Just Angling About

Blogging on Regardless

2011-10-06T10:28:00.000+01:00

Once again I have been away from the bank for way too long, this time a nasty head-on car crash enforced a lengthy lay off. Thankfully both I and my family are now almost fully recovered.

When stepping onto the banks of nearby Meadowlands Fishery (again) with my Dad it seemed like an almighty release after the trials and tribulations of the previous few weeks, a few hours fishing was to be just the tonic I needed.

Due to a match taking up the majority of the pegs on the fishery we found ourselves in the roadside bay pegs once again, this suited me just fine as it was nice and quiet although the water itself was a little flat for my liking while the main body of the lake had a tempting surface ripple.

We both caught carp to around six pounds or so on the usual straight lead and pellet tactics but, in truth, the fishing was unspectacular and, in all honesty, I didn't really care, sometimes it's nice just to be able to get out there and enjoy your sport.

Gold N Brown

2011-07-25T20:25:00.001+01:00

I hate fishing off platforms for reasons I have never quite been able to put my finger on and at Meadowlands, Warren Pool, the venue for all of my recent fishing trips with my dad, it's platforms or nothing unfortunately. I do, here more than anywhere, always take a good look at the platform before setting up as some of them are decidedly iffy.

Members of Slimming World aren't allowed on this platform

or this one

Having secured a couple of solid platforms to fish from we set about trying to catch some fish using straight lead and banded pellet tactics. After a mixed start we started to regularly catch carp, fish which varied dramatically in shape and size, some being chunky and broad shouldered and others lean and torpedo shaped, each one fighting hard all the way to the net.

Carp here seem to move in at speed in the shallow water to intercept free offerings so two methods worked throughout the day, either casting the lead out, throwing the rod on the rests and then firing a couple of pouchfulls of pellet down the same hole before tightening up or firing the pellets in first quickly followed by the end tackle.

Amongst the carp other than the odd good roach and skimmers we caught some more samples of brown goldfish, my new fascination. No longer a disappointment to me I have got a bit of a soft spot for the brown goldfish in each of their various guises they are always tough little cookies who give you a decent scrap pound for pound. They vary enormously in appearance and guessing their exact parentage is almost impossible but they hit your bait as hard as any carp and provide the angler with some fun and that's ok by me.

A little bit Cruciany

Fan Tail but a bit pale

I caught one of these too

A Game of Two Halves

2011-07-19T13:46:00.001+01:00

For our latest outing my dad and I decided to try our luck on the smaller pool at Meadowlands, Warren. Armed only with pellets and a few maggots we fished side by side, perched on some precarious looking platforms using straight lead and banded pellets tactics.

I opted to fish at thirty odd yards and fed pellets at a rate of three or four every couple of minutes while dad had dropped in slightly closer.

Straight away I was into fish, a tear away bite resulted in a pretty linear mirror of about six pounds on my second cast, this was followed by a smaller sample and another decent carp threw the hook soon after. Indications were frequent and I was catching reasonably well, some small carp, a couple of decent roach and the now inevitable skimmers, then I brought a different species altogether to the net. My heart skipped a beat as a big crucian carp emerged at the surface before being enveloped in the the net, I instantly remembered the Meadowlands advertising and the claim that this pool in particular was famed for its big crucians. Folding back the mesh expecting to see a deep bodied bar of gold, a crucian carp the jolliest fish that swims..... my heart sank as a skittle shaped, fan tailed and dull scaled creature of particularly dubious parentage stared unblinkingly back at me.

Brown Goldfish as they are commonly known are, through no fault of their own, the culprits in many a big crucian claim and are, sadly, likely to account for all of the big crucian captures from this water.

Meanwhile dad had adjusted his range and was fishing further out beyond the leaf debris where he was starting to pick up some skimmers and sizable roach.

By now the breeze had dropped and in the flat calm conditions my swim was beginning to stutter, bites were becoming few and far between and in desperation I fed a margin swim which only resulted in the capture of another big brown goldfish.

After another bite less half hour I packed up and went for a walk round the lake. At each peg I stopped to look at I could see my dad in the distance bending into another fish and when I had finally circumnavigated the lake I sat behind him to watch as he tempted take after take from his carefully nurtured swim and a string of carp, brown goldfish and silver fish came to the net. His biggest of the day was this seven pounder.

Plink Plink Fizz

2011-07-16T12:13:00.000+01:00

By researching archived match results on the Internet and asking around it soon became clear that the most successful method at Meadowlands Fishery over the last few years has been a straight lead approach with pellets plinked regularly over the top. The theory is that carp are attracted to the sound of the pellets landing and although it is likely that regular small amounts of feed will bring fish up in the water it is reckoned that the biggest fish will always feed hard on the bottom.

It was with attempting this method in mind that I arrived along with my Dad and Nephew Henry at the pegs generally called the bay on Lambsdown lake., it was a warm day and this area of the lake was flat calm. Dad set up a float rod in order to fish maggot and I put together a tip rod to fish the pellet, Henry was to drift between the two outfits in order to give him the best chance possible of catching a few fish.

Early on maggot was producing fish with my dad and Henry catching skimmers, the odd perch and a nice stamp of roach, I wasn't catching but kept up the regular doses of pellet in as tighter area as I could manage.

When the action on the maggot peg had started to peter out the straight lead method finally began to pay off, the area I had been feeding was now fizzing with bubbles and takes when they came were fizzers too each one threatening to tear the rod off it's rests.

Dad switched to 8mm pellets on his float set up too and between the three of us we caught carp to around eight pounds and odd skimmers for the remainder of the session.

Henry, on this occasion, didn't manage to catch one of the bigger carp but enjoyed himself catching a few fish on each method and showed a real interest in both the fishing and wildlife.

Silver at the End of the Road

2011-06-29T10:46:00.001+01:00

Literally two minutes drive from my house is Meadowlands Fishery, Ryton, strange then that I had, until last week, never set foot on the place preferring in the past to visit either the excellent Jubilee Pools which is a similar distance away or Stockton Reservoir for fishing sessions with my Dad.

While Meadowlands is not the prettiest of fisheries it does offer the angler plenty of water to go at, there are two sizable lakes with parking available in various strategic locations around the fishery. Fishery blurb mentions carp to thirty odd pounds, tench to nine pounds, three pound roach and sizable bream and barbel all for seven pounds a day.

We set up in the larger lake close to the main car park, not really knowing what to expect I plumped for an open end feeder rig fishing maggot on the hook while Dad started on the float.

In no time at all I had hooked and lost two decent fish while Dad was picking up odd small roach then the skimmers moved in on the feed. We started catching ten to twelve ounce bream regularly along with odd roach to about six ounces and for variety I had a perch of around a pound and a couple of small carp.

I enjoy this sort of fishing and while we weren't about to threaten the record match catch for the water which stands at 200lb+ we caught well and both had a nice mixed bag of fish.

Spot the Difference Competition

Last Week This Week

We were back there yesterday for another crack at the same pegs both starting on the float this time, Dad was on maggot while I tried bread. Again I hooked a good fish early on this time netting and weighing a carp of six pounds, then the skimmers were back on the feed.
We caught fish steadily although not as quickly as the previous week so we both changed to feeder set ups and caught spasmodically throughout the session. Mixed bags for each of us again including roach, perch and skimmers I had the one carp and a rogue tench of about a pound and a half while Dad had a carp of about three pounds on meat late on.

I like fishing for silvers and when I know there's plenty of fish in front of me I just want to catch as many as possible I appreciate though that to others a shoal of voracious skimmer bream snaffling everything from a single maggot to a big chunk of luncheon meat would be a nightmare scenario.

Hooray for Henry

2011-06-20T10:16:00.000+01:00

The excitement and sense of achievement experienced when catching your first ever fish as a young angler is a moment never forgotten and as an older angler the opportunity to teach and advise a youngster and subsequently help them catch their first ever fish is priceless.

A three night camping trip at Greenhill Farm in Oxfordshire along with my sister and her three children, Oliver, Imogen and Henry during the recent glorious weather in the half term school holidays presented the perfect opportunity to get the kids fishing again. This is the same site we visited last Summer and is an ideal location for young anglers, there are two relatively shallow, well stocked lakes in a separate field alongside the main camping area, the bottom lake is stocked with silvers while the top lake is a carp pool.

Once we had set up the tents and settled in we were soon at the waterside and fishing the bottom lake. A little earlier Henry, by far the keenest of all to try his hand at fishing, had listened intently as I helped set up his starter set of tackle alongside the ten foot glass leger rod I had taken along explaining as I went what purpose the individual items of tackle served. At the lake I helped Henry plumb the depth and explained the principles of loosefeeding and then we set about catching some fish.

As I mentioned earlier these are very well stocked lakes and it wasn't a long wait before the bites started in fact the float was rarely still and after only a short time Henry was landing his first fish a small skimmer bream. A great moment.

Imogen and Aimee both had a brief go and even our Jess took the rod long enough to catch her now customary single small roach before becoming bored but it was Henry who had the bug, his enthusiasm grew with each fish he caught and he was learning to do more and more for himself.

In the short time we had together Henry and I made three more trips to the lakes, concentrating on the top lake where the small carp were more than obliging and where he also hooked a couple of larger specimens which he unfortunately lost.

It had been a great trip, nice to see my sister who I seem to see all too rarely these days and nice to relax with Sheryl and the kids in the blazing sun, we had a barbecue each evening and ate bacon and eggs each morning, My nephews and I threw a rugby ball around, Aimee and Jessica loved spending time with Imogen and we even tried (unsuccessfully) to fly a kite but most importantly of all we enjoyed the simple pleasure of catching some fish.

A Short Hard One.

2011-05-26T11:22:00.000+01:00

Short sessions are just the way it is for me and my fishing at the moment, work and family commitments prevail over the desire to spend leisurely days at the waterside. Every window of opportunity is, therefore, to be exploited fully.

Unsociable as it may be an overnight camping expedition with my partner, her sister and husband and our collective offspring presented such a window last weekend. From the moment the trip was suggested plans started to form in my head although I was second guessed to some degree and was told there was unlikely to be room in the car for fishing tackle.

However, I think you'll find that there is always room for fishing tackle and so a hastily assembled camping kit of bare angling essentials was organised and squeezed into an already bursting car boot.

I struck the neccesary compromise with the Missus, eventually agreeing that I would only go fishing if I happened to wake up very early on Sunday morning and that I would be back for breakfast at eight.

Saturday was a good day we played football with the kids, walked around the lakes and drank lashings of cider and red wine in the sun.

When the alarm on my phone happened to go off at three thirty on Sunday morning I first realised that I had a thumping headache then I heard the rain pounding of the canvas above, not the best of starts !

I very nearly took the soft option and went back to sleep but finally dragged myself out of bed and out of the tent. The rain was beginning to ease and I headed for my chosen spot.

Weekend carp anglers occupied my first and second choice swims and chatting to them the previous evening revealed that there were few tench and carp coming out but odd bream were being caught. I was set to fish my third choice swim nearby.

It looks like one of those starter kits that parents are advised never to buy for their children. Please note the cantilever box circa 1973.

It was extremely cold for the time of year and a strong wind was blowing straight at me as I began to set up, not very pleasant. My next disaster was to discover that I had failed to include any groundbait feeders amongst my gear, not to worry though the local anglers reckon the margins are the best place to fish, I would put on a small bomb and ball groundbait in at the start.

So shivering in the morning gloom I balled in eight balls of Sensas Carp and brown crumb laced with red maggots into what seemed a likely spot just of the end of an overhanging tree.

After just a couple of casts I realised my terrible mistake, it seemed that I had put all of my feed into probably the weediest area in the swim. Shortly after the wind blew up even more and it grew even colder, the rising sun was behind my position in the woods and offered no warmth so I was now freezing cold and fishing in an area ten yards from my baited spot. It began to rain. I packed up. I was in good time for breakfast.

Back on the Bank (Albeit Briefly)

2011-05-01T19:57:00.000+01:00

A short family break in Oxfordshire presented me with a fleeting opportunity to finally, finally get back to doing some fishing after a lengthy break.

We were staying Monday to Friday in a caravan in real big fish country close to the well regarded Linear Fisheries, an area scattered with pits, lakes and ponds and also close to the rivers Windrush and Thames.

Several walks around the large pit where we were staying failed to fire my enthusiasm as I saw no indications of fish activity whatsoever, therefore when the chance to go fishing presented itself on Wednesday morning I took what I thought was the safe option and invested in a day ticket for Newlands Angling Club.

The three pits run by this club consist of a large specimen water and two smaller pits with a commercial feel, it was one of the smaller waters I found myself on. However, the mixed bag of fish I had imagined never materialised in fact each cast with floatfished maggot was snaffled on the drop by small roach while larger baits went untouched. After a short session I headed off a little disapointed.

Dutifully I visited the local attractions with the family, we went to Witney market and it's four stalls, Bourton-on-the-Water Model Village which is just like Bourton-on-the-Water only smaller (you can achieve the same effect by standing on the bridge in the centre of the village and looking down the wrong end of your binoculars.) and Millets Farm Centre where you need to take out a second mortgage in order to buy lunch. I was close at hand while the kids paddled in the lake and while they played on various apparatus in the campsite park, we spent a couple of evenings sitting outside the bar drinking cold beer and enjoyed a lovely family meal at the local pub but throughout all this I was picturing myself on a reed fringed lake at dawn catching some proper fish.

At dusk on the Thursday evening I decided to take a last walk around the lake in order to take a few photos and it was then I saw them. Sizable fish were priming in a distant corner and my angling instincts were instantly on full alert, a plan for a last ditch session was formed and I retreated to our caravan to set up a rod.

The alarm went off at three thirty and by four I was at the lakeside, I was banking on an open end feeder set up with lobworm hookbait for this ultra short session and luckily enough it was to pay off in the form of a pair of pristine Tench weighing five pounds eight and five ten which were kindly photographed by a local angler who informed me they were about average for the area as eight pounders are caught fairly reguarly. I could well be back then !

More Jubilee Woe

2010-09-10T09:33:00.002+01:00

The Marvelettes were wrong in 1964 when they sang "There's too many fish in the sea." (Apparently there wasn't), 1969 film makers were wrong when they issued the film Krakatoa: East of Java (it wasn't), Alan Hansen was wrong when he said of Manchester Uniteds young 1995 side which included the Neville brothers, Scholes, Beckham and Giggs "You don't win anything with kids." (They did), and I was definitely wrong yesterday when I supposed that a two rod, block end feeder and maggot approach would catch me plenty of fish from Jubilee Pools.

Although I don't consider myself an unlucky angler, far from it in fact as I have always tended to draw a higher percentage of good pegs than bad in matches, have had my fair share of red letter days as a result of simply being in the right place at the right time and have often caught a blank saving fish late on in a session; It is fair to say however that I've been going through a lean spell.

This latest trip to Jubilee, my third in recent weeks, was to be a case of not trying to catch carp but one of just trying to catch something.
I'm not really a two rod angler as a rule mostly because I tend to get myself into a muddle or even sometimes in an almighty tangle and it also requires more concentration than I can be bothered with.
But two tip rods it was and I had a pint of mixed maggots to be introduced through small feeders and my intention was to use combinations of two and three maggots on the hook.

We were out on the point in the horseshoe pool, Dad was fishing a float from the big platform at the end (I really should pay more attention to peg numbers) and I fished on the opposite side with my back to him.
Once again, after an hour with no action, I was doubting my tactics but then I missed a bite, straight after I caught a roach of about six ounces followed by a smaller sample half an hour later but that was my lot and try as I might I couldn't tempt another bite.

Dad on the other hand, despite a slow start, had built his own swim steadily. The roach arrived after about an hour, he also hooked and lost a carp, and his catch rate increased throughout the session, as it did so small perch began to dominate and so much so that by the time we were ready to pack up perch were intercepting the bait within seconds of casting in.

As a footnote carp behaviour on the day seemed to me to indicate that a second spawning may be on the cards, lots of chasing in groups and splashing around the margins, there certainly wasn't too many caught either.

Clueless !

2010-08-17T19:40:00.002+01:00

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!

Happy Campers!

2010-08-14T20:27:00.007+01:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

The Long and the Short of it

2010-08-13T15:03:00.003+01:00

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!

Avon Stroll

2010-07-31T12:52:00.002+01:00

Finally I was back on the river bank after numerous planned fishing trips were cancelled for one reason and another over the previous few weeks including a day at Napton on Sunday 4th of July which, rather annoyingly, prevented me from writing a post entitled Corn on the 4th of July.

Phil was with me once again as we opted for a roving approach to our regular stretch of the Avon, he was straight into his fishing positioning himself in one of the downstream pegs while I took some time to have a look around while baiting a few likely looking spots with hemp, meat and boilies as I went.

When I finally got round to wetting a line it was in the first peg I had primed with feed on my walk upsteam which had now had ample time in which to settle and a few chub could be seen milling around in the area so it was looking good for a bite at least. Sure enough, only a minute or so after casting a boilie into the centre of the narrow reed fringed run, the tip went round in a confident manner and a chub of about a pound and a half was hustled quickly to the net, he was soon followed by another of about two and a half pounds on the same bait.

The next swim, only about thirty yards upsteam, required a stealthy, crawling approach as I had placed the free offerings in a nearside gap in the weed where there was a depression in the gravel barely ten inches from the over hanging nettles of the bank. The luncheon meat hookbait was simply lowered into the water off the rod end and the rod nestled on the nettles as I waited. The tip plunged towards the water and I lifted into my third fish, another gleaming chub of about two and a half pounds was soon in the net. The chub here are in fin perfect condition with classic brassy flanks, well worth catching.

My intended next stop was the weir but as I walked up I could see Phil was already there so I put some bait in at the tail end of the white water and went for a quick chat.
Phil was still without a fish but had a couple of bites to show for his efforts, I wished him luck and got back to the fishing.
After two or three casts without a response I was contemplating my next move when the tip finally pulled round and a fourth chub was on and giving a good account of itself in the quick water, when finally coming to the net it was a slightly better fish in the region of three pounds.

Time was getting on so for a final move I settled into the big deep bend. Weed can be a problem here during the Summer months due to the slack water on the inside but I found that by fishing the faster water coming into the bend I had no problems with weed at all. The chub were very obliging with darkness approaching and I caught four in quick succession on meat the biggest being a smashing looking fish which probably went over four pounds.

As we left in darkness I was happy with my haul of eight fish, Phil was a little disgruntled with his blank and we were both left wondering where the barbel have got to on this stretch.

Boilies for Barbel Blow.

2010-06-22T09:25:00.002+01:00

The relentless, rhythmic nodding of the rod tip coupled with the roar of water passing over the weir eventually became tiresome, two and a half hours into my first river session of the new season and with no bites to show for it I decided, pretty much at the same time Phil did, that it was time for a move.

Phil had fared slightly, but not much, better than me so far having taken a chub of about a pound and a half and a couple of eels from the weirpool on his luncheon meat approach. Boldly and determinedly I had opted to fish boilies in an all out attack on the resident barbel population, an idea which throughout the close season seemed a certain winner but in practice had flopped horribly and knocked my confidence into the bargain.

Now the onus was on catching a fish at all costs but fortunately this stretch of the Avon is narrow and feature packed therefore lending itself to a roving approach well. Phil dropped in on a sharp bend just down from the weir and I moved further downstream where the river narrows dramatically and is fringed with thick reed beds. Cover for the angler here is provided by tall bankside nettles, cover for the fish consists of the reeds, an overhanging tree and a small weedbed.

A small lead in conjunction with a big bit of meat plopped under the far bank cover brought an instant response from a lovely looking little chub of about a pound and a half. Next cast produced another bite which I missed and a third cast tempted a confident bite and resulted in a fish of about two and a half pounds on the bank.

After this flurry of excitement we were to be frustrated for the rest of the day with most pegs tried producing no bites at all and at others the tip would never settle as (what were presumably) small fish attacked the bait.
Never mind though, I've been back on the river on a beautiful June day and caught a couple of fish...It's got to be better than watching England.

A Pleasant Somers Afternoon

2010-06-02T17:16:00.004+01:00

My neighbour Roger invited me to fish the Meriden Hall syndicate water last Summer but on the appointed day it teemed with rain and for one reason and another we never got around to fishing all Summer. Last Thursday though a chance presented itself and off we went, however, due to a lack of both parking and pegs at the fishery we were forced into a rethink.

Although it was a little disappointing not to get a crack at a new fishery salvation was at hand, or more precisely just down the road, in the form of Packington Estate's Somers Fishery.

Somers Fishery now bears no resemblance to it's former incarnation which was a regular haunt of mine. The four established pits Molandsmere, Siblings, Anniversarys and Siblings which once held stocks of fish at traditional levels are now ten re-sculptured and landscaped, heavily stocked pools, named with a nod to the past but in essence a completely different fishery.

We paid our money plus a £2 surcharge for taking the car onto the fishery, dipped our nets and took a little drive round before settling on a couple of quite inviting pegs in Gratuities which at one time was part of Anniversarys but is now at the opposite end of the fishery, the sign informed us that we could expect to catch Carp, Bream and Roach.

Again I was fishing a waggler and had sweetcorn as my primary bait, Roger started on maggot and was soon catching small fish (mostly perch) regularly.

The corn hookbait was attracting some attention and I was getting the odd quick bite managing to nab a couple of small tench early on but it was quite clear that the fish had seen it all before. In fact nobody was catching very much at all.

Supremely organised as ever the situation required much rooting around in my seatbox looking desperately for an alternative hookbait, after some time sorting through the clutter of various bits and pieces I seem forever destined to cart about with me I came up with a tin of luncheon meat.

Very small cubes of meat on a size 16 hook transformed the swim, bites were frequent and positive and I began to catch fish regularly.

With the sun on our backs, Roger happily swinging in small roach and perch each cast and me putting together a bag of tench all between one and three pounds it made for a particularly pleasant and enjoyable afternoon and some decent fishing.

Although Somers isn't the same place I fished as a lad, it couldn't be less like it in fact, and it's now an all singing commercial fishery where you are invited to sit on a slab of concrete and poke your pole or hurl your method feeder towards the ever present island feature, but I accept that it is what it is and therefore I may well be back at some point in the future.

Hubble Bubble, Napton Struggle

2010-05-29T12:30:00.003+01:00

The hottest day of the year so far and Phil and I arrived at a sun drenched Napton Reservoir at 5pm looking to bag a few tench, fortunately the causeway pegs were available so we were in business.
Float tackle was the order of the day with only a light breeze in our faces, feed and hookbait was to be sweetcorn and pellet although Phil had taken a few maggots along as back up.

Bright sunshine often makes for some slow sport on this fishery, there are also currently masses of natural food available in the form of huge swarms of daphnia (Is that the collective term for daphnia?) so I fed sparingly.

Two hours passed without a bite but at around 7pm the first tench bubbles began to appear in small single groups all over the area we were fishing, my sweetcorn hookbait began to attract some half hearted interest from the fish but I couldn't get a hittable bite.

By 7.30 things were starting to look a little desperate, fish were certainly in my swim but not feeding with any real enthusiasm, maybe they had gorged themselves on zoo plankton? Phil, who had earlier introduced some groundbait during the bite less first couple of hours, was calling me over every few minutes to look at his swim and it was certainly worth seeing. Bubbles erupted furiously all over his baited area as if his float was enjoying a Jacuzzi, in all my angling life I have never seen anything quite like it, yet Phil could simply not get a bite!

With the resounding failure of both pellet and corn hookbaits I borrowed a few maggots and hooked three onto a size 16, first cast and I landed a fish of about two pounds. Next cast I pulled out of a similar sized fish then I caught a three pounder before stupidly allowing what felt like a slightly bigger one to get into the reeds and snap me.

Phil meanwhile had been pulling his hair out as masses and masses of bubbles still surrounded his unmoving float, suddenly without any warning his float slid away and he hooked, landed and stared agog at....a perch of about eight ounces. Ten minutes later I was sitting behind him drinking a cup of coffee and watching the orange tip of the float riding amongst the foam of tench bubbles when it slid slowly and confidently away again....and another 8oz perch came to the bank.

Having struggled at Napton in recent times our relationship has been a little bit on the rocks and two tench in four hours had done little to repair the damage but as the sun began to set over the fishery, the cloudless sky a fiery red and big, big fish rolling with increasing frequency on the glassy surface in all areas of the lake I began to remember why I love the place so much.

The 159ers (part 2)

2010-04-28T08:41:00.019+01:00

Golfer Gary Player is quoted as saying "The more I practice, the luckier I get." in reply to his critics, a statement which, I found as a youngster, certainly also applies to fishing. The more I fished and observed other anglers the better my results became.

By time I began the second year of senior school an acquaintanceship with fellow angler Phil (who had attended a different Junior School) had become a firm friendship and we were fishing together on a weekly basis, we travelled far and wide with the help of lifts from our long suffering parents but those eventful 159 bus journeys to Packington still featured heavily.

As a preliminary to our Sunday outing we would arrange to meet at Fred Blacow's tackle shop on Holyhead Road, a ritual which continued for many years. Here we would buy the necessary bait, groundbait and bits and pieces required for our latest assault.

Early on Sunday morning I would clump and clatter along to the bus stop and wait for both the bus and Phil, it was often a close call as to which would arrive first but Phil would usually appear in the nick of time with a familiar clumping and clattering noise.
We were by now equipped with lightweight nylon rod holdalls with protective rod tubes, proper net bags and it was Galaxy Riva seat boxes which now jammed in the bus doorway.

After the bus journey was the long and arduous walk, we would tend to take every bit of tackle we owned in those days including enough groundbait to cover us for the reddest of red letter days. Eventually, though, we would make it to the fishery and we usually headed for Gearys level where we could catch fair bags of skimmer bream on the float using red maggot and vanilla laced groundbait or Anniversarys where small tench and crucians could be caught. Early season the tench and bream of Molandsmere would fall to straight lead and bread flake.

Occasionally Phil's mate Steve would join us on these trips, Steve was our age, robustly built with a big round smiley face he was a good angler and a nice bloke but he did have a mean temper and if anything was going to go wrong it would always happen to Steve.

Tales of Steve's many mishaps had reached me long before I actually met him, he was a serial unlucky loser of fish and would blow his top each time throwing his hat on the floor and jumping on it like a cartoon character, his trials using Andrews Liver Salts in his groundbait were, by all accounts, disastrous and once, when fishing with Phil and an occasional angling friend known for his remedial traits, Steve was tying an eyed hook onto the end of the lads feeder rig for him when, out of the blue and just as Steve was biting off the excess line, he launched the loaded feeder to the middle of the lake taking a large chunk of Steve's lip with it, I had also seen a photo of him stripped off and waist deep in molandsmere bent into a big carp which had towed his rod in, he eventually lost it, naturally.

On one particular occasion Phil, Steve and I headed out on the 159 to Packington on the hottest of June mornings, dazzling sunlight filtered through the trees, the coos of wood pigeons dominated the dawn chorus and it was set to be a scorcher. Talk was of roach and skimmer bream which we fancied to feed in mid water in Gearys Level, with the whole day ahead of us it promised to be a good one.

Phil and I bundled our gear off the bus first closely followed by Steve and we set about loading ourselves up with tackle for the walk ahead. Steve swung his seatbox onto his shoulder and CRACK, what appeared to be a perfectly good strap snapped cleanly in the middle, the boxes contents erupted outwards as it smashed to the floor and we were all momentarily frozen in time. I saw a waggler go darting off into a hedge some ten feet away, simultaneously noticing a two litre pop bottle filled with squash explode with a plume of orange, reels, leads, sunglasses and terminal tackle went in all directions. I dared to glance at Phil only to see that he was in the same condition as me, stiffling an enormous fit of laughter. Steve of course was the next to explode, red faced and furious he ranted for several minutes and I'm sure he even managed to invent a few swear words in the process....He went to a Catholic school too!

Obviously we helped Steve gather what we could find of his stuff from the debris field being careful not to tread his ham sandwiches further into the dirt in the process but his anger, we realised, still simmered just beneath the surface. The walk to the fishery from the bus stop was about a mile and a half and neither Steve's mood or our need to fall about laughing were helped by his carrying his seatbox in front of him, hunched over and sweating profusely with veins bursting out of his arms and no refreshing drink of orange squash at the end of it. Later, when we finally got round to doing some fishing, it was never mentioned again.

Towards the end of our schooldays the bus trips to Packington ceased as we began to spend more and more of the Summer months at Coombe or Napton but I will always remember the huge sense of adventure and journeying into the unknown as a youngster and will always look back fondly on the good times we had when we were the 159ers.

The 159ers (Part 1)

2010-04-26T14:29:00.021+01:00

The most enduring of all my angling memories are those from my childhood, time spent together with friends, family and acquaintances on fishing adventures and expeditions on endless Summer days during the never ending Summer holidays. There were occasions when we would travel by pushbike but more often it was the double decker bus which transported us, Coventry Corporation buses served us well for this purpose for many years and we would often travel to Coombe Pool or Ryton Bridge, journeys that involved a change of bus at Pool Meadow. However, by far the easiest bus route for the budding angler in our neck of the woods was the number 159 out to Packington Somers Fishery near Meriden.

In the very early days a small rag tag army from in and around our street in Coundon would meet in the early hours and make our way past our local shops on the Holyhead Road to the nearest 159 bus stop at the bottom of Grayswood Avenue. If memory serves me correctly the 159 (now the 900) would leave Pool Meadow at 6am bound for the Bull Ring in Birmingham via Birmingham Airport, we would spot it in the distance at about ten or fifteen minutes past six. Invariably it would be a bright and cool Summer morning with the promise of a blazing day to follow, as it always seemed to be in our youth, primed with the hope and expectancy of young men who knew no better we chattered excitedly about tactics and monster catches while we waited for the bus to finally reach our stop.

When the driver was close enough to see the whites of his eyes it was usual to observe him considering his options, faced with up to six boisterous, snotty school children and their ramshackle collection of beaten up leather rod holdalls, creels, fibreglass seat boxes and carrier bags. Could he really get away with pretending not to see us and whizz past? Or was this an elaborate trap set by the Corporation? Usually they would decide, at the last minute, not to take any chances, you could see the resignation in their face just before they would brake abruptly.

With much clamour and pushing and shoving (bus doors with their dividing pole, we found, were just the right size to jam a full size seat box solid) we boarded, paid the driver and promptly took over the bottom deck with tackle and baggage much to the annoyance of the early morning commuters.

With the same amount of commotion we would alight at the side of the A45, still about a mile and a half from the fishery, and would organise ourselves ready for the hike along Somers Road and up the long driveway to the ticket office. I say office but it was little more than a brick built shed really, the arrangement was to take one of the numbered tickets from the table, write on your name and address and post that half of the ticket along with your money (£1.60) inside a brown envelope through a letterbox in the wall.

Finally, we were ready to fish and each made our way, usually, to a pre-decided peg.
Tackle in my case was made up of a couple of glass match rods and a trusty Mitchel 300 loaded with Maxima line, a metal framed landing net with metal handle, keepnet and a small assortment of terminal tackle all given to me by my dad. Others among the group were less lucky and bought their gear from savings or had bothered their non-angling parents for a rod or reel, I remember that a couple of the lads had telescopic rods, the silver Shakespeare Alpha proved a popular budget reel and Winfield (Woolworths) terminal tackle was pretty much standard.

Bait was always maggots and most would use mixed but, with it becoming very much the vogue, some would buy bronze, I would tend to use yellows and whites on the advice of my dad who seemed to consider buying mixed maggots very poor form indeed.

Our simple approach of floatfishing maggots over loosefeed and aiming to catch whatever came along should have paid dividends but the simple fact that we were all raw recruits to the sport counted against us, our approach was crude and heavy handed as I suppose you would expect. We would catch the odd fish though often in the form of a very small perch and such a capture would usually ensure that the whole group would shortly be fishing in the immediate vicinity.

Indeed it was usual to move about during the day and fishing five or six different pegs on two or three different lakes was not unusual, these were, after all, marathon sessions which could be fourteen hours in duration with only a can of pop and a few sandwiches for sustenance, not for the lily livered and certainly not for girls!

Rarely would we venture onto Molandsmere, the largest lake on the fishery, as we considered this to be the realm of the serious angler, Anniversarys had a good head of tench but it required a certain degree of skill to catch them so more often than not we could be found thrashing our floats out in Siblings or Gearys Level. Gearys was our favourite and although it was really a carp pool it held vast numbers of stunted roach, rudd and perch along with skimmer bream and lots of gudgeon, huge catches of up to ten fish in a day were possible!

In the main though in the early days at Packington I probably learnt more about friendship and camaraderie than I ever did about fishing, my white and yellow maggots going largely un-noticed (thanks dad!).

When hunger and boredom got the better of us, usually long after tea time and many hours after the last of our sandwiches were devoured, we would wearily trudge back to the bus stop and hope the next driver along is a company man rather than a rebel.

Bumping Fish, Missing Unmissable Bites and Catching in Snatches.

2010-04-23T09:35:00.007+01:00

Roach fishing, as we all know, can be a frustrating experience, not only are your quarry a wary and at times shy biting species with a tendency to favour one bait over another on any given day but they tend to move in easily scattered shoals and are influenced by the presence of pike and other large fish. Other species of fish, in comparison, are often more predictable perch and chub for example are gluttonous creatures, bream on some waters will arrive in certain swims at a certain time of day like clockwork and even carp, regarded by many as the most intelligent of fish, aren't half as clever as they are given credit for.

We arrived at Stockton Res at 10am, earlier than in recent weeks, and planned to fish until about 2.30, our chosen spot was the reedy corner at the bottom end of the lake in pegs one and two. Tactics employed were to be as before, strong match rods, floats and small hooks with mixed maggot for hookbait.

Surface debris, floating reeds presumably a result of the resident water bird's friskiness, hampered our presentation to some degree but bites were soon coming our way and the first of the days roach were caught. This is the point where you are tricked into thinking that it is easy, bites are frequent and positive and roach of four to six ounces come to hand almost every cast.

As each session wears on bites invariably become lightning fast with the float shooting away in unmissable fashion only for the strike to meet no resistance, worse still, on occasion, a fish is bumped off. Even more frustrating than that is the incompatibility of catching silver fish using barbless hooks, the twisting, turning fight of such fish inevitably resulting in a percentage of fish simply falling off the hook. Small skimmers seem to be the worst for this.

At this point of the session I usually feed my main swim (about three rod lengths out) with a good three pouches of maggots and resort to fishing a pre-prepared swim close in and to one side, here bites are once again positive and easy to hit with small rudd and perch showing up among the roach but sport is usually short lived.

Back out in front for the last hour and the pattern has changed again with longer periods between bites but the bites when they come are once again more positive and the fish slightly bigger at about 8oz. When we packed up in brilliant spring sunshine we were of the opinion that we'd had a good day, dad and I had both caught plenty of rudd, perch and roach. However, questions still remain unanswered.

For now we will persevere at Stockton as it seems to be fishing as well as anywhere, an angler fishing the disabled pegs had caught steadily on long pole and pellet throughout the day and included some chunky looking crucians along with carp in his catch, he had fished in a different area of the lake the previous day where he had caught several good carp and some pound plus roach on this method. Other reported catches included several carp a day to anglers fishing the method feeder so maybe, with warmer water and more active fish, it's time to change our approach.

18 Hours and Not a Sniff

2010-04-21T11:13:00.003+01:00

Napton Reservoir was top of my list of early season venues, the hope being that I could catch a decent bream or two before the tench, the dominant species, wake up properly and limit the options of catching other species. In hindsight this may have been a tad ambitious.

The only two anglers on the water were fishing the hot early season pegs when Phil and I arrived at 3pm so we set out our stall on the car park bank of the big res in an area where bream used to be caught frequently. Each of us set up a pair of quivertip rods equipped with open end feeders, for hook bait we had sweetcorn, maggots and worms therefore allowing us plenty of options.

The other anglers had fished from 7am and had managed about a dozen tench each but told us that sport had slowed to a point where they hadn't had a bite for two hours, so not a great sign on a moody water like Napton but anything can happen and we made an enthusiastic start.

A couple of hours in and bite less our enthusiasm was waning though, eight rod hours and not a single twitch on the tips is a dire scenario to have to face, but we soldiered on.

Corn, worm, maggot and all conceivable cocktails failed equally for another two and a half hours of stationary tips before we pulled the plug at 7.30pm now having endured 18 rod hours of inactivity.

It seems to me that in the early part of the year if you aren't on those hot pegs, beyond the bridge in the big res, you will struggle.

Two For Twenty Pounds.....Bargain!

2010-04-16T14:39:00.003+01:00

Having set up on the nearside bank of Stockton Reservoir in order to avoid facing into a stiff and cold breeze we were fishing maggot and waggler from pegs 56 and 57 at two to three rod lengths from the bank in what was some relatively flat water.
Minor adjustments to both depth and shotting were required in order to counter a slight undertow but as soon as the tackle was fishing correctly the roach were more than willing, a good stamp of pristine looking fish they are too.
Not long into the session my double maggot bait was picked up by a common carp which gave me several hairy moments on the light tackle before eventually being banked. A tidy looking fish, well proportioned with mouth and fins in excellent condition, weighing in at eight pounds one ounce.

Dad was picking up occasional roach and I caught a couple more before latching into another carp which again gave me some scares before succumbing to the net, this time it was a mirror of eleven pounds nine ounces but in quite poor condition.

The carp was quickly returned without photographing and, with two carp for very nearly 20lb already on the score sheet, it was back to the business of catching roach. The roach fishing on this water is very good and, in our experience, you usually get an instant response from fish ranging between four and six ounces which will feed readily for the first hour or hour and a half, after which bites become more and more difficult to hit before petering out almost completely towards the end of four hours. This pattern played out once again during the course of the afternoon and although we caught quite a few up to about eight ounces we were once again left scratching our heads as to how we can keep the fish coming.

Are we over feeding or simply depleting the shoal or are carp pushing the roach out later on in the session?

Under the Boardwalk

2010-04-09T15:59:00.002+01:00

With a little sunshine eventually peeking from behind the seemingly ever present clouds of recent times my dad and I were prompted into action and arranged an afternoon session at Stockton Reservoir. With very little local information to go on at the moment other than some not so inspiring reports from Ryton, the very shallow reservoir and it's healthy head of roach seemed as good a bet as any given the only very recent upturn in temperatures.

Pegs 11 and 12 are midway along the wooden walkway and are adjacent to a small island which acted as a wind break on the day giving us an inviting area of flat water in which to float fish. We employed the simplest of tactics, each selecting small waggler floats capable of casting two thirds of the way to the island and size twenty hooks for our maggot bait.

Loose feeding three or four maggots each cast I was soon getting the odd bite and catching nice little roach ranging between 4 and 6 ounces on single yellow maggot, dad was starting to get amongst them too catching fish of a similar stamp.

Bites increased as I built the swim and I was eventually getting a bite a chuck then I momentarily hooked something much bigger, the hook came back bearing a glob of indeterminate slime and my roach shoal was scattered.

Bites were now at a premium and although I did catch a crucian carp of about a pound and a half the roach seemed determined not to return. Fortunately one thing I have learnt over the last year is to always have a plan B and in this case I had, from the start, been flicking the odd maggot down by the boards to my left between my platform (peg 12) and the next (peg 13).

The walkway structure at Stockton is a couple of inches above the water level and runs the full length of the far side of the lake it was constructed to make an swampy unfishable bank fishable, each peg is a wooden platform jutting out from the main walkway and is equipped with a brolly hole and metal clamps designed for attaching rod rests.

It seems that the fish now see this walkway as natural cover as I was getting indications straight away and was soon catching roach again. Dad had found his sport slowing too and followed suit by feeding inside to his right where he was soon into some roach too.

The fish were still biting when we packed up, we had caught plenty of roach a single perch and a crucian, I reckon a good pole angler could easily have put together 20 or even 30lb of fish on the day. The carp don't seem to be showing yet though, I only heard of one caught although there was around fifteen anglers on the water.

Looking Back, Moving Forwards.

2010-03-24T13:50:00.008Z

It is as good a time as any, with the traditional fishing season now at an end and this blog very nearly a year old, to take stock, look back at the year gone by and lay down some achievable aims for the months ahead.

Last season was very much a learning curve for me as I haven't fished regularly for quite a few years and things have changed markedly in my absence. A variety of new waters have added to my confusion and found me struggling to catch on several occasions.

Fishing in general has changed with the emphasis very much on carp these days and naturally baits and methods have moved on, I have quite a bit of catching up to do in this respect.

Ryton Pool, Jubilee Pools, Stockton Reservoir and Phil's stretch of the Warwickshire Avon were all waters I had never seen let alone fished before and each presented it's own problems to be overcome. Although I caught fish from every venue and I was successful in catching both a 20lb carp and a 10lb barbel along with some smaller carp and numerous good tench, I feel that there is certainly room for improvement particularly with regards eliminating blank sessions.

There are one or two methods in mind which I may experiment with in the near future and I will be using a greater variety of baits too, I may fish a match or two as well if the opportunity comes my way.

What I did do last year was achieve two of the targets I set for myself as a teenager. While I will always be happy to catch big fish of any species there was four in particular that captured my imagination and three of the four eluded me in my teens. The capture of a roach of exactly two pounds from the river Leam at Hunningham was the only real specimen fish of my teens and remained something I was very proud of until I bettered it by four ounces some years later.

Last Summer the capture of a carp of over twenty pounds from Jubilee fitted the bill as another of my four targets and this was followed by a barbel of ten and a half pounds from the Avon which made three. Top of the list however is, and always has been, a bream of ten pounds or more. The fourth and most highly prized of the quartet, bream are, for reasons even I don't understand, my favourite fish and a double figure fish would be amazing. I think the blame lies largely with the impressionable age I was at when the angling press were reporting the bream catches of the likes of Alan Wilson, Phil Smith, Tony Miles, etc. Stunning bream of thirteen, fourteen and fifteen pounds featured on the front page most weeks, fish from legendary waters such as Queensford Lagoon and tc pit. One particularly iconic picture of Smith behind a bag of four bream each over eleven pounds still sticks in my mind today.

Over the years I have of course fished waters which hold bream of the target weight and above, Napton Reservoir, Coombe Abbey Lake, Ryton Pool, Jubilee Pools, Overstone Solarium to name a few, but really big bream are scarce in each case. In order to get after a real whopper I will probably have to extend my search area, this is one place I've got my eye on http://www.bluebell-lakes.co.uk/ and may try to take out a 24hr ticket at some point this season. It strikes me also as a good place for a get together later in the season, a Bloggers Beano if you like!

Heroes and Villains

2010-03-19T10:14:00.018Z

I once saw a particularly self congratulatory interview with Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys in which he claimed that his band had been involved in a tit for tat exchange of genius song writing between themselves and The Beatles. Wilson claimed that each time Lennon and McCartney would write a number one hit he and Mike Wood would immediately pen a better one.
Self praise of the highest order I'm sure you'll agree.

While it is obviously the case that The Beach Boys were a successful band in the mould of a barber's shop quartet, pretenders to the crown of the Beatles both in terms of creativity and charisma they were not.

In much the same way the traditional, mixed, fisheries of old remain superior (to my mind at least) to the modern carp biased, manufactured fisheries which have sprung up over the last twenty years or so. No matter how these places are marketed or what the modern fishery manager may say, nothing will replace the watercraft and skills needed to catch well on a natural water or, for that matter, the sense of achievement when a decent catch is compiled.

Blank sessions are and always have been part and parcel of the anglers lot and lessons are learnt by enduring them, struggling to avoid a blank or dry net as it used to be called makes the fisherman experiment and therefore learn. I've recently heard matchmen complain bitterly of only weighing in 30lb from the commercials in their latest contest, well they should try a natural venue on a hard day when a bite is seen as a minor success.

I believe that young anglers are affected most by the commercial fishery phenomenon, when, in the past youngsters would hone their skills on the local canal catching roach and perch the modern trend is to roll up at the nearest hole in the ground and pull out hand reared stockie carp all day.

Traditionally stillwater lakes support a natural fish population of 300 to 400lb an acre, modern commercial fisheries tend to be stocked at 1000lb to 1500lb an acre an unsustainable head of fish for the environment and as a consequence they are reliant on anglers bait to survive. Not surprising then that they are easily caught and that match catches are often over 200lb.

Although I'm not against well managed commercial fisheries and will gladly fish them, particularly during the hard parts of the year, I think they have questions to answer mostly regarding young anglers drifting away from the sport having found it too easy!

50lb of bream or tench or a big wild fish from a traditional fishery is a real achievement and should serve as a shining example as to what can be done having served an angling apprenticeship and worked hard to perfect watercraft and technique.

The fisheries of old, those with a natural level of wild stock, should be regarded as The Beatles, the wannabe commercials with their flash match weights represent The Beachboys and the mud puddle, hole in the ground fisheries with their stunted, hand size, mirror carp are like.... Oh I don't know....The Monkees ???

What have the Romans ever done for us?

2010-03-14T12:45:00.029Z

When the Roman Empire and Europe converted to Christianity during the Roman occupation of the Britain (312AD) traditional pagan celebrations of motherhood along with the Roman's own Hilaria festival, which celebrated the Mother Goddess Cybele, became part of the liturgical calandar as Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent to honour the Virgin Mary and Mother Church.

By the sixteenth century anyone who visited their mother church on Laetare Sunday was said to have gone "a-mothering" and this is the likely forbear of the term Mothering Sunday. Later still Mothering Sunday was a day when domestic servants were given the day off to visit their parents.

During the 1920s the tradition of Mothering Sunday had lapsed both here and throughout Europe but was revived during World War 2 by American and Canadian servicemen who celebrated Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. Mother's Day here reverted to the traditional fourth Sunday in Lent and was celebrated with renewed vigour.

As a direct result of all this, instead of enjoying the early Spring sunshine on the banks of the Warwickshire Avon, I was at home spending the day with my family on the final Sunday of the river season.

As is often the case conditions came right just in time for the season's climax with just a shower or two of rain during the week and a couple of warmer nights leading into the weekend. I expect to hear shortly, through the angling press and the blog's of others, of bumper catches from the rivers over the past weekend.

I propose that in future we move Mother's Day celebrations to the second Sunday in May in order to fall into line with the USA (and let's face it we always do!).
Fathers Day (Brainchild of Sonora Smart Dodd in 1910), on the other hand, is a marvellous tradition and takes place on June 20th.

The Sun is in the Sky, Oh Why Oh Why Would I Wanna be Anywhere Else?

2010-03-01T13:59:00.015Z

At long last I have been able to say good morning to people with some real conviction, the awful Winter we have all endured seemingly loosening its icy grip, flowering bluebells and snowdrops adorn the countryside with the Daffodils sure to follow suit soon and the earliest lambs are in the fields. While it may be premature to suggest that Spring has sprung it is certainly in the process of springing.

Fields of white greeted me when I drew back the curtains on Sunday morning, a real disappointment given that we had dodged a frost the previous night, and hopes of giant barbel evaporated immediately while the likelihood of catching anything seemed slim.

Phil picked me up at noon and pointed his van in the direction of the river Avon where we knew Denny was already fishing. On arrival Phil set up at the weir to fish meat and lobworms some thirty yards above Denny who had two meat rods, below him I was tackling up to fish a float with maggots on the big deep bend.

Overnight temperatures of a reported minus six meant for little initial action, Denny moved into the weir peg, Phil moved downstream to fish a long shallow glide and I put my float rod aside in order to fish a feeder in the nearside slack water.

At almost exactly 3pm (with the day at it's warmest) it was as if someone had thrown a switch, having missed a good pull the cast before I suddenly found myself attached to a deep bodied chub which fought well having got into the fast water before succumbing to the net. At more or less the same time Phil was landing a chub of about a pound and Denny missed a wrap round on meat.

From this point on I was getting a bite of some sort on each cast and was fishing three maggots on the hook in an attempt to sort out the bigger fish, soon I was into another hard fighting fish which, happily, turned out to be a perch. It has been too long since I last encountered a decent perch they are extremely handsome fish.

Super Job !

I weighed and photographed the two fish while we still had some sunlight the chub went three and a half and the perch was one and a half, then I got back to the fishing and was soon rewarded with a bream of about two and a half pounds which would have made a nice addition to the photo had it put in an appearance sooner.

As darkness started to descend the off switch was apparently thrown as the bites ceased as suddenly as they had begun and we packed with the air quickly becoming icy cold again. Phil had to make do with the one fish although he did get a few bites late on when changing to maggot and Denny had missed a further two bites on meat.

Footnote: Having finally shown my fishing camera a bit of tlc and treated it to a set of new batteries I am once again able to adorn these pages with a selection of badly taken photographs.

Winter Tench....Hmmmm!

2010-02-24T13:36:00.005Z

Contrary to the writings of Walton, Walker, Venables, et al, on the twenty first of February Phil and I went Tench fishing! Not strictly true of course but given the recent cold conditions and diabolical current state of the rivers we found ourselves at Napton Reservoir.

It is a peculiarity of science that in deep bodies of stillwater the water at the lake bed will maintain a temperature of four degrees Celsius even in the coldest conditions due to the maximum density of water occuring at that temperature, therefore in theory at least the depths of Napton provided us with a fish catching opportunity.

Big roach are present in fair numbers in this water and would be our primary target but we also believed that tench were no forlorn hope having both caught Winter fish at the venue some years ago.

The reservoirs looked overly full, cold, bare and windswept in stark contrast to Mr Crabtree's perfect June morning on the perfect tench lake where pin prick bubbles betrayed the presence of tench and the float would dither before sliding away and where, I seem to remember, poor old Peter got a b*llocking for shuffling his feet (a bit harsh Crabtree, give the boy a break!).

Phil settled in a peg close to the car park to fish his usual two tip rods with feeders and maggot, I was a few yards away and choosing to float fish maggot. Before long it became apparent that I needed to move, fishing a float in twenty feet of water with a thirteen foot rod (I don't own any sliders anymore) and coping with a considerable undertow isn't my idea of a fun day out!

As Phil continued biteless in the big res I had now found a comfortable position half way down the nearside bank of the small res where the depth was more like ten feet and the lake surface was flat calm.

The sun came out and made for a very pleasant afternoon but despite my very restrained (for me) feeding, no bubbles appeared and my float refused to dither even in the slightest and to be honest for all I know it could have been twenty Celsius at the lake bed with the tench doing the lambada around my bait and playing castanets.

My tally for 2010 still stands at an astounding one fish, hurry up Spring!

From Floods to Frosts

2010-02-01T13:59:00.004Z

Crossing the, now passable, field leading to the river with Phil and his mate Denny I was in determined mood, determined, that is, to catch my first fish of 2010 which had eluded me to date. While the others had intentions to target the barbel with meat and boilies and to both fish with two rods each it was my preference to fish for bites with a single rod, small feeder and maggots.

As Phil and Denny made their way to the weir at the upstream limit of the stretch I settled into a peg on a large bend where I knew there would be some deep, slack water on the inside. In the Summer months this area is alive with small fish and although fishing would be far from easy given that the previous couple of nights hard frosts it was clear to me that this spot represented my best chance of some sport.

Although very cold the river's level and colour looked to be spot on and I was soon comfortable behind a feeder rod fishing a small drennan feeder with a size 18 hook and double maggot. My line of attack was to fish the slack water on the edge of the crease adjoining the main flow where I imagined the fish to be, due to conditions I was sparing with my feeding.

On my third cast I missed a bite and next cast caught a dace of about three ounces or so, after this bites became few and far between and only resulted in one more hooked fish which shed the hook after a few seconds, hopefully a smallish chub and not a big roach!

By 4pm I couldn't get a bite at all and it had already become very cold, Phil and Denny were biteless having persevered with big baits and we were all feeling quite defeated and ready for home.

It's proving to be a difficult Winter but at least I've finally caught one!

First....Find Your River

2010-01-25T18:40:00.011Z

It was obvious, when we caught sight of the river as we crossed Ryton Bridge, that Phil and I had made a massive miscalculation when we arranged our latest trip for Sunday. The theory was that Fridays downpour would by then be ebbing it's way out of the river therefore leaving us with the ideal fishing conditions of mild air temperature and a river tinged with colour and fining down nicely.

The chocolate brown raging torrent of water passing under the bridge at Ryton told a far different story and, having seen it with your own eyes, the sensible angler would either head for home or divert to calmer waters. However, there was a plan to fish the river in place and, after all, Phil had already cut his luncheon meat up into little cubes so it would be a shame to disappoint him!

On arrival at Phil's favourite stretch of river things were looking every bit as bad as we'd feared, the water was tanking through under the road bridge and was decidedly oxtail soupy in appearance.

The usual access to the river involves a short walk along a footpath then over a stile and you are at the waterside, not today though, the gate and stile were waist deep in river water.

Undeterred we followed an alternative footpath which involved a stamina sapping slog up an extremely muddy hill heading away from the river, next we turned parallel to the river and skirted along the top of some dense woodland which afforded us the occasional fleeting glimpse of the raging river and surrounding flooded fields below.

A makeshift path eventually allowed us an uneasy descent through the woods and onto the saturated fields below, the next obstacle now became apparent.

A small stream, little more than a ditch in Summertime, runs parallel to the river and we could now see it flowing determinedly through the standing water that was all around, we needed to be on the other side of it somehow.

Phil has a direct approach to these situations and, while I was searching for a likely crossing place I caught sight of him using a bankstick as an improvised wading staff as he moved confidently towards the stream, now, ten out of ten for effort but the water was already slopping around perilously close to the tops of his boots and you could see it coming long before it actually happened. He stepped over the edge of the flowing water and Whoomph down he went, almost falling headfirst, arms windmilling the best they could carrying his rods and tackle, he just managed to stay upright and wade hurriedly ashore soaked to the waist, fantastic stuff and well worth the walk!

I soon exhausted other avenues of attack and resigned myself to a crossing in a similar area to Phil, I took off my thermal boots and suit and made it across in a somewhat cagey manner.

Joining Phil on what is usually a high bank above the weir pool I got my first proper look at the water and things were bad, the only saving grace being that the main flow of water cascading over the weir was being pushed along the far bank and volumes were such that a huge back eddy was being created on our bank, therefore offering some hope on a truly dire day.

I changed back into my boots and suit and tackled up accordingly.

The longer a session goes on without a bite, especially in conditions like this, the more your confidence drains away and so it was on this occasion, we tried hard and we stuck it out until twilight and Phil, to his credit, did catch a bullhead on maggot which was a momentous achievement under the circumstances but our attempts were pretty much doomed to failure from the start.

The only instance where we have fished in worse conditions was some years ago on the Trent at Thrumpton, the river was rising at a frightening pace all day with pallets, trees, dead animals and even, believe it or not, a chicken house passing by.

We made our way home in much the same way as we had arrived, with a Parachute Regiment style yomp across field and stream.

Fresh air, exercise, the roar of a flooded river....Can't beat it can you!

Brand New Year, Same Old Story.

2010-01-06T13:53:00.004Z

With the Daily Mail announcing a mini Ice Age this morning in their own inimitable style it seems as good a time as any to post the story of my latest trip.
The 2nd of January, a dusting of snow on the ground and thoroughly Christmassed up to the eyeballs it was a relief to arrange a short trip to our old stomping ground on the river Leam at Hunningham with Phil.

Common sense should probably have prevailed but to be honest I haven't fished for ages and was keen to get out, a bit of cold weather wasn't going to stop me and Phil, well Phil's as daft as I am!

The river itself was more or less at normal Winter levels, very cold and the colour of tea; not ideal in my view especially with the likelihood of road salt, snow water and God knows what else running through but hey ho, fishing is fishing!

During our school years most Sundays from November to March were spent on this particular stretch and it is fair to say we knew it like the backs of our hands but how it's changed since then. Flood management by Severn Trent Water during the eighties meant that the Leam was kept free of obstructions, I remember in particular the ruthless pollarding programme which left the Willows at Offchurch little more than lifeless stumps and in the Hunningham area the banks were dug back with the use of a JCB into miles of steep, slippery bare earth, Fishery Management at its worst! Gladly it seems that the waterway hasn't been touched since and far from the relatively featureless stretch we fished as kids it has become a wilderness of fallen trees and rafts of debris with a likely fish holding feature in every swim.

Phil has stayed in touch with the fishing here by making an annual pilgrimage each Winter and he told me to forget about the big roach and sizable chub of old as the stretch now has a good head of small chub. The plan that had emerged during our earlier telephone conversation was to target chub with bread but to also have a dabble with lobworms to try for a big perch or two (they must be there somewhere), this plan was scuppered somewhat when Lanes didn't have any Lobs and we found ourselves sharing a tub of very sorry looking red worms produced by someone called Mr Worms (I suspect that's not his real name).

As things turned out the fishing was pretty much as dire as the weather, my main mistake was not listening to Phil's advice, I largely ignored the feature filled pegs and made a beeline for a long straight at the furthest end of the stretch, a straight of some three hundred yards in length with even flow and depth which comes off a sharp bend in the river, a straight which screams roach and, indeed, when I knew the river they were here in numbers and ranged from eight ounces to two pounds in weight but alas, as Phil had already warned, there were none to be found on this occasion.

While I stuck it out for my roach Phil was busy trying different swims (as I should have done) and was rewarded for his efforts with a solitary one pound chub.

Despite the disappointing result it was good to revisit the scene of so many good days, it was here I caught my first chub over three pounds and my first two pound roach, I even had a five pound bream on the last day of the season once and it was here we amused ourselves by building a fantastic snow man on a particularly slow Winters day, here where Phil was forced to swim to the bottom of the deepest hole to retrieve his umbrella on a windy March evening (how I laughed) and here where we were forced to smash holes in ice three inches thick in order to fish on what I would call a proper Winters day, probably during the last Ice Age.

Lobworms....How Do You Store Yours?

2009-11-16T12:58:00.007Z

The subject of bait preparation and storage is always a hot topic of conversation amongst anglers, maggots, casters, bread, worms, pellets or whatever, we all have our own tried and trusted methods and secrets.

Lobworms are a favourite bait of mine and have caught me some great fish over the years, they are a superb big fish bait and one which rarely attracts the attention of small fish (with the exception of perch), they are an easy bait to use and relatively easy to obtain (except in my garden which seems to be devoid of them!). The big question is how does the angler store them in tip top condition?

Collecting worms is almost a sport in it's own right and something I may write about another time, suffice to say that it's good fun and I'd recommend it to anyone! When I had more time for such things than I have now I would spend hours collecting worms and when I had a sufficient amount I would fill a large rubble bag with soil to within four inches of the top, deposit the worms into it and lean it up against the back of our shed with the top open. This would provide me with enough worms to last me for a whole Winter's chub, roach and perch fishing on the river Leam. This simple arrangement served me well for some years and my supply of lobs never appeared to be any worse off for the experience.

Nowadays I use worms less frequently and therefore source them according to my needs, storage is now restricted to the confines of a bait box and my preference is to keep them in soil.
Now, here's the thing....My belief is that storage in soil allows the worms to continue ingesting soil and therefore continue to eat and as a consequence remain in the best condition possible. In fact by changing the soil I have kept worms for two or three weeks in a bait box.

Why then is there such a difference of opinion in the best medium for earthworm storage? Damp shredded newspaper is a popular one but other's swear by peat or even grass cuttings. When we were teenagers my mate Phil was told by his Dad (an angler of many years experience) to use moss for keeping his worms in, as a result Phil uses moss exclusively. And that brings me to this....

Last night I was reading a book called 'Perch: How to Catch Them' written in 1954 by Kenneth Mansfield and I came across the following passage....

"Scouring: Lobworms and Redworms can be improved by scouring for several days before use. They are placed in any suitable wooden or pottery container. The moss should be damp (but not sodden) and the containers should be inverted once a day so that the worms can work through the moss."

In 1613 John Dennys wrote this....

"The Pearch, the Tench, and Eele, doe rather bite at great red wormes, in Field or Garden bred, that have been scowred in mosse or Fennell rough, to rid their filth, and make them hard and tough."

It appears Mr Dennys, Mr Mansfield and Phil's Dad know something I don't!

Overkill !

2009-11-06T17:34:00.003Z

Having touched on the subject of feeding in my previous post and how easy it is to keep the bites coming when you are catching fish, I must now report on how easy it is to get it wrong when bites are hard to come by.

Once again we were fishing at Stockton Reservoir this time occupying pegs at the far end of the lake in the mid 30's, bait was maggot and our target species was roach. As before Dad and I both fished wagglers at medium range and set off reasonably well catching some nice little roach up to about six ounces.

Within half an hour of starting the day turned noticeably cooler as the cold wind increased and our catch rate began to fall accordingly and that's where it all went wrong. Not being blessed with great patience, my in-built lets make something happen alarm sounded and rather than cut back on the feed, like a normal person would do, I upped my feed rate to a good pouchful of maggots each cast. Needless to say that was that, I limped to the end of the session picking up the occasional small roach.

Another valuable lesson learnt (until the next time !)

A Revised Approach.

2009-10-30T18:08:00.003Z

Compromise is difficult to achieve successfully in the world of angling, it usually involves fishing with heavier or lighter tackle than you would prefer and can therefore result in either less bites or lost fish.

We targeted the roach on our previous visit to Stockton Reservoir and fished accordingly with float tackle and light line and maggots as bait, we were kept busy with each cast getting us a bite of some sort and we caught plenty of our target species at an average weight of around four ounces. The problem, we discovered, was that the numerous resident carp have a taste for maggots too and we hooked and lost three, leaving hooks in fish, albeit barbless hooks which are easily shed, is something we all strive to avoid and therefore we needed to reconsider our approach.

This time we opted to fish open water rather than anywhere near the islands thus giving any carp we might hook effectively nowhere to go, the main dangers being the nearside vegetation and other anglers tackle should the fish run straight down the bank. Our other change was to use stepped up reel line and hooklengths although we considered it necessary to continue with the size 18 and 20 hooks which we had used previously.

The fishing, as before, was brisk with a fair stamp of roach biting from the off and a bite virtually guaranteed on each cast. Keeping them coming in such circumstances is simple, by feeding a small pouchfull of maggots or, in this case, pinkies after each fish caught you can keep a shoal of small fish feeding for hours. As on our last visit the fish seemed to prefer a single yellow maggot on the hook while double or red maggot would produce either a slower response from the roach or a tiny perch.

Late in the session I landed a tench of about a pound and a half and then Dad hooked a carp which put his beefed up gear to the test with a series of powerful runs, the tackle held up well and he soon had a mirror of about six pounds in the net.

The compromise had paid off as we had caught numerous roach once again but retained the necessary power to tame the bigger fish too, a good days fishing all round then !

A Bite a Cast !

2009-10-16T10:28:00.010+01:00

A long time ago, in the days when Great Britain still had a car manufacturing industry, footballers wore black boots and if you wanted to see a Tattooed Lady you had to visit the Circus, the lake known simply as the Blue Lias was legendary amongst my school mates and I.

It was rumoured that one hundred pound catches of tench were common place from the syndicate water and this at a time when such catches were almost unheard of in England in fact many anglers would make the pilgrimage to the largely untapped waterways of Ireland in search of the elusive 'ton'.

Nowadays, in the hands of British Waterways, Stockton Reservoir is a successful commercial fishery or baggin' water I believe they are sometimes called (for the younger anglers wot go fishin') heavily stocked with a variety of species with an emphasis on carp.

The perfect venue for a couple of knock about anglers with some old bait to use up in fact....

It was the first time I had ever seen the lake and it looks good with reed fringed margins, islands and other features to be explored, a wooden walkway has been constructed along one bank and each peg boasts a well constructed wooden platform each of which feature metal clamps for banksticks and a central hole for your umbrella, a nice touch.

We opted to fish at the car park end of the lake in an area sheltered from the wind and which allowed us to fish in a channel between one of the islands and the bank. Conditions suited a floatfishing approach and for bait we had maggots and pinkies left over from our canal trip last week. Dad and I both targeted an area halfway to the island looking to catch silver fish on single and double maggot.

It wasn't long before we were catching roach to about six ounces and some small perch, these came in a steady stream keeping us busy throughout the afternoon. I hooked a good carp at one point but found myself seriously out gunned and Dad was broken twice by carp too. In the last hour I stepped up my tackle and increased my feed rate determined to catch a carp but could only muster a small common of three quarters of a pound.

I like to try different fisheries every now and again, I enjoy the learning process, and my first impressions of Stockton Reservoir are that it's certainly worth another visit, there are a variety of species to be caught including crucian carp, rudd and chub and the carp are plentiful although there are no monsters to be caught.

Too Many Boats, Not Enough Bites

2009-10-09T14:23:00.000+01:00

Canal fishing brings back alot of childhood memories for me, I remember on one icy winters morning being overjoyed to catch a single tiny perch from the stretch by Tusses bridge, one of the very first fish I ever caught, I also remember a match on the Ashby Canal when my Dad was the clear winner with a bag of tench, the rest of us returning modest catches of small roach.
As we grew up Phil and I caught lots of fish from the canal, his Mum and Dad owned a narrow boat and we had access to a dead arm where we could catch roach to a pound and a half, bream and some good sized perch with relative ease. Occasionally we would take the boat out for a few days, fishing whenever we stopped, wherever we moored for the night there was fish to be caught, the numerous ruffe, gudgeon and perch were always obliging and there were shoals of quality roach in every stretch.
I remember a day when Phil and I caught roach after roach, fin perfect and all between 6oz and a pound, wonderful fishing.
The cut saved the day many a time when the going was hard at Napton Reservoir and on one memorable occasion Phil landed a 4lb tench which he foul hooked in the tail with a size 24 hook.

Dad and I had decided to have a bash at the Grand Union Canal on Thursday, fishing near the Boat Inn. The weather was lovely as forcast and the surroundings were very pleasant too, I looked forward to catching a nice mixed bag of fish.

For October the boat traffic was horrendous, in between the boats the pull from the locks made presentation tricky but it wasn't too long before each of us caught a small skimmer bream then Dad caught two more and I had a reasonable roach slip the hook.

And that was that, the steady stream of boats kept up, the sun continued to shine and no more bites were to be had. Where were those obliging ruffe, the gudgeon and the small perch ?

Of course we'd heard the rumours before we decided on fishing the cut, the rumours of a wasteland, a zander ridden, silver fish devoid canal network. While it would be extremely harsh to dismiss canal fishing as useless on the basis of one short trip, there really didn't seem to be many fish where we fished on Thursday.
One cheerful boater told us we were the only anglers they had seen in a weeks cruising !

If it is the case (and I'm not saying that it is neccesarily the case) that the ruthless zander has decimated the canals it's a great shame as there was previously some great fishing to be had, although I realise that canal fishing in general was already in steep decline with the advent of the boom in commercial fisheries it is probably fair to say that this has bailed the Environment Agency out to some degree with regard the zander issue.

Nature, over a period of time, creates a balance and so it will in the canal system, although it is likely we will never see matches won with 6 and 8lb of gudgeon again it could well be the case that our canals are the specimen roach, bream and perch fisheries of the future.

Oi Oi, Whiskers Ahoy !!!

2009-10-05T09:04:00.000+01:00

Phil rang me in the week to invite me to join him on the river on Sunday, he has been catching a barbel on each visit recently with fish running to eight and a half pounds.

The stretch that Phil fishes hasn't been a happy hunting ground for me and with Sky showing a double header of Arsenal vs Blackburn and Chelsea vs Liverpool it was a tough call but what the hell, I could do with the fresh air and the weather forecast wasn't too bad.

Phil arrived to pick me up at 1pm on a bright and fresh afternoon and, van loaded, we set off. On arrival at the water we headed straight for the weir which is one of the main features of a relatively short stretch of river and the area where Phil has been most successful recently.

Phil took the swim closest to the weir and I took up a position just a few yards below him where I could fish the oxygenated water at the tail of the weir pool, tackle choice was very much the same with both of us choosing powerful tip rods matched with 8lb line, the lightest lead we could get away with and size eight hooks. We were both using luncheon meat with Phil fishing his direct on the hook while I opted to fish mine on a hair.

With the water being low and clear and the nights much cooler I took the view that small pieces of meat should be the order of the day and, just to be different, I chopped them into irregular shapes.

On my second cast I had a twitchy kind of a bite which was un-strikable and appeared to be the result of one of the smaller fish attacking the bait but at least it meant there was fish in the swim.

Some five minutes or so after making my third cast the tip trembled again focusing my attention and seconds later wrenched round and I was into a fish which set off like a rocket in the rushing water, the runs were short yet very powerful and it was quite some time before we got a brief glimpse of the fish, a good barbel, we guessed it would go about 7lb.

After another bout of fighting the fish was subdued and as he appeared from the depths and slid towards the waiting net, it was enormous. We had been way off with our initial guess !

Simply perfect and shimmering in the afternoon sun a beast of a fish lay in the net before us, just what have I been missing all these years !

Phil performed the weighing ceremony due to my rather shaky condition and ....... 10lb 8oz ..... Fantastic !

After a quick photo the fish was returned, I held it for a while in the shallow water to allow it to recover and then with a mighty swish of the tail it disapeared into the darkness of the weir pool.

We moved shortly after as in Phils experience we wouldn't get another fish from there, I allowed myself a lovely relaxing time lying back in my chair enjoying the Autumn sunshine, watching a Kingfisher flying to and fro along the opposite bank and reflecting on my latest personal best.

We fished until dark and I did have another fish, a pristine 2lb chub but somehow it didn't really compare !

Lets face it you can watch football anytime but you might only catch one 10lb barbel.

.....One More Time !

2009-10-02T13:28:00.001+01:00

Now we are into Autumn my Dad and I have been considering our options with regards venues for our next few sessions, at the moment a canal campaign looks favourite, but yesterday we decided to have one more bash at Jubilee and it's carp.

Again we were to take the gamble of relying on sweetcorn as bait with a single tin of luncheon meat as back up, we settled in familiar swims at the far end of the bottom lake and used straight lead tactics. With the weather being slightly warmer than last time out we both felt quietly confident of nabbing a carp or two and sure enough my first cast resulted in a fierce bite which in turn resulted in a twelve pound mirror carp on the bank after a powerful fight.

Two casts later I was in again after a similarly ferocious take but this time the fish sulked heavily near the bottom making slow and determined runs up and down parallel to the bank about twenty feet out. After a good five minutes the fish continued one of it's powerful runs into the lily bed to my right and everything went solid.

The only real option in these situations is to slacken off and wait in the hope that the fish will swim out again, doing this is surprisingly effective. Some minutes later the line floating on the surface began to move very slightly and, showing great impatience, I tightened up again. It seemed that the fish had moved up in the water as the resistance posed by the vegetation caused me few worries as I towed the carp through. Suddenly the fight resumed in open water and the fish slowly chugged out towards the centre of the lake taking line at will.

It was some time again before I felt that I was winning the fight, with the fish about ten feet from the bank and now doing it's fighting in the surface layers I finally saw it, a big mirror maybe twenty pounds in weight. Then disaster struck just as I was about to pick up the landing net the hook pulled out the end tackle flew into the air and I swore, swearing helps I find.

Meanwhile dad hadn't had any joy at all, not even a line bite and now my swim was seriously disturbed so to cut a long story short we struggled badly from there on in, the only other action came when a kamikaze 2lb hybrid hit my sweetcorn at a hundred miles an hour before going completely loopy during a short scrap to the net.

I'm looking forward to next Summer already !

The Gargantuans

2009-09-28T17:02:00.000+01:00

Although my own list of personal best captures makes for modest reading to say the least, for instance I'm yet to catch a sizable barbel, a bream over 7lb, a tench much over 6lb or a chub over 4 and a half and have only recently achieved the milestone of catching a 20lb carp.

That's not to say that I haven't encountered some leviathans along the way, because I have.....

Picture a bright sunny Summer afternoon at Napton Reservoir, sometime in the 1980's, it was blazing hot (as hot as a chip I like to say), so hot that few anglers were fishing, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the only sound was the faint background hum only experienced in high summer at the waters edge.

Phil and I had gone along to the reservoir for a walk round taking a bag of bread with us in the hope of feeding some carp, glare on the surface prevented us from seeing very much at all as we walked along the causeway bank but as we approached the far end of the lake we could see fish moving on the surface in the furthest corner of, what was, the small reservoir.

We had soon walked the length of the canal bank and the culprits were revealed as we turned the corner onto the far bank, carp, six or seven fish to about mid teens in weight, big fish for the 80's were cruising on the surface along the avenues formed by the abundant weed in the area so we proceeded to bung out bread in their general direction.

Naturally the carp had seen it all before and continued to bask in the sun as before ignoring all our offerings with casual disdain.

I moved on and left Phil to it, I had probably walked about thirty yards before I saw it....

Just a couple of feet from the stones of the bank, in crystal clear water and in a small area free of weed was a colossal tench, the like of which I had never seen. Dark in colour, motionless and huge it literally took my breath away.

Eventually I managed to shout Phil but as he approached it slunk away into the weed never to be seen again. He wouldn't, and I couldn't blame him, accept my estimate of 14lb, but I swear it was, even if I was to concede a couple of pounds a twelve pound tench was front page stuff back then.

Breakages amongst tench anglers at Napton were common in those days and carp anglers were pretty thin on the ground, who knows what monsters could have been lost !

When working on a trout farm in Hampshire the water source was the fly anglers Mecca the River Test, a beautiful crystal clear chalk stream. The fish farm offices were located in an old water mill and upstream of the mill was situated a relatively large pool incorporating hatches to allow control of water levels and control of water being allowed to pass through the mill.

Each and every winter for the entire seventeen years I worked there, at some point in October or early November a shoal of about forty roach would appear in the pool and there they would stay until early spring when they would migrate upstream, the following Winter they would be back without fail.

Fish in this shoal were from about 8oz up to, I kid you not, an estimated 3lb+, one fish in particular could well have made three and a half pounds. Incredible I know !

Did we fish for them? You bet !

In clear conditions, you wouldn't get a touch. If you were lucky you would catch one of the big grayling or dace but the roach, which were as wild as can be, were way too canny.
However, in coloured conditions when the river was fining down after a flood we did catch a few, my mate Tony and I both caught fish to two and a quarter pounds on bread but never the bigger ones unfortunately.

Coarse fishing on the Test is tricky but the fish are huge, dace average about three quarters of a pound, grayling to well over 3lb, big pike and potential for truly enormous roach and perch. If the chance ever comes your way give it a go !

When conditions were right we ran the big eel trap which was an integral part of the mill and we would sometimes accumulate huge hauls to sell on to dealers, these fish would usually be from 6oz to 1lb but when eels became trapped inside the maze of the fish farm where escape was impossible they grew big on an abundance of dead trout.

The basic layout of the fish farm consisted of a nursery unit where the fish were fed up to the fingerling stage before being transferred to the main farm consisting of 25 large circular tanks some 25 feet diameter by about 6 feet deep, these emptied into enormous ponds around the outside of the farm by means of a bung in the centre of the tank, the final stage of production took place in the big ponds where the trout were grown on to marketable size.

Catching the resident eels relied on one of the circular tanks sitting empty for a few days. With no water passing through the underground pipe leading to the big pond the eels would take refuge in the pipe in their hundreds. It was then simply a case of re-fitting the bung, filling the tank and flushing the eels, by removal of the bung, into a keepnet braced over the pipe's exit by two burly fish farmers.

On the occasion in question we flushed a tank which had been empty for several weeks, as one of the men bracing the net I could tell it was an exceptional haul.
Once on the bank the first thing that was obvious was that we had a lot of eels to deal with, mainly in the 3lb class which was about usual, then, almost as one, we clapped eyes on the closest thing I have ever seen to a genuine fresh water monster.

Dark grey, almost black in colour with wrinkled and leathery skin, broad snouted with eyes white with cataracts the eel was a gargantuan. Not as long as I might have expected but in putting your hands around the middle of the fish your fingers would barely touch.
At eight and a half pounds it was a rare sight indeed and too old and noble a fish to appear smoked on a dinner plate in Europe, it was granted it's freedom.

Cold on Jubilee

2009-09-18T11:48:00.000+01:00

It seems I've reached that time in my life when you are inclined to put comfort and practicality ahead of brands and appearance when choosing clothing, as a result I have recently been mulling over the options available when it comes to fishing hats. A wide brimmed olive green jobby caught my eye, ideal for those long Summer evenings but after yesterday I might well go for a bloody great fur lined thing with ear flaps and a chin strap.

Due to very few pegs being available at the far end of the bottom lake at Jubilee, where we usually fish, we settled on a couple of pegs in the vicinity of the old (sheep?) shed. There was a reasonable amount of fish activity on the surface which lulled us into believing we would catch a few.

It took a Herculean effort just to get a bankstick into the gravelly lake bed, I was having trouble getting comfortable and arranging tackle to hand and I was beginning to have doubts about a sunken tree to my right which would undoubtedly cause me serious problems should I hook a big fish, suffice to say I wasn't completely happy !
Having looked at some other pegs with a view to moving I finally decided on staying put and grin and bear it.

We had, as it turned out, made a considerable error in only taking sweetcorn as bait as we couldn't buy a bite between us. To add to our problems the cold, facing wind was growing stronger by the minute making things ever more uncomfortable, the top of my head has far less hair on it than it had a few years ago and I was getting cold. In the depths of my seat box I found an old Skretting cap that has been festering in there for years and even in my current predicament I wasn't about to put it on my head !

Eventually a bite materialised and it was dad who got it, fate of course dictated that we were to catch nothing on this outing and having felt the weight of a good fish briefly it was bumped off.
Cold and somewhat disheartened we left soon afterwards not really knowing where we went wrong. As I think I have mentioned before not catching much, or anything at all, is part and parcel of an anglers lot but catching nothing while learning nothing is hard to take, and so it was on this occasion, I learned absolutely nothing....except that I really need to buy a hat !

Hooks, Lines & Sinkers (part 3)

2009-09-05T10:55:00.000+01:00

In the old days I used to carry a wide variety of ledger weights and feeders, everyone did. Drilled bullets, coffin leads, watch leads, strips of lead, lead wire, those enormous clear plastic block end feeders that were the norm on the Trent and Severn in those days, I had them all.

Nowadays things are different, more refined I'd like to think, lead has long gone, I only carry arlesley bombs and swim feeders are generally smaller and better designed.

My bombs range from an eighth of an ounce to two ounces which covers pretty much every eventuality I also carry a couple of flat camoflaged bombs for clear water river fishing, a variety of open end feeders in various colours and sizes and a couple of cage feeders, my block end or maggot feeders are mostly quite small, I still use drennan feeder links sometimes ( the green ones that used to come with 2 swan shot as weights ), others include the very tidy Kamasan black caps (with power gum to keep the lid tight) and the smoky coloured ones by Drennan with a flattened profile.
I also have a small selection of method feeders should I ever get round to using them.

Other associated items include swivels of various makes and sizes, ledger stops, ledger beads, hard plastic beads and rubber beads.

Two Bomb Strategy

2009-09-05T08:51:00.000+01:00

Finally commitments and weather allowed us to have another bash at Jubilee yesterday.

As seems to be the way in recent weeks a beautiful morning gave way to a somewhat breezier and overcast afternoon and as we unloaded our tackle as the lakes it was obvious from the waves on the top lake that we would have to seek shelter on the bottom lake.
With very few anglers on the lake we had plenty of choice so we headed for the far end where dad chose to fish the corner peg (furthest peg from the car park) which was probably the most sheltered peg on the lake and I opted for the same peg I fished on our last visit.

I don't really like to return to the same swim time after time particularly on a fishery I'm trying to learn more about but this particular peg fitted the bill for the type of approach I had in mind.
Sitting on the platform there is about 2ft of water at your feet, to your right is a bed of dwarf lillies and to your left is open water, in front the bottom shelves off steeply to a good 15ft.

I tackled up with a Shimano Solstace tip rod and Baitrunner reel, 8lb Maxima and a 6lb bottom, a size 14 hook tied with a knotless knot completed the outfit.
The plan was simple enough, by changing between two different sizes of bomb I would fish at two distances. One swim was at about thirty yards in the deep water and was fed quite heavily with sweetcorn in the hope of attracting some bream, the other swim was close in off the end of the lily bed in shallower water and was fed quite sparingly.

Starting at 30 yards proved a little slow so I gave it another couple of pouches of corn and left it to settle, meanwhile I clipped on the small lead and dropped in on the margin swim.
Shortly the tip went round in a take no prisoners kind of a way and a carp was on, typically the fish initially bolted away from the pressure towards the centre of the lake and was soon under control but then the hook pulled out, great!

Next cast resulted in a tench of about 2lb who failed to bolt for the centre of the lake instead choosing to do his fighting in the centre of the lily bed, great again!
With the tench landed and the near swim disturbed I fed next to the lillies, clipped on the larger bomb and went back out at 30 yards.

After a couple of line bites I had a real one and a decent bream was soon in the net, a pale looking fish of about 4lb, this fish was quickly followed by a three pounder.
Next I was back to the inside swim and I didn't have to wait long before another carp was making his bid for freedom forty yards out, this time the fight went my way without too many concerns and a fish of 10lb+ was on the mat, one of the commons.

Try as I might, after the carp I struggled for bites on both lines and went on to catch just one more tench, dads story was almost the exact opposite.

Dad's swim in the corner of the lake was very calm and sheltered, he had trees extending out into the lake to his right and open water to his left, his set up was very similar to mine and he started by fishing quite close in towards the trees with the option of fishing the open water later on.

While I was catching my fish in the first half of the afternoon dad was sitting biteless, just as the action drew to a close for me dads swim came to life.
Glancing over my shoulder at my fishing position further round the lake I saw dad applying side strain to a good fish so I took a jog round to help with the netting, when I arrived the fish, a double, was close in but fighting well. During a short powerful run from the fish the clutch on the reel seemed to jam resulting in the hooklength breaking near the hook, real bad luck as the fish was very nearly beaten.
Undeterred dad, by now fishing the open water, went on to catch a 3lb bream soon after and then just before we left a common of about 5lb which went some way to making up for the big one he lost.

Hooks, Lines & Sinkers (part 2)

2009-08-27T12:11:00.000+01:00

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 !!!

Hooks, Lines and Sinkers (part 1)

2009-08-24T18:59:00.000+01:00

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 !

No Show Barbel

2009-08-17T16:56:00.000+01:00

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 !

Flat Batteries, Inadequate Scales & The Biggest Fish I've Ever Caught !

2009-08-14T13:22:00.000+01:00

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!!!

Redfin

2009-08-13T12:10:00.000+01:00

Redfin is a brand new forum for Roach anglers, check it out !

Ants !

2009-08-07T08:50:00.000+01:00

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.

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.

Serendipity

2009-07-24T14:51:00.000+01:00

It's a cliche I know but fishing really is about more than just catching fish.
Yesterday we were at Ryton (again) with my new found versatility and open mindedness in place, I had maggots, pellets and sweetcorn as bait and chose to fish a float, a big one as a strong wind was blowing straight up the lake.
It wasn't a red letter day by any means nor was it a day where everything went wrong or a day of annoyances like the tree that just clips your line on every cast or inexplicable un-pickable knots, I had a few bites and I caught a few fish and it was just....well, nice.
Sometimes as a fisherman the feeling comes over you that all is well with the world and you are in your rightful place by the water, it's a feeling that can take you very much by surprise and is a powerful feeling which allows you to forget whatever it is you need to temporarily forget and I like it.
At the beginning of January I gave up smoking, I was quite a heavy smoker for many years, and recent fishing trips have been ok as it goes but marred by the feeling that an important part of the relaxation process was missing, I think it's back, yesterday felt right.
For the record I caught a handful of perch in the 4-6oz class and a tench of between four and five pounds but it hardly seems important, sometimes it's not about how many fish you caught or how big they were or indeed how few you caught, it's just about being there and retreating into your own little world for a few hours.

Slow Going

2009-07-17T14:31:00.000+01:00

One of my many faults as an angler is my inclination to decide on a plan of attack long before arriving at the water, sometimes days before. Another fault is to stubbornly stick to the plan regardless of the fact that it just ain't working.Such was the case yesterday.
When arriving at Ryton there was a slight breeze ruffling the surface of the lake, the day was warm and overcast and things seemed promising. I settled in the big swim on the roadside bank (by the picnic table) and Dad was off to my left, he started with the usual floatfished sweetcorn but my idea was to fish a beefed up straight lead set up with a heavy feeder rod, 8lb mainline and hair-rigged luncheon meat as bait. The idea being that I would ambush feeding fish at various distances right out to the island using a single smelly hookbait.
To cut a long (and not particually interesting) story short, the wind dropped soon after our arrival to leave a flat calm lake and little activity in front of us, in fact I could see where the carp were feeding around the corner of the island where the water was coloured and fizzing with the commotion, Dad managed one tench of four and a half pounds (which looked bigger) and my plan failed dismally with just a couple of line bites for my efforts.

Saving the Day

2009-06-29T15:34:00.001+01:00

I will never get tired of fishing for and catching tench but when Phil called to invite me to fish a tributary of the Warwickshire Avon which he has had permission to fish for a couple of years I jumped at the chance.
I already knew that Phil had caught a barbel of 8lb already this season and that the stretch held fish to around 13lbs but now he warned me that these are not easy fish to catch as they are few in number, despite this when he picked me up at teatime I was keen to get started.
Travelling light is often the order of the day in these small river situations and over the years I have put together more or less the right kit for the job including the lightest adjustable carp chair I could find and a fly fishing waistcoat for all the necessary bits and pieces (ok you look a bit of a prat but I wouldn't be without it!).
Phil headed for a small weir pool where he caught his eight pounder and I settled in downstream and just around the corner from him in steadier water and here we stayed as roving was pretty much ruled out by several anglers fishing on the far bank.
Fishing relatively small lumps of meat, I opted for sensible sized baits due to an influx of rainwater the previous evening, I had to wait long periods between bites and when they came they were indecisive, lame affairs and each time the strike resulted in becoming snagged. I think eels were the culprits.
As darkness began to fall I walked up to see Phil and he'd just netted his only fish a bream of maybe 3lb, so I decided to give it another half an hour. Shortly after returning to my swim I had a more decisive pull on the tip, struck and was solid again, I climbed up the bank to get a better angle and the fish was free and soon to be landed. A chub of possibly 3lb at a push had saved the blank and I was delighted to see him, I packed up very soon after.

Chasing Bubbles

2009-06-26T09:38:00.000+01:00

The last number eight finished its descent and the float cocked fully to become a small black dimple on the mirrored surface, thirty seconds of time passed then deliberately and without warning the black dimple slid beneath the surface. A sweeping strike to the side met heavy resistance and the unseen protagonist charged towards open water and the centre of the lake, the combination of backwinding and a correctly set clutch on the okuma reel dealt comfortably with the runs of the fish while the carbon rod absorbed the sudden lunges close to the net. A good tench rolled on the surface in a last ditch attempt to escape before she slid over the rim of the net.
The fish was well over five pounds and in stark contrast to the good sized tench I caught at Napton Reservoir recently these fish are in pristene condition and would seem to be much younger. So the ideal start to our latest short session, having struggled and caught nothing on my previous visit to Ryton I had now caught a fish within minutes of arriving, everything, for once, was going according to plan. The plan was formed as a result of my last experience when I attempted to build a swim by feeding reguarly with sweetcorn, pellet and groundbait, and it proved a resounding failure with bubbling fish appearing and disappearing at random intervals and not neccesarily over the baited area, my dad had, meanwhile, caught four good tench by loosefeeding corn sparingly. I summised that rather than build a swim it would be more beneficial to feed less and attempt to ambush cruising fish.

So, on arrival at Ryton on a bright and sunny Thursday afternoon my opening gambit was to sprinkle sweetcorn in small quantities at various points around the swim, I plumbed the depth and set the float to the deepest point of the swim. The instant result with the five pound tench was, however, a little misleading with regards the success of my masterplan as the next three hours were a bit of a struggle. Casting around the swim to patches of bubbles eventually resulted in two further fish of around three and four pounds while my dad fishing next door, feeding sparingly and fishing in the one spot caught two tench and a perch.

Tench bubbles surrounding or approaching your float as you bask in idylic surroundings and early morning sunshine represents the perfect early season angling scenario, just ask Mr Crabtree, but in situations when I am seeing lots of bubbles and not getting many bites I always think back to an article I read way back in the 80s. The author of article in question was adamant that these tench bubbles, rather than being a result of the fish feeding, were released when the fish are scared. I'm not convinced either way but it is food for thought.

Memory Lane

2009-06-23T01:28:00.000+01:00

There's nothing I like more than having a good chat with an old friend about days gone by, especially when it comes to fishing. The friend in question was my old school friend and angling partner Phil, we have always stayed in touch despite my 23 year exile in various locations throughout the south of England, I phoned on Sunday for a general chat really but, as it always will, the conversation turned to fish and fishing, and to cut a long story short, we soon found ourselves at Coombe Pool for a little look round.

Built as part of the great Capability Brown's contracted re-landscaping of the Coombe Abbey grounds in 1771 Coombe Pool is the second largest body of water in Warwickshire and was to be a piscatorial Mecca to me throughout my childhood, very few waters in the region at that time had a reputation for either big fish or big weights of fish, Coombe Pool was known for it's big bream and 100lb catches were possible.

It's a good ten or fifteen years since I've been to Coombe and the memories were soon flooding back as we walked through the gates towards the lake. My earliest memories are of travelling by bus with my oldest friend Greg, we would catch the first number 7 of the day from Coundon into Pool Meadow and then catch another bus to take us out to Binley, we then marched (with full sets of tackle) on towards the fishery along Brinklow Road. A fallen tree across the stream behind a peg somewhere in the 80s provided a handy bridge and a useful shortcut to get us onto the water and on we would go to the furthest swims deep in the woods. At the end of the day we would endure the journey in reverse.....all in a days work for keen young anglers of the day, we took the bus everywhere were gone for 12 hours and your mum didn't need to worry. Simple, happy days!
These early expeditions were often fruitless of course as Coombe is no easy water but as time went on and I became more competent I did begin to catch some fish. I had some limited success fishing Courtaulds AS matches with my dad, these were often fished on pegs in the high numbers and would be won with 2 or 3lb of roach or a single bream but they proved valuable in terms of learning to 'scratch' for fish as my dad would put it.
In the mid eighties, now reguarly fishing with Phil, we really got stuck in to Coombe, with the confidence of youth we reckoned ourselves to be good anglers and felt we had earned the right to spend many hours in Fred Blacows shop on Holyhead Road drinking his coffee. We reguarly fished the big 100 peg opens at the water, The Coventry Championships and The Billy Lane Memorial, finding ourselves in a mans world probably for the first time. Enveloped in cigarette smoke in the Coombe Social Club, surrounded by tables of men eating fried breakfasts, some drinking pints (it was 8am) some were eating a breakfast, drinking a pint and smoking all at the same time, some wore match fishing team livery others looked like they hadn't slept, some looked like they would be more at home rustling sheep, some faces I knew, we were rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ivan Marks and Frank Barlow. The atmosphere was electric, these were big events and everyone knew their chances rested mainly on the drawbag, when the draw was announced the chatter would die down and the tension would build, the sheep stealers would wave their arms about excitedly.....
I usually drew a peg in a poor area and was fishing for a section (never won one though) only twice did I have a decent draw, peg 8 in the woods I lost a bream early on and then got battered by a Nottingham angler on peg 7 who went on to be second in the match "Oooo I've got another one Duck" he would say as he leant into another four pounder "Well done" I would say through clenched teeth as I watched my motionless tip. In 1987 I got a plum draw in the Cov Championships, 36 on the Lindley bank but the lake was fishing poorly, I was third in the match with 14lb 8oz of skimmers caught mainly on the float, probably the pinnacle of my match fishing career.
Phil and I had many good days at Coombe, memorably we hammered a shoal of very big fish from pegs one and two one day catching bream to around 7lb with not a single fish under 4lb, Phil had a good bag of tench from the big weedbed once too, I still don't know how!

Walking around the lake on at the weekend I had mixed feelings, the first Sunday of the season used to be a full house at one time but I counted just eleven anglers on the public bank on Sunday and many of the pegs on what they call the dam wall weren't sufficiently cleared of lilies to be fishable, I must admit it saddens me a bit to think that a fishery I consider to be one of 'my' waters may become a forgotten lake and it may not be getting the tlc it deserves. On a brighter note the angler on peg 16 in the woods was bagging up with some very healthy looking bream so that's good.
Maybe memories are best left as just that but then again I might just break out the tip rod.

Grand Old Lady of Napton

2009-06-12T13:49:00.000+01:00

Broken sunshine and a cooling breeze are, for me, ideal fishing conditions, therefore when Thursdays heavy shower subsided and dad and I rolled up at Napton at about 3pm things looked promising, few other anglers were present so this time we were able to fish from the causeway into the big resevoir.
To save some time we opted not to visit the tackle shop and to rely purely on sweetcorn as hookbait with a few slices of bread as a change bait, tackle was straightforward enough too, floatfishing with 4lb mainline, 3lb bottom and a size 16 barbless hook.
Fishing about two rodlengths out we both had indications from the off in the form of fast sailaway bites which left us striking at thin air, continuous tackle refinements were required throughout the session in order to contact the fish, changing depth, moving the tell-tale shot, switching between double and single corn. Everytime I felt I had cracked it I was soon back to missing the unmissable bites, however I was catching, albeit spasmodically, and I was catching some big and hard fighting tench mostly of three pounds and above (not the 2lb stamp which seem to be the norm at Napton nowadays).
Dad fished only about twenty feet away along the stones but his swim was markedly less active, although he'd caught one tench of about two pounds it seemed his hard to hit bites were courtesy of roach and he proceeded to catch a couple which were both around the pound mark, he also had a six ounce perch, going to prove that Napton isn't just about the tench (An angler who packed up shortly after we arrived had a couple of the magnificent Napton reservoir crucians amongst a nice bag of tench).
The highlight of my day came when after a dour struggle I landed a six pounder, only the second tench I have ever caught of this size, still a big, big fish in my book and very satisfying to catch, who knows how old she would be to have attained this size, twenty years ? Tench certainly aren't a fast growing species like carp ( and I should know, I've been involved in farming both species in my time ) in the wild it usually takes three years to attain a weight of about six to eight ounces. Maybe our paths crossed when she was a young fish ?
I ended up with thirteen tench, a couple were about two pounds and all others were over three pounds with some around the five pound mark, a nice bag from a relatively short session, I was still catching when we packed up and headed home at 7pm.

The only downside on the day was the badly damaged mouths of some of the bigger, older fish, caused presumably by repeat capture over the years or possibly the unpleasant results of our bolt rig culture.

Return to Napton

2009-06-05T13:50:00.000+01:00

Nothing re-captures the excitement and anticipation felt as a schoolboy angler like the return to your old stomping grounds, now as a 40 year old when in reflective mood and my thoughts turn to fishing two places spring to mind Coombe Pool home of huge shoals of big bream and Napton Reservoir with it's hard fighting and obliging tench.
I haven't been to Napton for a good few years but I still reckon I've put in more hours than most, it was here that I caught my first sizable tench and learnt the methods and tricks required to put a few extra fish in the bag.
The weather forecast had been proved wrong, rather than the dull and cool day expected it was proving to be yet another day of bright sunshine and little breeze, not good for Napton as a rule but dad and I set off anyway at 3pm. On arrival there were several cars in the car park, usually a sign that the place is fishing well, the venue itself was as beautiful as ever with the water shimmering invitingly in the sunlight and as usual an abundance of wildlife to enhance the angling experience.
The best pegs at this time of year tend to be those on the causeway beyond the bridge and fishing into what used to be the big resevoir (before the two resevoirs were joined) this is where the tench accumulate prior to spawning, these pegs were taken and the three anglers there were all catching quite well. Second choice would have been from the causeway into the small res but again these were taken so we settled for two pegs together on the big res car park bank.
Napton can get pretty weedy and peering into the depths as far out as I could see the bottom was covered so I opted to go out on the feeder to try to get beyond the weed, next door dad was setting up his usual float rod.
I mixed up some brown crumb about 50-50 with Sensas Lake and added maggots, casters and sweetcorn and baited up with double maggot on an 18, several casts drew no response whatsoever and dads float stood motionless too, weed was a problem with dads float refusing to settle on some occasions while each of my retrieves picked up a fist sized clump of silkweed.
It was proving hard going, sweetcorn on the hook had failed to produce and caster had resulted in a series of tremors and plucks on the tip.
I've often been sceptical where hair rigs are concerned, a bare hook next to the bait seems about as unnatural as can be, but I do carry some match hair rigs which I bought for some commercial fishery or other and opted to give one a try.
Three seconds after the feeder hit the water the rod was wrenched nearly out of my hands and a two pound tench was soon on the bank. Bites when they came, I would love to say it was all action from this point on but it wasn't, were very positive and although not a convert yet I will definately use hair rigs here again. A second tench of about four pounds and a third, about two pounds were my only other fish other than a good tench lost close to the net. Dad did manage one fish to corn but that was his only bite of a short and tricky session, but lessons, as they always should be, were learnt and we'll be back.

A Learning Curve

2009-04-23T10:54:00.000+01:00

A morning session at Ryton Pools today, our first visit to this very attractive little lake.
Having read up on the venue via a couple of excellent blogs on this site and archive newsletters on the LAA site, we armed ourselves with just sweetcorn and bread for this trip. Both of us opted to floatfish and settled in swims on the roadside bank, mine being opposite the top end of the island and Dad fished at the entrance to the roadside bay.
It wasn't very long before dad was into a tench, the first of four caught at intervals throughout the morning with each weighing between 4 and 5 pounds, they were all caught on corn fished at about one and a half rodlengths.
My own morning hadn't gone so swimmingly despite fishing in very much the same way, admittedly in very slightly deeper water, I had only a couple of tentative bites to show for my efforts. The one thing I did differently to my dad was to introduce groundbait so maybe this had proved my downfall, it certainly seems to me from observations of bubbling fish in both swims on the day that this will be a water where ambushing patrolling fish is the productive method rather than encouraging competitive feeding through building a swim. Therefore next time I will adopt a much more conservative feeding strategy.

Early April 2009

2009-04-19T08:43:00.000+01:00

I spent much of my childhood fishing venues close to my Coventry home, along with various school friends we travelled mainly by bus to places such as Somers Fishery at Packington in search of Tench and Skimmer Bream, Coombe Pool dreaming of Bream the size of dustbin lids or the Avon at Ryton Bridge hoping to fool the Chub with lumps of cheese. Greater skill and ambition borne out of mini triumps and major disapointments along the way led me to try my hand at club match fishing alongside my dad with varying degrees of success and a weekly Sunday outing with a good friend from senior school, Phil and I hardly missed a Sunday throughout our schooling. We ventured further afield with the help from lifts from our parents taking in fisheries such as the river Blythe, Napton Resevoir and the river Leam. However, In 1987 my angling career came to an abrupt halt as I moved away from Coventry and everything I had previously known in order to pursue a career in Fish Farming and Fishery Management in the South.

Now, having moved back to the Coventry area after some 20 odd years, I decided on joining the Leamington AA for some good quality local fishing with my dad. Having never seen or fished the Leamington waters before it should prove an interesting venture for us both.

We fished Jubilee pools twice in early april with very poor returns, my dad and I both had a Bream of about 4lb each on our first attempt. We fished feeder tactics with caster just over the ledge into deeper water from two pegs at the car park end of the smaller pool, despite both of us catching the fishing was poor, probably down to low water temperatures. On our second visit we walked to the far end of Horseshoe and floatfished caster but were frustrated by unhittable bites all afternoon, I finally managed to catch a single roach of about 6oz. We will have to reconsider our tactics for Jubilee in future and will probably wait for some warmer weather as there is probably potential to catch fish up in the water.