How did you get on?

[tigger]

Grayling season is upon us and a group of us decided to make our way up north to fish a cumbrian river with plans on catching some.
Due to a number of floods over the last few years the grayling fishing on this river has dropped right off but we wanted to see if we could winckle a few out. Anyhow, we all caught fish, mostly trout but we did catch some grayling also. I can't remember what my friends caught but I had 24 trout and ten grayling. Several of the largest of the trout were about 2lb and same for the grayling with the others mostly being between a pound and a pound and a half, at a guesstimate. The trout gave some excellent acrobatical displays and a fair few of them managed to throw the hooks whilst doing so.
Chris (Sam Vines) was one of the group and we had a good chat and Chris showed me a rod he had created for fishing smaller rivers and even larger ones like the one we fished today if you were stood out in it. At the end of the day whilst we were stood together making chit chat before departing an otter put it an apearance and we were treated to watching it go about it's buisness for a spell.
A great day out spent with some propper nice likeminded people!

 

[wetthrough]

Fished the Dam Wednesday from around 7:40..4pm. At 12:15M and the margin. Started off picking small Roach up on the long line, 4oz at the most. Switched to the margin after a while (I'd been loose feeding it) only to find more small stuff. It wasn't until around 1pm the margin started to produce a few better fish. Not many, two or three and it would go quiet. Switched back to the long line picking small stuff up. Back to the margin for another two or three better fish and carried on like that for the rest of the day. Ended up with 61 Roach the biggest being around 5 1/2.

Fished a club pool Friday. It's one I've fished with Mike on a few occasions. The water was a bit higher than it was last time but still on the low side.

Even on the low pegs it makes for difficult line sinking especially as you can only use a short rod due to the trees overhead and the leaves didn't help. Best way I found was to cast about twice as far as needed, put a bow in the line, wait for the float to settle (if it did!) then wind in like crazy, tip well under. Flicking the tip just didn't pull the line under the leaves. A lot of work for teeny Roach, 3oz max. Dropped a solid ball of Gb in and next cast:

On caster. Sadly, appeared to be Billy no mates.

Carried on picking up tiddlers just the one that might have made 5oz if force fed boilies for a week. Struck into something solid and pulled an F1 out and that was pretty much it.

Packed up around 5 with 35 on the clicker most going to caster.

 

[mikench]

Not long now Gordon so make the most of solitude. I'll see you at Boddington if not before.

 

[wetthrough]

Not if Manchester goes into Tier 3

5 Venues we regularly fish will be out of bounds. Leaves me with Dunham and my local pool.

 

[mikench]

You need some camo gear preferably elvish. Which 5 are in Manchester , Cheshire East surely.

 

[wetthrough]

Lymm Dam, Bridgewater at Oughtrington, Bath Pooll, Thornhills, Brookhouse, Cicley Mill and the Dane are all out of Gtr Manchester. Even f***g Angling Direct is out of Gtr Manchester, just.

 

[mikench]

Thornhills and Brookhouse are in Cheshire West so tier 2 . No issues for no more than 6 outdoors. All the others are too imo.

 

[103841]

After reading reports of a very calm and flat English Channel I made an impromptu trip across country to Hythe for a late bit of lure chucking.

Fished one hour before high tide and two hours below, not much action other than six very small mackerel which for their size give a great account of themselves on light gear. The only lure that attracted them was a small red gill which needs the help of a Bombarda float to cast it out any distance, first time I’ve used the method so pleased to have caught some fish on it. All fish returned to fight another day.

Several seasoned bait anglers dotted along the coastline and no signs of anything being caught.

Ive still got my L plates on after three years of lure fishing in the salty stuff, this year has been by far the most disappointing for numerous reasons, illness, lockdown and then a Summer of weed strangling the Kent coastline.

Roll on 2021.

 

[The Runner]

Had things to do this morning so managed only an afternoon session up at Staffin. Wind had turned NE rather than due east so hoped it had flattened the swell a bit. In the event was OK if a bit choppy around low tide

but escalated quickly on the flood.
Started on a cannibal shad, then a bigger roach paddletail but nothing for 45 minutes at which point had a succession of short takes without hooking anything. Suspected coalfish so changed to a Toby so that the hook was at the back rather than coming out of the middle. Sure enough, soon had two this size before the kelp ate my only Toby

So, changed to an inline sandeel , never done much on them up here before but did the trick today. Next hour and a half brought five pollack, three proper ones and the others about a pound and a half apiece as well as another two coalies

Unfortunately sea conditions were getting increasingly rough and after a couple of drenchings was forced into a move back to the point nearer the slipway where have never done any good. And still haven't, so a final score from three and a half hours of nine fish. Happy with that.

 

[bullet]

Nice Pollack, there.

 

[Ray Roberts]

Well today I had a red letter day. I helped at a work party on one of our club lakes this morning and chucked the lure rods and tackle in the boot for afterwards. Spinning is banned on this particular lake, so I planned to fish the Eden afterwards.

The stretch I planned on fishing is situated in the grounds of a stately home. I hadn’t fished here previously, so it was completely new to me.

This is the lake, most of which is out of bounds. The river looked absolutely stunning and a fitting place to christen my new light lure rod.

This waterfall fed into my first swim.

I started off with a small gold curly tailed lure on a small jig head. I was in on my first cast with a nice perch of about a pound, followed by four more about the same size. Then I had a Jack of about five or six pounds. I moved along to a weir pool where the river joins the lake. I couldn’t go wrong, first cast a perch of a pound and a half and pretty well a fish a chuck after that. I thought I would up the bait size and try something new. I tied on a larger jig head and put on a Z man cray fish on. Again first cast and I was in again. This time a smaller perch which engulfed the crayfish lure. Next cast and just as I was about to retrieve the lure was hit by another Jack a little larger than its predecessor. I swopped for a small silvery shad again it was hit straight away and another small perch. This one had taken a shad a third of its length.

Time was getting on so I returned to the original swim. The most successful lure seemed to be the gold curly tailed jig, so that was what I used. A couple of decent perch hit the net then a pike hit the lure and went nuts. I landed it pretty quickly considering I was using a five pound flouro leader and a six foot 3-8 gram light lure rod. This was 11lb 3oz. I carried on for a few more casts and had a couple more perch then packed up as you have to be away before dark.

All in all a fantastic afternoon’s fishing in a stunning place.

This was one of the perch giving a good account of itself.

 

[103841]

great photos, amazing place and a red letter day with lures, something of a rareity, well for me anyway.

 

[mikench]

Well said John and I couldn't have said it better.

 

[rubio]

Don't you just hate it when you turn up at your favourite hotspot only to discover you no longer have it to yourself.

Actually I hadn't seen it til some dog walkers pointed out what was in the tree beside me. The roach didn't notice either. Or maybe they just preferred to be captured by me, and returned again rather than slip down the maw of that thing.
A rummage in the bait freezer at home prompted a hemp and tare day. I took nothing else to compel myself to make it work.
Amazing how less than a pint of seed can occupy a shoal of roach. To encourage myself to properly set up the swim I opened a tasty bottle of Woodfordes Bure Gold. A brief bit of sun broke through as I supped and simultaneously practiced my left hand feeding. I'm still rubbish at it. I rarely bother putting hemp on the hook myself as I'm rubbish at that too. Tares are big enough, just.
The actual fishing could hardly have been a better topping to an idyllic setting. I ran the float through a couple of times without bait, a lovely John Dean lignum stick. Happy with the depth etc I put on the tare, Wade out a bit and 30 seconds later a fabulous roach is in my hand. A brief admiration moment, then back to feeding. Twice each run. Lay float in after first feed, straighten it out, feed again, hook fish! Easy.
Second cast got me my best roach from this stretch. Pound and a half. Two roach for over 2 lbs in 2 casts! Clearly I am the master angler I'd always imagined.
Of course I'm not and soon finicky fast bites were missed and I lost hooks and got into tangles.
I suspected dace about but caught only roach. Maybe the dace were just too quick. As it got gloomy the black dome float top was tricky to see but a change to a plastic stem stick just didn't cut it. Well I couldn't make it work. Still had plenty enough to be very satisfied with my day.
I may have to conjure a plan to target my first 2lber. It would be the perfect place to finally do it. Probably means resorting to quiver tip.

 

[peter crabtree]

New venue for me today, a quick drive down the Western avenue A40 into the forgotten county of Middlesex. When I was a kid I lived in nearby Harrow and Middlesex was a huge county which has now become Greater London.

The venue was a local club’s lake in Greenford, a small mill pond with 22 pegs.

The white buoys are to stop anglers on the road bank casting to the water in front of the pegs to my right. Right hand bank and opposite bank have no pegs. Nice bit of open water in front of me which is where I started casting a method feeder with gb and meat on a hair rig 12 QM1. Had an almost instant bite, lifted the rod and felt a good fish fall off.
I changed to my other rod with waggler and chucked that out with double maggot, this proved to be the more successful approach, 2 big (5lb) slabs, a couple of skimmers and some nice roach. Every so often I had another chuck with the method but nothing more materialised on that line...

It went a bit dead between 1 and 3:30pm when the final whistle blew.

Had 14:3:0 which gave me roughly 10th of 20 fishing.

 

[mikench]

You never let us down without a report. Mr Consistency.

 

[john step]

A rare foray into a club match today to support the club's fur and feather. I managed 2nd place on the wag and mag. Lots of tiny roach and some skimmers. 18 fished.

 

[The Runner]

Weather looked decent so decided on another afternoon session, down at Gedintailor this time where I hadn't fished for three months or so. Good tide for it, intended to fish one down and three up.
Nice walk across the beach and along the point, only to find two lines of pots set very close in and more further out only leaving me only two or three fishable spots on the deep water section. Oh well , what's probably my favourite stance there was still Ok so set up there. And had a long wait for anything to happen, went through the lure repertoire for over two hours before in successive chucks on a small shad , had a pollack and a coalie. The fish here are always a lower average size than on the North End marks, but not usually this small...

No more after that, only one sharp bang on a slightly bigger lure before the drizzle started and I called it a day half an hour earlier than planned . Still, not a bad place to catch not much

Two blokes turned up fishing from a boat not far offshore about 100 yards to my right for an hour or so but didn't appear to catch either. Anyway, they soon moved further across towards Raasay.
Pod of 5 or 6 Common Dolphins moved quickly through a couple of hundred yards out, not much other wildlife about other than a regular procession of shags and cormorants back and forwards. Like the dolphins they obviously didn't think it worth hanging about the area- perhaps I should have taken the hint.

 

[tigger]

According to the weather guide we are in for a drawn out period of wet weather from tomorrow, and me having quite a few maggots left over from our graylimg trip on friday I decided to get out on the river and feed some to the fish.
I got to the river and it was just about the right height for trotting and I got a swim I had targetted in my mind on my journey there.
There were two anglers below me and two on the opposite bank all legerring. I spoke to them before I started to fish and they'd all been there since 8.30am, it was now 1.30pm, and none of them had had a touch. So things didn't look too promising, but I was still quietly confident. As I waded out I instantly felt how cold the water was, it was entering my wader through a hole!
No wonder the fish weren't feeding in that icey water!
Anyhow, I won't waffle on about the wildlife around me, or how knumb my foot and leg was due to my wader filling with icy river water from the beginning, or how my toes resembled crinckle cut chips when I got home when I removed my sock!
I will say that the fishing wasn't fast and furious, and I did have to work to get a result. The result was three barbel, a sea trout and a single dace.
Even with the frozen foot and leg I enjoyed my fishing today and each time I did battle with the barbel I almost forgot about the aching pain coming from my frozen body parts ?.







Forgot to mention one of the barbel had a large "barbless" hook stuck in its mouth. The hook had done the same as others which I have come across, it had travelled right through the flesh and turned upsidedown and wedged solid against the eye. It would never have come out, just caused infection and may have eventually killed the poor fish.
Bin barbless hooks!

 

[Roger Johnson 2]

Busy fishing week this week, started of on a nearby hydro-electric reservoir which following recent rains was flowing like a river, as was proven by a small chub on the first cast, alternating between waggles and feeder saw a dozen roach and rudd hit the bank but only one roach troubled the net, however I’m quite hopeful of the possibility of some big roach or bream, and continue to keep eyes peeled for pike and carp.
Back at home evening sessions on the river are proving very reliable for barbel at the moment with one or two most evenings.
An excursion to the charity shop came up with 3 books for €1.50, which will fill up my reading time and stop me missing the Anglers Mail. The one on Gardon (“Roach, their moods and methods”) is from 1951 and the last chapter is on cooking and recipes... I’m not in Kansas anymore!
Finished the week off with my best barbel yet at 1oz shy of 8lb (3.6kg).

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