How did you get on?

[peter crabtree]

Old codgers bash today on the canal at Bulbourne near Tring. After a mild night and the canal nicely coloured up it looked sock on for a good fishing day.
First chuck on the float a tiny gudgeon followed by a 6oz roach then just tiny bits for the whole 5 hours dashed all hopes of a good day, some codgers went home early it was so dire...
The bottom was thick with dead leaves, not to mention the armadas of floating ones which plagued most pegs, it was hard to present a bait properly. Laying it on was impossible with the tooing and froing of the water resulting in hooked leaves.
One or two codgers did OK with the winner bagging 7lb of quality roach and bits.
I only had 1lb:9 so rather than show you those bits in the bottom of my net here's a pic of me catching one......

 

[103841]

Not so much a red letter day, more a red letter hour.

Another trip to my local stretch of the Stour, no hospital duties today so plenty of time to play and an unseasonably warm day it was too.

As is so often the case the very first drop in of the bait (cheese) produced a nice take but inexplicably the chub managed to spit out the bait without getting hooked. It motored off downstream quicker than Vettels start on Sunday! Needless to say the swim went dead so the roving started. Couldn't get a bite as I progressed along the bank trying different swims, I stopped dead in my tracks when a nice common carp sauntered by, the next half hour I relentlessly stalked it trying to induce the fine beast to take some bread flake but it wasn't having it.

I was getting a little frustrated now and expecting to return home with a blank, plenty of fish showing which made the frustration all the more intense, they just weren't feeding.

The last swim along the stretch is the weir pool by the Millers Arms and I arrived there with little if any expectations of catching a fish. Oddly the water had suddenly gone from clear to showing some colour, they are weed cutting further upstream which I guess must have been the cause. First cast produced an instant bite but missed, hope being restored! Second cast another instant bite with this time a modest 2lb chub coming to the net. Over the next 45 minutes I landed a further four chub that got steadily bigger, biggest 4lb 3ozs.

I've never had five chub from a single swim before infact the tally could have been higher but I lost two good fish to snags

From showing zero interest a short time earlier they then went mad and were "avin it"

Guess it's why we all love fishing, it's so unpredictable. Didn't bother with photos, you must all be as familiar with the weir pool as me now with the number of pics I've posted on HDYGO.

 

[mikench]

You and Mr Crabtree John must go fishing every day! I am envious and must consider total retirement Whilst I have Thursdays and Fridays for fishing the weather is usually poor! I need total freedom and as I hate work I will consider giving it up completely

 

[barbelboi]

must consider total retirement

Total retirement is hard work Mike (but you're doing what you want to do) - you'll soon wonder how you managed to fit work in...........

 

[103841]

You and Mr Crabtree John must go fishing every day! I am envious and must consider total retirement Whilst I have Thursdays and Fridays for fishing the weather is usually poor! I need total freedom and as I hate work I will consider giving it up completely

Not quite every day Mike, garden, inlaws and other chores sometimes interrupt what would otherwise be the perfect start to retirement. When a chauffeur I often worked in excess of ninety hours a week and dreamt of this day many a time.

Get my state pension next year and who knows how long I'll have enough strength and good health to go fishing, so cram in as much as I can in and spend money on shiny new rods and reels rather than taking it to the grave with me.

Plus the fact I'm still learning and have much catching up to do, no time to lose!

If you could cope financially without your income from employment even if it meant cutting back on the champers and cigars.......DO IT!

 

[S-Kippy]

I had Thursday pencilled in for another crack at the carp this week but it was so mild this morning as I dropped Beloved Daughter off at the station I felt honour bound to get out somewhere.

The Big Feller was well pi$$ed off when I rang as he wasn't allowed out today but he did put an idea in me head that suited. A last go at the catfish which meant no M25 and an early finish. Perfick.

Unfortunately, as I suspected, the lake was suffering badly from leaf....especially in the corner I wanted to fish but despite this if I could just get a bait down through the leaf I felt sure I could lure a cat out from his bunker under the tree. It was damned difficult getting a clean drop of the bait and after a couple of hours I was seriously thinking a Serge was the most likely outcome. There were carp everywhere but I don't go there to catch carp so they were studiously ignored. I finally got a decent drop right in position A and resolved to leave the damned bait there all afternoon if necessary. This was the margin rod which wasn't suffering anything like as much from leaf drift as the other one which I might just as well have broken down for all the good it was doing.

Anyway....about 30 mins later I had a lovely steady lift of my bobbin and I'm in.....then the fun really starts. I've not caught many cats so every one is still like the first and the power of these things is just incredible. Once again I swear the damned thing was so far under the bank it was behind me and my 3lb tc 10 footer was bent almost in a circle. What a scrap! Three times I got him out of his cave and 3 times he got back in but eventually I got him into open water and on the gear I'm using there was no way he was coming off. I guessed him at about 14lb and I wasn't far out as he went 13-9.

Proper cat anglers would dismiss this as a mere kitten but the damned things look twice as big as they actually weigh. I was well satisfied as it was the only cat to come out today and I felt I'd really earned it.

The leaves were an utter pain though.That will probably be my last cat trip this year but I shall certainly be having a go for a proper one next year. I have honestly never hooked anything with this sort of power.

 

[barbelboi]

I decided to have a change from the backwaters and streams today and fished a certain stretch of main river for the first time since early season. The conditions were bright sunshine with a massive up in air pressure so I was hopeful rather than over optimistic.

Trotting reds I managed 17 dace, a couple of small chub, 4 roach and a baby barbel – fished from 10am – 2pm.

 

[flightliner]

A return to the same swim on the Trent yesterday for more of the same , roach with hemp n tare are hard to resist just now but needs must, so, tide n times being ok I was up for the start of the ebb at 1pm precisely.
No waiting this time, bites from the off but hard to hit compared to last week.
Little matter, between the misses there were plenty of confident sailaways to keep me happy.
With the wind oer my back and a hi bank it was perfect running my stik downstream the three metres to the point where my hemp was being intercepted by the redfins.
I was fully occupied until five pm when it was time to leave.
Must say the river is solid with roach just now and a delight to catch with the black gold as bait.

 

[103841]

Changed yesterday's 6lb line and size 4 hook for 2lb and a size 20 and a swap from Avon to match rod. Big lumps of cheese giving way to maggots.

Grove Ferry just outside Canterbury was the venue and a session trotting alongside the boats was the plan for today.

No roving today, staying put in the chair with little room for manoeuvre.

Trot close to the boats with a steady trickle of maggots hoping to entice a few stripeys from under the hideouts.

Caught fish from the off, almost one a chuck and over the next six hours lost count of roach, skimmers and perch, unfortunately few required the net, mostly this kind of stamp.

No end shot of a net full small fish, the club still have a ban on keepnets with a lake still infected with KHV in the area, Didn't stop certain members using them though.

A fabulous day with sunshine and warm temperatures, only spoilt by the local bird life, parrots! noisy squawking things they are too.

A good day to spin the pin as we've already seen from BB.

 

[nottskev]

The Derwent is by far the prettiest of the local rivers. It's a winding B road, compared to the Trent motorway. Its revival as a mixed fishery – as opposed to a big barbel water – seems to have been lagging behind the Trent in recent years, so when a friend kept telling me that more and more young fish of all species were showing up, I lightened up my gear to the minimum, and two stiles and a big field later got to the water.

With extra water in the river, I found a peg where the flow cut across diagonally from my bank, leaving me an easy run along the crease with the slack downstream. I say easy, but as I'd only brought a 15' rod, I had to sit well back from the water to hold my float out of the main flow – it's not often a rod proves too long! And feed maggots upstream a metre out, to catch 4 metres out some way downstream. It took an hour and more figuring out the odd geography of the peg, but after that I got plenty of bites from small grayling, perch, little roach and dace and a few chublets. It was great to see all these healthy young fish.

I was feeling like I was doing quite well, until my friend walked down from his peg to tell me he'd had a few dace. And twenty-odd grayling, caught two feet from the bank. (These grayling, I'm coming to see, have not read the textbook.) Well, he lives 5 minutes away, and knows these fish by name – that's my excuse. And I plan to arrive first and bag that peg next time.

 

[john step]

Went back to the river with pike gear. I had a big lump on right to the net. Due to the awkward dense rushes growing out from the bank my attention was diverted and it did a tail walk and chucked the hooks at me. S*ds law I suppose.
I ended up with a couple of its smaller ilk. Nice day in the sunshine though.

 

[Philip]

Had a rare full day free so decided to try a new river I have been meaning to give a go for some time. I had done a recce a few days before and settled on a nice stretch below weir run off.

It did look inviting

Barbel were the target & I didn’t fancy doing anything too energetic so settled down behind a couple of method feeders setup on bolt tactics although it didn’t feel quite right to be using that setup on this river. In the end I started to cast a much lighter rod with a link ledger around & interestingly this out fished the bolt rods 10 to 1 !

10 of these guys made a trip to the bank along with a couple of Chub. Nothing big although I felt a bit unlucky not to have got at least 1 better fish as there are supposed to be some quite good ones in here but you can’t grumble after catching a few fish from a new venue.

 

[theartist]

Funny the things you talk about regarding fishing and the trip to the river flew by as dad debated with me whether perch have one or two dorsal fins. Over 100 years of fishing between us and were talking about that! He then threw me completely by insisting minnow have an adipose, if I didn't know him better i'd say he was on a wind up.

As for the fishing it was ok all things considered, the river had just had a trim by the last work party and this coincided with it being the lowest I can ever remember for this time of year. It was interesting to see where the deeper holes are in swims where the bottom is usually hidden by boils, and at the same time it was worrying to see leaves which look a foot deep in places. Had a few chub and barbel to put a bend in the rod with the latter seemingly harder to get in with the water low, each one whizzing downstream and visible all the time, I must admit I prefer fishing when there's a bit more colour...and a lot more flow.

A short morning session on a drizzly canal this morning saw me blank in the first two spots before finding some fish, sod's law it was in a area that's impossible to spend a penny fishing alone. Obviously built up areas have their pros and cons and no doubt the fish are starting to shoal where the cormorants visit the least. Managed around 20 dace and roach with one good bream, the typical 'canal' size of around 3-4lb before I had to call it a day and answer the call of nature. Funny how scratching for bites on an urban canal is just as much fun as getting 50lb of chub and barbel, but that's fishing, either that or i'm weird. Now where's that adipose fin on a minnow?

 

[Neil Maidment]

I had a short session of less than 4 hours earlier this week at Throop on the Dorset Stour. The river was slowly dropping after a rise of about .25mtr but still held a fair bit of colour. It was also much pacier than it had been in recent weeks. In short, the first meaningful extra water this Autumn.

Everything else was also in alignment which meant my confidence in finding a chub or two was high. So my default set up of a bulk shotted 6grm balsa with double maggot on a #18 was soon deployed.

In fairly quick order I managed to hook what felt like a decent example well down the swim but it succeeded in snagging me in mid river.

I kept loose feeding maggot ( only had 2 pints ) and after about an hour found myself attached to something a bit more powerful and stubborn. After much effort and drama from me and the mystery fish it finally rolled across the surface and a short while later into my net. A very fine barbel.

A quick mat shot and back into the net to recover:

One pouch of maggots fired upstream, one aborted trot as the hook found some weed, another pouch and the next trot was on its way.

Again, almost at the same spot, I hit into another fish. This one cooperated a bit more and came up to just downstream of me without too much drama. Then away it went again and again. A second barbel similar to the first eventually found my net but not until I'd allowed the other recovering barbel to slip away :wh

Very satisfying especially as I was using the Shakespeare Centenary Centrepin I had recently inherited from my late uncle.

The last time I had landed more than one barbel in a session from Throop was 10 years ago!

 

[mikench]

Decisions decisions Neil! You must be spoilt for choice with all the tackle you have inherited!

Had a disappointing day today on a favoured venue. I have a dislocated little finger on my left hand and, being a plonker, 3 bad burns/blisters on the end of two fingers and thumb on my right hand! I should have left the roast chicken to the wife!

I decided to just use a feeder rod and tried, prawns , pellets, worms, corn and finally a small boilie! It was the latter which saved the day and I caught 5 bream around 4lb and the smallest carp to date - gudgeon size I struggled with the finer points of attaching the hook and the bait but managed ,just, in the gloom and fine drizzle. I don't think it got light at all today!

Rhetorical ? Of the day ! How long do you give each bait to work its magic ? A half hour? I did and thus wasted 4 hours! I should have just tried the boilie first but then the little blighters would have spurned them in favour of whichever of the alternatives I tried last!

Raw fingertips and hooks and bait are not a match made in heaven!

 

[sam vimes]

Went today for no better reason than I'm fed up waiting for reasonable weather conditions to coincide with reasonable river levels. The weather was passable today, but the river was still well up.

Unsurprisingly, it was a bit of a struggle. About three hours yielded seven dace, two grayling and two parr (plus the usual minnows). Only one lost fish today, a manic trout that was hooked far too far downstream to exert reasonable control. On the fifth breach of the water it managed to throw the hook.

 

[maggot_dangler]

Had a dabble at the club pool yesterday after fixing one or two other slight glitches .

Firts out on single maggot a perch not much bigger than the maggot tried a bit longer on maggot switched to bread ( this Coop white farmhouse) works quite well got me into half a dozen decent Crucians and one half decent snotty kept me happy for a couple of hours .

Hopefully try to make the Mease on Sunday conditions allowing .

PG ...

 

[neil1970]

Lovely afternoon's fishing with Simon today.

The venue was a gin clear weir pool , lacking in water and full of leaves and twigs.

Between us we managed to catch a few Perch (including an amusing double hookup), a couple of Chub and a solitary Gudgeon.

Simon was on the float and I was on the maggot feeder, using a lovely 30 year old made in England Daiwa rod that I got off Simon a couple of years ago (he wants it back).

No big fish, but the chat and laughs easily made up for that
Excellent day

 

[mikench]

Fishing with the legendary Peter Crabtree , what a treat!

It sounds like you had a good day!

 

[Another Dave]

Skipped lunch so i could get out for an hour today to road test my new polaroids which arrived this morning. Very low light levels all day and a bit of drizzle seemed like ideal test conditions, i was also going to go with a tiny lure to really give my eyes something to do, a 1'6" Nimble.

The session turned out to be one of those ones where you lurch through the good news, bad news cycle. So the shades looked lovely, the lure looked great, but bad news, other anglers. I was just moving on from my first swim when i spotted them, a couple, and the bloke was playing a fish in one of the spots i was going to try next, the bloomin' cheek! And what a fish, brownie about 2lb. The guy said it was the best trout he'd had from here, i looked at it and said 'me too', it looked exactly like one i'd had twice from the same stretch in the summer.

He put the fish back (phew) after a quick pic. We compared pics and agreed it was the same fish. Had a nice chat and i moved upstream, seeing 3 more anglers as i went. Saw a few chub in the upstream swim, they weren't quite confident enough though. I put it down the the bands of roving anglers and moved back down on the other bank, determined not to let it beat me.

Saw matey again on my way through, fishing where i had started. He'd had another smaller trout. No longer did i feel like the big fish in a small pond, this guy could winkle out fish better than me, even out of swims i'd tried, how degrading!

Next spot was the wire wall, which some of you may remember from that time i ripped my trousers on the descent. Could see a chub cruising about, cast out my wee lure and everything fell into place beautifully. Micro lure in a micro swim produced a mini chub, angry he'd been caught.

Only a small fish but my confidence was back, really got a feel for this spot now and will never walk past it again without giving it a go.

Only one swim to go, The Thorns, the swim i cut out with my swiss army knife a couple of weeks ago. Had half a dozen casts into the deeper water, scattergun approach. I then see matey and his fishing girlfriend appear again on the far bank, they spot me and after a brief chat they respectfully move on. Then i got a nice chub of about a pound and a half, had to backwind while playing it and this one ended up in the shrubbery on my bank. Managed to net this one which was fine in the end but didn't get a shot as it was still going nuts in the net.

Not bad for an hour out in the middle of the day.