How did you get on?

[jon atkinson]

Had a work party yesterday morning (lovely weather for it ) but grabbed a couple of hours on the SUC at Croughton afterwards. I had a small 2lb Jack on a soft plastic shad within 10 minutes after which a succesion of boats turning the cut to chocolate along with the miserable weather disipating / sun cracking the flags meant that was as good as it was to get. Still, at least this one stayed on!

 

[maggot_dangler]

Well as the weather was a lot better than it was forcast to be i was off to the river again this morning but a completely new section for me bit of a ball of chalk to get to but what a spot it was small chub roach and dace almost 1 a chuck plus some small stuff not Gudgen i think they were small trout they looked like that but not sure will try to get a photo next time real cracking day only down side i discovered my favourite wellies leak bummer they are those soft Neoprene ones great to wear so got to find that see if i can plug the leak

 

[seth49]

https://www.sportfish.co.uk/aquasure-wader-repair.html

this is good stuff, used it for years, if you store it in a freezer it lasts a lot longer.

 

[seth49]

On usual fishery yesterday, very windy but just a bit of light rain in the morning, usual sleeper rod in the margin, with a pellet feeder and a yellow chocolate wafter for a change, which worked ok, I had a few carp and barbel on it throughout the day .

plumbed up two swims for the pole, on at a top kit and two sections, inline with a thin tree in front of me, and one in the margin just were the slope started to level out before the silt, fished the first one for half an hour, using maggots over a bit of hemp and ground bait, never had a touch on this swim, so tried the close in one using maggots and throwing about a dozen maggots in every time.

this worked well, usual small perch to start, and then started catching carp and barbel plus a few roach, and a nice crucian as well, the match type tactics worked well lots of bites, and only foul hooked one carp, I was using size 13 dura slip which is a good all round one, soft enough for silvers but will handle bigger fish as well using the puller kit.

the carp were all around 3 to 4 lbs, with just one 5lb fish the biggest, so able to handle all on the top kit without having to add any more sections, I really enjoyed yesterday’s fishing plenty of fish and easy close in fishing, I finished with 9 carp, 10 barbel, 1crucian, an Ide plus perch roach and skimmers, a total of 48 fish on the clicker, so a good day and my best catch of barbel here as well, and tried my new scales out as well, I like how they hold the weight on the screen to include in a photo, and easy to zero as well, impressed.

 

[chevin4]

Due to various circumstances have done very little fishing since July. However last Monday brought a predator ticket for Grafham Water. Always a challenging venue and needless to say both my mate and I blanked. It was a beautiful Autumn day and after a cool start it turned out quite warm in the afternoon. Whilst waiting for our tickets had a bit of banter with a couple of Polish lads who had travelled up from East London. These guys had a mountain of gear and their lure box was larger than my tool box. Fair play they had a cracking day having had Zander to 13lb. I am very much a novice when it comes to jigging drop shotting etc having did so little of it over many years. This is something I am going to work on in the future and are in the process of ordering a new lure rod from Dave Lumb to handle bigger lures for the pike. Grafham is only 40minutes away so looking forward in getting up there again in a couple of weeks with a renewed sense of purpose.

 

[John Aston]

I envy you - I adore lure fishing and I have been addicted to light lure (dropshot, jig , Ned etc ) on canals small stillwaters and rivers for years . But crikey , I'd struggle with Grafham, lovely water though it is. I think my 4- 10g jig rods might be a little over awed ,and I'd need fish finders and all that malarkey.

Anyway .... another barbel-tastic session yesterday . You need to know that although I use a bait runner reel when barbelling , I don't engage it when fishing with a single rod. You can easily grab the rod if you are concentrating even a little , right ? Wrong ... I was just plugging the phone into a charger and within the space of less than a second the rod hooped over, pivoted on the (stout steel ) rod rest, was dragged over the rod rest , hitting the reel loudly and bending the handle before sliding riverwards . I moved faster than I have for years and grabbed the butt as it was dragged down the bank .

Furious , but routine fight in deep and fast floodwater and a mint barbel of 7-2 .

I engaged the baitrunner next cast, and stuck the rod end in one of those screw in butt cap things . Hope that is the right term ...

 

[maggot_dangler]

https://www.sportfish.co.uk/aquasure-wader-repair.html

this is good stuff, used it for years, if you store it in a freezer it lasts a lot longer.

Ahhh ok thanks i will have to check it out bit annoyed yesterday walked in 3 inches of water and yuk wet left foot that was before i had even setup and cast a line typical .

 

[Ray Roberts]

I went to a small lake today that my club dug out about five or six years ago. It’s named in honour of Peter, our revered ex bailiff, who looked after the larger adjoining lake. I would often bump into him early in the morning when he was on pest control duties.

Unusually, it is a tench and crucian only water and no other species have been stocked. It looked rather different to the last time I saw it, as it now has ropes strung across with plastic strips hanging from them to deter the cormorants.

I started on the float and was catching fairly regularly. When I arrived the wind had dropped and I was casting between two beds of lilies. Sod’s law though, as soon as I started to catch the wind picked up and was veering from right to left then reversing. It was very odd and made casting with any degree of accuracy difficult. I persevered but eventually swopped over to a feeder. I had a short 8ft feeder rod with me that I bought from The Tackle Box a while back but have only used a few times. I had been using and catching with a variety of baits but opted for a small inline maggot feeder. It was a good choice as I was getting a bite a chuck, nothing size wise to get too excited about, but the prospects look good for the future. I had Pete’s pond to myself for most of the day, which suits me fine. I ended up with fifty four fish. Ten were crucians and the rest tench.

All in all it was a pleasant way to pass the day.

I was pleased with the little feeder rod, it coped really well with both casting and playing the fish. It comes with two tips, the other doubles up as a float or light spinning rod and only cost about fifty quid. I originally bought it for some of the tighter swims on the river, but recently I have been rather distracted with lure fishing. I fancy getting my chub head on this winter, so it will see a bit more service.


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[maggot_dangler]

Spent the morning back on the river the first section i tried by the baths 5 very nice trout a couple of roach and a couple of chub small ones .
Then i made my mind up to move to the pool just below the weir the other side of of the private section (never fished owned by a misery) not trout in this section chub roach dang gudgen dace going great then some muppett turns up with a black Labrdour jumps straight into the water almost ontop of my float ruined it time to pack up the woman turns round i hope we did not disturb your fishing hummm i thought button it pete .Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[mikench]

First thing this morning I decided I couldn’t be bothered going fishing but by 9.00 am after listening to Er indoors for half an hour I decided I had to get out and fishing offered the best chance of some solitude and enjoyment. I set off and arrived at my favourite venue around 9.30 and was set up and had my first cast at 10.00. It turned out to be a red letter day, afternoon hour and a half early afternoon.

I have never seen the water level as low. The submerged island roughly 2’ below the surface was clearly visible like a prehistoric crocodilian prowling the lake. All I managed in the first 1.5 hours was a gudgeon and foul hooked at that. It then began to rain and I wished I had followed my initial instincts to stay home. Fortunately the rain wasn’t heavy and only lasted around 20 minutes. As the rain stopped I had my first bite of the day and a cute little crucian was landed. 3 more swiftly followed with this being the biggest at over 1lb.

I then had several skimmers and 3 carp around 4lb like this.

Several more skimmers were landed but by 2.00 ish the “frenzy “ subsided and that was that. All the fish , around 15 came to Mainline Cell pellets and micros. It was pleasantly warm early on and when the sun shone but became chilly when it disappeared. I enjoyed the day and came home just in time to have a judicious word with Cadent who are replacing gas connections to the properties on the street, stating categorically that they were not going to dig up my drive. We shall see how it pans out and I shall remain at home tomorrow.

 

[Pete Shears]

Have had several trips out but only getting small perch and jack pike on lures etc. However the highlight of recent days was watching on osprey dive and catch a roach just twenty yards from me and this morning I had my first ever pike on the fly - 5lb.

 

[flightliner]

I enjoyed a day on the non tidal Trent yesterday with an old friend who got in touch with me last week suggesting we meet up for old times sake.
We both set out for Barbel, two rod setup for me, a single for my friend as the spot he used was pretty restricted.
First Barbel came to me on a 4 six mm pellets and big worm cocktail in the deepwater swim.
My friend soon followed suit with a slightly smaller fish but soon had two more, both in quick succession.
The wind then decided to blow hard and when it did I was looking up to the trees overhead as two big branches fell into my swim upstream that had me sinking my rod tips below the rivers surface to avoid getting hung up.
By teatime I had gone almost four hours biteless but BB were starting to roll downriver so I was hopeful bites would cone at dusk.
They did but not for me but my friend who ended up with seven along with a rather splendid Chub.
I did try to reason why, was it the recant rains, the drop in temperatures, but no, they had fed ok for my friend, the hi bank behind him cast a deep shadow in front of him making the deep water there
even darker. Was it this that caused him his success?

 

[seth49]

Back on usual fishery yesterday, I was there as it was just coming light and there were already two there setting up, one on the peg I fancied after doing well there last Thursday, so I went further along to another good peg I like, but it didn’t do much, just one small carp and a few skimmers.

anyway just after ten am, the chap on the peg i had wanted to fish left, and as I wasn’t doing much I moved to his vacant peg, hoping for a repeat of last week, and it was a good move had a couple of small carp, then had a real scrap with one on my pole, I had too put the end of the pole under the water to get some side strain to turn it when it set of for the island, luckily that worked and after a while I managed to net it.

the chap on the next peg took the photo of me holding the fish, which was a nice mirror weighing 14lb 11ozs, had another on of 7lb odd plus 4 barbel and the usual skimmers and small perch plus a couple of better roach, finished with a total of 25 on the clicker, so a good day again, enjoyed it.

 

[mikench]

Were you on manoeuvres Keith hence the camp netting on the bivvy behind you.

 

[seth49]

Not a bivvy mike it’s a bird hide.

 

[sam vimes]

Were you on manoeuvres Keith hence the camp netting on the bivvy behind you.

Would that be cam net but Naval issue?

 

[barbelboi]

I haven’t posted on this thread for some weeks as it’s all been pretty much the same – over the back fields to the river and/or streams for some stick trotting. Usually I travel light with just a rod, reel, small bag of bits, mat and net although I did take the X-lite on a couple of occasions.

Anyway, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been concentrating on the roach which have mainly been around this size. Consequently I have been moving around a lot looking for some larger ones – more walking than fishing.

The bigger fish have been difficult to locate this year but managed to find a fair few chub and dace before a few of these made the net one afternoon last week. Bait was flake or woodlice (which appear to resemble the small black snails found in silkweed that roach seem to love).

 

[jon atkinson]

Had another quick lure session on the L-L at Maghull from about 5 'til dusk this evening; had a very small jack on a soft plastic shad - flippin' thing engulfed the lure - are small pike just like small perch in that regard? I crimp the barbs on my lures but still had to snip the hook through the gill rakers but seemingly no harm done (apart from the treble). Switched to a larger shad with a rattle in the tail which yielded nada, so working my way back to the van, I switched to 'old faithful' - a goby crank which lured a better jack just as I was getting ready to pack up. The cut is still coloured with more weed than ideal, but it's getting there.

 

[Ray Roberts]

I bought the audio book of Wolf Hall the other day and listened to some of it as I was driving to the lake in the grounds of Hever Castle.

Hever is the place, in case you didn’t know, where Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn. The lake wasn’t there in his day however, just the river flowed through the grounds. The lake was constructed by William Waldorf Astor in 1904 the river Eden flows in near the castle and exits via two weirs. The digging took over two years and employed 800 men. Imagine the cost for what was basically a vanity project.

My club also controls the stretch downstream of the weirs. This is just after one of the weirs. I had my best ever catch of perch and pike on lures from this swim a few years back. It seems to have been hammered since and I have never repeated this or come close. Anyway my chosen swim was further round on the main lake. Members can only fish the side that was once the original riverbank. There is only one proper swim at this part of the main lake. My heart sunk when I turned into the club car park and there was only one space left. I unloaded the car and trudged round to the swim I fancied. It was thirsty work and just the right time to notice that I had left my food and drink back in the car. I had bought a new feeder rod last year and hadn’t hardly used it since. It’s the same model that Green Man was flogging a few weeks ago, an Acolyte Plus 11ft feeder. I knocked up some ground bait with particles and put out twenty or so big feeder full’s, clipped up. I rested the swim while I went back to the car.


A quick first bite, a gudgeon about the same length as the feeder. A few more small fish followed and I upped the bait size using corn. I had a few reasonable size roach then a nice tench and rudd. The fish I catch here are always pristine and I would bet most have never seen a hook.

I gave it best at 16:30 and made my way home listening to Wolf Hall. Oh, I was pleased with the feeder rod, I may buy a lighter tip for it as the lightest is 2oz.

It really is a privilege to fish such a wonderful place.

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[maggot_dangler]

Ahhh ok thanks i will have to check it out bit annoyed yesterday walked in 3 inches of water and yuk wet left foot that was before i had even setup and cast a line typical .

Update it would seem the wellies are past it the heels have cracked on both i am going to try expanding foam then a rubber patch see if i can rescue them they are so darn comfortable