How did you get on?

[sam vimes]

Today I was on a different stretch to my usual haunts. The only reason for choosing it was an attempt to get out of a fairly strong and gusty wind, but a change is as good as a rest too.

I wasn't entirely successful in avoiding the wind, which rather limited to distance I could fish whilst retaining the necessary control. I didn't have particularly high hopes.

Happily, in just a couple of hours I managed seven trout, a grayling and a dace (plus the usual bloody minnows). A couple of the trout would have easily topped 2lb, maybe even squeaking 3lb with one of them. The only downside is that I rather suspect that I had at least one of the trout twice.

 

[thecrow]

As the person who has the task of figuring out which UK waters have true crucians I have got quite good at spotting the impostors! Sadly this isn't a crucian; it's most likely a brown goldfish though there's a chance it's a goldfish x crucian - stunning fish though. I'll get Peter Rolfe who is the UK's foremost authority to take a look as well.

Can I ask how you got that task and why you think this isn't a crucian please?

 

[peter crabtree]

Could make an interesting new thread Graham...

 

[Mark Wintle]

Can I ask how you got that task and why you think this isn't a crucian please?

I volunteered for a national project; the body shape is wrong as is the lateral line scale count - waiting for a response from Peter Rolfe. It's an easy mistake to make (confusing goldfish or hybrids with true crucians) so much so that it's probable the British crucian record wasn't actually a crucian for several decades, now rectified,

 

[nottskev]

Back to the local Trent after lunch today. I'm getting fond of the stretch 5 mins away, and regretting driving around hunting for better places for years. But the weather forecast was not good, and much as I prefer to floatfish, I didn't want a repeat of Saturday and Sunday's disasters. So, I tried a new peg, cut in behind a deep slack with a row of trees protecting me from anglers below, and a row of trees above keeping the strengthening downstream wind off. South-facing, it was a bit of a sun-trap,too. Sorry, I'm sounding like an estate agent. I planned to flick a small feeder 20 yards into the brisk flow, with maybe a go for one of the big perch on the crease.

Last time I tried feedering for dace, hitting bites was 50/50. Since then, I picked up a rig idea – a twizzled loop affair – from this Alan Scothorne video

YouTube

Does it work? In the first hour or so, I only came back without a fish once, so that's a yes. Not the biggest stamp of dace, but not the smallest either.

The usual pike attacks - 3 or 4 - slowed things down a bit

The first two hours followed a predictable pattern. After feeding the crease for an hour, I swapped the little cage feeder for a bomb and the 18 hook for a 12 and fished worm for a perch, without a bite. But at 4pm events turned more eventful. When I picked up on a bite and had to backwind rapidly, I assumed another pike attack, so I fairly casually pumped it back to my side waiting for the pike to let go or the .14 hooklength to break. It was only when it started to burrow into the weeds and trees on my bank that I thought, pike don't do that, and started to play it more carefully. Whereupon the feeder snagged in weed and the hooklength snapped. Oh well.

At 4.10 a buzzard, being hassled by a crow, installed itself over my head and they revolved in tight circles. At 4.20, two cormorants emerged from the slack in front of me. We were as surprised as each other, and since they were the ones that could fly, they buggered off, treading the water to foam on take-off. And at 4.35, after a few strange calls had echoed around, a green and yellow parrot burst out of the tree behind me and flew across to the far bank willows.

Catching a few more dace would have been an anti-climax, so I called it a day.

 

[Pete Shears]

Up at the reservoir spinning today although the cold NW wind seemed to have slowed all activity to a standstill.The giant white egret was still there with members of the Twitcherati with binoculars and spotting scopes ticking another one off the list,with five ordinary white egrets to confuse them.Perseverance paid off in the end with two perch and a jack of about 3lb landed.Will have another go tomorrow.

 

[jon atkinson]

As the person who has the task of figuring out which UK waters have true crucians I have got quite good at spotting the impostors! Sadly this isn't a crucian; it's most likely a brown goldfish though there's a chance it's a goldfish x crucian - stunning fish though. I'll get Peter Rolfe who is the UK's foremost authority to take a look as well.

Noooooooo! I was tempted to give this my first 'dislike' but it would have been tongue in cheek [& unfair]. I have read about variation in body shape & I couldn't remember the lateral line scale count at the time, so didn't check [32 - 34?] but he upturned mouth, lack of barbules & convex dorsal fin had me convinced... I'll just have to keep trying! Interesting subject, 'hybridisation' - I feel a new thread coming on...

 

[tigger]

I had the latter part of the afternoon roaving the river with the trotting gear today. There was a strong biting downstream wind which made me work a little harder than I like but even so I had a great time, no big fish but lots of small to half decent ones. I could bore you by going on about all the amazing wildlife I was surrounded by but I wont lol. I will mention one of them though, a virtually white barn owl which was hunting up and down the banking's in broad daylight as they so often do....but not so many that resemblea snowy owl!

 

[rubio]

Unless you're a munchkin I'd say that's a pretty fine dace. A notch above half decent in my book at least.

 

[tigger]

Unless you're a munchkin I'd say that's a pretty fine dace. A notch above half decent in my book at least.

Yes, your right rubio, it is a chunky dace and I did drop on quite a few of that stamp today. I'm lucky in having some great dace rivers within a reasonable distance.

 

[swizzle]

I had the latter part of the afternoon roaving the river with the trotting gear today. There was a strong biting downstream wind which made me work a little harder than I like but even so I had a great time, no big fish but lots of small to half decent ones. I could bore you by going on about all the amazing wildlife I was surrounded by but I wont lol. I will mention one of them though, a virtually white barn owl which was hunting up and down the banking's in broad daylight as they so often do....but not so many that resemblea snowy owl!

Apologies for the dislike. I hit the wrong buttonmg:

 

[tigger]

Apologies for the dislike. I hit the wrong buttonmg:

LOL, no worries Swizzle, maybe tired eyes at this time .

 

[swizzle]

LOL, no worries Swizzle, maybe tired eyes at this time .

Hahaha, tired everything these days. Regardless of the time.

 

[Mark Wintle]

Noooooooo! I was tempted to give this my first 'dislike' but it would have been tongue in cheek [& unfair]. I have read about variation in body shape & I couldn't remember the lateral line scale count at the time, so didn't check [32 - 34?] but he upturned mouth, lack of barbules & convex dorsal fin had me convinced... I'll just have to keep trying! Interesting subject, 'hybridisation' - I feel a new thread coming on...

Have a good look around Peter's website, you'll find it interesting!
The Crucian Carp Website


The problem we get all the time with trying to establish if waters contain true crucians is that in the past - not so much now - many fishery owners were palmed off with what they thought were cheap crucians but were actually unwanted brown goldfish. The hardest fish of all to tell from true crucians are the goldfish x crucians, the differences are subtle to say the least and the only 100% way is by using DNA. On the bank it's not too hard to tell them apart but photos aren't always reliable. Peter Rolfe hasn't come back to me yet but I'll post when he does.

 

[S-Kippy]

After last week's assault on the mini species of the Aegean it was back to some proper man fishing yesterday.

The Big Feller was itching to have a go at the club water near Guildford for some carp so we barrelled off down there arriving about 4pm just as the day anglers were packing up.We picked a fairly big open area with me to the left and Grumpy to the right. Both of us had good looking trees to fish to. Unfortunately we were under the oaks again and within 5 minutes I'd had at least 3 rather substantial direct hits on the bonce courtesy of Captain Nutkin. Setting up I put one rod out to the LH tree with about 20 baits and I'd barely cast the second rod in before I'm away. Sadly Captain Carp charged through my other line, shed the hook and left me with the mother of all tangles !

Quiet until about 5-30 when I'm away on the RH rod fished straight out about 2 rods. Nice common of 14-4. Phil then lost a mid double for no reason before my RH rod went off again. Clearly a better fish and so it proved. I was hoping for my first ever 20 and this thing looked well over that in the net....i couldn't lift it myself and had to get the BF to haul it out. An old warrior of a mirror that was incredibly broad across the back and shoulders.

28lb 2 ozs and another tick on my post retirement bucket list. Big Dave reckons it's probably the biggest mirror in the lake as most of the fish are fully scaled commons.....and very much prettier.

Phil finally managed a fish of about 14lb despite getting in a right 2 and 8 when it went through his other line and his net got caught on his RH alarm. That proved to be his only fish but there must be something wrong with his rig as he had 3/4 other offers that didn't hook up. For an engineer he doesn't seem to get the mechanics of carp rigs. I may have to tie a few hooklinks up for the Old Goat.

I finished with 5 fish. The Lump and 4 commons at 14-4,15-4,18-12 and a little smut of 11lb or so. Not bad for about 5 hours fishing.

Thought I'd fooled the Highways Agency going home as they'd shut the M3 not the A3 but no such luck as they'd shut my home exit off the M40 at Denham. I'm convinced some git at the HA has a tracking device on my car !

Dead chuffed with that mirror. I'm still no carp angler but I'm beginning to see why others are. A few sessions will be enough for me but I'm not likely to top that weight from there. A 20lb + fully scaled common would be nice though.

 

[seth49]

Very quiet yesterday, last week as I was having my lunchtime stroll round the fishery, I passed one pool which isn’t fished much, and I saw some large carp crusing round in the sunshine, several looked over my bucket list weight of twenty pounds.

So the plan was to have a session on here, just for these carp, so I fed a couple of spots, and put two rods out, and sit back and wait, ten hours later I decided I’d had enough, not a touch, and I’d had my first blank of the year, I didn’t think it would be easy, and it wasn’t, still it was worth a try, think I will feed a couple of spots every visit for the next few weeks and try again.

Plenty to see while I was waiting, at least twelve lots of pink footed geese flew over heading for the coast, there were two jays,a kestrel, buzzard, kingfisher, heron, and my friend the robin.?

 

[mikench]

After last week's assault on the mini species of the Aegean it was back to some proper man fishing yesterday.

The Big Feller was itching to have a go at the club water near Guildford for some carp so we barrelled off down there arriving about 4pm just as the day anglers were packing up.We picked a fairly big open area with me to the left and Grumpy to the right. Both of us had good looking trees to fish to. Unfortunately we were under the oaks again and within 5 minutes I'd had at least 3 rather substantial direct hits on the bonce courtesy of Captain Nutkin. Setting up I put one rod out to the LH tree with about 20 baits and I'd barely cast the second rod in before I'm away. Sadly Captain Carp charged through my other line, shed the hook and left me with the mother of all tangles !

Quiet until about 5-30 when I'm away on the RH rod fished straight out about 2 rods. Nice common of 14-4. Phil then lost a mid double for no reason before my RH rod went off again. Clearly a better fish and so it proved. I was hoping for my first ever 20 and this thing looked well over that in the net....i couldn't lift it myself and had to get the BF to haul it out. An old warrior of a mirror that was incredibly broad across the back and shoulders.

28lb 2 ozs and another tick on my post retirement bucket list. Big Dave reckons it's probably the biggest mirror in the lake as most of the fish are fully scaled commons.....and very much prettier.

Phil finally managed a fish of about 14lb despite getting in a right 2 and 8 when it went through his other line and his net got caught on his RH alarm. That proved to be his only fish but there must be something wrong with his rig as he had 3/4 other offers that didn't hook up. For an engineer he doesn't seem to get the mechanics of carp rigs. I may have to tie a few hooklinks up for the Old Goat.

I finished with 5 fish. The Lump and 4 commons at 14-4,15-4,18-12 and a little smut of 11lb or so. Not bad for about 5 hours fishing.

Thought I'd fooled the Highways Agency going home as they'd shut the M3 not the A3 but no such luck as they'd shut my home exit off the M40 at Denham. I'm convinced some git at the HA has a tracking device on my car !

Dead chuffed with that mirror. I'm still no carp angler but I'm beginning to see why others are. A few sessions will be enough for me but I'm not likely to top that weight from there. A 20lb + fully scaled common would be nice though.

Is the dark side beckoning? May the force be with you Carpy one!

 

[103841]

He'll be wanting a thirty, mark my words!

 

[neil1970]

Another late report.
Nice little Saturday session on the river.
3 jacks on the white kopyto & 2 perch on a motor oil crayfish.

 

[103841]

Neil, when using a palomar knot for the hook (assuming you do when drop shotting) how can you ensure the hook points upwards, seems a bit hit and miss with me.