Seasons merge

As I write this is now the middle of May and I'm wondering where the rivers closed season has gone! It doesn't seem like five minutes since I was chub fishing on the dove but I realise now it's been nearly two months! Winter has given away firmly to spring and now daytime temperatures are right up we find ourselves on the cusp of summer and the angling delights it brings.

Since my last post lure fishing has absolutely dominated my time on the bank culminating in a pretty significant event in my angling career, more of which I will come onto later.

In these days of being able to fish lakes and canals in the closed season it doesn't seem quite so 'closed ' anymore and, although I long to fish running water, there are still opportunities to be had all over the place.

Towards the end of March I started doing the odd evening session after work on a local canal and it quickly became apparent that the perch were still well grouped up for spawning. There would be long stretches seemingly devoid of anything until suddenly a pocket of fish would be found and several would be caught in quick succession. More often than not these fish would be fit to burst with eggs which was the obvious clue as to why they were shoaling. One memorable evening gave me several half decent fish up to a very creditable 3lb2oz which, for the canal in question, was a true specimen!

I also dabbled in a little bait fishing in an attempt to catch a big perch from a commercial I'd been told about. Sadly, although I caught several small(and spawnbound) perch, the big ones weren't forthcoming and I had to make do with several nice carp and Tench instead. They really pulled the string so I wasn't complaining.

As the weather warmed slightly through April I noticed a lot of nice Trout suddenly appearing on the timelines of some of my lure fishing Facebook friends so naturally I wanted a piece of the action. I wasn't at all sure about the legalities of it all and after a few enquiries I managed to get permission to fish a small stretch of Derbyshire Dove.

If your reading this and fancy some trout action yourself, please note that all angling clubs are different in their rules regarding trout fishing during the closed season with most either being fly only or not allowing it whatsoever so it's worth asking the question before rocking up to the river and starting to chuck lures everywhere. You could save yourself from being banned or ending up in court!

It was an overcast day with a biting wind and the river was carrying slightly but it was good to be back fishing running water again albeit in a somewhat limited way. I started the day fishing tiny jigheads with creature type lures such as micro shrimps and crayfish with little success other than a few gentle taps. As lunchtime approached I switched to a dropshot setup and caught a small browny straight away and I really thought I'd found the method of the day, how wrong I was!

Nothing else happened for an hour or so so I decided to change to a tiny crankbait I had in my bag. It was a mega cheap thing I'd ordered on eBay for about £1.50 and to be honest I'd only brought it along to see what action, if any, it had. As you can imagine I was somewhat shocked when my first cast resulted in a savage thump and a lost fish!

 

Over the next hour I hooked several Trout and the takes were properly violent. I missed several good thumps in various swims but still ended up landing five fish so the day turned out to be a good one after all!

Since the back end of April the lure match calendar has really begun to kick in and my first one for a while was the 1st round of the LACC pairs league which was held at knowle locks on the GUC.

After an initial gamble didn't pay off, myself and partner in crime Carl had to think on our feet as we were seriously trailing behind the leaders at the halfway point. Eventually we managed to find a few tiny Perch to amass a total length of 2.38m for a hard earned 4th place overall which gives us some decent points to build on throughout the rest of the series. 11 points puts us in 5th place leaguewise at the moment but it's tight so still all to play for!

My most recent match was the International lure challenge run by the CRT and angling trust building bridges initiative. Teams from England, Poland, Romania and Lithuania were to battle it out on the GUC at leamington with prizes for both team and individual glory.

To be honest I wasn't sure about this one as my only previous dealings with Eastern European anglers was from a bailiffs point of view if you know what I mean! The point of the match was integration with a competitive edge and Each competitor had to team up with a member of one of the opposing teams and in my case I drew a Polish guy called Robert who turned out to be a really nice chap as it happened. There was over 70 anglers on an 8mile stretch of canal, the weather was set to be a sunny scorcher and the boats were out in force before the match even started,this was going to be tough! To add to the difficulty there was minimum size limits on qualifying fish, 20cm for Perch, 25cm for Zander and 45cm for Pike, anything under these sizes wouldn't count.

 

Fortunately we were drawn 4th or 5th out of the bag and got an early start. Seeing as the stretch was so long the organisers allowed driving so I persuaded Robert to head straight to the car and we headed straight to a spot I knew would hold a few. Great minds think alike because my SHUK teammate Carl and his Romanian partner were already at the spot when we arrived!

The size limits meant that wasp fishing was out of the question so my opening gambit was to be dropshotting 3inch plus lures in an attempt to find some Zander. 90% of the opposition seemed to be using 2-5inch shads on jigheads so I figured the different presentation of a dropshot approach might make the difference especially with the bright sunshine. The lure up off the bottom creates more of a profile in the murk for the fish to see, that was my thinking anyway.

I hooked on my lure as I approached the canal, dropped it in and had a sharp pluck within seconds which resulted in a 22cm Perch, a great start I couldn't believe it! Next spot I tried was a similar story and 37cm Zander was hurriedly netted and quickly followed by a 25cm fish! 30mins into the match and my length was up to 84cm already. Our team was keeping in touch via Facebook and it was quickly apparent that very little else was being caught.

 

As I expected with the boat traffic the canal got very coloured very quickly and the fishing became mega tough all round. I was keen to build on my early good start however and kept plugging away at it. Over the next four hours I had just 4 bites which, fortunately resulted in 3 more qualifying Perch included 2 over 30cm.

At 7hours the match was a long one and with 2 hours to go I was on 1.74m total length. The towpath was exceptionally busy with walkers and cyclists and by mid afternoon the fish had all but switched off, I really couldn't buy a bite and dispondancy was setting in a little. I knew I had a good total as the information which was creeping in was telling me that most were struggling badly. A Romanian guy had found some Zander though apparently as had a polish chap who had jumped in my original spot and camped there. I was kicking myself for leaving it but I had found fish elsewhere so couldn't be too upset about it, a look at his total gave him 1.63m so I was just in front! A 69cm Zander was reported as I headed back to base but I was quietly confident of a top 10 result.

As people rolled in it turned out that one or two people had a few fish but many more had really struggled and even blanked. I started to get twitchy as several people reported multiple Zander catches. I tried to sit back and relax with a beer as we all waited for the results to be announced but it was no good, people kept telling me I was in the lead and the tension was killing me!

Finally, after a few group photos, the individual results were announced. Third place with 1.63m is ............... Blimey! I was Second! .........second place with 1.66m is ........ Bloody hell! Bloody hell!!! ..... First place with 1.74m is ........ I was already in a daze and My teammates were already shaking my hand as they announced my name, I don't even remember walking up to accept my prize I just remember standing there grinning like a moron with a certificate and the best part of £300 in my hand, speechless was an understatement!

So there it was, my first ever match win! The only comparable feelings I've had before in my fishing was when I caught my first 30lb carp and my first 4lb Perch!

Despite my win and Carl managing a fantastic 4th place overall the English team was beaten back to third place behind Poland and Romania in the team event. Everybody had a laugh and an enjoyable day out of it however and I would certainly attend next years event if given the opportunity again. In the meantime I have new rods to buy .......... :-D

 

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Back to some proper fishing - part 2

....... The next evening I found myself on yet another different area of Trent in pursuit of a Barbel. It was quite late by the time I arrived and I didn't get much time to setup before dark. Straight away I was getting taps on the rodtip so there was obviously fish out there.

I didn't have to wait long to get an idea of what they were however because within minutes a large bream rolled out in the middle where my baits were, then another and another, the place was alive with them!

It didn't take me long to catch one, a typical Trent stamp of 6-7lb, and realise that I would be struggling to catch a Barbel amongst them. It was too late for a move so I resolved to stop till around midnight and hope a whiskered beast would be able to bully it's way through.

Of course it wasn't to be and after catching a more than respectable bag of several Bream to 8lb2oz I packed up still frustrated at the lack of barbellage. Looking at my records I now realise that I've never done great for Barbs at this time of year and my best results by far have come in late august through till early October, I'm not giving up just yet though!

I decided upon something completely different for my next trip as I'd recently acquired permission to fish a very private estate lake. I had no idea what to expect and even the gamekeeper couldn't tell me a great deal other than he reckoned there might be some carp and tench in there. The only way to find out was to fish it I guess so I planned a short Saturday afternoon session on there.

Armed with bread, maggots, sweetcorn, worms, ground bait and pellets I think I had all bases covered and upon arrival I settled into a nice looking corner swim fishing off a boat jetty. It was overcast but very muggy and a lot of Rudd could be seen milling around under the surface. A couple of balls of groundbait introduced alongside a overhanging tree soon turned that area of the swim into a jacuzzi as the tench homed in on it.

A good plumb around revealed that the lake was no more than 18inches deep all over and after casting a grain of corn into the jacuzzi it didn't take long to get an enquiry. A small Tench was soon swung to hand and that was followed up by several more and some Rudd aswell.

 

After around half an hour I finally managed to hook something a little more substantial which turned out to be a small carp. Well so far the lake certainly wasn't what I was expecting, it was stuffed with fish but they were all small!

 

I could see some bow waves and other signs of larger fish moving out in the middle of the pool so I decided to setup a small bolt feeder rig baited with a large pellet in bid to catch something better.

I placed the rod down on the edge of the boat jetty and before I even turned away the tip was pulling round! After a spirited scrap another little carp was soon netted.

 

And so that set the tone for the next 3 hours, cast, catch, net, rebait, cast, it got to the stage where I wasn't even putting the rod down, I just held it till it pulled round. It was still very shallow in the middle because every bite resulted in a splashy swirl out where I'd cast to.

 

I even attempted to fish two rods at one point but gave that up as a bad idea after three double hookups on the trot! The place was absolutely heaving with small stunted carp.

 

Eventually I ran out of bait and although I'd just had one of the maddest few hours fishing of my life it was a bittersweet end because I was almost expecting such an old estate lake to hold some really special fish. I'd enjoyed my trip on there though despite small carp not really being my thing, every one pulled like a demon and every one had a perfect mouth and was in great condition, certainly a lake to rival any commercial I've ever fished.

Anyway, having had my lake fix, I was soon back on the river with the lures for my most recent trip .....

 

 

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Braving the elements

First day back at work after the bank holiday and as I travelled to the gulag I couldn't help but notice that the weather conditions were screaming at me to go fishing! The wind was strong but very warm and rain showers intermittently poured out of the thick black clouds above, for the first time in ages conditions looked really good.

My local lake hadn't been at all good to me this year, in fact not a single carp had fallen to my rods and it wasn't for lack of trying either! As I sat in the office watching the wild weather battering the windows I visualised the carp stacking up on the windward bank of the pool, embarking on their first mad feeding spell of the year. I really needed to be there.

4pm arrived and I was out of the workhouse in double quick time and first out of the carpark by a country mile! after an ultra fast pitstop at home to eat and load the gear I was soon back on the road and headed to the lake. Upon my arrival there was already two anglers in residence with very little to report but fortunately neither were in my fancied areas. The wind seemed to be gusting from all different angles and no single swim jumped out at me. It was generally pushing towards the longest and blandest bit of bank on the lake which also has some very deep water in front of it so I decided to wait for the carp to tell me where to go.

Within a couple of minutes one stuck it's head out of the water in the vague vicinity of where I thought I should be so I headed around there. I opted for a boilie only approach using good old fashioned stringers as I think the fish are wary of little piles of pellets and groundbait because every man and his dog seem to be using pva sticks/bags and method feeders in there at the moment.

The weather lashed at my brolly to the extreme over the next hour and I soon got fed up with adjusting it to stop it blowing away. Somewhere in all the chaos though I suddenly became aware of a delkim warbling urgently and thank god for snag ears because my left hand rod was taking on an alarming bend as a fish made it's bid to get to the far end of the pool.

I leaned into the fish to try and turn it but it seemed hellbent on getting into the reeds along my margin. After a few hairy moments I managed to turn it towards open water where it was much easier to battle despite the ferocious wind making my wielding of the landing net somewhat difficult. A nice looking common was eventually netted and I was pleased to record a weight of 22lb8oz, my biggest from the venue so far.

After that I never bothered to recast as the weather had really started to close in and the drizzle became torrential, home beckoned! A quick result with a decent fish on a work night was a sweet reward for braving some truly shocking weather :-)

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Taking up the challenge

In past years some of my fellow bloggers have taken part in a big fish challenge whereupon points are awarded for specimen fish caught across three different catagories, river, canal and Stillwater. The number of points awarded is based upon the fishes percentage of the current record for that species. After seeing that the lads were running another one this year I thought it might be fun to have a go at it myself and, after a belated email to Russell Hilton to sign up, I now find myself in the lineup!

Everybodies got to start somewhere and after the major grueller I've been having of late I decided to head out to try and bag a couple of easy carp to kick things off. A trip to a favourite little pool in Leicestershire was the order of the day as I knew it would give me a double or two with the outside chance of a 20.

The rain was tipping it down upon my arrival which made for some uncomfortable fishing but It cleared up as the day progressed and I managed to find a few in the end. The biggest I had was a slightly disappointing 11lb on the button but points is points and I need every one I can get at the moment! I had a few bait robbing skimmers too and again it was all about the points as I weighed a veritable monster of 2lb5oz.

 

A mediocre start I know, But I'll be building on it soon enough for sure. A bonus koi touching double figures provided a nice end to my trip, shame they don't count in the comp though!

 

 

 

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Filling the void

All of a sudden the closed season is upon us and, for me at least, that time when something is badly needed to fill the angling void between the rivers shutting and the weather warming up for the summer species. Ordinarily I'd turn my attentions to bream and tench at this time of the year but a total lack of preparation and a reluctance to revisit waters of the past has conspired to put a dampener on things a little. Instead I decided to split my time between carp and lure fishing until hopefully a flash of inspiration or a better offer came along!

On the carp front things have been exceptionally slow, in fact as I write, a month into the closed season my tally stands at just a couple of fish to mid-double figures.

It's not for lack of trying though and although they've started to show on my regular water they've proven incredibly hard to tempt. Some Other anglers have reported catching one or two but the vast majority, myself included, are going home with dry nets which is most frustrating! Whilst we have had some warm sunny days it has still been very cold at night and the sunshine I think has put me into the mindset that everything should be feeding but in reality I think they are still only just waking up after the winter.

On a trip last weekend I suffered a lot of liners which told me there was fish moving about around my baited area but it wasn't until the evening when I finally received a proper take which turned out to be my first tench of the year, which was nice, but it wasn't my hoped for carp!

Even the lure fishing has been tough! I don't know what's going on with the perch of late but they certainly aren't in their usual areas and seem to be very finicky when it comes to feeding. I've caught a fair few of course, mostly on the dropshot, but certainly not as many as I was expecting from the conditions. Other lure anglers I've met on the bank have been struggling too so it's not just me.

 

The canal I mostly fish has been very coloured up due to the sudden increase of boat traffic brought on by the warmer weather. As a result bites have been hard to come by and lure fishing in coloured water never fills me with confidence at the best of times. To this end I started to think about what other attraction could be used to attract the fish to my lure besides action and colour and decided to experiment with rattles. Obviously, to get the loudest rattle, I would need to go down the hardbait route and after a bit of research (and asking those in the know) I settled on a couple of rapala and bill Lewis patterns to try.

My most recent session was to be my first with the new lures and upon arriving at the canal it looked fairly coloured and good test for the lures attraction. The first cast gave me an opportunity to check the rapalas action which proved to be what I can only describe as a rapid shimmy! On the next cast I was just admiring the feel of the lure through the rod when a gentle tap had me striking into a nice fish, result! It proved to be a Zander of around 4lb but as I fumbled about with the landing net it threw the hook leaving me somwhat disappointed! I needn't have worried though because a hefty thump right at my feet on my next cast saw me land another Zander of around 2-3lb .

After that I began to struggle with all the debris which was floating in the canal because my lure was like a magnet for it! More often than not I was bringing back twigs and other rubbish so, having already proven my rattle theory to myself, I decided to switch to the dropshot setup and went on to take around a dozen small perch over the course of the morning.

I've got a fair bit on at work and home over the next month so time will be limited but fishingwise I've got a few ideas in the pipeline so I'm hoping things take a bit of an upturn and I can start banking a few more!

 

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End of the season trips

The last week of the season has often been very good to me in terms of bigger fish and I was hoping that it would be a similar story this time around and booked a couple of days off work in anticipation. I had originally planned on perch fishing for the last few trips but suddenly every man and his dog seemed to be fishing for them and, even worse for me, my favourite stretch of river was proving to be extremely popular this year thanks to a few high profile newspaper stories involving perch captures from said river. Somewhat disgruntled I decided to bin the perch idea off altogether and try something else.

At the back end of last summer I found a lovely little pond in Staffordshire with some nice carp in and seeing as it seemed quite prolific I had it earmarked as a bit of a winter water. Unfortunately I never got round to fishing it in winter proper but seeing as I couldn't get it out of my mind I decided to give it a go.

As expected, upon my arrival, the lake was empty and didn't look like it had been fished much at all over the winter. I setup on the main body of the pool as I figured this would give me a good vantage point to spot any fish movement should it occur.

The weather decided to take a turn for the worse as the morning progressed and my maggot hookbaits remained untouched by the fish although the local tufted duck population seemed rather partial to them! Just after lunchtime I decided to reel in and have a mooch around to see if I could find any clues to the whereabouts of the fish.

The water was pretty clear and it was obvious that there wasn't much happening in the margins, that is until I arrived at the far corner of the lake and the water there was noticeably cloudy. Although it was the shallowest part of the lake, it was also the most sheltered and on the back of the cold wind to boot. There hadn't been any bird activity over there all day either so it didn't take a rocket scientist to work out there might be a few fish moving over there. I rushed back to fetch my kit sharpish but at this point divine intervention occurred and the heavens opened proper. I cowered under my brolly to wait it out but 30minutes later it was still going strong and I had seriously lost my enthusiasm to move! Shortly after that I decided to pack up on the next lull in the downpour and return on a better day!

The next day I wanted to fish for Chub on the Trent as I felt I had neglected them way too much this season and first light saw me stepping out on the bank and forging a path to my favourite haunts. The weather was in complete contrast to the previous day being bright and sunny if a little cold, good conditions I hoped.

The first spot I picked was my total banker swim, how quickly and how many I caught here would be a good indication of how the day would pan out. It didn't take long to get some interest either as my mashed bread and flake combo proved too tempting for the first fish of the day, a lively 3lber which gleamed nicely in the early morning sunshine.

A bumped fish on my next cast quietened the swim down somewhat and it took around 20mins before I had another pull. This fish was slightly bigger than the previous by the look of it but I never got chance to find out how big exactly because a large pike walloped it right at my feet and broke me off, a move was definately called for!

My next two swims never produced a rap despite being reliable spots in the past and the third gave me a missed bite within a minute of casting in then nothing else. I was somewhat disheartened and decided try one last spot before upping sticks to a new bit of river. It was very shallow but there was a distinctive crease in the flow where it came off the side of a gravel bar into slightly deeper water.

Ten minutes after casting in the rod tip tapped a couple of times and I hit into a decent Chub which was well over 4lb. It had a nasty looking wound on its side so I put it back ASAP without weighing and quickly got cast back in. Another ten minutes later and I found myself playing a heavy fish which stayed out in the flow, it kept me guessing right to the end and the hoped for monster chub suddenly became a Bream which was most surprising considering the scrap it put up!

A move to a new stretch followed and rather than trying my usual swims up there I decided to look for new spots in the shallower areas. The decision paid off aswell and I went on to take several more nice chub over the course of the afternoon.

Just before packing up I had a swimfeeder taken by a sizeable pike on the retrieve. The fish bit me off but was certainly large enough for me to start making plans to come down and catch it on my next trip out!

The following Friday I found myself setting up in the same swim armed with the dead baiting gear. It was a fairly tight swim so I opted to Floatfish a sardine under the rod tip. Unbelievably, as I was plumbing the depth, a jack hit my float and bit me off! The pike must've been really hungry in this swim!!

Once I got fishing properly I noticed that the river was starting to colour up and after a biteless hour it really was quite brown and starting to rise. The previous nights rain must've been heavier than I thought . I decided to move swim to some more sheltered water but before I did so I had a couple of casts with a small shad on the the lure rod. A gentle tug from deep in the murk at my feet had me striking into something heavy and I was pleased to see a very large pike break the surface like a crocodile. It had to be the same fish from the week before and having had a good look at it I knew it was a good upper double, maybe bigger. At that point it decided to wake up and one shake of its head had my shad flying out of its mouth and into the grass at my feet before, with a flick of its tail, it sloped back off out of sight, I was well gutted!

I did get a consolation Perch of over 2lb on the shad a short while later but the river was coming up fast and I didn't hang around for long before heading home with plans to fish the Soar for pike the following day which also happened to be the last day of the season.

I wanted to finish the season with a few fish under my belt so I headed to my favourite pike runs area where I knew I'd get at least some sort of action. The weather was surprisingly cold but fortunately the soar was running low and clear which was in total contrast to the Trent which by now was carrying nearly 3ft!

It took around half an hour to get some interest but I managed to lose the first two fish which picked up my baits to hookpulls. The third run I had more luck with and promptly went on to land my first pug nosed pike from the river which looked about 6lb.

 

It was obvious these fish were finicky feeders after being regularly fished for all winter, two fish lost to hookpulls and a third barely hooked at all had me thinking about my rigs. After two dropped runs on my conventionally hooked bait on the downstreamer I decided to drop a hair-rigged bait on the same spot. It was away within a couple of minutes and I managed to land the culprit successfully, properly hooked it was too!

 

Another jack to the same rod half an hour later had me thinking I'd cracked it but the local rowing club soon started up their usual Saturday morning activities and my action was killed stone dead. I was pleased to get a few fish anyway and an early packup at lunchtime was to herald the end of my river fishing season. I've certainly had better seasons but as long as I keep getting my string pulled there's no such thing as a bad season!

Now, a couple of weeks into the closed season I find myself in the doldrums slightly as the water is still a little too cold for the summer species to feed with any vigour and the canals suddenly have lots of boat traffic which makes them slightly more tricky on the lures due to the coloured water. I need a plan of action methinks..............

 

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It's been a while!

Oh dear! It's been so long since my last post I'd almost forgotten I even had a blog! Even now I'm struggling to remember what I got up to 6-7weeks ago! To be honest with all the crappy cold weather I don't think you've missed much. I've spent 99% of my fishing time lure fishing still but with everywhere being iced-up, snowed under or flooded it's certainly been a struggle. Heres some pics with brief descriptions to bring you up to date anyway;

 

This little chap brightened up a miserable, snowbound Christmas. I had great fishing plans for the Xmas break but it snowed on Boxing Day and wrecked everything. Little did I know it was to be the start of a tough few weeks on the fishing front!

 

A spot of Piking on a local pit proved unproductive and, seeing as I really didn't fancy chub or grayling fishing, I resolved to try a few new waters for Perch in a bid to find some fresh specimens.

 

 

A park lake I'd been tipped off about yielded one or two fish and in hindsight I should've stuck with it but I really had my heart set on the canals even though I knew I'd be in for a grueller.

 

 

During my non-fishing time I decided to have a play about making some dropshot lures. Some of you may already know I work as CNC programmer so I have access to some pretty tasty kit for making molds and after playing about with some different designs I soon knocked up a couple of molds.

 

The end results were pretty good and in the pic above you can see how my pink creation measures up to an Ecogear grub.

 

As you can see, the pink grub does the business too! I kid you not, this little zed picked up the lure on my very first cast with it!

 

I've caught one or too chub lately on the dropshot gear too which I find slightly unusual because of the bitterly cold weather, I always thought they were more inclined to hit lures during the summer months?

I managed a pb thingumajig the other day too, not sure what it is but it pulled well on the ultralite gear!

A spur of the moment decision to hit a local lake on my way home from the canal the other day paid off with a good result. Despite trying the lake numerous times I've never had any decent sized perch from it so I was well chuffed to land on the fish above which is the biggest I've had from the pool by a country mile!

After spending way too much time lure fishing of late I decided to switch to bait fishing in a bid to catch a proper one. The first trip out gave me a blank but it was to be second time lucky when an after work session threw up this 3lb2oz fish.

Think I'm going to leave the lures for a bit now till the closed season, I've missed on on way more action than I should have this winter due to my lure fascination. In all honesty though I've not had the urge to bait fish until now anyway.

That, I think, pretty much brings me up to date, I'll try not to leave it so long next time!

 

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