How did everyone get on then?

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Glad you enjoyed it! Sounds a good day.

I had about five hours on my favorite carp lake fishing for Pike. Nobody there so set up in a sheltered spot (was blowing a hoolie) out went a sprat on one side and half a sardine on the other. Supping tea when the float seemed to be moving against the wind, check? yes! A quick strike and wow, away it went, surged, pulling the rod around and peeling off line. A few minutes later, without too many heart stopping moments, I folded a lean, mean, eating machine into my Korum latex (great nets for pike tackle). I was convinced that it would go 20, but try as I might I couldn't squeeze it past 19-08. Will probably go 22 or so in late Feb/March. Great fish, really chuffed, especially as a friend arrived in time to witness and take the pics. He later had a sixish jack, and so did I. Lovely autumn day if windy. Great to be out!

Stu

Hope to have a couple more days on the river this week - what's up with your camera Binka, I can't spot the whiskers.........................

Fished our club match @ Dorchester on Thames today. Was relieved when I drew a peg without a long trek across the fields. Had a vertical bank with a dug out near the top. 3m landing net handle just reached the water. I plumbed up on my stick rig and found 12' under my feet and a shelf dropping down to 14'.
Set up a top 4 2gr float rig to hand and to combat the deceptively fast flow overshotted it by adding 3 BB shot. Held back hard it still wasn't man enough so changed to a 3gr cralusso surf also overshotted, this produced my first bite
A little perch followed by a little roach, both took single caster on the static rig.
Later I tried trotting with my 15' float rod but the gusting downstream wind made presentation tricky. Another perch and a roach and that was it...
It looked sock on with both colour and flow but the fish just weren't 'avin it...
Weighed in 9oz for a section win. 3lb+ won it.
13 fished.

barbelboi said:

what's up with your camera Binka, I can't spot the whiskers.........................

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It's that damn BlackBerry it's always playing up...

binka said:

It's that damn BlackBerry it's always playing up...

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ha ha ha, clever is that Binks!

Split my sides, nice one Binka.........

well i finally managed a pike from my new water after 6 blanks, same it was 20lb smaller than we were hoping for at 6lb!!! but its a start

I was on my way back from the lakes going over the pennines and I drove passed the river Greta and the upper tees, and saw signs to the upper swale, and I just started thinking about grayling, especially given the frosts. A few brownie points later I had my pass stamp for a few hours on the river, armed with a pouch full of maggots, float rod and centre pin and chest waders. A grayling trotter float, 3.2lb drennan float fish and size 16 Kamasan B911x finished off the rig.

After a few small trout, which were quickly photo's and released, I eventually hit into a very solid fish, clearly a grayling and a good one at that. What a fight on the centrepin, and I was chuffed once it was eventually landed at 1lb 10oz, my second best grayling to date...



Nothing else happened on this peg, so I wandered on.

The next peg was ideal, two separate flows of water causing a big crease in the current, which just shouted out to be trotted.

Second cast and i had a fish on, another clonker and a long drawn out, twisting sort of fight. Landed, and at 1lb 8oz, another good grayling...



Next cast, same again, this time at 1lb 5oz...



It went quiet after that, so another move soon had me hitting into a very good grayling, this time at 1lb 9oz



A final fish of 1lb 2oz rounded the short session off nicely!



I was a happy man!

jimlad said:

A final fish of 1lb 2oz rounded the short session off nicely!

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I was gonna give you two likes for that jimlad but then I spotted the shrink wrap on the cork handle

Seriously very well done mate, some lovely looking grayling there

I've already been pulled on that elsewhere! It's a new rod, expensive, and I just wanted to make sure


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On Sunday we fished a local private lake in preparation for a charity match my lad is fishing in a few weeks time we had a few bits an Sean had a nice bream. All going well until the hail got to an inch deep we called it a day then, besides I am seething after stepping on my pole tip.

Son of Meldrew and I fished one of our legendary 'Crabtree' matches today...
26 years of many challenges. Whoever wins is Mr C and the loser is Peter.
As I was 'Peter' after our last outing on the GUC near Tring I had first choice of peg on the GUC @ Berkhamstead town centre.
I picked the nearest to the carpark beside a footbridge with a barge moored opposite. We both fished poles.
Chopped worm and caster was our bait for the day. 11:30 to 4:30 fishing time. Cupped in a small pot of chop and caster on the bottom of the far shelf and started catching small perch one a chuck. After 2 hours I had a few perch in the net. Cupped again and ate my sarnies. Back in with a small Dendra and a welcome skimmer of 2lb followed by 2 more and with 2 hours to go I felt confident. SOM had a big roach followed by 2 more bream which he bumped off and lost....
Too cold and dark to weigh in but we did weigh his pristine roach @ 15oz.
You can call me Mr C for now, until our next foray....

I didn't make it out at the week end through a combination of work & household chores, but I'm off this week so having checked the forecast mg: I went out today - BBC weather had foretold bright sunny skies with minimal wind so obviously it rained... & hailed with lots of gusty wind to blow that rain under the brolly. However the rain did finally prompt a bite which resulted in this in the net;
A little shy of 1lb, my initial thoughts were F1 mutant but any clues as to what this might be? I'm intrigued by the Quasimodo look not to mention what appears to be 2 dorsal fins - I'm guessing that these might once have been connected but there was no obvious sign of injury & there are no predators in this pool...

Tried on a local stream Sunday for a few hours,weather not too bad. We're not blessed with coarse fishing rivers down here but a couple of spots can be reasonably productive and good fun to fish. Usually have it all to yourself as well. Too many Bullocks and too much mud for most!

Had a few hours trotting on my closest stretch of the river Swale.
Managed five grayling, which is nice, as it's what I was aiming to catch.
The downside for me was a huge upside for the river. Four of them were about the size of my index finger.

I don't recall catching grayling as small in the past, let alone four of them. Bodes very well for the future grayling stocks. Hopefully, the EA haven't been down with a big bucket in the last couple of weeks!

Go get me a dozen for zander bait please ! I'm pretty certain my crafty old mates at BH wont have seen them before

I managed two and a half hours on a new bit of river for me this morning.
Tried trotting bread flake and crust first, then switched to maggots which resulted in a couple of small roach. Lovely morning for it as well.

Snatched three hours on the river. One of those very strange days. In the first hour or so I'd struggle to be convinced that I'd had a touch. Plenty of leaves and bottom hang ups, that'll be familiar to those that fish the northern rivers. Oh for a glide with a constant depth! I was starting to get a touch downhearted when I snagged bottom in a place that I'd not managed to even trip bottom before. Just as I was contemplating whether or not I'd need a new hooklink, the bottom started to move, but not much. I "played" this fish for about ten minutes, it barely moved more than a few feet. I very much doubt it even knew it was hooked. What can you do with a 2lb bottom in a strong flow! Eventually, in about 4' of water, I got the thing off the bottom. As it started to come up, something gave way. I expected a hooklink breakage, but on inspection it was nothing more than a hook pull. I've no idea what the fish was.

Back to the leaves and occasional bottoming for the next half hour then something half decent put in an appearance.

After a conversation with a friend about rarely bothering to weigh fish that we'd probably underestimate, I had my scales with me. I'd have given the brownie just over a pound by guestimating. Weighed properly, it was 1lb 14oz. With 20/20 hindsight, I think I really should have weighed a few more trout, grayling and perch over the years.

With the inevitable trout out of the way, the grayling put in an appearance. A positive flurry of bites over the next hour resulted in five grayling. The same as Tuesday, four of them were micro-grayling. The fifth was six ounces. I had my scales with me, I may as well weigh it!


The wind had been strengthening all the while I'd been fishing. It wasn't impinging on my fishing as a combination of a high bank and a fortunate wind direction meant the wind was whistling over my head. All of a sudden, it started raining from a seemingly cloudless sky. A quick scurry up the bank revealed a dirty great black cloud rolling down the dale. Time to call it quits before a soaking. Just got the gear and myself into the car when the heavens opened in a big way.

On my favourite stretch of the Colne this morning - fished two swims for five chub, unfortunately today it didn't fish as well as it looked.