Ladies’ Day on the Lower Itchen

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mick b

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Well done Skippy and nice to hear my Robin got well fed......again :D
 
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Graham Elliott 1

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Thats a superb write up Skippy.

Really enjoyed reading it. Brill.

You have got the job. :D ;)
 
S-Kippy

S-Kippy

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Thanks guys....to be fair "Beloved Leader" has improved my original significantly with some skilful editing and punctuation. Its a better piece than my raw draft so it was worth waiting for.

---------- Post added at 17:49 ---------- Previous post was at 17:48 ----------
dorsetandchub said:
Nice piece, Skip - would love to attend one of these FishIns one day if me Probation Officer.......:D
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What ? Scousers on The Itchen ? The very idea !:D
 
Neil Maidment

Neil Maidment

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Excellent read that Skippy, I enjoyed it (even if I had a sneak preview of the "Draft"!).

It was a quality day all round with some stunning grayling, very much how it used to fish a few years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed stealing your shoal. and the 2nd and 3rd to come through as well :)

In truth I reckon there was a considerable head of grayling present as they kept coming in groups of two or three, just drifting in and out of the hot spot responding to the occassional freebie maggot I was introducing!

More importantly I thoroughly enjoyed your company, and the others as well, we had some fine river anglers there on the day.

The LIF is a top quality venue :D
 
S-Kippy

S-Kippy

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Neil Maidment said:
drifting in and out of the hot spot responding to the occassional freebie maggot I was introducing!
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"the occasional freebie" :eek::eek: There was so much maggot going in upstream I thought I'd drawn next to one of those 6 armed Hindu deities.

Thoroughly enjoyed your company too,Neil....and I wasn't joking when I said I went home a better angler.Them big old Throop ruba dub dub had best watch out :D
 
sam vimes

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Neil Maidment said:
4 pints of red and 2 pints of caster, that's all (didn't take any home tho!) :)
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Blimey, Charlie. I use about two pints per week and get at least three sessions out of them. If you are ever daft enough to come north, feeding that much is likely to kill your swim stone dead. The Itchen fish must be abundant and damned hungry.
 
Neil Maidment

Neil Maidment

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It's all about the conditions on the day. I've had plenty of good days and fed absolutely nothing. Often if you feed too much on the Itchen (and other chalk streams) you'll be over run with trout. It's knowing the river, the conditions and your target.

If I'm confident the fish are there or thereabouts I'll often attack the D. Stour with a gallon of red, feeding all day for several bursts of stunning chub. When they're really going well I'll feed "top and bottom" of the trot. Feed, trot, feed, retrieve, feed, trot..... Also feed when playing the fish.

When you've got them where you want them, if you stop feeding, you'll stop catching and have to start all over again.
 
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mick b

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sam vimes said:
Blimey, Charlie. I use about two pints per week and get at least three sessions out of them. If you are ever daft enough to come north, feeding that much is likely to kill your swim stone dead. The Itchen fish must be abundant and damned hungry.
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Sam, the fish are not super abundant nor are they hungry.
The fish are only eating the drifting bait, what falls onto the bottom actually gets washed around and ends up lodged in-between the stones or goes off downstream.
Your frugal feeding would/will catch just as many fish no problems.

Graham, 'your' swim hasn't fished at all since you left, and you weren't exactly filling it in either ???

Note
I have had the place to myself on a tuesday or wednesday and caught fish that have coughed up maggots yet the place had been unfished since the weekend
Filling the place in kills it for the following day/s thats why none of the regulars ever fish after a 'heavy' weekend.

And incase you wonder where all the trout went I had been 'trout outing' on two days before you arrived.
 
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S-Kippy

S-Kippy

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Neil Maidment said:
When you've got them where you want them, if you stop feeding, you'll stop catching and have to start all over again.
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I can vouch for that as that's what happened to me on the day. Neil kept the feed going in whereas I did myself by NOT keeping the feed going. At one point Neil went walkabout and while he was gone I hardly had a bite. It took me a while to twig what was going on and by putting a bit more feed in & casting a bit more upstream managed to rustle a few of my fish back. I'm very river rusty and it showed but I'll not make the same mistake again.

Its just so alien an approach to me given the rivers I grew up on where 4 pints of maggot would do you for a month.....or a morning if you were barbelling !
 
nicepix

nicepix

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Great write up. I really enjoyed it and it made me wish that there were some grayling a bit nearer chez nous.
 
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