which looked to be a wildie. That fish was followed by another immaculate common of around twelve pounds, another fantastic looking fish.
To round off dad took a turn with my rod and was quickly into a fish which, after a spirited fight, was soon on the unhooking mat, a mirror carp (leather carp?) with only a few small scales at the base of the tail, about seven pounds.
So after a few short hours, a big shot of adrenaline and a clutch of wonderful looking fish including a big personal best, we were on our way home at 6pm with the fish still feeding hard.
Jubilee Pools see you soon!!!
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Friday, 7 August 2009
Ants !
Ryton Country Park is only five minutes from my house so once again it was here we were headed for another short Thursday session, it had been a beautiful morning and the light cloud covering now present at 2pm seemed of little consequence. The lake itself was as busy as we'd ever seen it and we took our time walking and sorting out where we were to fish, fortunately someone was packing up so we grabbed two swims together in the vicinity of the island.
Just as we were starting to set up the first spots of rain began to fall, then it got heavier, then we took shelter as the heavens opened. Some fifteen minutes later the rain eased sufficiently to get set up, I had intended to floatfish with corn while allowing a second 'sleeper' rod to fish itself, however given the poor conditions I only set up the carp rod.
Just as we were starting to set up the first spots of rain began to fall, then it got heavier, then we took shelter as the heavens opened. Some fifteen minutes later the rain eased sufficiently to get set up, I had intended to floatfish with corn while allowing a second 'sleeper' rod to fish itself, however given the poor conditions I only set up the carp rod.
Having made the decision to fish just the one rod I decided that the most comfortable fishing position, bearing in mind I wanted to be under my brolly, was sitting on my unhooking mat, on the steps, facing the rod. Meanwhile the downpour continued. Now despite being a bit soggy at least I was under cover and relatively comfortable and I began to relax and take in the surroundings, something you are not always able to do when floatfishing and it made a pleasant change. Glancing down at my legs I noticed a Red Ant making steady headway up the outside of my jeans towards my knee, I flicked it away without a second thought.
The next Ant announced itself with a bite to my wrist, looking down again my trainers and legs were now well covered in Ants which I swiftly removed. A Search around the area proved my fears I was sitting in or very near to a nest.
It was my fault of course, it always is, just ask my Mrs.
I have had many dealings with Red Ants in my time, they are fierce little buggers that inject Formic Acid when they bite, it's very painful !
So the rain continued to fall, I was forced to commit most of my concentration to Ant watch (although I was still getting bitten occasionally) and I remained fish less, as did my dad who was floatfishing sweetcorn and so did everybody else who was fishing.
We packed up in pouring rain at about 5pm, biteless or should I say I wish I was biteless.
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