How did you get on?

[103841]

Something of a milestone today. Visited a day ticket commie (Long Shaw fishery) hopefully for the last time as I'm eligible to start fishing waters belonging to my new CDAA club from this Saturday (April 1stmg. I'm also able to start fishing an estate lake having just been given a placement in their small syndicate. No guarantee that I'll catch more and better fish but I'm optimistic

With a warm night followed by the warmest day of the year I was hopeful for a promising start to the day, those hopes never materialised as the pesky skimmers dominated my mornings attempts. The weather got warmer still and I could almost hear my arthritic bones sighing with joy after a winter of discontent, infact got so relaxed it was necessary to engage the baitrunner and click back my Korum recliner a couple of notches.

Along with me the carp awoke from their slumbers and paraded on the surface requesting doggy biscuits, today they were particularly obliging not differentiating between loose feed and hook bait, game on! after a couple of frantic hours nine were landed with a couple of good doubles lost, hook well and truly straightenedmg: best brought to net a tad under eleven pound.

Noticeable that many of the fish had a reddish almost terracotta like colouration around their mouths, what could that be?

 

[mikench]

A good Barolo or Pinotage I reckon!

 

[103841]

A good Barolo or Pinotage I reckon!

Funnily enough it's me that's relaxing right now with a bottle of Aldis finest Pinotage, a snip at £3-89 a bottle.

 

[swizzle]

I was all set for a bash at the Bury Hill crucians today.Nearly didnt go as I woke to a rather unpleasant gurgling in the nethers the blame for which I laid firmly on Mrs S or Typhoid Mary as she is currently known. After a bit of unpleasantness and a breakfast of dry toast and Immodium i decided to give it a go.

M25 was a mare. Trust me to pick the day when they are holding the National Truck Slalom finals.

Arrived at OBH. Wasn't expecting to bag up as the BF fished on Tuesday and found it hard. It's a bit early yet i think but what the hell.....Made a change to get the pole out rather than the zander rods. It was red maggot or nothing on Tuesday so that's all i had....Plus a little bit of groundbait. Fished just over the marginal rush beds as the lilies are not up yet and open water seemed barren .Bites very hard to come by and they didn't want much feed at all..... too much and they backed off double sharp. 2 small balls of Supercrush killed it for an hour so i reverted to loose feeding rather than potting in and not too tight so they had to move around a bit. Seemed to work but i had to work really hard for every bite. Basically chasing them round the swim.

I had 6 lovely crucians ...... t he best maybe 1-12. Around 12-15 cracking roach with 4 over the pound and a best of maybe 1-6 or so. Really nice fish too. Absolutely mint. A sprinkling of decent (6-8oz) Rudd, one random perch and ( the horror!) a bloody skimmer ! That will teach me to use groundbait and maggot.

It wasnt easy fishing , there was a nasty scuddy wind and the geese and coots were just going mental but I thoroughly enjoyed meself..... apart from that damned brim !

First swallow of the year sighted and the trees full of chiff-chaff. Spring is definately here even if my rod licence isn't.

The Immodium did the trick btw. No frantic dash into the bushes with the groundbait towel necessary.

Your reports always crack me up. Brilliant.

 

[associatedmatt]

binka that 2nd perch has got bigger eyes than its belly for sure !

 

[thames mudlarker]

Winter was forecast to be over today and because of that I had planned to make an early start to my first outing of the year, got up this morning and it was persisting it down so I sat looking on here waiting for the rain to stop which it eventually did at around midday.

Fished a local commercial pool that doesn't see a lot of anglers for some reason could be because it only contains carp but I wasn't bothered as I intended to have a bash with my untried centrepin for the first time.

12ft match rod centrepin with 6lb maxima on it with 4bb loaded waggler 3.3 supplex hooklength of around 4 feet long ending in a fine wire 10s. Bait was wet bread with liquidised bread as feed another first for me today.

I would like to tell you that I got on well with the centrepin but I didn't but that was down to not having the patience to persevere after I had set up almost blind due to leaving my specs at home so off it came and on went the fixed spool, same reel line same everything, swim was 8feet deep 2 rods out and although it took a while to get my first bite once I did they came at fairly regular intervals all carp most around 4 to 6 lbs which gave a great account of themselves on a float rod ended up with 8 before I packed up. I shall be having another bash with wet bread I think.

End of session bonus was the bailiff not coming round so I saved myself £6 on the ticket

Nice one mate, well done, seems like you had a good day :thumbs:

So when are yer selling the centre pin .....lols............only joking mate

 

[john step]

Binka is that not a BOYES rod rest? If so I think the reason for the small perch is that the Hardies and the pins are sulking at the association.

 

[dorsetandchub]

Steve,

You could have fluffed that perch up by mentioning the bait was actually a Humboldt Squid. Nice going again, matey.

 

[S-Kippy]

Binka is that not a BOYES rod rest? If so I think the reason for the small perch is that the Hardies and the pins are sulking at the association.

Quite right. Rods and reels by Hardy. Rod rest by Poundland.

 

[thames mudlarker]

Quite right. Rods and reels by Hardy. Rod rest by Poundland.

Funny PMSL mg:

I used to use stainless but soon give that up because they weighed a blimmin ton when you've got a few of em in yer bag

Nothing wrong with normal rod rests

 

[binka]

Imo even the cheapy rod rest heads are over kill for the job in hand, my all time favourite on stillwaters is a simple V shape but they're hard to find with the pivoting head which is needed in situations like the one used where the banksticks are at a sharp angle.

I'm happy to leave the aerospace machined alloy, with glare avoiding brushed gun metal finish, to those who want 'em

I always set them up so that the butt ring is on my my side of the rest, that way if the eyelids get heavy I just flick the ratchet on knowing that any movement will make a sound akin to the world coming to an end and even manage to rouse me without the rod and reel doing a disappearing act courtesy of some bloated mugwump.

If I could find an even cheaper one than those that I currently use that does the job then I'm in, unless Hardy do bring one out with a faux suede finish in which case you can stick me down for a box full

A coordinated accessory range would come in useful, maybe a matching disgorger sleeve with logo'd neck chord and Hardy embossed wet wipes in individual sachets?

 

[thecrow]

So when are yer selling the centre pin

Oh I don't give up that easily and I have no doubt at all that using it for what I got it for on a river will be much easier than in a gale from behind a brolly

 

[S-Kippy]

Imo even the cheapy rod rest heads are over kill for the job in hand, my all time favourite on stillwaters is a simple V shape but they're hard to find with the pivoting head which is needed in situations like the one used where the banksticks are at a sharp angle.

I'm happy to leave the aerospace machined alloy, with glare avoiding brushed gun metal finish, to those who want 'em

I always set them up so that the butt ring is on my my side of the rest, that way if the eyelids get heavy I just flick the ratchet on knowing that any movement will make a sound akin to the world coming to an end and even manage to rouse me without the rod and reel doing a disappearing act courtesy of some bloated mugwump.

If I could find an even cheaper one than those that I currently use that does the job then I'm in, unless Hardy do bring one out with a faux suede finish in which case you can stick me down for a box full

A coordinated accessory range would come in useful, maybe a matching disgorger sleeve with logo'd neck chord and Hardy embossed wet wipes in individual sachets?

10/10 for the most eloquent defence of one of the cheesiest rod rest heads in the world.

 

[barbelboi]

Well, yesterday was the hottest day of the year, 22C – so they said on the local news upon return from a fishing trip with a friend. They should have been sat in my X-lite on an old local estate lake where it was blowing a ******* hoolie across the open fields with the water leaping about doing it’s own thing. As stated last week after my first visit, this is even shallow for an estate lake –2 1⁄2 ’ max and certainly not up to the capabilities of a certain Lancelot Brown (still, only another 11ish weeks ‘til the rivers open).

As far as we know, the 9 acre lake has a low stocking of tench, carp (some supposedly quite large ) and silvers – it’s certainly hard going at the moment although I’m looking forward to some sessions when the water warms up/calms down a tad more. Until then it’s probably going to be one of the woodland/farm ponds or a deep local pit.

Fished from 9.30 – 4pm, tried everything I knew (and a few things I didn’t know) for 3 tench and windburn.................

 

[Graham Elliott 1]

Lovely looking tinca Jerry. And if you think 3 is hard going.........pop around this way for a sleep.!

 

[mikench]

Beautiful tench! I would have been very proud of that. Have you had photography lessons from Binka? Like Impressionism one can tell certain artistic qualities!

Anyway I had a great day today in the sense of volume of fish and a plan coming together. My other post indicated what I had planned today. It was very windy and probably too windy for a swing tip but I persevered and caught over a dozen roach to 8oz on maggot feeder and over 12 bream on a banjo feeder using red chicks( Thanks Laguna) bloodworm 8 mm pellets and gb. The swing tip was great save for when I was a little too enthusiastic on the cast. Once I mastered the long line from the rod tip and a nice gentle lob I had no problems and tangles!

The Abu 501 was lovely to use and once I got used to it I found it very easy to use. It coped with the bream to 4.5 lb . Thanks Tigger ; it's a cracker .

Oh I nearly forgot to mention the line I put on the Abu. It cast beautifully, was strong and easy to knot and behaved impeccably in a very stiff breeze. I like it! I will give you all one guess which line it is! Thanks Tigger!!!!:wh

 

[barbelboi]

Wouldn't have nodded off yesterday Gra, still got white knuckles from hanging on to the frame of the X-lite.......................

---------- Post added at 18:06 ---------- Previous post was at 18:03 ----------

I will give you all one guess which line it is

Nooooo, please don't................

 

[nottskev]

Hello, just noticed this thread so I thought I'd join in with a badly sized photo that could be one of the cat or the one I'm trying to upload.

Friend wanted me to join him on the canal, but I'd seen the forecast and what he calls "challenging" conditions - a bright afternoon on a busy windswept canal - is my idea of hell. So I went to a local lake, old but well-stocked. The roach were taking tares on Monday like it was August, and today even a couple of small tench and crucians took a liking to them. And a breakthrough: carp don't seem interested. Although just because they don't eat the bait doesn't mean you're safe as I foulhooked two of the damn things near the surface, lifting the pole to check the bait. Resulting in the usual three minute runaround before the (2.5 lb) hooklength breaks.

 

[thames mudlarker]

Beautiful tench! I would have been very proud of that. Have you had photography lessons from Binka? Like Impressionism one can tell certain artistic qualities!

Anyway I had a great day today in the sense of volume of fish and a plan coming together. My other post indicated what I had planned today. It was very windy and probably too windy for a swing tip but I persevered and caught over a dozen roach to 8oz on maggot feeder and over 12 bream on a banjo feeder using red chicks( Thanks Laguna) bloodworm 8 mm pellets and gb. The swing tip was great save for when I was a little too enthusiastic on the cast. Once I mastered the long line from the rod tip and a nice gentle lob I had no problems and tangles!

The Abu 501 was lovely to use and once I got used to it I found it very easy to use. It coped with the bream to 4.5 lb . Thanks Tigger ; it's a cracker .

Oh I nearly forgot to mention the line I put on the Abu. It cast beautifully, was strong and easy to knot and behaved impeccably in a very stiff breeze. I like it! I will give you all one guess which line it is! Thanks Tigger!!!!:wh

Excellent Mike, seems like you had a pretty good day, well done,

I thought you'd like yer Abu 501, they really are a joy to use :thumbs:

 

[Pete Shears]

The last piking trip of this last winter to the reservoir this morning,very mild,worked up a head of steam lugging all the tackle up the bank.Not so productive as Wednesday but still had two fish of around 6lb one of which shed some spawn.
Plenty of buzzards and other wildlife to watch and conversations with a mate further along who was bravely using zigs only for carp.
Time for the tench gear !