How did you get on?

[Another Dave]

More fun with jigged soft plastics. Part 1.

Yesterday i got home at half three and walked down through the park to meet the family, who'd been walking the dog. Grabbed my rod on the way out and nothing else - there's a swim where i've winkled out a couple of perch before now and i know you don't really need a net in that swim. A few cheeky casts yielded nowt so i pretended it hadn't happened and walked on. A phone call 'Where are you?'.

Walking upstream a few yards i can't resist a cast from a piece of bank that's been reinforced with a wall that must be 2m tall. Below it there's a section that's an inch higher than the river's level. Anyway, first blooming cast and i see the white lure disappear and next thing i'm swinging in a 3 or 4 oz perch.

One of the smallest fish i've caught for a while but i'm hugely excited about finding a new 'swim' so close to home and it's the first time i've caught on this lure.

Part 2 is better.

 

[Another Dave]

Did the pic show? I linked it straight from my google photos which is way easier for me than uploading them to imgur.

 

[Another Dave]

Part 2.

I fish one river, and i fish very close to where i live. 10 minute walk to the furthest swim upstream, similar story downstream but that's mainly because the river changes character here and becomes a sluggish old girl. She gets a bit more depth here but the features aren't there. There's a swim or 2 where it changes*, on the face of the best of both worlds, fast water, creases and eddies, and a metre of water to play with instead a foot.

10:45AM. Found a way in through the blackthorn and brambles. Nettles looked weak, the stings weren't. Half an hour later with my swiss army knife and i still haven't been spotted, let alone reported to the authorities.

I give it a few casts and it looks great but it's clear there's nothing happening. Still, a potential new swim, hopefully can report back on that another day. And it's 2 minutes walk from my house. I then rigged up a dozen or so traps similar to the ones Arnie did in Predator and left, safe in the knowledge than any other anglers trying their luck would be dissuaded.

It's only a three minute walk upstream to the swim where i caught the wee perch on the white lure, and that's what i still have on so might as well.

Can't remember if it was the first or second cast but one thing i like about a white lure is that you get a few milliseconds headsup when it disappears. Especially if the only polariseds you have are very dark sunglasses.

Next thing i know i'm ripping my trousers down a 2m ugly wall, worked out well in the end though.

edit: *but those are on the far bank

 

[jon atkinson]

Sunday was my last trip out for at least a fortnight, maybe even 3 weeks & it wasn't a long session so I headed out to Little Crosby aka Snigg_ery* Wood for the first time this year. It's a day ticket water but far from commercial but it is just about the closest fishery to where I live. As its aka might suggest, it's a notable eel venue & never an easy place to fish.

Suffice to say I've had better days - I scratched around for half a dozen or so small roach & perch fishing single red on a #20 to a 2lb hook length. Not a sniff on the feeder rod with a dendra on a #12 which was in keeping with the other 3 fishing on lager baits (meat & prawn). Bailiff told me that there had been some good fish out recently - not on Sunday there weren't!

Disheartening, but no doubt by the time I next have a chance to get out I'll be rearing to get up & at 'em!

* A politically correct spell checker - what will they think of next??

 

[Mark Wintle]

Back on the fishery with mick yesterday, mick went for the carp, and l tried a two pronged attack, sleeper rod out for the carp, and float fished red maggots for the silvers, started well on the float, two small roach and then, the larger one above, which weighed one pound six ounces, caught some more then the clouds cleared, and it went to blue skies and sunshine,that stopped the bigger roach taking, and I was just getting quick bites of the smaller roach.

So I rigged my tip rod up, and went on the maggot feeder, fished on a helicopter rig, started catching better roach again, and after a big drop back bite, I hooked the crucian, which also weighed one pound six ounces, nice fish, in good nick, and looked well fed.

Then I had a screamer on the carp rod, lifted into it and could tell it wasn’t a big fish, thought it’s probably a bream, but no it was another crucian, it looked bigger than the first one, but unfortunately it came of, just before I could net it,
Then I had a carp of twelve pounds seven ounces, and another of eleven pounds six, in the next couple of hours.

Still kept catching some more roach and skimmers on the feeder, but none of the big roach I was hoping for, about four in the afternoon it started to go quiet on the feeder rod so put that away, and put another carp rod out, for the rest of the day, mick walked and said he had caught one carp, and it was very quiet, nothing doing, so we agreed we would give it while five and then pack up.
Caught nothing else, but I’d had a good day, two carp,the crucian, and twenty two Roach and skimmers.

I would be interested if anyone could identify if these are true crucian in here, they have been caught to over three pounds, I like fishing for these, nice fish. ?

The 'crucian' looks like a brown goldfish to me.

 

[103841]

Same venue, different method. Fancied a few hours this bright and sunny morning down at Grove Ferry again, this time on a maggot feeder which brought in roach, skimmers and the odd perch but all of Lilliput size, can't have had a fish over 4ozs.

Tired of that after a couple of hours and got the lure rod out, not a single take.

After recent successes I felt a shadow of my former self.

 

[mikench]

Blankety blank! Try as I might I could not get a bite let alone a fish! I did have one swing on the tip but with the sun in my eyes, the reflections from the water and not paying attention, I missed it. The bailiff said nobody had caught anything for two days! No consolation however!

 

[nottskev]

Blankety blank! Try as I might I could not get a bite let alone a fish! I did have one swing on the tip but with the sun in my eyes, the reflections from the water and not paying attention, I missed it. The bailiff said nobody had caught anything for two days! No consolation however!

Hi Mike, I had a poor day too! Opting for what turned into the windiest point on the Deep Lake, then barely hanging onto the pole and catching little roach and perch while everything that stretched the elastic came off. It didn't help that I could see my mate, sitting in the calm behind an island, netting fish after fish. C'est la vie. Tomorrow is another (windy) day.

 

[103841]

Someone must have had a good day!

 

[sam vimes]

Went out late this afternoon, just for the hell of it. Old bait to use and better weather than is forecast tomorrow convinced me to give it a whirl in spite of the river being well up. It was the best part of a foot higher than I'd normally bother with, but what the hell.

Despite it being a turbulent, turbid mess, I managed two trout, two grayling and two dace. Even eight ounce dace feel huge in such strong flow. The trout and grayling took a fair bit of coaxing upstream. Unfortunately, the fish steadily dropped down the peg. It wasn't much of an issue hooking them, but getting them moving upstream was too much on a few occasions. Fish just powered off into mid river and hung there until hooks pulled out of bony mouths. Once that happened more than a couple of times, I gave it up as a bad job. Quite happy with what I managed to extract in a couple of hours in less than perfect conditions.

 

[Alan Tyler]

Fished like a complete twit (the "w" is optional) yesterday, and got my just desserts - two gudgeon and a goer roach on the float, one decent netter chub and a couple of chunky chublets just a bit too big to swing safely - netted, but not "proper" netters, if you see what I mean.
Carp and others were doing the nyaa-nyaa dance at my feet; one of them almost tripped up, a short buzz on the 'pin while I was phartling around in my bits-box, but managed to shed the hook before I could pick up the rod; when I finally put the float-rod aside and ledgered across to the far bank, a proper bite left me connected to an Amazon monster which tried to use my line to tidy up a few loose branches on the other side. After a while, it morphed into a decent barbel, which started to see my side of the argument, but just as I'd got the landing-net in the water, off she came - ten-pound dacron had parted just above the hook! I've never yet had a palomar knot fail, so can only assume it had been shredded during the fish's gardening session.
After that, it was tap-tap-nuffink from far-bank chublets all the way till home-time, with the odd spell of being studiously ignored by the nyaa-nyaa dancers at my feet.

Highlight of the day was a little grebe; haven't seen one of those for years.

Petrol-splitter landed seven barbel and lost two.

 

[peter crabtree]

Decided to have a day on the Colne locally this morning, walked down with a trolley full of gear only to find the riverside path closed for maintenance grrrr.
The adjacent canal was prow to stern full of barges and various other craft so I had to walk further to the opposite bank of the river. Set up my 15' ultralite with a 3BB stick float and using the necessary skill shotted it up and gave it a test run through

There was virtually no flow at all, more like a canal than a river but bites were frequent all morning. I hooked what I think was a big perch twice and both times it slipped the hook, dumping my rig up a tree the second timemg:
Plenty of roach, perch dace and gudgeon otherwise on this breezy but very mild cloudy day. As the light fell towards 4:30 I felt sure things might happen with some big chub or barbel perhaps but it didn't happen unfortunately.
Anyway I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[mikench]

I can see that to emulate your activity Simon I will have to retire fully

Clearly nothing puts you off or deters you from fishing and for that you should give yourself one of your awards! The Peter Crabtree nothing puts me off innit award!

 

[nottskev]

Another wild and windy day, so where to go? I'd had enough of wrestling with the pole yesterday, and I could only fish 1pm to 4.30, so it was the local river. It's not exactly sheltered on a windy day , and there wasn't going to be any of that fancy floatfishing with the wind gusting downstream, but I've been polishing my dace feedering skills, and I didn't mind another go at that.

The Crow has been asking if feedering is easier then floatfishing. Yes, it is, but it's no less busy if you're after dace on the Trent, and using a feeder this size

I fed 5/6 pints of groundbait with a pint of casters, a pint and a half of hemp and half a pint of maggots in 3 and a bit hours. So it's not a chuck it in and wait method. The fish were all dace like this, with the exception of a small grayling of about 8oz, the second I've had from the river in two visits.

This month's Spot The Grayling competition. Just put a x where you think the grayling might be

 

[mikench]

Bottom right hand corner Kev I reckon! We'll done and that is a compliment from someone who has only ever caught one dace but what a dace!! That was due to Tigger without whom I would have drowned!

 

[tigger]

Bottom right hand corner Kev I reckon! We'll done and that is a compliment from someone who has only ever caught one dace but what a dace!! That was due to Tigger without whom I would have drowned!

Eye, it was a very dacent dace wun'it .

 

[mikench]

It certainly wa !!

 

[tigger]

It certainly wa !!

Don't you mean Wuz :wh.

 

[thecrow]

The Crow has been asking if feedering is easier then floatfishing. Yes, it is, but it's no less busy if you're after dace on the Trent, and using a feeder this size

Oi I cant remember that, you will be telling me next that stick float fishing is more technical

 

[nottskev]

Oi I cant remember that, you will be telling me next that stick float fishing is more technical

In today's wind, a stick float would have ended up in the grass behind you. The feeder ended up in the water, at least, making it much the easier method

BTW did you get my 2nd pm?