How did you get on?

[nottskev]

I went back to the res at tea-time to try a couple of things. My attempts to catch fish that feed right under the bank were only semi-successful last time out, with fish spooking and bolting in terror at my crude tactics. In the meantime, I'd bought some allegedly invisible line, learnt new knots, thought of ways to keep the line nailed to the bottom without too much weight, and, since the fish were hoovering up hemp, made a paste from ground hemp and egg to make a wafter-type balanced bait by wrapping it around a bit of a pop-up.

I sat well back, fed some hemp and chopped meat, dropped the bait in the edge and made sure every bit of the line was sunk flat, and waited to see what would happen, which amounted to 8 carp and 4 barbel, an improvement on last time. The carp were a motley crew, some prettier than others, but all pulling their weight

The barbel were all around this size

I'm loving this 4pm to 7.30pm fishing time. No early starts, breakfast and lunch before you go, warmest part of the day, no traffic on the way home. How do we manage when it gets dark at 4pm?

 

[mikench]

With difficulty Kev and without a smile on our faces. Mind you it could be worse; we could live much further north like Sweden.

 

[seth49]

Back on our club fishery yesterday, mick arrived later as he had a hospital appointment first thing, so set up on the east bank facing the wind, usual chopped worm and half a worm for hook bait, mixed bag of roach, skimmers, F1s, and 1 tench.

in the afternoon the carp where taking the dog biscuits I’d been throwing in just a few at a time to get them feeding on them, so switched to stronger elastic and hooked a softened dog biscuit on, and fished either margin where I’d been feeding, had six carp to 9lb 2oz, and missed a few as well, so a decent days sport with just a couple of light showers, warm but breezy with the wind slowly dropping during the day.

 

[seth49]

On the big tench pond yesterday, but they evaded me, some big ones where rolling in the swim later on, but didn’t catch one.

this near 4lb bream saved the blank but that was it.

 

[mikench]

Gordon and I had a very enjoyable day yesterday despite the paucity of fish of the kind we sought. We visited the HQ and only multi water venue owned by our club. I had never bothered before for a variety of reasons such as distance( 30 miles and involving the M6) silly rules which largely don’t apply on the rest of the clubs waters and having to use restricted baits and fishery only pellets. The shop selling them isn’t open until 9 which isn’t much use to me at 7. Anyway it was worth the trip and is a beautiful complex of 6 lakes with a cafe , toilets and shop.

The maestro fishing on Three Island lake which is the one we chose. It’s shallow at 3’ but picturesque.

This was my view towards the Lilly pads.

we both caught our fill of skimmers and hybrids with Gordon catching a few respectable roach and Rudd. He also had 3 or 4 carp around 4lb. I managed one carp around 8lb but missed a few in the lilies. The waters are spread out and accessed by car. This was the one adjacent which we might try next time.

The grass is mown and it’s picturesque. I saw at last 4 red kites circling overhead and we chatted to other members and had a good walk round. The largest lake was unavailable as was its car park because of a match. Most waters ,including that we fished ,are supposed to hold golden tench, chub, barbel and tench as well as the usual stock but we didn’t see or catch any. I doubt they exist . Skimmers certainly do.. Cheers Gordon and I will look forward to our next outing there later in September when I return from France.

 

[@Clive]

I have been neglecting the River Vienne lately, having had my last ten or twelve sessions on the Charente. So today I put that right if only to shake off the herd of bream that have been plagueing me on the Charente. The Vienne is no commercial puddle. It is 6 miles longer than the Severn and has almost twice the catchment area and average volume of flow. It also has half as much again elevation. The middle part where I fish runs over a granite bed causing it to be wide and shallow and littered with rocks some of which are as big as small houses. It resembles a Colarado steelhead river. Finding flow even in summer isn't a problem. Finding depth in summer isn't a problem. However, finding flow AND depth, that is a problem. But it is hardly crowded. I have fished some stretches for 11 years and never seen the sign of anyone else fishing there.

I started in a swim that I haven't fished for three years. It has previously yielded barbel to 9lb, chub and carassins as well as having my thumb burned by unseen zoo creatures. It is about 120 yds wide with the flow largely being restricted to the 15 yards nearest the bank due to shallows, rocks and a huge weed bed of about 80 yards wide where catfish and carp show their backs occassionally. First cast with a sliding float / ledger was under overhanging trees. Bait was a small whelk. I hooked my finger over the line so I could gaze over the weedbed looking for signs of life. I felt a pluck, looked at the float and it was still there. Then it wasn't. I hooked a catfish. I was using my Allcocks Wizard cane rod, post WW1 centrepin and 5lb line, but after an exhausting fight I finally beat it.

IGFA line record claim submitted.

Another bite on the second cast was missed. Then nothing. It was raining heavier by then. After two weeks of being baked in temperatures in the high 30's it was a novelty to feel cold in drizzle and 20C temperature while wearing a polo shirt and shorts. But after two hours of moderate rain, gusty wind and only 20C feeling cold was no longer a novelty. I went back to the car and had lunch under the tailgate.

The afternoon was spent in another swim, sheltered from the wind. The slope was precarious. After adjusting the feet on the seatbox I still felt like a seagull perched on a cliff. Overnight rain hadn't helped having made the bank slippy.

A vole appeared close to my feet and I sacrificed some spod mix to its dinner. At my side was a Japanese Knotweed sort of thing snided with pale coloured honey bees.

And there were fish too! Carassins, chub and rudd. All caught on float initially close in over bait, but after a while I cast further into the flow and caught more trotting even though I hadn't put any bait in.

In the end, a good day.

 

[hooferinsane]

Hadn’t been out fishing for a while and decided to visit a tiny stream, which is about 3 foot across max. Had always wanted to try fishing with a morio worm ( feed them to a bearded dragon, which is a lizard, at home) Hadn’t had any action with normal worms/ dead maggots, and put the morio worm on and cast into a heavily reeded section on a simple link ledger. Literally about a minute later the tip swung round violently resulting in my biggest chub ever.

 

[terry m]

A few hours behind the rods late afternoon and evening today. One solitary run so far resulted in a 29lb 2oz common. Best so far this summer. Fingers crossed for another run before dusk.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

Nice one Terry.

 

[nottskev]

I wondered if it was worth going today. Bank holidays can lure people out and I usually swerve around weekends. But I've got chores tomorrow so I decided to have a go between 3 and 6.30. The river was deserted, a pleasant surprise, and I was spoilt for choice of swims. With the river lower and clearer than It's been for most of the season, I went for a pacey swim. Bait droppers have been a topic, and I dug out the biggest I've got as the swim has no snags I know of on the bottom. (These things cost about £10 and I don't drop them into most of the places I fish).

Four of these put a fair bit of hemp down while I tackled up. I started off with a 6g float, but swapped it for an 8g in the speedy flow. The barbel definitely liked the hemp, and I caught them on meat, mussels and corn on the hook. These two were the pick

 

[@Clive]

An afternoon afloat today. There are three dams in sequence on the River Vienne constructed around 100 years ago. Other than black bass they have never been stocked and so what is in there are the progeny of the original inhabitants. I fished the middle dam that is 8km long, averages over 100m wide and covers 270 acres. It is 10m deep at the dam. 3m to 4m max where I was. I had it to myself. There are around 6 places wherè you can fish from the bank, all in the first 1.5km, and one slipway. In France you don't need a licence or insurance to launch boats under 6hp.

I had one rod, an Allcocks Wizard and an old centrepin and I headed for a swim inaccessible from the bank where I have had some nice carassins to almost 3lb in the past. I anchor alongside the steep bank and trot down to a large weed raft caused by a fallen tree. Nothing doing today. Couldn't buy a bite.

About 100m upstream is a gorgeous weed raft swim that you cannot see or access from the bank. It is like a 40m arcade of alders and willows leading down to a shallower, muddy area with a fallen tree that creates a raft of leaves and weeds. I started on double maggot and caught dace and rudd, the latter going about 12 ounces. Sweetcorn also accounted for some rudd and I must have had around 40 fish including a few bleak that snatched at my maggots on the retrieve. I had to bat the old 'pin to beat the bleak. A sole roach was also caught. But it was smaller than the bleak!

By then I needed a pee and as I have no toilets on board I crossed to Coypu Rock on the other side. There is a flat rock that makes a perfect jetty where a passing sea farer can hop off and have a pee and a stretch. Crossing the dam can be problematic as there are two rocks that rise over 3m from the bed to within about 15cm of the surface. On a calm day you can see the crease on the surface. In clear water you can spot them before you hit them. Today was neither, however there was some debris attached to one of them so I knew where to avoid. Once the toilet break was completed I dropped downstream and moored alongside a bank of marginal weed and trotted the flow.

More rudd, the best over 1lb, and more bleak. I would have liked to have tried another swim downstream that could hold barbel, but time, tide and wives wait for no man and if I wanted dinner I needed to be home before seven bells.

 

[Steve Arnold]

At last the temperatures are back down in the mid-twenties, cloudy as well so an afternoon session would be comfortable. I had phoned fishing buddy Alistair to let him know I had noted the Entragues dam had let a little water out during the night, that fresh flow should be with us about midday.

When we arrived at the river there was a little flow and the river looked a little fresher, an improvement on the last few weeks that raised our expectations. We were not disappointed!

Our usual swims were almost choked with felled Japanese knotweed, the whole stretch has been a field of this awful 12' tall invasive weed this summer. It had been cut down by the local authorities for the holiday season visitors, but so much mess left!

We found one swim with access and it was just big enough for us both to get a line in.....

From midstream to under the cliffs there was a steady flow, on our side of the river there was a large weed bed and lumps of fallen trees. Very fishy but obviously difficult.

We caught barbel from the start, a couple of fish then it went quiet. I put groundbait in just past the weedbed and shortly after a couple of more barbel found our baits......

We fished from 12 - 5pm. I was on dinner duty as Sally had a shift at the charity shop so, as we were content with our fishing, we headed home.

Total score was Alistair 5 barbel, myself on 7 barbel. Nothing big, average about 3.5 lb. Nice, comfortable fishing and we even had a shower of rain. Wonderful!

 

[Alan Whitty]

Well back to normal fishing now we are back home, went to the small river with the intention of catching some nice roach on hemp and tare, but they had other ideas which is strange as this year I've only had about 6 or 8 roach from the river, it ended up being a strange sort of day with no pattern to the feeding patterns of the fish, one minute there were a few chub there, then a few barbel, I ended with three barbel between 4-6lbs, 1 chub around 3lb 8ozs and say 20 chublets(how the hell my phone corrected chublets to chubleys I don't know) between 4ozs and a pound...all on the float with most fish on meat...

 

[seth49]

On our other club water yesterday, it’s a lovely spot but can be hard some days, but yesterday was a good day for a change, started on usual chopped worm tactics with half a worm for bait, over groundbait, first fish was a carp of about three pounds, plus 2 F1s, 1 tench, 3 roach and 3 skimmers plus 2more carp of similar size.

as I was fishing out for these I was throwing a few grains of corn in the left hand margin, by the reeds, after a while the reeds were knocking showing the presence of carp coming into feed on the corn, so carried on feeding this for a while longer so they would settle on the bait.

I then swapped to my margin kit with 15 dura slip on for a go at the above, first drop in I had the chunky mirror plus another common later, tried out for the tench again but that swim was quiet apart from a few small perch, did get another one on a floater later, and lost 3 more which reached the water lilies, and shed the hook, the first of these felt like a good fish as well, it really stretched the elastic out, so a good day on here for a change, will try again soon.

 

[nottskev]

There's some free fishing on pegs right behind the Forest Ground, and they can be good at this time of year. I was thinking of having a tea-time session there - I had no fresh bait but plenty of hemp and tares in the freezer - til I noticed Forest are at home this evening and I didn't want to get mixed up in that. So I soaked some expanders and went off to the tench pit. The swims on the bank I wanted to fish were all occupied so I had to go for one of the steep, uncomfortable ones. They get no sun and are the only swims that have no weed, so I wasn't delighted.

I started at 3.30, bumped a fish first chuck and had to wait an hour for the next bite. The water was cold, the wind chilly, frisky and annoying, and I really wished there was an alternative venue in reach, but the place is out on a limb. While I waited for some sign of the tench, I fished shallow and on the drop for a few roach, but things were going nowhere. A car going up the track told me someone had vacated a swim on the warner, fishier bank, so I fled this one and moved, much as I hate moving once set up.

First three casts confirmed it was a good move with a decent roach and a couple of bream

The tench are evidently slowing down, and only fed for an hour and a half before the swim died, but at least the session ended better than it started

 

[S-Kippy]

I am really struggling to raise any enthusiasm to fish atm so could easily have stayed in bed when the alarm sounded this morning. I’d decided to fish Bury Hill simply because it doesn’t involve the A3…..the roadworks at the M25/A3 junction are just horrendous, traffic was backed up for 2 miles at the A3 exit at 6-30 am.
Arriving at BH I settled on a swim that wasn’t completely choked by lilies, the plan being to fish running line and pin. After 3 hours I realised why we fish the pole at BH….the crucian are just too cute for rod work, so I set the pole up which I’d taken just to pot some feed in.By midday I’d managed 2 crucian and a few roach so in desperation I put some ground bait in and fed pellet and corn quite heavily hoping for a mugfish tench. It must have worked because I soon had a fizzing swim and in the 2 hours I managed before my back gave out I had 10 nice crucian and lost the only tench I hooked. Corn at first but most on 4mm extenders.
I’ve had better days at BH but I’ve had much worse too. Even better I sailed back round the M25 and was home well before teatime. The crucians at BH don’t compare with the Godalming ones but they’re good fun on light gear and I will never ever tire of catching them

 

[Ray Roberts]

I am really struggling to raise any enthusiasm to fish atm so could easily have stayed in bed when the alarm sounded this morning. I’d decided to fish Bury Hill simply because it doesn’t involve the A3…..the roadworks at the M25/A3 junction are just horrendous, traffic was backed up for 2 miles at the A3 exit at 6-30 am.
Arriving at BH I settled on a swim that wasn’t completely choked by lilies, the plan being to fish running line and pin. After 3 hours I realised why we fish the pole at BH….the crucian are just too cute for rod work, so I set the pole up which I’d taken just to pot some feed in.By midday I’d managed 2 crucian and a few roach so in desperation I put some ground bait in and fed pellet and corn quite heavily hoping for a mugfish tench. It must have worked because I soon had a fizzing swim and in the 2 hours I managed before my back gave out I had 10 nice crucian and lost the only tench I hooked. Corn at first but most on 4mm extenders.
I’ve had better days at BH but I’ve had much worse too. Even better I sailed back round the M25 and was home well before teatime. The crucians at BH don’t compare with the Godalming ones but they’re good fun on light gear and I will never ever tire of catching them

I didn’t realise that it was still open. Wasn’t it supposed to shut down for fishing?


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[S-Kippy]

I didn’t realise that it was still open. Wasn’t it supposed to shut down for fishing?


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Just the Old Lake, Ray. Temple,Milton and Bonds lakes are still open but you now have to be a “member” to fish….you also have to book and pay for your fishing online. I can’t see it lasting for long though, the lakes ( bar Temple) were deserted yesterday. I think people have voted with their feet.
I think it’s a real shame how De Vere has run the place down and sold most of it off. If I had the money I’d get it somehow.

 

[Ray Roberts]

Just the Old Lake, Ray. Temple,Milton and Bonds lakes are still open but you now have to be a “member” to fish….you also have to book and pay for your fishing online. I can’t see it lasting for long though, the lakes ( bar Temple) were deserted yesterday. I think people have voted with their feet.
I think it’s a real shame how De Vere has run the place down and sold most of it off. If I had the money I’d get it somehow.

Yes, me too. It definitely got harder on Milton for the Crucians, talk about tentative bites. My club (Edenbridge) dug out a new pond at one of our venues about five years ago and after letting it settle, stocked it with cru’s and tench only. It’s a great little fishery, no monsters but some are now over the two pound mark. No staging or hard standing but natural banks and a limit of ten anglers at any time. I love this style of fishing.

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[jon atkinson]

"Dug out" you say? That must have been quite a project looking at the size of it! Looks rather splendid I have to say...