How did you get on?

[alantherose]

Well, that's quite the question ("HDYGO?")

Regretted going to the Wharfe at Collingham (horrible, horrible downstream wind; horrible, horrible dog owners allowing their mutts to traipse through the place as if they owned it... I mean, I did pay to be there! Horrible, horrible dad and teenage daughter lobbing rocks in the water ). So I packed up and went to the Nidd with my remaining maggots and caught lovely roach and dace for an hour or two before heading home.

So HDIGO? Not bad in the end. Thanks for asking

 

[chevin4]

After enjoying a nice time in East Devon and some rod bending action at Upton Lakes near Cullompton it was good to get back to some serious fishing last week. I decided to go back to my 40acre syndicate lake I took a fishing mate as a guest who refused payment for fixing some stonework for me. The Lake has not fished well in June mainly due to high pressure conditions and bright sunshine. I finished with two tench best 6lb 7oz perch 3lb 3oz and bream of 7lb 10oz and one of approx 9lb. I didn't weigh the larger bream as it seemed a bit sluggish following it's captor at 3.30am. The bream were caught on home made Bio Shellfish boiliies and christened my new Chimera 3 rod. The tench were caught on worm kebab and the perch on maggot feeder with a 3ft hook length. My friend finished with 7 tench all caught on maggot feeder helicopter style with a small PVA bag of dead maggots on each cast he believed this gave him an edge.

 

[Alan Whitty]

Another new rod

 

[chevin4]

Another new rod

Don't tell the missus Alan

 

[Alan Whitty]

You'll be OK, take her for a coffee in Hitchin, the 'ambience' will calm her down....

 

[chevin4]

 

[chevin4]

Job done Alan

 

[flightliner]

Friday afternoon I went after barbel. With one fish after about 45mins fishing a bomb in the steady patches of a very fast moving, short and restricted swim, I tried a float - it was some float, shotted with nothing but a 10g olivette - through the fast stuff and found it was full of barbel like this. With all the rain we've had this season, these fish aren't suffering lack of oxygen. They are fully fuelled and fighting fit.

View attachment 27358

Saturday the weather was filthy, and Sunday I took birthday presents round to my sister in the morning, accepted a beer and stayed to watch the tennis. I had had a vague idea of fishing later in the day, but I went with the flow.

Today the casters I bought on Saturday, and some worms from a previous failure to catch bream on the river needed using up, so I wondered if it would be third time lucky on the new club's stretch opposite the nature reserve. If not maybe I need to book a coaching session with Mick. I keep trying to catch the stretch with extra water and colour, but each time I go in these days of wildly varying weather, the sun comes out, the colour drops out and the bream turn nocturnal. I picked a peg I hadn't fished before. It had everything but a red carpet

View attachment 27359

A river swim with an umbrella holder you could fish in your slippers is not to be sniffed at

View attachment 27360

It all looked good: a bit of water on from the horrible weekend, a bit of colour, and the swim has a big slack that let you fish 15m over it into the slower edges of the flow with only an ounce on the feeder. In went half a dozen feeders with caster, chopped worm and dead maggots, followed by one with a hooklength on and worm tipped with maggot. Not a bite for an hour. Then two hours. I tried with corn on the hook and got bites from roach. The roach were actually lovely chunky little fish you'd love to catch on the float, but not on feeder gear.

View attachment 27361

I was bored waiting for bream so I took the feeder off, put a 3/4oz bomb on and decided I'd just fish this clunky set up for roach. (I didn't have float gear with me). Surprise, surprise, the next fish on two bits of corn was this

View attachment 27362

Followed by three more. The bream had a slightly skinny, spawned-out look, but they are fit fish (just living in the Trent must b a work-out; it's a fierce environment for several months of the year) and you don't wind them straight in unless you're carping or carbelling. So, no big catch, but at least not a third blank. As I was packing up at 6.30pm, the river was alive with roach topping, so I think I'll take hemp and tares next time and sod the worms and casters.

Strange you say the Bream had a skinny spawned out look Kev as last week with the Bream I had one of them was shedding spawn as I unhooked it.

 

[markcw]

Had a few hours on Gilmans pool at Cotswold Water Park .
Took an old Leeds rod , a 4 metre Garbolino whip and landing net. No holdall rods and landing net held together with a couple of velcro strips , one at the top the other at the bottom . , AS1 seatbox with bait boxes in the base , small cooler bag with my lunch .
That was all I took
Set the whip up with a AS5 5g float shotted with number 8 and 10 to a size 20 silverfish pellet hook . Only took one pole rig as well .
The rod set up was Leeds carp match 13' ,rod 20+ years old. This had. Preston Inception reel loaded with 4lb Shimano Aero line. The float was a ,Loaded 3bb waggler that took three number 4 shot . Two were placed one either side of the float then two number 8 and a number 10 down the line .
Hook was a tubertini 808 in size 18 . Am down to my last pack of these so it was a toss up between this or silverfish maggot . Hooklength was 3lb Shimano silk shock .
Bait was 6mm mainline hard pellets for feed on waggler line while bait for waggler rod was 6mm banofee flavoured soft hooker pellets alternated with piece of worm .
Bait for whip was maggot.
Started off on the rod casting out to around 12 metres . Pinging pellets at the float . It was like a slow version of wag n mag at first , Finally had a few indications and landed some decent roach one or two over a pound .
I found I had better bies and stamp of fish on piece of worm .
While I was fishing the waggler I was throwing a few maggots in on a little and often basis on the whip line .Did this for around 20 minutes
Then the fish were there swirling on the top and just below the surface .
So in with the waggler and out with the whip.
First cast a wasp like perch , I couldn't believe it .
Any way got into the rhythm of feed leave couple of seconds then cast the whip rig out .
It was one a chuck then . Missed some bites connected with others .
If I had had a finer tip whip such as my acolyte I wouldn't have missed as many bite . Unfortunately that is still in the northwest .
I got through nearly half a pint of maggots and I wasn't lashing the bait in .
A bloke was stood behind for about 20 minutes , he said he had bought a whip and didn't know how to use it , he was surprised at the speed fish could be caught . He told his mate I was an expert , my reply was I wish I was , it just looked easy because the fish were there .
If they hadn't wanted to feed I would have stuck with the waggler .
Had a really enjoyable few hours and was made better by travelling light and just taking the basics with me .

 

[Steve Arnold]

I decided on another early morning session to beat the heat of the afternoon. Yesterday I spoke to fishing buddy Alistair and he agreed to join me at the river, at least by taking separate cars I did not have to wait for him. His timekeeping is poor and he most certainly is not a morning person!

My planned swim was totally overgrown with Japanese Knotweed despite my clearing it two months ago! This stuff has been hellish this last two years!

So I decided to try a few miles downstream, quite a regular haunt for me and known to enough local anglers that it is usually fairly clear of weed...

There was quite a lot of JK, new growth mostly and not too high. So I got a line out and texted Alistair where I was fishing, He arrived just as I landed a very rare tench, my first from the river Lot.....

By the time my buddy was fishing I had added a 4 lb bream to that and then a barbel of similar size.

Alistair was festering a little as he was getting no bites and I had missed a few more. So I said a few prayers to the fishing Gods, asking for his luck to change.

Then my bites stopped and he had three barbel in quite short time.

Now, I was pleased for him.....but I would have liked more myself!

Anyway, the sun cleared the trees about 11 am and the temperature was rising. We stood in the shade for an hour, watching the rods doing nothing. Guessing the fish were hiding from the sun like us we decided to pack up.

By the time I got home it was over 30c. Just now, at 3.15, it is 35c - time for a siesta!

 

[The Sogster]

Had a trip to the estate lake today. I wanted to try the silstar match team line which others had recommended on here, plus a couple of other newish tackle items.
A few weeks ago I bought very cheaply a new old stock Drennan puddlechucker 12' 9", rated for up to 6lb line I thought it may make a nice heavyish float rod for some of the bigger carp and tench in the lake and saving me from worrying about smashing my Drennan ultralights without being too overgunned.
This was coupled with one of the new Shimano aero400 xr reels spooled with 5lb maxima, using a .14 hooklength.
My chosen swim and simple setup.

Bites were slow, fishing corn, meat and banded sinkers over 2mm and 4mm pellets.
I managed to winkle out 3 small bream, biggest about 12oz between 12.30pm and 5:30pm before losing a much better fish in the reeds to my left when the hooklength parted against the stems.
Too early to blame the silstar though.
Packed up about 7pm without further action, enjoyed the afternoon out all the same.

 

[seth49]

Back on usual club water yesterday, usual pole tactics of worm over chopped worm and micros. Ground bait just resulted in lots of bubbles but no bites.

It fished better in the margin, just skimmers fishing out, also had a couple of hours fishing floaters which caught me 4 carp, finished with 24 fish altogether, 1tench 1 crucian 2 F1s, 6 roach and a few perch plus skimmers.

Not just fishing as it was but not a bad day, we caught more than the others who were fishing at least, warm and dry which made it a lot better as well.

 

[mikench]

View attachment 27368

Is that The Hermitage in Hitchin?

 

[Kevin Perkins]

I dont normally contribute to this thread because quite frankly my fishing sessions have ben sporadic to say the least and my catches have not been worth reporting, however......

Went to my local little lake yesterday, sat in the swim where I blanked last time (2 down from the 'snake' swim!) and in a few hours had quite a mixed bag. Successful baits were pellet and luncheon meat
Have to say came away quite pleased with myself.....

 

[wetthrough]

Another day on the Dam yesterday. An earlyish start around 6am with a reasonable forecast of moderate winds and slight chance of rain around 10/11 which did happen but light and brief. On the previous visit the bailiff pointed me to a good Roach peg so decided to fish it, it was nearer anyway, maybe 100M from car instead of 2/300. Going is fine to the far peg but coming back is all uphill, not fun. Started well had me thinking I was in for a humdinger catching Roach and all a good stamp. This jockeyed for biggest of about 10 fish (one hybrid) but bites dried up around 8am.

All on sweetcorn. Tried other baits but nothing doing. Quite a contrast to the previous occasion when they wouldn't look at sweetcorn in the morning but took it in the afternoon. Fishing at around 13M I'd put some GB in on arrival but topping up didn't seem to get much response until I threw in a loose ball around midday. Bites started coming again to sweetcorn (loose fed some sweetcorn as well) and got another Perch on the corn! No sign of anything bigger about but switched to pellet, continued to catch but missed quite a few. I suspect they were just hanging on the the banded pellet, I'd feel a bit of a jiggle then nothing. Still not a bad day. Packed up around 3.30 with 51 on the clicker.

 

[terry m]

Spent last evening sat behind my carp rods, listening to the last knocking of the cricket, generally chilling.

First run was a nice tench about 5 pounds or so, I always feel a little guilty catching such nice creatures on carp gear. The second run was a very good fish, I succeeded in extracting it from one weed bed, but was unable to prevent it from getting into a marginal snag where it somehow freed itself while depositing my hook on a branch. Much annoyance and reflection on how I could have prevented it. The final run happened as darkness fell and extremely careful playing resulted in a 25lb 1oz prize.

Satisfied, but couldn’t help thinking about the ’one that got away’!

 

[markcw]

Another day on the Dam yesterday. An earlyish start around 6am with a reasonable forecast of moderate winds and slight chance of rain around 10/11 which did happen but light and brief. On the previous visit the bailiff pointed me to a good Roach peg so decided to fish it, it was nearer anyway, maybe 100M from car instead of 2/300. Going is fine to the far peg but coming back is all uphill, not fun. Started well had me thinking I was in for a humdinger catching Roach and all a good stamp. This jockeyed for biggest of about 10 fish (one hybrid) but bites dried up around 8am.


View attachment 27427


All on sweetcorn. Tried other baits but nothing doing. Quite a contrast to the previous occasion when they wouldn't look at sweetcorn in the morning but took it in the afternoon. Fishing at around 13M I'd put some GB in on arrival but topping up didn't seem to get much response until I threw in a loose ball around midday. Bites started coming again to sweetcorn (loose fed some sweetcorn as well) and got another Perch on the corn! No sign of anything bigger about but switched to pellet, continued to catch but missed quite a few. I suspect they were just hanging on the the banded pellet, I'd feel a bit of a jiggle then nothing. Still not a bad day. Packed up around 3.30 with 51 on the clicker.

Is that the carpark near the guide hut/community building leading up to the rugby club on Crouchley lane ?

 

[wetthrough]

Is that the carpark near the guide hut/community building leading up to the rugby club on Crouchley lane ?

No I park at the Dam head. Peg was the one before the nook.

 

[chevin4]

Is that The Hermitage in Hitchin?

Yes

 

[markcw]

No I park at the Dam head. Peg was the one before the nook.

If you can still fish into the nook , there are some decent fish in there .