How did you get on?

[Neil Maidment]

It was good fun and very different to my normal efforts. I've not really fished much in the past few close seasons although the fly gear comes out more often nowadays. Last Fri/Sat was more fun and at times non stop but they're not exactly hard! Just about all the places I've fished recently are now well and truly in spawning mode.

 

[Redeemed]

Me and the lad went fishing this evening, 6-8pm, thought we'd harrass the margins somewhat. My fingers are still tingling as I type this. Not from excitement, I nettled my fingertips as soon as I got there!

Anyhow we took corn and bread. I started off with punched bread direct to hook and after getting mugged with no discernible bites I changed to corn.

I decided to fish closer and closer as the evening wore on and when fishing a single kernel on a 16 hook I hooked into a strange one.


It looked carpish but I swear it had a blue hue to its flanks, it was also quite slimy. It wasn't huge but it gave me some experience of playing a fish which wanted to go into the rushes either side of me.

Anyhow, the guy on the next peg had a look and declared it to be either a crucian carp or a "natural goldfish" whatever the hell that is.

It had a slight bifurcation in its tail.

Chap reckoned it was 8 oz, I reckon it was closer to a pound!


Anyway, fish back and 10 minutes later I hook into something much bigger. Rod bends, but before I could do anything it stripped my hook off. It may have been one I tied by hand so I'm going to go back through and re-tie all those with the hook tyer.


After that it dried up ad was getting dark so we came away. The lad blanked - again.

taking him somewhere decent on Wednesday to try at last to break his duck.


Cheers, Lol

 

[neil1970]

I had an enjoyable afternoon/evening fishing with Simon and another mate.
Simon managed a nice Perch (along with a fair few other fish) about 20 minutes before packing up.
Lovely to be out in good weather with good company .

 

[Aussie Bob]

Lovely autumn day ..had a go with the light lures and hooked up on a nice trout which did some aerials right into a patch of week near the bank. After trying to extract it i was destined to go for a wade to get it free it then thrashed around and snapped me off. I was convinced i had tied a bad knot but there was no pig tail on the end of the line so i think its got the line across the front treble or caught on the trouts teeth which i have had before. Hopefully the lure will come free from the trout. Cast around until the light was starting to go and it was chilling down and headed home.

 

[peter crabtree]

Another pic from last night with Neil..

.View attachment 4629

 

[peter crabtree]

9 codgers fished today on the Aylesbury arm, luckily I had shade all day. Had all my fish in the first hour before the sun hit the water, as did most others...

Winning weight was 14:12, my 4:14 was 2nd...

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[Tee-Cee]

Another 7 hour session this morning, in what looks to be the last of the hot weather. I sat in shade the best I could and really enjoyed the battle of wits in trying to catch a few reasonable roach. The water looked a little dead and dare I say in need of rain, but the fish were happy to feed, if only periodically!
Most fell to hemp and more than few smaller ones to punch...

I persevered perhaps longer than I should've with very little caught in the last hour. Still, a delightful session and I look forward to the next on Thursday!

 

[seth49]

Back on the same pool at the fishery yesterday, late start again as mick had his diabetes clinic first, and then forgot his sandwiches and drink, so we arrived about eleven o clock.
View attachment 4631

Started on the float and six mm expander pellets with one rod, and remembering how I foul hooked a few bigger bream on the float last time, striking what must have been line bites, I put my nine foot carp rod in as a sleeper, but with a method feeder this time, using soaked two mm pellets, and a guru eight mm Bandum banded to a size fourteen hook, in the new chocolate orange flavour.

Both methods worked, and I was catching more roach, than bream at the start.
View attachment 4632

The method feeder was working too, had some better bream, and roach, as well as this fella.
View attachment 4633

About two o clock it started to rain, it was forecast so I had my brolly ready, and my bags covered up, still catching well on both rods, mainly roach and skimmers on the float, and bream on the method.
View attachment 4634

I then discovered that if I fed the two mm pellets dry, instead of soaking them they smelt a lot more of fish meal, and attracted more bream , I use the locally made skrettings pellets, I buy them in half hundred weight sacks, works out a lot cheaper and all the fish like them, so I was getting more bream on the float as well as on the feeder.

Later on I’d a screamer of a run on the feeder, don’t think that’s a bream I thought, and I was right, a nice common carp about seven pounds, gave a good scrap too, in good condition as well.
View attachment 4635
Don’t know how many I caught as my clicker stopped working after I dropped it, and yet when I got home it was working fine, easily over thirty or so, it stopped raining just before five, and then it looked like it was going to start again, so we packed up while it was dry, and loaded everything in the car just before it stated again.
So a good day, enjoyed it, apart from the rain, I don’t like being under a brolly, feels restricted somehow, lots of birds singing, and pleasantly warm after the hot spell, the water had warmed a lot, the fish felt a lot warmer as well, thought after I should have tried one of those chocolate orange bandums on the float rod, they worked well today, and caught better roach and bream as well, one for next time.

 

[103841]

Today was more about exploration than fishing. A 25 mile trip to the Royal Military Canal for a recci with future fishing days in mind. I took a couple of lure rods and a bag of assorted lures in hope of connecting with a few predators.

I started at the furthest part of the canal controlled by Cinque Ports Angling, a £5 day ticket on the bank, that's if you see a bailiff which I didn't.

Only a few miles from Hythe town but it was glorious in its solitude and silence only broken by birdsong.



Access was a problem with much of the canal being out of reach of my landing net but I managed to find a few spots and tried various lures., spinners and surface frogs, none with any success.

Got back in the car and drove a couple of miles to West Hythe, found one chap fishing who had just one bream, no lure fishing allowed from this point but there did look to be some half decent swims which I may return to before the opening of the season.



No fish but a very enjoyable few hours walking along tow paths with a few indications along the way exactly why this canal was built.

Oh yes, no Zander or drunken yobs either.

 

[peter crabtree]

Your canals look great John, I'd be tempted to have a go on either one..

 

[Redeemed]

So me and the lad went fishing again, me hoping against hope he caught something at last.
We hadn't been here before, lots of concrete slab pegs laid out round the lake, not too many trees. Apparently if you walk up past the carp and trout ponds there is a cafe and toilets.
We started off on waggler with double red maggot on size 16 hook. The lake was about 6 feet deep where we were and we started off about 6" off the bottom.
Within 15 minutes of starting I had a couple of small ones, a roach and a perch and then it died, the boy had yet to break his duck.

I did a bit of figuring and reckoned they might be in the mid layer of water so set depth to about 3 feet and the bites started to come. The boy landed at last and finished on 11 with numerous tiddlers but a nice roach to about a pound and a nice perch to the same.

I started getting more tiddlers and then some better fish. A roach to a pound and then a couple of bream, one taken on the drop. We were plagued by small roach nibbling at maggots and giving us false bites so I changed to corn. Straight away another good roach and the lad the same but then even the corn was getting mithered by small stuff.

It was getting cold and I'd had enough so we came home. Talking to an old boy at lakeside who was fishing method and he said it was the only way to avoid the small roach, and he pulled a few nice fish in.

All in all a nice place, dirt track interesting to go down, and definitely some fish.

Below is the smaller of the bream I landed, the biggest wouldn't sit still long enough to be photographed:

 

[chrissh]

So me and the lad went fishing again, me hoping against hope he caught something at last.
We hadn't been here before, lots of concrete slab pegs laid out round the lake, not too many trees. Apparently if you walk up past the carp and trout ponds there is a cafe and toilets.
We started off on waggler with double red maggot on size 16 hook. The lake was about 6 feet deep where we were and we started off about 6" off the bottom.
Within 15 minutes of starting I had a couple of small ones, a roach and a perch and then it died, the boy had yet to break his duck.

I did a bit of figuring and reckoned they might be in the mid layer of water so set depth to about 3 feet and the bites started to come. The boy landed at last and finished on 11 with numerous tiddlers but a nice roach to about a pound and a nice perch to the same.

I started getting more tiddlers and then some better fish. A roach to a pound and then a couple of bream, one taken on the drop. We were plagued by small roach nibbling at maggots and giving us false bites so I changed to corn. Straight away another good roach and the lad the same but then even the corn was getting mithered by small stuff.

It was getting cold and I'd had enough so we came home. Talking to an old boy at lakeside who was fishing method and he said it was the only way to avoid the small roach, and he pulled a few nice fish in.

All in all a nice place, dirt track interesting to go down, and definitely some fish.

Below is the smaller of the bream I landed, the biggest wouldn't sit still long enough to be photographed:View attachment 4640

Sound like you are describing Barlow’s

 

[Tee-Cee]

That's a great post, Redeemed and really good to see your lad finally break his duck! All they want is to catch a few fish.

Took me back 35years when my lad was at the same crossroads...

 

[Redeemed]

Sound like you are describing Barlow’s

No mate it was Press Manor on the way to Matlock. Not been to Barlow yet. Next week we're trying Barlborough fisheries.

 

[Redeemed]

That's a great post, Redeemed and really good to see your lad finally break his duck! All they want is to catch a few fish.

Took me back 35years when my lad was at the same crossroads...

I must say it was a relief for both of us to actually catch a few, a couple of them half reasonable size.
The "lad" by the way is 30 this year and built like a brick outhouse mg:
Thing is ,no matter how old they are they are still your kids and he'll always be "the lad".

 

[john step]

A blank for tench and my Chubb chair is now officially WELL AND TRULY BINKERED mg
View attachment 4655

 

[thecrow]

Early start on a new to me water on the bank by 05.00 fishing about 30 mins later, the water is around 8ft deep off the rod end and as I had been told by the bailiff on a recce there that there was no need to fish any further out that's where I fished.

Feeding reds and hemp along with small cubes of hot and spicy spam with reds on the hook (16s to 2.5 supplex) I had bites from the off roach perch rudd even some small 8" tench but no crucians which is what I joined for, kept small amounts of meat going in for a couple of hours before trying some the response I got was just what I wanted with a crucian of around a pound followed by 12 more with the biggest being what I estimated to be around 2lbs. fished until around midday when my back said it had had enough.

I have never seen fish come up in the water so quickly as they did today, didn't feed for a good 30mins because of the amount of swirls at the surface even though I was feeding very small amounts yet first time I fed some reds they were still there, it made me wonder how much of my feed was actually reaching the lake bed, I think next visit I will be taking a bait dropper and rod to use with it to make sure it gets there.

 

[Tee-Cee]

A frustrating session this morning with not too much to show for seven hours of hard fishing. It didn't start well as my chosen swim, which I thought would be under cloudy skies, turned out to be anything but. I gave it two hours but clear blue skies eventually meant I had to move. The second choice was sheltered by trees but then a cruel cross breeze sprang up which played havoc with my centrepin but I stuck it out for another two hours.....
In the meantime I caught around a dozen roach of no great size on hemp and the punch, but I didn't have that feeling that something special would be coming along and the reason for this is that my waters seem to be stuck in a 'neither spring nor summer' mode and look sort of 'steely' and out of sorts. It didn't help that we had a fair sprinkling of rain overnight and the morning started quite cold.

In the end I moved a short distance to a swim that was totally unaffected by any of the elements but for some reason any number of carp were aimlessly gliding around on the surface with yet still more lower in the water. I knew this because every time I sprinkled a few grains of hemp around the float a small vortice (?) could be seen as the fish swirled sub surface!!
I caught another dozen or so smallish roach and was enjoying the fast bites, but eventually the inevitable happened and a sizeable carp took a fancy to my hempseed and within seconds my hook came back nicely straightened................

Still very enjoyable to be out but I will be pleased when the proper balmy summer mornings arrive and better fish become commonplace Ho ho ho

Out again on Saturday when I hope the sun will be less evident...................

 

[john step]

I think next visit I will be taking a bait dropper and rod to use with it to make sure it gets there.

Nice fishing. The dropper works a treat even in still water doesn't it. I got told on here some time ago I was frightening fish away with a dropper.
It doesn't seem to and I continue to use one when necessary.

 

[chrissh]

No mate it was Press Manor on the way to Matlock. Not been to Barlow yet. Next week we're trying Barlborough fisheries.

fished pressmanor meny time ... Barlborough is a good fisheries you must have an unhooking mate and a landing net 22” or over each they do a very nice breakfast roll there