December Predators

So December started with my now annual pairs lure match which I organise on the Trent and Mersey canal each year. This year it was kindly sponsored by ecogear and they sent an enormous box of prize goodies especially for the occasion. 18 teams turned up on the day and it was clear from the outset that the fishing was going to be tough. An overnight frost had put cat-ice on the water in some parts and the canal bottom was clearly visible along most of its length.

 

With the extremely clear conditions I said beforehand it would be pike that made all the difference and so it proved with several being landed throughout the course of the match. The perch were being difficult to tempt and overall lengths remained low for the first half of the match. A couple of boats came through late on and people began to catch a few at last knockings. In the end it was won by Vidar Thomassen and Alan Brown with a fantastic 2.7m which was a great result in the conditions.

Next session of note was a trip to Rutland just before Christmas with Potto, Andy and Dave. Conditions were chilly with no wind which meant for a flat calm lake with no drift, casting it was then! We landed on fish straight away and everybody caught within the first 20mins of fishing so we were confident of a good day.

 

Andy managed a couple of lovely 60cm plus Zander both consecutive PBs but as ever these things don't last and the bites tailed off considerably. I had a run of missed bites and lost a couple mid morning but a change of retrieve style finally managed to snare a few small consolation prizes late on. It was Dave and Andys first time out on the ressies and to say they are now hooked is an understatement!

 

 

A few days later I had a window for quick two hour session into dark on a local river which gave me a couple of Perch with shoulders! About time too as it seemed like ages since I last bagged some decent ones! It was tough going and I only had three bites but I made them count at least.

 

Soon enough Christmas was upon us and due to family commitments I was struggling to get out although I did manage a trip to the Severn with Potto where I bagged a fine conditioned Pike from my only bite of a very tough day.

So that rounds off 2016 then! Not a great year for big fish, I've certainly had many better years, but I've broadened my horizons a great deal by trying lots of new tactics and fishing a good selection of different waters at home and abroad . I've fished with old friends and met many new ones in my travels and I feel my fishing has been enormously enriched as a result.

I'm very positive going into 2017 as I have big plans, with various matches and a couple of European trips hopefully on the cards. Outside fishing I have settled into my new job and am looking forward to a house move and a fresh start which I'm certain will carry through into my fishing and help me bank some kippers!

 

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Mega update! I'm back!

Crikey, it's been a while!! A few months back my blog kind of fell by the wayside it appears and it's been one of those things where the longer you leave it, the harder it is to get back into it! I've had one or two ideas to completely change the direction of this blog anyway but until I come up with a format I'm happy with then I shall just update it normally as and when.

A lot has taken place in my fishing and personal life since my last update so rather than giving a blow by blow account which would take forever to write and somewhat bore the reader I shall just put a few pics on with a bit of background info so you can flick through to anything of interest more quickly.

Ok, starting from early summer which is where my last entry kind of finished I enjoyed a couple of cracking days on Pitsford reservoir with the SHUK (specimen hunting UK) lads in pursuit of its predators and it didn't disappoint. Pikewise I never managed anything decent but there was plenty of them to keep a bend in the rod . I did catch some nice perch however and was most privileged to be on hand to photograph a cracking 4lb pb for my buddy Carl and witness another PB in the form of a 24lb pike to another friend steve. The other SHUK lads fared well also with numerous big perch landed on the other boats.

 

 

A trip up to the Lake District to fish an event organised by the Lure anglers society on esthwaite water proved interesting. We camped on the shoreline and got eaten alive by midges but after Potto managed a lovely double figure fish just casting from the bank upon our arrival we were hopeful of a good session the following day. Unfortunately it wasn't to be and we managed just one fish each between us. It turned out it fished pretty hard for everybody and our two modest Pike were enough for third place which was a result considering neither of us had even seen the Lake before! A truly stunning place to wet a line though.

 

 

I also joined a little carp syndicate this year with the intention of getting to grips with the lakes bream population, however, my burgeoning lure fishing obsession got in the way of those plans for the most part. I did mange a couple of trips though and had some nice doubles, no PBs but I have little doubt that I've found the right water to nail my biggest bream at some point.

 

Around this time I got notice that my unit at work was to be closed down as the powers that be decided a move to Scotland with its cheap labour would be more profitable. This threw all my plans into disarray as I had only recently put my house on the market with a view to upsizing. After the initial panic I decided to continue with the house sale and forsake any meagre redundancy payout in favour of getting a new job as quickly as possible so I could get enough time in my new job behind me to enable a smooth transfer into a new mortgage when I needed to. Trouble is the house wasn't selling and finding the right job wasn't easy!

In the meantime on The fishing front it was early July and the Cornish lure festival was beckoning so myself and Carl headed to Cornwall for a long weekend of camping and fishing. Registration at the art of fishing tackle shop in wadebridge was quite surreal, I was five hours from home and it was like being in the local tackle shop, everybody that walked through the door was a familiar face from the midlands!

Our target for the weekend was to catch as many different species as possible and From our base in fowey we covered a lot of spots all around the area from Looe to Mevagissey. The main problem for us was lack of local knowledge, we knew where we wanted to fish but really struggled to get to most of the marks and not being sea anglers whatsoever we knew nothing of how the tides affected the different species. We did manage a few fish though and it was a real eye opener catching fish on lures in tiny rockpools that you wouldn't normally give a second glance to!

 

A couple of weeks later I was in Cornwall again on a family holiday so I got chance to revisit some spots with my daughter charlotte. We had a great time and the mackerel fishing was mental!!

Within a week of returning home I had a couple of successful job interviews and accepted a new role with a company that designs and builds industrial machines for the food industry, I started there in August, things were looking up hopefully!

Soon enough it was time for the opening of two big boys of the UK reservoir fishing scene, namely Rutland and Grafham. I was booked to fish the Zandermasters competition on Rutland to kick things off and I came a very respectable 6th place out of a large field of very good anglers. My target had been to beat last years 11th place and I had blown that out of the water, really pleased.

 

A couple of days on Grafham again with the SHUK and perch hunters lads was next on the list and what a trip that turned out to be! Carl and I really got stuck into the perch and we lost count of how many we caught over the two days, it was ridiculous! Most averaged around the pound mark with numerous twos and whilst the real monsters eluded us I still managed fish to mid three. Carl found some small 3-4lb Zander and seemed to be catching them for fun whereas I couldn't get one to save my life! I even resorted to the same lure and fished right next to his yet still no joy. Some of the other lads in our party got amongst some monster Zander with one boat landing six doubles on one day! Fantastic fishing, no wonder they call it the theatre of dreams.

 

 

Much canal and river lure fishing filled in the gaps between the ressy trips and September also saw my appointment as an ambassador for Japanese lure company Ecogear. They manufacture some great lures and no doubt you will be seeing a lot more of them on here in the coming months. They sent me a few bits to play with and I have to say they certainly catch a few!

Backend of September and early October saw me back in a boat again with my old mate Potto. Firstly a trip to Rutland to celebrate my 40th which turned out to be much tougher than I'd expected. We'd spent a good portion of the day drifting over fairly deep water for very little action indeed, all the usual spots seemed devoid of fish and we were scratching our heads a bit. On one drift we overran into shallower water around 35ft deep and immediately started getting pulls and catching. After this we concentrated on the 25-35ft depth band and caught well for the rest of the day, the consistent warm weather had obviously moved the fish into the shallower areas.

 

The next trip out with Potto was a couple of firsts for me, it was my first trip to the river Severn and my first time fishing a river from a boat, I had no idea what to expect but Potto assured me of a good day and he didn't disappoint! My second cast produced a Zander and from then on we caught consistently throughout the day. Several Pike and Zeds plus a ruck of Perch made for some great fishing and I was amazed to catch fish below the boat in less than 10ft of water. I was previously convinced they would've been spooked straight away but the reality was far from it. Another thing I learned was the need for good boat control, pottos skills on the leccy motor worked wonders and certainly kept us on the fish. The ability to tackle snags from different angles was also a massive bonus and saved us loads of lost gear. After that trip I'm now determined to get a boat of my own now to tackle my local bits of soar and Trent.

 

 

Since then I've had a bit of a grueller on the fishing front, yes I've caught a few littleuns but it's been hard work. The weather has cooled dramatically and all the leaves seem to have come off the trees at once filling up my local waterways with crap.

I did have a fairly impromptu grafham trip last weekend but the wind was horrendous and for the first time since I've fished the ressies I actually got a bit seasick. I don't think anchoring up in the waves helped the situation because I was fine once we started fish the drift again. I lost a good Zander just beneath the surface and managed a couple of decent brown trout but bites were very hard to come by.

 

 

Going forward, I have my own DRAC match to look forward to in December, the LACC predator pairs next week and a whole load of ideas for new waters to try. Oh and my house is finally sold and I'm looking forward to a January move to my new house which just happens to have a fish filled stream at the end of the garden! Tight lines all :-)

 

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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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Canals, some observations

Aside from my dalliances with the competition side of things I also managed to get in plenty of other trips during the latter weeks of 2015. As is now usual for me these days it was all lure orientated and involved walking many many miles of the midland canal network. I'm in it for bites these days, the fun aspect far outweighs the pursuit of specimens for me at the moment which is why I've been scouring as many stretches of canal as possible, searching out those elusive hotspots.

 

Until the last few months I never realised just how interesting and diverse canals are for angling opportunities. On the face of it they are much of a muchness, very samey, often quite bleak looking and it can be difficult to know where to start. I don't profess to be an expert myself but not a single session has passed where I haven't taken something at least from it and learnt something new.

 

So far for me, bridges have been far and away the most consistent spots in terms of fish attracting features. Most offer slightly deeper water in the margins which, on shallow canals, can make a huge difference. Small perch abound tight to the concrete and brick walls whilst the middle track beneath bridges often throws up some better quality fish. The width of the bridge can be a crucial factor too, the small brick built types often found on rural stretches are usually home to perch and maybe the odd small zander whereas the wider, darker concrete ones spanning main roads in towns for example are more reliable for better zander and bigger perch. Tunnels and railway bridges are zander hotspots and most rarely fail to produce an enquiry or two.

 

Locks and lock pounds, whilst very attractive to anglers, can be very hit and miss from what I've found, a prime example being flights of locks where you have several sets over a very short distance. Some pounds in these flights are invariably barren of fish life whilst the next pound along may be stuffed to the gunnels. This is mostly,I feel, down to inconsiderate or inexperienced boaters draining the pounds down to nothing by leaving sluices open or gates slightly ajar. As an example, There's a 13 lock flight just outside Northampton and after fishing it several times now I can confirm that at least nine of the pounds are pretty much devoid of fish, in fact last time out, 2 pounds were almost empty of water. I've seen similar things at Stockton and Hatton aswell in recent weeks so in 2016 I will be avoiding such areas like the plague!

 

Single locks with long stretches of canal either side can be good for a few bites but they are absolute magnets for other lure anglers and it's very easy to tell if somebody has been through prior to ones visit because the fish can be very cagey and hard to tempt. I find the fish often move away from them once the first boat of the day has been through too, often moving back in just before dark after the last boat.

 

Moored boats are always worth a cast or two with permanently moored ones worthy of extra attention for sure. Areas with reeds in the margins are generally quite silted up and shallow and have not been good areas for me so far so I tend to avoid unless I find at least 2ft+ of water next to them. Rural tree lined areas are also often very shallow beneath the trees and in these spots I find the middle track to be most productive . These swims are often quite snaggy too with loads of twigs and branches scattered around on the bottom.

 

Stretches with metal shuttering or concrete banks are usually deeper than natural banks and I spend a lot of time working the margins in such spots. Bends and junctions again are good areas to head for as the flow and the the boat traffic tend to scour the bottom out that little bit more. One thing I do look for on any canal is the deeper areas because in fish holding terms the difference between 2ft deep and 3ft deep can make a massive difference.

 

I find it amazing how long, straight and boring looking stretches seemingly hold next to nothing as you work along them then suddenly you'll hit the jackpot and catch several from a particular spot even though it looks no different from the rest of the area. A return to the same swim the following week often turns up nothing as the fish have obviously moved on.

 

 

As I've often mentioned in previous posts, the colour of the water has always been a major thing for me as I've really struggled to get my head around how the fish can find the lure in heavily coloured conditions. Thankfully my recent trips to the grand union in particular are really helping my confidence on this front and I've found that by spending more time in each spot and slowing things down bites will come. Don't ask me how they locate the lure but they certainly manage somehow and the takes can often be really violent.

 

To the uninitiated, canals with their muddy water, rubbish, boats, dog muck, chavs and cyclists may seem a nightmare place to wet a line. To the enlightened however they offer some very interesting sport and you never quite know what your going to catch next. For me, I have a long long way to go before I truly understand such venues and how to get the most from them but it will be an enjoyable journey that's for sure!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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