Some time ago I made the observation that I am sometimes prone to sticking too rigidly to a preconceived plan when I go fishing; It's the stubborn belief in my methods and a rose tinted view of how I expect the days angling to unfold which has so often resulted in disaster. However, my latest visit to Jubilee Pools in the company of my dad presents the case for just the opposite mindset.
The horseshoe pool looked a picture when we arrived, just a slight ripple ruffled the surface and fish were showing on the surface all over the lake while large patches of bubbles betrayed the presence of feeding fish beneath. The rather dull and blustery morning was gradually giving way to a warmer and brighter outlook and the pegs at the furthest part of the water, either side of the dwarf lilies, were free. We couldn't fail!
Once in position we each fed regular small amounts of corn off the end of the lily bed and fished a small lead with hair rigged corn as hookbait. Little encouragement came our way as a result as both tips remained motionless for half an hour, then an hour but suddenly, without any warning, my tip flew round and I was into a carp.
A couple of minutes into the scrap just as the fish made a bid to get into the lily bed the line went slack and a large scale fluttered back towards me attached to my hook.
Further inactivity prompted me to change my approach, boilies went in alongside the lilies while three pouch fulls of corn were fired into the deeper water some four rod lengths out. I could now alternate between the two lines with a choice of hookbait. Dad stuck to his guns with the corn and regular light feeding approach.
More gawping at a motionless tip later and lobworms entered the equation, meanwhile dad fished on undeterred.
With the situation dire and no bites of any sort coming my way the solution seemed obvious; In pretty short order I was fishing a waggler with a single grain of corn as hookbait in 13 feet of water using a 12 foot tip rod (I know!).
Dad had persevered with his original approach throughout and as a result was now playing a six pound mirror to the net.
On a day when conditions seemed ideal everyone struggled badly and dads one fish (he lost another late on) was a more than respectable result.
As for me, well I finished the session casting around the swim with a free-lined boilie. I'm not sure even I know why!
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Happy Campers!
This Summer we decided to buy ourselves a tent, nothing spectacular you understand just a cheapish Hi-Gear five berth job, with the intention of getting away for a couple of nights here and there during the school holidays and allowing our two girls the experience of sleeping under canvas in the great outdoors.
Having given our new purchase a trial run at Stratford racecourse a little while back it was now time for a proper family outing, the site we chose was Greenhill Leisure Park which is situated close to Oxford, in the village of Bletchingdon. This place ticked all the necessary boxes as it is only about an hour from home and is a working farm with plenty of animals for the kids to look at, there is a relatively well stocked and reasonably priced shop, good, clean toilet and shower facilities and a games room complete with pool and table tennis tables where I scored 68,000,000 points in a game of pinball but was swiftly and soundly defeated in a gory shoot em up game due to a twitchy trigger finger I have had since taking part in a particularly tense game of Cowboys and Indians in 1976.
Most importantly of all there are also two small lakes offering free fishing to residents, one being a carp pool and the other featuring tench, bream and roach.
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Jessica, who is three, has just recently begun to sit with me when I watch fishing programmes on TV and has shown a real interest in having a go herself. Aimee, our four year old, has shown no interest whatsoever.
So when Sheryl, the two kids and I climbed the slope to the bottom (mixed) lake it was with the intention of Jess and I doing the fishing while Sheryl kept Aimee amused.
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As things turned out and as is often the case with young children Jess very soon lost all interest in looking at the orange dot bobbing amongst the ripples and went off with her mum to look at some nearby goats. Luckily Aimee was suitably intrigued to ask for a go with the rod and to my surprise and delight she took to it with real enthusiasm.
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First she insisted on knowing how many fish my dad and I had caught the day before at Jubilee, when I told her that daddy had caught two and grandpa had caught four she was soon settling down in her own determined little way to catch five fish.
With a little help from me Aimee soon caught her first fish which was a small skimmer, razor blades we used to call them, and she looked really pleased with herself. We went on to catch the five fish she was looking for and I even caught myself a couple of skimmers, the biggest being around a pound.
On day two Aimee was keen to fish again so the two of us went off to the lake again. This time our loosefed maggots produced a more rapid response from the small silver fish and we caught from the off, therefore Aimee had more time to practise handling the rod and reel on her own and recognising bites which she did very well. She was also soon confident with handling and returning the string of small roach and bream which came our way.
Just as Sheryl and Jessica came up the slope to tear us away from the fishing Aimee hooked and landed her biggest fish to date, a skimmer of around three quarters of a pound. She beamed with pride as she held it for her mum to take a photo and I must admit I probably did too.
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Jess was prompted to have another go just to round things off and together we soon caught a little roach which she seemed happy enough with.
When we got home the next morning Aimee said to me "Daddy, next time you take me fishing I want to catch a really big one." Don't we all Aimee, don't we all!
Having given our new purchase a trial run at Stratford racecourse a little while back it was now time for a proper family outing, the site we chose was Greenhill Leisure Park which is situated close to Oxford, in the village of Bletchingdon. This place ticked all the necessary boxes as it is only about an hour from home and is a working farm with plenty of animals for the kids to look at, there is a relatively well stocked and reasonably priced shop, good, clean toilet and shower facilities and a games room complete with pool and table tennis tables where I scored 68,000,000 points in a game of pinball but was swiftly and soundly defeated in a gory shoot em up game due to a twitchy trigger finger I have had since taking part in a particularly tense game of Cowboys and Indians in 1976.
Most importantly of all there are also two small lakes offering free fishing to residents, one being a carp pool and the other featuring tench, bream and roach.
.JPG)
Jessica, who is three, has just recently begun to sit with me when I watch fishing programmes on TV and has shown a real interest in having a go herself. Aimee, our four year old, has shown no interest whatsoever.
So when Sheryl, the two kids and I climbed the slope to the bottom (mixed) lake it was with the intention of Jess and I doing the fishing while Sheryl kept Aimee amused.
.JPG)
As things turned out and as is often the case with young children Jess very soon lost all interest in looking at the orange dot bobbing amongst the ripples and went off with her mum to look at some nearby goats. Luckily Aimee was suitably intrigued to ask for a go with the rod and to my surprise and delight she took to it with real enthusiasm.
.JPG)
First she insisted on knowing how many fish my dad and I had caught the day before at Jubilee, when I told her that daddy had caught two and grandpa had caught four she was soon settling down in her own determined little way to catch five fish.
With a little help from me Aimee soon caught her first fish which was a small skimmer, razor blades we used to call them, and she looked really pleased with herself. We went on to catch the five fish she was looking for and I even caught myself a couple of skimmers, the biggest being around a pound.
On day two Aimee was keen to fish again so the two of us went off to the lake again. This time our loosefed maggots produced a more rapid response from the small silver fish and we caught from the off, therefore Aimee had more time to practise handling the rod and reel on her own and recognising bites which she did very well. She was also soon confident with handling and returning the string of small roach and bream which came our way.
Just as Sheryl and Jessica came up the slope to tear us away from the fishing Aimee hooked and landed her biggest fish to date, a skimmer of around three quarters of a pound. She beamed with pride as she held it for her mum to take a photo and I must admit I probably did too.
.JPG)
Jess was prompted to have another go just to round things off and together we soon caught a little roach which she seemed happy enough with.
When we got home the next morning Aimee said to me "Daddy, next time you take me fishing I want to catch a really big one." Don't we all Aimee, don't we all!
Friday, 13 August 2010
The Long and the Short of it
It's been quite some time since we visited Jubilee Pools due mainly to dad being out of action as a result of a long term shoulder problem, on Tuesday we made our first visit of the season to the Leamington AA venue.
With most of the far end of the Horseshoe pool occupied we decided to fish from pegs on the point, we tackled up with beefed up quivertip set ups as is our norm for this water and set about fishing a variety of hair rigged hookbaits over loose offerings. To begin with sport was slow although there was plenty of fish activity in the area and it was a good hour before I had a pull on the tip and connected with a bream of about three pounds.
After this my swim went quiet again but dad started to pick up the odd fish, he had a bream of around two pounds, a small tench and a roach of about twelve ounces then he had a better bream in region of four pounds, then his bites dried up.
Meanwhile, given a complete lack of action back on my peg, I had taken the view that it was worth experimenting with long hooklengths as the fish here often sit in the surface layers. The theory being that with substantial average depths at Jubilee and current trends being for particularly short hooklengths I may be able to capitalise on the likelihood that carp will be intercepting free offerings at all depths with no fear factor.
My opening gambit was a ten foot tail fishing a single grain of sweetcorn on the hair while drip feeding grains of corn one at a time over the top. I reasoned that by selecting large flat pieces of corn for the hook I could achieve the required flutterability to tempt a fish and with the long tail I could ensure that the bait was noticed by carp swimming in the surface layers.
I would love to be able to say at this point that I went on to catch a string of carp and my theorising was sound but as time went by I began to shorten the tail by a foot at a time and began to feed a few boilies.
Phil phoned for a chat just as I had managed to get myself in an almighty tangle (one of those that starts with a couple of coils spilling off the reel and inexplicably becomes a birds nest within milliseconds) so I talked on the phone, picked at the tangle and continued to feed a few boilies for several minutes.
Finally I was in a position to fish again and first cast with a boilie on a four foot tail the rod failed to make it onto the rests before being wrenched around and I was doing battle with an unseen carp. After a spirited fight and a few hairy moments one of the pretty Jubilee commons was on the bank, she weighed twelve pounds.
Another partial success!
With most of the far end of the Horseshoe pool occupied we decided to fish from pegs on the point, we tackled up with beefed up quivertip set ups as is our norm for this water and set about fishing a variety of hair rigged hookbaits over loose offerings. To begin with sport was slow although there was plenty of fish activity in the area and it was a good hour before I had a pull on the tip and connected with a bream of about three pounds.
After this my swim went quiet again but dad started to pick up the odd fish, he had a bream of around two pounds, a small tench and a roach of about twelve ounces then he had a better bream in region of four pounds, then his bites dried up.
Meanwhile, given a complete lack of action back on my peg, I had taken the view that it was worth experimenting with long hooklengths as the fish here often sit in the surface layers. The theory being that with substantial average depths at Jubilee and current trends being for particularly short hooklengths I may be able to capitalise on the likelihood that carp will be intercepting free offerings at all depths with no fear factor.
My opening gambit was a ten foot tail fishing a single grain of sweetcorn on the hair while drip feeding grains of corn one at a time over the top. I reasoned that by selecting large flat pieces of corn for the hook I could achieve the required flutterability to tempt a fish and with the long tail I could ensure that the bait was noticed by carp swimming in the surface layers.
I would love to be able to say at this point that I went on to catch a string of carp and my theorising was sound but as time went by I began to shorten the tail by a foot at a time and began to feed a few boilies.
Phil phoned for a chat just as I had managed to get myself in an almighty tangle (one of those that starts with a couple of coils spilling off the reel and inexplicably becomes a birds nest within milliseconds) so I talked on the phone, picked at the tangle and continued to feed a few boilies for several minutes.
Finally I was in a position to fish again and first cast with a boilie on a four foot tail the rod failed to make it onto the rests before being wrenched around and I was doing battle with an unseen carp. After a spirited fight and a few hairy moments one of the pretty Jubilee commons was on the bank, she weighed twelve pounds.
Another partial success!
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