Back to Blithfield

After last autumns successful perch trials the management at Blithfield res decided to release a couple more dates so last weekend saw me headed back over there to do battle once more. Phil was to be my boat partner this time around and seeing as this was his first time out on a trout ressie I was praying for a good day to whet his appetite for future trips.

 

As we approached the lake it didn't look too bad but as we got closer I was slightly disappointed that there was a good chop on. Being relatively inexperienced at boat fishing myself I had visions of spending most of the day wrestling with the boat in the wind but in the event, although we were drifting a little too quickly for my liking, the drogue did it's job and it wasn't too bad.

The fishing itself proved to be a pretty slow burner and although we were getting a few taps we were struggling to connect with anything. My first fish came after I had put the rod down and reached for a sandwich. Phil pointed out that my rod tip was pulling over at an alarming rate and I turned around and struck into a small but feisty Perch.

 

After that we fished on with more confidence and actually managed to catch a few even though we were still missing a fair few plucks from the depths. I'd say it was prolific but I'd be lying, there was just enough action to keep the interest up but at least we were getting our string pulled.

 

 

Small red Berkeley minnows and silver savage gear minnows seemed to produce most pulls. At one point I hooked what I though was to be a proper mansize perch but it turned out to be a lively overwintered rainbow trout, a pleasing result on the ultralite outfit.

 

We seemed to find a better stamp of fish later on in the day but the fishing didn't get any easier. Nevertheless Phil and I both enjoyed ourselves and the quicker the autumn arrives so we can get on the other midlands ressies the better!

 

 

 

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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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Last one of 2014

I've been all too aware that my posts have been most infrequent of late and I've decided that I really must try harder in 2015. As usual , life has gotten in the way and my blog has really been overlooked this year as is obvious from looking at my annual post count compared to previous years.

So what have I been up to since my last update? Well, the lure thing has continued it's hold over me and the back end of November saw me taking part in the Perch fishing trials on Blithfield res in the company of Steve Collett. We were quite lucky weatherwise and although it was chilly it wasn't too windy so we managed to set up some lovely drifts.

The bottom of that lake must be carpeted with Perch in much the same way that Rutland is heaving with Zander! We had loads of action dropshotting tiny lures in around 30-40ft of water, fish to mid-2 pulled our strings and I even managed a rogue trout. The average size wasn't great but it was good practice and you never knew what size was going hit the lure next. Heres a few pics anyway;

A jig fishing session on the Soar followed on from Blithfield and although it took me a while to find some fish, when I did it got hectic! I managed around 20 perch and a couple of jacks in the space of an hour or so. A few days later we had some hefty rainfall and that put paid to my river chances for the rest of December to date.

It got cold aswell and I thought that would be it on the lure front but an afternoon session on a local pool yielded a few small Perch to ultra-tiny grub type lures which was encouraging especially as the pool is noted for switching off once the weather cools.

It occurred to me I'd not done any chub fishing this winter and I found myself with a hankering to get out and quivertip some bread. I really couldn't muster up any enthusiasm to fish my usual haunts even though I knew I'd get a few and be in with a chance of a lump. I had a look through some of my club tickets to see what else was about and soon found a couple of interesting leads. One was a small river and the other a brook, both held Chub that much was certain but I'd never even seen either before let alone fished them, my angling juices were well and truly intrigued.

The river was up first and upon our arrival I was a little disappointed to see it coloured and it looked to be carrying a few inches too. It looked pretty damn Chubby though and it was also deceptively deep, my first swim being around 5-6ft. It was also surprisingly lacking in the fish department too as one missed bite in the first hour testified! It was bitterly cold though so I wasn't expecting to set records.

A move upstream was called for and after a passing dog walker informed us we were wasting our time 'cos the Cormorants and Otters have wiped the place out' Phil and I weren't exactly stoked with confidence! Our main problem was finding potential fish holding swims because there was long stretches of fast shallow water and it seemed all the deeper slower areas were overgrown with trees and unfishable. We did manage to find a couple of swims in the end though and I caught four small Chub which proved there was still fish there afterall!

 

After that we retired to the warmth of the truck and headed 20miles up the road into Derbyshire and the brook we had our eye on. This proved to be much the same as the river in width and colour but was much shallower. Again we struggled to find some fish and it wasn't until the last couple of swims we tried when we started to catch. I only managed a Roach and a couple of Chub but I felt I'd really had to work for them that's for sure!

The most recent trip was to commercial in search of Perch and although I planned to bait fish I also look the lure rod along just in case! It was wasn't cold but it was windy and after trying the dropshot for nothing more than a couple of taps I switched to worm and prawn. A couple of carp hooked early on certainly pulled my string but the perch were noticeable by their absence.

I switched back to the dropshot gear and managed to catch a couple of tiddlers and aswell as getting a few other enquiries but it proved to be exceptionally snaggy where they were so I gave it up as a bad job and carried on with the bait fishing. I used worms only seeing as the prawns were carp magnets and eventually managed to snare a nice Perch of a tad over 2lb.

So that's about it for 2014, not a bad year but not exactly exceptional either. I do have a couple of trips planned before the new year so hopefully I'll have something to blog about next time! In the meantime, merry Christmas everybody and have a happy new year!

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Autumn sessions

Since my last entry I've done quite a bit of fishing, in fact , as I sit here and write I'm struggling to remember it all! The weather has definately taken a turn for the worse of late and autumn is well and truly upon us. For the most part I've been doing a lot of lure fishing as that side of things seems to have taken on a whole new lease of life for me, more on that shortly however. In the meantime to kick things off I'll talk a little bit about a grayling session on the Dove around three weeks ago.

As expected, Phil and I had the whole stretch to ourselves upon our arrival and the fishing started off in a promising way with a lovely Chub falling to phils rod within minutes. After that we really struggled in a couple of swims which was quite surprising really as the fish seemed quite active. A strong and cold wind got up which didn't help the situation but eventually I found a swim where I could sit with my back to it. Bites were hard to come by to begin with but I was reluctant to move and decided to stay put and keep the feed going in. This soon began to pay off as a succession of small grayling and trout steadily came to my rod. After an hour or so I suddenly realised my catch rate was really picking up as was the size of the fish, the more maggots I put in the river the more I was catching. It was one those times when everything seems to fall into place and a nice rhythm was established, cast, bait,wait 30secs, catch, cast, bait, wait 30secs,catch, lovely!

Every fish I caught was full of maggots so they were obviously really having it, even a flotilla of passing canoes didn't dampen their appetite! I lost count of how many I caught, grayling nudging 2lb and trout to over 3lb all came to the net over the next couple of hours before, eventually, I managed to exhaust my maggot supply and was forced to pack up. Nothing big was caught but it was a great days fishing and the beautifully marked trout in the pic below was probably my favourite fish of the trip, a proper wild stunner!

 

After that trip I had a bit of a mishap with my car exhaust so decided to book a day off work to sort it out with a view to maybe squeeze some fishing in aswell. As you probably know by now, I like to lure fish whenever I get a limited window to fish as this technique requires absolutely no preparation and you are fishing the second the lure hits the water. Today was no exception and I headed to a local canal with nothing more than a few bits to do some dropshotting.

The water was fairly murky but it didn't take long to find a few Perch, only little ones but plenty of them. I found the best lure was a little panic minnow but it was the last I had and I was gutted when something nipped the tail of it! It did some damage of its own though as you can see below.

 

The pike seemed very active today for some reason aswell and they took a liking to the dropshot lures.

 

After catching a couple of jacks and getting bitten off I decided to incorporate a trace into my rig. This had the instant effect of putting the perch off but I still managed a couple more pike including a nice one which must've been approaching double figures.

 

 

After that I headed back to pick up the car well pleased with the mornings action. I did have another dropshotting session on a local pool a couple of days later and managed another load of small perch. The water was crystal clear and it was great fun watching the perch attack the lure, such aggressive little buggers!

The next fishing trip proper was to a large reservoir with Roach being the target. Despite it only being a short distance from home I'd never fished it before so was totally unsure as to what to expect other than that the roach averaged a good size.

It was absolutely chucking it down when we arrived but even so the lake itself was still very low after the long dry summer. My chosen spot wasn't any different in looks to any other swim for 500yards in either direction but there was fish showing within casting range so that was good enough for me!

I fished two maggot bolt feeder rigs at around 50yards range and the plan was to keep recasting both rods every 5mins until a good bed of bait was built up and hopefully the roach came on the feed.

Fortunately it didn't take long to start getting bites and soon the fish were coming thick and fast. I was really pleased with the average size aswell with most fish being between 6-12oz and a nice sprinkling of pound plussers chucked in for good measure.

I was playing the numbers game to try and snare a 2lber but there was just too many smaller samples in my swim. I ended up with somewhere around 30lb of roach I'd say with the biggest I weighed going 1lb5oz. I have no doubt that 2lbers exist in the lake but it'd take a lot of fishing to find one given just how stuffed the place is! A water I'll revisit with different tactics next time I feel.

Since the roach trip I've been pretty much 100% lure fishing or more specifically, Ultra light lure fishing. I met up with well known angler and lure fishing guru Steve Collett who has kindly been showing me the ropes with the whole U/L concept.

Tiny lures, fine wire hooks, pencil thin rods and miniature reels are all part and parcel of this style of fishing and some of the tips and edges that Steve has passed on have been real eye openers. Balanced tackle which allows you to see and feel even the shyest of bites is the key to getting the most out of U/L as is technique. After seeing Steve in action I realise what a newbie I am to lure fishing and how much scope I have to refine and improve my technique, it's like a hidden world has been opened up to me!

Another major thing which Steve has helped me to overcome is my reluctance to lure fish coloured water. I always had a mental block about chucking lures about in coloured water thinking if the fish can't see it then they won't take it, how wrong I was! An adjustment in technique and the confidence to keep plugging away was all that was needed and after witnessing Steve catch a zander in the most coloured water you could imagine I set about trying to catch one of my own.

In the end it took a couple of trips but catch one I did and, although it was small, I can't overstate the significance of the fish in terms of confidence building. I feel ready to take on the entire midlands canal network now! my next blank trip will certainly send me crashing back down to earth but there are exciting times ahead I feel.

 

 

 

 

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Fishing frustration and food for thought

I managed a couple of trips to the bankside this week the first being a session on my local soar chasing Pike. The area I fished is one which has rapidly become a favourite pike spot of mine being fairly prolific with the chance of a big fish thrown in for good measure. It was Saturday morning and I was surprised to find I had the whole stretch to myself so I headed straight for my favourite spot.

The river was still pretty coloured from the rain of the previous week but having caught from the stretch in the past in even more turbid conditions I was fairly confident of some action. It didn't take long to get a couple of sardines into position and it took even less time to put a fish on the bank because, almost Imediately, I had a bite and duly landed a feisty jack of about 5-6lb.

Half an hour later I managed a second fish and was hopeful of a good day, that is until the rowing boats from the boat club upstream started coming through. I've fished the area a good few times now and even though many boats have come past me during that time I've never had an issue with them until this time around. One pair came past so close they actually clipped my rod tips with their oars! Another half a dozen came by and decided that the water in front of me would be a good place to turn their flotilla around and have a good shouty chat. Needless to say I soon moved!

 

The new swim was right in the teeth of the prevailing wind but was much wider and offered some distance between me and any passing rowers. Unfortunately my time there was short lived as several bleeps and pulls on the line alerted me to some heavy crayfish activity. This was proved when the first rod I reeled in had nothing but a fish skeleton on the end and the the second rod had one of the pesky crustaceans still hanging onto it!

 

Another move was called for and again this was to be short lived aswell. A lovely cast between two boats next to a willow tree was ruined when a chap in a rowing dinghy decided to pull into the gap to carry out some noisy boat maintenance right on top of my bait. A couple of minutes later a narrowboat came up along the nearside bank so close it wiped both my rods out. This was getting ridiculous!

 

Seeing the rowing boats from the club had all but disappeared by now I headed back up to my original area just in time to see another narrowboat minus it's crew come drifting aimlessly around the corner upstream. The crew of the boat were running along the bank desperately trying to snare it as they had obviously all jumped off and forgotten to tie it up! A chap from a nearby boatyard managed to secure it in the end using his own boat as an impromptu boom across the river which enabled the crew to get back on board their runaway vessel.

 

All this took place about 50 yards upstream of my spot so as you can imagine I wasn't confident of any action! Seeing as I'd been dropped off I had no choice but to fish on until my lift arrived and after another hour or so it seemed things had calmed down a bit. This was to be proved right when my upstream rod signalled a last gasp take just before i packed up and I duly landed another pike, this one a little bit bigger than the others from earlier.

 

My plans for the Sunday changed suddenly and I found myself with an extra chance to go fishing. I wasn't sure what to go for or where to fish so I rang my old mukka Phil to see what he was up to. It turned out he was headed over to the canal to try for a net of silvers and to be honest, after the boat experiences of the previous day, I really didn't fancy going through it again on a cut which is even busier than the river! With a lack of better ideas though on my part he managed to twist my arm by mentioning the immortal words "big Perch". Dammit, resistance was futile!

Now I'd never fished there with lobworms before to target the Perch and this was going to be a bit a leap into the unknown as the place has no track record of big perch because pretty much nobody fishes it (certainly not in the area we headed for) so nobody knows!

I'd managed to collect a few lobs over the previous damp evenings and certainly had a sessions-worth at my disposal. A pint of red maggots completed the bait arsenal and soon enough I was setting up in a likely spot. Pretty much the whole far bank looked the same so I picked a swim which didn't look too snaggy and gave me an easy cast to an overhanging elderberry bush which might offer some shelter to a big stripey or two.

The floating leaves looked a nightmare for float fishing so I opted for a light quivertip and began to get pulls and knocks right from the first cast. Within minutes I landed the first of a succession of small perch between 6-12oz, at least there was a few fish about which was good news anyway.

The boats on the canal were a stark contrast to those on the river on my last trip. Every one,without exception, was courteous and mindful of the fact we were fishing, staying to the middle track and slowing down for us. Most said hello and we even shared a bit of light-hearted banter, if only all boaters could be like those on the Trent and Mersey!

Anyway back to the fishing and after a couple of hours things had slowed to a standstill so I decided to try twitching the worm every couple of minutes. This had an instant effect and soon I hooked a perch of slightly more substantial proportions. At 2lb2oz it was no monster but for me it was quite a significant fish as it told me that there might be considerably more to the canal than meets the eye, certainly from a Perching perspective anyway.

After that bites on the tip became even harder to come by so decided to try a Floatfished lob along my nearside margin. Again it was slow but a couple of knocks and dips on the float told me there was a few about. After missing a couple of proper bites I managed to connect with what I'm almost certain was a nice silver bream getting on for a pound. I've since counted the scales along the lateral line and checked several other tell-tale features and am satisfied it's a true 'silver'.

I managed another identical sample shortly afterwards so it wasn't a fluke and got me thinking about what the canal could offer in terms of these little fish aswell as the Perch? Another half decent perch put in an appearance after that last bream then the spot went stone dead. I couldn't raise so much as a twitch for a good twenty minutes before eventually the float slid away. This time I found myself walking along the bank to keep up with what was obviously a sizeable fish that was hellbent on getting around the corner into Phils swim! I gave it some real pressure to turn it and managed to get a good look it in the process, it looked to be a nice mid-double mirror carp. Unfortunately my 4lb hooklink wasn't really up to the task and soon I was left cursing as the fish made good it's escape.

I packed up shortly afterwards as I could no longer see my float but this session had really brought home the possibilities of what the venue could offer in the future and to be honest I can't wait to get back down there!

 

 

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