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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Canals, rivers and the big G

This is going to be a busy update as I've been covering a lot of water in recent weeks! The canal lure fishing has continued unabated as have my quick 1-2hr trips to the local river. I did break the habit one Saturday with a bait fishing trip chasing chub before embarking upon my first ever trip to the theatre of dreams, or Grafham water as it is better known.

I recently joined the lure anglers canal club (LACC) and have been down Warwick way sampling some of their Zander and Perch sport. The grand union there is deeper and wider than the canals I'm used to and although the sport wasn't hectic we still caught a few. Dropshot tactics with micro lures seemed to be most effective although we did bump into another angler on one occasion who had caught a few on much bigger 4inch lures and jigheads.

 

Urban angling

 

The average Warwick stamp

 

The perch seemed bigger than the usual 'wasps' too

 

 

Unlike those at the other end of the LACC stretch!

 

 

Another area of grand union canal I visited recently was out towards Northampton. I had attended the annual Milton Keynes Specimen Group shindig in Newport Pagnell the previous evening where we were treated to a fantastic talk by well known big fish man Terry 'Theo' Theobold. Having booked into a local hotel I had taken my lure gear with the idea of exploring some waters in that area the following day. The locals directed me and Phil towards a couple of promising areas.

Although We awoke to the first decent frost of the autumn and had to scrape the ice off the car, the fishing didn't disappoint and plenty of bites were forthcoming despite several other lure anglers also working the stretch.

At one point Phil caught a perch which was followed right up to the bank by another of a similar size, I dropped in next to Phils fish and caught the other Imediately!

 

Double trouble!

 

A lovely stretch indeed

 

There was even some zander to be found

 

 

The following weekend I had a massive urge to go chubbing on the Trent so I packed my feeder rod, liquidised some bread and got myself down there! It was absolutely chucking it down which made for some uncomfortable fishing and bites were Initially hard to come by. After dropping in a couple of different swims though I managed to locate a few fish and even caught some before the rain finally beat me back to the car and home.

4lber, nice to watch a quivertip for a change!

 

Bread caught Bream

 

 

I'll never tire of catching these!

 

 

I used a couple of short trips to my local river soar to experiment with some flex-head jigs I'd recently aquired. I figured the extra joint in the rig would help impart more movement into the lure whilst possibly improving hookup rates, early results have been promising!

One of four in less than an hour

 

 

A hastily arranged trip to Grafham water was next on the agenda. Its not a water I've fished before and has a tough reputation but I figured my experiences on other large Trout reservoirs would stand me in good stead and I would be in with a chance at least. My boat partner Jamie had never fished it either but as luck would have it we met up with our old mucker Steve who was meant to be guiding on there but his client had cancelled due to bad weather in his part of the country stopping him flying down. His loss was our good fortune however as Steve agreed to come out in our boat for a couple of hours and hopefully show us the big G way.

We went straight to a mark Steve had found on previous trip and started to get the odd tap from the off. It turned out that these were mostly small perch but I was well chuffed when the first bite I connected with was my first Grafham Zander albeit a small one!

We had more Perch after that, Steve also nailed a Zed of around 7lb and I managed a feisty rainbow trout but it was tough going despite trying several other spots. After dropping Steve off at the boat dock around lunchtime Jamie and I headed back out to the first area as news filtered through that a couple of the other boats had found a few fish out that way.

It wasn't long before Jamie hooked what we initially though was a huge Zander or maybe a Pike but we were surprised to find he'd caught a lovely brown trout of maybe 4-5lb. We caught more perch and both lost what felt like good sized Zeds before all to soon it was time to head back in. I did snag another small Zander before hometime though which was pleasing. Upon our return to the lodge we were pleased to discover that Phil, another of our party in another boat, had caught a new PB zed of over 11lb which was a happy end to a most enjoyable day. It illustrated perfectly that Grafham has so much potential to obliterate those PBs, I've a feeling that I will be fishing there a lot over the next couple of years!

 

First one from the big G!

 

Typical grafham perch

 

Jamie bending into a good fish

 

Result!

 

Another little one at last knockings!

 

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Autumn predators on the plastics

Well, what can I say? It appears I have neglected my blog for far too long once again! No I've not packed in fishing, far from it in fact but, as usual, life has got in the way and some things have fallen somewhat by the wayside.

Throughout most of August work was manic leaving me with little time to fish but I did have a cat fishing social with some lads from our little Facebook group on Office lake fishery in Notts. In the event it was tough going and the only cat caught was this little fella whilst we were trying to catch livebaits!

 

 

I had a blistering run in the middle of the night and hooked something heavy and powerful which wiped out my other rod before weeding me up and shedding the hook. I was totally gutted by this as you can imagine especially seeing as it was the only run our group had between us! It's a nice lake though and I will certainly head back there next year to even the score.

The bank holiday weekend after that was a busy one too as I had organised our fishing clubs inaugural Barbel match on the river Trent and I was fishing the zandermasters lure match on Rutland water also. The barbel match went really smoothly although I was disappointed that the barbel didn't play ball after all the effort I'd put in. No barbel were caught by the competitors and only a few chub were caught. It was decided that the prize money went to charity seeing as nobody could claim it and I got some great feedback from the lads, most of whom said they couldn't wait to come back and do it again next year.

The Zandermasters match was something I'd been looking forward to for a while and was to be a totally new experience for me considering I'd never fished a match before in my life! Organised by Steve Collett in association with the lure company Ecogear it was held on the mighty Rutland water with the aim of the game being to catch the longest combined length of Zander possible.

The match gave me an opportunity to rub shoulders with some really good anglers and the atmosphere was fantastic. Our boat partners had been drawn prior to the event and my partner, Tony, was certainly no slouch in the lure fishing stakes having already qualified for this years british lure angling champs final.

I have to admit was somewhat nervous about whether I'd end up blanking and making a tit of myself in front of all these experienced anglers but after five minutes in the boat with Tony all that was long forgotten and despite the horrendous weather we had a right laugh. It didn't take us long to find a few fish either with my dropshot tactics soon putting a couple on the scoresheet up in the North arm. Tony switched to dropshot too and quickly added some fish of his own. I even managed a Rutland PB of 60cm which helped my cause no-end!

 

 

We tried a couple of other areas and although it was tough going we managed a few bites and pretty much matched each other fish for fish. By the end of the match Tony had beaten me by two fish which had edged him in front of me by 31cm. I finished with six fish for 2.37m which I was more than pleased with especially as, when we arrived back at the boat dock, we found out that half of the field had struggled to catch 1-3fish with some even blanking altogether. It was a tough day as the results below show but it's great to see Tony made the top 10 which also means I wasn't too far behind!

 

 

The match really whetted my appetite for more of the same and since then I've been making plans to fish further matches with my next one being fished in early October.

August rolled into September and throughout the whole month I've nothing but lure fish! I just can't get enough of it at the moment and my bait fishing has taken I real backseat. Part of me feels a bit guilty because I know I could be out there catching fish for the bloggers comp or kicking my Barbel and Perch campaigns into gear but the simple truth is that I'm having too much fun with the lures and I'm not ready to stop yet!

I've been trying some new swims on my local Trent and Mersey canal with some success in a bit to overcome my mental block of catching on lures in coloured water. I know I've mentioned it before but I just can't get my head around how fish can be caught on lures, which, on the face of it is very visual method in water with little or no visibility. I did catch a few Perch but to be fair the water wasn't THAT coloured and I figured that I needed to do it properly if I was to conquer this thing.

 

 

I decided to organise a trip with my mate Carl who fishes (and catches from) the eternally chocolate coloured Ashby canal to try and get a few pointers and build confidence. On the day our first port of call was the Oxford canal which was fairly coloured but still had 8inches or so of visibility which meant we found some decent early success with some nice perch, a good start.

 

 

Pretty soon though a couple of boats went through and the water went pretty mucky but Carl assured me the fish would still feed. The perch were quickly conspicuous by their absence but they were soon replaced by a string of Zander, obviously switched on by the turbid conditions. Visibility was reduced to around 4inches by now.

 

 

The boat traffic soon became really busy and the visibility was reduced to zero as was our bite rate so we decided to up sticks and head to the Ashby canal instead. I was immediately disheartened to see that the water was as chocolate coloured as it possibly could be with zero visibility but Carl said press on so that is what we did. Half an hour later I was just chatting on my phone whilst casually bumping my dropshot on the bottom under the rodtip, at that point two boats passed each other right in front of me and I groaned inwardly at the futility of my chances when all of a sudden there was a kick on the rodtip and I found myself connected to a Zander! Well bugger me, the biggest of the day too!

 

 

How that fish found my lure I will never know because visibility was absolute zero and I can only assume the vibration of the weight hitting the bottom must've brought it in to investigate. My confidence was transformed and although it was soon packup time I already had plans to try other similarly coloured canals.

The following weekend saw me hit the Oxford and Ashby canals again aswell as the Grand Union and despite all being coloured I still caught a fair few fish. I quickly found that the dirtier the water the slower the bait needs to be fished.

 

 

In between my canal trips I was also having quick sessions on my local rivers with the dropshot gear and absolutely slaughtered them on natural coloured baits.

 

 

September also saw me back on Rutland again twice possibly for the last time this year but as usual it didn't disappoint and although the fish weren't huge there was plenty of them and the last trip in particular was very productive indeed. That will have to wait till next time however as time is short as usual and I must go, tight lines y'all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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