How did you get on?

[The Runner]

Down in London for the weekend so took a walk round for the first half of old clubs Fur & Feather on the Colne which has been fishing like a drain. Roach and Dace just haven’t turned up in their usual winter quarters.
Sat behind Don twice an hour and a half apart and obviously brought him luck as he had his only two fish of the day each time I was there. The second was more important than the first….

He won it with 4-12, Barry, our oldest regular at 85 caught roach late for 2-12, was blank when I saw him,
Dave third with 2-9 of these

ounces and blanks after that, thought a few more barbel might have showed with it mild and a bit of colour in, but no.
Didn’t fish myself as was granddaughters first birthday party this afternoon. A far better use of my time with the river so hard !

 

[silvers]

finally in the coin again after several weeks of missing out. was meant to be a double header on the Gt Ouse, Olney Christmas match on Saturday followed by Bedford Winter league on Sunday, but the latter was cancelled after the organiser saw how much the river had risen on Friday night.

34 anglers lined up for the draw at the Olney Christmas match. When I’d left home in warwickshire it was 4.5 degrees outside ... but had descended gradually to 0.0 on the car gauge by the time I’d reached Olney .... and didn’t go much above that until later in the afternoon. With two cold weeks and a chocolate brown river I was please to draw in one of the backwaters (known as the splashpole). A few of the competitors were even more lucky ... being repegged after the draw when the bridge to access their swims was underwater!! so they got moved up to the Goosey ... a noted area for bleak.

my peg was 9ft deep and then shallowed up all the way down. I chose to pot in 4 balls of heavy ground bait on the pole line at 11m (12.5 against the far bank reeds was full of twigs and rubbish) and then carefully loose feed over that line. I also loosefeed in the flow at my rod end with maggots and hemp, again cautiously.
it started brilliantly ... 4 roach in my first 4 drops ... but then abruptly slowed right down to just odd fish ... even when I introduced a top up feed after 2 hours.
I weighed in 3 pounds and 3.5 ounces (mainly small stuff) to win the section ... next door blanked and next to him had 5 fish.
That was worth twenty quid and a bottle of Primitivo (allegedly a good one).

The people who had been moved took all the top places ... best outside that section had 3:15.
The organisers didn’t really have any other option having pegged out the day before.
Polly (Mark pollard) won the match with ten pounds of bleak.

 

[john step]

Wag and mag on my brickpit water. Lots of bites from small roach. Nice warm day for a change even if it was damp. Nice to have an active day ahead of the next lethargic planned trip behind the buzzers. Variety the spice of life?

 

[John Aston]

Not posted in this thread for some time as it's been a dull couple of months . Fish caught, but nowt special .

But now Arwen and Barra have blasted the leaves away it's time , at last , for some grayling trotting . It was ideal weather- ten tenths cloud and so still I could hear the squirrel scrabbling up the alder behind me . It was flowing very hard indeed , with some favourite swims unfishable maelstroms , and others obstructed by new flood debris . But that's what wild fishing for wild fish in totally unspoiled natural surroundings is about .

Fished with my usual 12 ' Harrison float road , Okuma pin , 5.9 lb reel line and 5lb hook length. Heavier than many would fish for grayling but a combination of big flow, snaggy pools and the possibility of grayling to 3lbs and wild trout to much bigger makes it a sensible choice.

I needed a 4 1/2 AAA Loafer float in the flow and used size 10 and 12 Kamasan B 983 hooks, which I rate very highly, with the mandated worm hookbait

Three out of season browns from 0-8 to about 1-4 were a distraction , but then a pretty little grayling of about 12oz ,and then that addictive, unmistakable thump from a good fish. So it proved , a bit bigger than my guess of 1-12 and a lovely 1-15. Not huge for this river, but what a sight to savour on a grey December day. No pictures - grayling aren't a fish to waste time with when out of the water.

I rounded off the day by falling off a slippery (and thankfully low ) footbridge , splintering my carbon landing net pole and hurting my leg and back . Still beats working though....

 

[108831]

Went yesterday,had eight nice chub to over 4lbs,half a dozen roach to 12ozs and some chublets around 8ozs....much harder than I thought it was going to be as it was lovely and mild and overcast,majority of the chub came in the last hour or so...

 

[john step]

Piking on the Fos today. I have never done that there before. Had 4 mini jacks that had eyes bigger than their bellies and one bigger that snaffled my smelt.
I had a heartsink moment on returning to my car. I had left the lights on all day and it wouldnt turn over.
Luckily a garage was only 100 yds away and the gent came out with a charger unit and sorted it quickly. Lesson learnt.

 

[Pete Shears]

A visit this morning to an old gravel pit near Melton for a spot of piking with a mate for a catch up before the enforced joy of Christmas gets in the way.
Not much going on, just the one run resulting in a jack of 4lb, my mate not getting a twitch but with a mild day and a bit of sunshine at this time of year, better than work.

 

[bullet]

Always better than work, Chaps...
Hoping to get out Friday.
Ps I wish Whitty and Pete would get a bloody camera/ or use it!

 

[108831]

Post deleted....

 

[108831]

Really...I have a camera,but I dont photograph average fish these days unless they are notable for other reasons...along with a publicity ban...I put odd pictures on,but just enjoy catching reasonable fish,then quickly returning them...

 

[john step]

VERY SORRY. i JUST DONT KNOW HOW ALL THOSE FOUR PICS GOT ON THERE AT ONCE. MUST TRY HARDER

 

[steve2]

Went yesterday,had eight nice chub to over 4lbs,half a dozen roach to 12ozs and some chublets around 8ozs....much harder than I thought it was going to be as it was lovely and mild and overcast,majority of the chub came in the last hour or so...

I wish I had some hard days like this in the past.
Regarding taking photos of fish i can't be bothered the last time I was years ago. Taken plenty of pictures of nature so the camera get plenty of use.

 

[john step]

Really...I have a camera,but I dont photograph average fish these days unless they are notable for other reasons...along with a publicity ban...I put odd pictures on,but just enjoy catching reasonable fish,then quickly returning them...

I have a different view about pics. I think its nice to illustrate and give a bit of extra interest. Its HDYGO not MY NEW PB after all. Look how people like the PC Simon old codgers match photos. Nothing much huge but fish and scenery nevertheless. Conjures the imagination? Theres the views from our French contingent and views of Korum chairs by Mikench! Marvelous Scottish seas and small fish by runner. All inspiring to get the armchair anglers out?

 

[108831]

I am certainly not against putting plenty of photos on any thread,just that I dont take that many,the last picture I took of a fish was in October,which I put on this thread,a 6lb 4oz chub(if I remember correctly),ive had quite a few nice fish since then,the best probably a barbel 9lbs 12 or 14ozs,a fish that in the evening after I wished I had taken a picture of,why,because I had just got hold of a piece of kit to mount my mobile onto ,but in my rush to get the fish back into the water to revive and release I forgot all about it,each of the eight chub were,netted,unhooked and returned,less than a minute out of the water I would have thought,which when I watched a guy with a 3lb chub jumping around,off the unhooking mat,onto hard banking....I will continue doing it my way,I have hundreds of old angling snaps that I look at every ten years or so,lol,probably wont see them again...

 

[wetthrough]

Decided to chance my hand on the Dam yesterday. Seems an age since I've been on the bank, too damned cold. Arrived around 8am. Didn't get fishing until around 10. I'd decided to get a better idea of what the bottom was like so did some mapping with a big float and plummet. Turned out to be much as I thought, a fairly gradual slope to deeper water. Chucked a bomb out on some braid to see what the bottom was like, fairly even. A few bumps closer in but nothing dramatic. Two rods set up, both with 2lb FC to 18s LWG. By 12 O'clock, not even a nibble on either line, one at around 10M the other to my right at about 2.5M out from the reeds, GB in at 10M, just loose feeding a few maggots caster and hemp at 2.5M. Switched to a 22s Tubertini, buried the hook in the caster and finally got a small Roach of around 3oz. Struggled all day, couldn't get a lot of interest in anything. Tried a Tare on the 22s just to see if there was any interest as if there is the Tares will usually result in better fish. I did get some interest so switched back to the 18s with a Tare but still scratching for bites. Stuck with the 18s picking the odd fish up here and there. Ended up with around 20 with just three netted, probably around 5oz. Packed up around 2:30. Mostly going to caster.

 

[john step]

I am certainly not against putting plenty of photos on any thread,just that I dont take that many,the last picture I took of a fish was in October,which I put on this thread,a 6lb 4oz chub(if I remember correctly),ive had quite a few nice fish since then,the best probably a barbel 9lbs 12 or 14ozs,a fish that in the evening after I wished I had taken a picture of,why,because I had just got hold of a piece of kit to mount my mobile onto ,but in my rush to get the fish back into the water to revive and release I forgot all about it,each of the eight chub were,netted,unhooked and returned,less than a minute out of the water I would have thought,which when I watched a guy with a 3lb chub jumping around,off the unhooking mat,onto hard banking....I will continue doing it my way,I have hundreds of old angling snaps that I look at every ten years or so,lol,probably wont see them again...

Yes, I dont keep the pics of run of the mill stuff. They get deleted. Its just to brighten a post.

 

[108831]

Yeah,I can understand that,the banking along the river isnt ideal if a fish jumps off the unhooking mat,doesnt happen when I put em back,no doubt I will take some more snaps there,but it will be a good sized fish before I do,lol...

 

[nottskev]

I'm not so bothered if the fish in a pic are big - we've all seen lots of big fish pics these days; the world is saturated in visual stuff. I like to see pics of the waters/swims posters are fishing (most of the time we're not on waters where publicity is banned or in top-secret swims), and I like to see how people set up and organise themselves in their swim. And a fish doesn't have to be unusually big to be worth looking at. Apart from things that need a mat to unhook, I take nearly all my pics in the seconds between unhooking them and putting them back or in the net, with the landing net under them, so very little messing about involved.

 

[flightliner]

Piking on the Fos today. I have never done that there before. Had 4 mini jacks that had eyes bigger than their bellies and one bigger that snaffled my smelt.
I had a heartsink moment on returning to my car. I had left the lights on all day and it wouldnt turn over.
Luckily a garage was only 100 yds away and the gent came out with a charger unit and sorted it quickly. Lesson learnt.

View attachment 18621

Anywhere near to where l suggested Peter?

 

[john step]

Anywhere near to where l suggested Peter?

Yes . Very close.