Dawn raid

I needed to get some more species down on the list for the bloggers challenge and with limited time I decided an early morning attack on the local canal could well give me a few points. I had to be back home for 10am and it was 5.30 when I arrived bankside.

I began by chucking some hard lures about in my favourite Zander swim and despite getting a couple of savage pulls I couldn't connect. A switch to a soft lure saw me land a scrappy little Zed on my first chuck which went 1lb12oz.

 

 

My next cast saw me bump another then I couldn't buy another pull so I went back to the car to swap the lure gear for the float rod and set about trying to winkle out some more fish.

The wind was pretty horrendous which meant I had to fish down the inside track which wasn't where I really wanted to be. I managed to scrape a few different species together though, perch, dace, gudgeon, roach and a roach/bream hybrid, all small but all points!

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

A mixed bag on the cut

I won't bore you with my usual excuses for not going fishing but suffice to say I'm still in the same boat as my last entry. I managed a night on the Trent last week on a rapidly rising river and even though I hooked two Barbel both were lost. I also managed to foul hook one as I packed up just to add insult to injury!

I planned an early finish from work on Friday and my idea was to head to a local stretch of the Trent and Mersey canal to try for some zander. I needed to catch some bait first so a stop at the tackle shop in Kegworth was made on the way to pick up some maggots.

Upon arrival at the cut I was surprised to find somebody fishing as, even though I've fished it several times with the lure gear, I've never seen anyone else bothering with the place. A chat with the guy revealed he'd caught some big chub recently from there to well over 5lb and I made a mental note to return with the bread in the winter. The water was chocolate colour and the boats were active but even so there was fish topping everywhere I looked, I was still dubious about whether I'd be able to catch some bait though.

I found a spot next to some reeds and got setup. Ive only ever bait fished it once before and that was in the depths of winter so i was unsure what to expect. A quick plumb around revealed a fairly uniform 4feet of water all over so I fed along the reeds and cast in.

Within a minute the float began to bob around and a tommy Ruffe was soon being swung in and was quickly followed by another. Next bite produced a plump Dace, then another and another, blimey this place was fish soup!

I was getting a bite a chuck right under the rod tip and the action never subsided despite a couple of boats coming past. The species count continued to grow, Roach, Chub, Perch, Bleak and Gudgeon, I really didn't know what was coming next. I'd almost forgotten that I was actually there for the Zander until I had a Perch attacked by what looked like a Zed as I was about to swing it in.

I quickly setup a float with a small gudgeon deadbait and chucked it along the margins to my left. I continued to fish on with maggots and the bites kept coming. The weather started to close in and it wasn't long before the rain began to come down, only lightly to begin with but getting progressively heavier.

I didn't have a brolly with me so I began to tidy my gear up and as I did so the deadbait began to register a bit of interest. The float bobbed a couple of times and I picked up the rod in anticipation. It bobbed again and then slipped away, I struck expecting the rod to take on a healthy curve but was most disappointed to strike into thin air, damn those Zander and their finicky ways!

I'm really intrigued now as to the possibilities of what could be in there. Nobody really knows anything about the place because its so rarely fished but I do know of some good Perch, Chub, Zander and Carp being caught in the past by the few in the know. It's a different kind of fishing to what I'm used to but it could be interesting especially when the rivers are out of sorts.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Back to the brook

Saturday 17th December

The weather has still been pretty cold over the last week and today was no exception . I had a few hours spare this morning and planned to spend them on a local brook in pursuit of its Roach and large Dace. The brook in question is the same one i visited about this time last year when everything was covered in snow so i reasoned that it should be good for a few bites given the conditions. There had been an extremely hard frost overnight and upon arriving at the bankside i was a little disappointed to see that it was running very low, very clear and there wasnt a fish in sight which was unusual, this was going to be tougher than i thought.

I couldnt raise so much as a sniff in the first couple of spots i tried but after heading to some slightly deeper water upstream i began to find a few fish. The fish werent exactly crawling up the line and i was having to work for every bite but i had some nice Dace and a couple of small Chub .  Before i knew it id been there nearly 4 hours and it was time to head back.

As i got to the shallower runs downstream near the car i spotted some fish dimpling the surface near a bridge so i put some bits of bread in and they began swirling at it straight away. I made a cast and caught one imediately, a nice Dace, the biggest of the day at 10oz . As i walked past the spot id just caught from i spotted the rest of the shoal and was amazed at how well the fish were hidden considering the water was only about 6inches deep!

Below are some pics from the day and hopefully they give some idea of just how small and shallow the place is . Its incredible how the fish seem to thrive in there despite living in what must be a very tough environment . The place becomes a torrent when it floods and when its low the fish are sitting ducks for predators . I could get in there and walk along it for miles and it wouldnt come above my knees yet it wouldnt surprise me in the slightest if it threw up a real monster of a Dace one day . Anyway thatll have to wait till next time ..........

Youve probably noticed one or two changes to the look of my blog of late . This is because, apart from freshening things up, i want to make room for bigger pictures and stuff . There may be one or two more tweaks still to come but i intend to have it all sorted for the new year so please bear with me!

Childhood revisited in the white stuff

Sunday 5th December
Well, what can i say? the weather over the last week has been horrendous to say the least! Heavy snow and temperatures down to minus 20 in some parts of the country, around here the lowest i personally recorded was minus 9 so its been positively balmy! As anyone that fishes will tell you, these conditions arnt exactly great for a good days sport, however, there are always a few bites to be had if you know where to look.

I havent been out for a couple of weeks for various reasons beyond my control (the weather!) so i was determined to get out at the first oportunity. All i wanted to do was to go out and get a few bites and get my string pulled and with this in mind i decided to spend a morning revisiting my childhood on a brook which runs through a housing estate where i used to live.

As a kid i used to spend hours down there attempting to catch sticklebacks and stoneloach. Every so often, as i walked up the brook with my trousers rolled up and net in hand, some much bigger fish would frantically shoot past me often bumping my legs as they made their escape. At the time i had no idea what they were but i knew i had to catch one and i guess it was here that the early seed of becoming an angler was well and truly sown.

As i got a little bit older and my uncle introduced me to the art of catching fish on a rod and line, i began fishing down there proper and was amazed to catch Chub, Dace, Roach, Gudgeon and even the odd Trout! All this from a brook that wasnt much deeper than a couple of feet and resembled nothing more than a drainage ditch.

Fast forward 25years and the brook is still very much there albiet somewhat narrower and shallower but the fish are still there to be caught. With this in mind i tackled up an avon rod with a light stickfloat setup and headed forth onto the tundra . The brook was running very low and clear despite the snow beginning to thaw and with the banks being high with no cover, long trotting was to be the order of the day to save spooking every fish in there. I had worms, maggots and luncheon meat with me and after trying a couple of spots without success i eventually managed to catch a small Chub on a worm.

As i made my way along the brook i saw several decent Chub in the 3-4lb class swim past but they werent remotely interested in anything i put in . After trying some more spots and catching just one more Chub it was apparent that they werent overly keen on the bigger baits so i scaled my gear down and went with the maggot only approach in a bid to get some more bites.

The change brought an instant response and i started getting amongst some lovely Dace, really pretty little things and fat as butter, a Perch even made an appearance but the Roach were conspicuous by theie absence. I worked my way back downstream catching one or two from each spot i tried and before long i was back at the car. It was only then that i realised just how much id enjoyed myself.

Id only been out 3 hours and had a load of bites in subzero temperatures. The fish were all perfect and i highly doubt theyve even seen a hook before, what more could any true angler ask for? Size is irrelavent on days like this.