How did you get on?

Alan Whitty

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On our syndicate water today, about ten minutes after I arrived mick rang me to say he had seen it was raining and went back to bed, by now the rain had stopped and it was dry for the rest of the day, so he missed out.

not a bad day it was windy on the pegs I’d thought of fishing, so I went on a sheltered peg instead, I plumbed up and fed a bit of groundbait and maggots, and then fished with my feeder rod to let the pole line settle for an hour, nothing on feeder so fished pole and had my first tench of the year, on worm over a few chopped worms, also some nice roach up to about 8ozs, plus a couple of stockie barbel.

usual quiet spell around lunch time, and then caught a few more, finished with 12 roach, 3 tench, 2 barbel, 5 skimmere, and 2 F1s, need some lighter elastic for one top kit as I lost some fish as well, not a bad day as the water is still very cold, pleasant day enjoyed it.View attachment 29774View attachment 29775View attachment 29776View attachment 29777


Lovely looking ide in the middle picture...
 

Steve Arnold

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Easily confused with chub, roach and rudd if you aren't completely confident...
Although a few here have said this fish is a chub I am still not convinced.......

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Is it possible this is an ide?

When I was bringing it to the net I thought "a 4lb+ roach" :love: , then I thought a particularly deep bodied chub and eventually decided on some sort of hybrid.

Although I have had many chub from the Lot, this fish looks quite different.

Ide will be in this river I am pretty sure, but I am not familiar enough with identifying features.
 

Skoda

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I haven’t been fishing since December 18th last year! Grim, I know. What with Christmas and New Year; the whole of January with a bad cough and a cold which never cleared up and turned out to be whooping cough! February was virtually washed out and in March the decking gang turned up to start a job which was booked for October.

I’ve been supported by reading FM’s HDYGO enjoying my fishing vicariously, many, many thanks.

On the 18th of December I fished with Micky on the Gt. Ouse near Ely, main targets being roach, rudd, bream, and pike. With all the rain it was pushing through for a normally sluggish river; Micky had a run early on and landed his second best ever pike of 19lb 4oz, I had a few silvers but was frustrated with not seeing bites clearly. I resolved to return and fish with braid, not my first choice but I think it will be the answer.

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The good news is that I’m going on Friday to a mature commercial not too far away to try and blow the cobwebs off my tackle and kick off 2024 in style. I’ll try and post more frequently.

Andy
 

S-Kippy

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First trite trip of the season and out with the BF for the first time in ages. Farmoor reservoir was the venue.
We arrived about 0930 and could have done with a bit more wind/ripple but there were clearly trite in the vicinity though our usual tactics of fishing buzzers static or just drifted round on the wind didn’t work. Last year I remember a day when they wanted buzzers moved quite quickly so I started fishing with short pulls….wallop and I’m in. Clearly they wanted the flies moved and I was soon 6-0 up with poor old Phil distraught as he couldn’t buy a pull.
It had become a lovely warm spring day but after lunch they wanted the flies fished static or on the drift….the exact opposite of the morning. I bullied Phil into moving down the bank a bit and eventually he found a fish or two. We packed about 2-45 to beat the traffic.
In the end I had 11 fish 3 of which were browns and lost another. Best fish about 3.5lb. Phil ended up with 4 rainbows and a brownie.
The killing fly was a red headed daiwl bach and all my fish came on either the middle or top dropper so they weren’t deep despite very few fish showing on top. Clouds of big dog Farmoor buzzers about.
Very pleasant day out spoiled by a lousy journey home due to an accident on the M40.
Here’s a couple of the browns…very handsome fish
 

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no-one in particular

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Tempted out for a couple of hours yesterday with the nice weather, crucially no wind for fishing along this open country canal. Also bought 1/2 pint of maggots something I rarely do. I did so as this section of canal is ever so hard to get a bite. Just ended up with one fish in the second swim, a quite nice hand sized plump roach on the maggot and that was it.
I was in the sweet shop the other day and spotted these, for a £1, I thought why not, they look like worms, strawberry flavour, I tested one in a bowl of water at home, the red dye soaked out after an hour and it went a bit soft and a bit slimy but what's wrong with that, so are worms. However, I was only going to try them if there were fish about and they weren't; it was hard enough with maggots! with only one roach but I will give it a go sometime when the fish are buzzing a bit more.
A buzzard was circling in the far trees for a while, no marsh harriers, there is a resident pair around here but not today, plenty of jackdaws in the field and a glimpse of a cetti's but I could here it singing first.
All in all not a bad couple of hours. Fresh air and a walk, a bit of a chat with a couple of passers by and one nice roach, not complaining.




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jon atkinson

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Wednesday is (allegedly) my day off, but yet again I had quite a bit of work related stuff to do in the morning, so couldn't get out 'til after lunch and even then I needed to head into work afterwards to ditch my gear and load up for this mornings deliveries. So, given the time constraints, I opted for a local day ticket water for my latest fishing fix. There are 3 waters here, two of them behind a perimeter wall which are largely frequented by Carp obsessives, but I prefer the roadside pit, and once again, I had the place to myself. There is a good head of Roach of a decent stamp in here as well as Bream, Rudd, Carp & Tench. With the water temperature still relatively cold, I was anticipating the first two, perhaps three.
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I fished the waggler but started to regret my choice of swim as the sun came out with avengeance and I had opted for a beanie as opposed to my usual baseball cap. Reactolight specs helped a little, but watching the float was hard going at times. Started on bread, with no sign of life for about 20 minutes, but then a slight lift with a series of subtle dips resulted in a lean looking Tench that went 4lb on the nose. In truth, I usually target the Tench when I fish this water, but wasn't sure that they would be 'awake' yet and the relatively sluggish fight from this one suggested that it wasn't long out of its Winter slumbers!
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That, unfortunately, was the high point; nothing on corn or pellet and a series of small, albeit immaculate Rudd, plus a couple of 1lb Skimmers on Maggot. Back to bread for a slightly better Roach and before I knew it - time to pack up 🙁
 

Steve Arnold

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After a week of negative stuff that kept me from my fishing I finally had a chance to have an afternoon at the river Lot. I fancied trying a swim I have passed so many times this last 7 years, but never felt the conditions quite right. Today the river was still high and fast but finally running clear, with luck the fish would still be sheltering in the quiet water where a canal section joined the main river.

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As I was packing my usual two rods into the car I sensed I might have the chance to fish a third rod up the canal section for a carp. I never pack a third rod, but today that whim brought me a beautiful result.....

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...... 28 pounds of prime, fully scaled river carp! :love:

By the time I had walked the netted carp to where I could lift it out one side of my net frame had broken. I managed to loosely re-attach the broken side and fished on. Fortunately no more carp appeared but I managed a 4 lb 12 ozs chub and a 3 pound barbel, both on the feeder rod.

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When the river has been so high for weeks on end I have had the benefit of the quieter water at the canal sections sheltering some good fish. A very good carp is a top bonus, glad my gut feeling told me to pack that heavier rod! 🎣
 

Alan Whitty

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Went yesterday fishing a small lake around ten miles from me, normally very clear but I suppose with all the rain and a bit of warmer weather have put a tinge in, anyway, I fished worm and maggot, and had several small rudd to 6ozs, even smaller perch and two tench to 2lb 8ozish, then disaster in the afternoon the fish started moving again with tench bubbles being obvious, a lift bite was met by a strike and a fish on, a jack pike around two pounds, upon trying to unhook it the beggar wouldn't open his mouth, so I gently slid my fingers inside the gill plate and bingo its mouth opened, I was just sliding the disgorger down when he rattled, it didn't have the weight to still itself and landed back in the net and onto the unhooking mat, problem was he had torn a deep cut in my thumb, would it stop bleeding, would it hell, 25 minutes I was dripping claret, felt like Tony Hancock, losing an armful, five plasters tightly wrapped around my thumb, took 45 minutes to pack my gear away, bloody thing, I've had loads of pike over the years, odduns to a decent size, never an issue, I have confidence handling them, just goes to show they can still getcha....
 
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Ray Roberts

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If had a few minor mishaps with pike over the years. Nothing serious but they always bled like hell. Pike were repudiated to have an anticoagulant on their teeth but this has, as far as I’m aware, been disproved. Nevertheless, if I were to scratch my hand on a briar or barbed wire fence the bleeding would subside far quicker than from a pike. Possibly it’s to do with the hand usually being wet if it’s from a pike. I honestly don’t know.
 

Alan Whitty

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I don't usually bleed for England, just think it's struggling dug deep and sliced a bit.
 

Steve Arnold

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If had a few minor mishaps with pike over the years. Nothing serious but they always bled like hell. Pike were repudiated to have an anticoagulant on their teeth but this has, as far as I’m aware, been disproved. Nevertheless, if I were to scratch my hand on a briar or barbed wire fence the bleeding would subside far quicker than from a pike. Possibly it’s to do with the hand usually being wet if it’s from a pike. I honestly don’t know.
Not sure about the anticoagulant but I have been bitten and bled badly a couple of times, once by a 20+ pike and more recently by a .....COD !!!

Both bled like hell for hours, I think part of that is these fish teeth go much deeper than you might think!

The cod bite eventually turned into sepsis and the bacteria was found to be a deep sea type. I nearly lost my right arm and had many weeks in hospital and eventually surgery followed by over 18 months on various powerful antibiotics.

So my right wrist now has limited movement and permanent pain. But at least I still have an arm I can cast with!

Do NOT take these wounds lightly. Get some antiseptic on them quickly at the very least! :eek:
 
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peterjg

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Thirty years ago I was bitten when unhooking pike. When I got home my wife said you should have a tetanus jab. So I rang the GP surgery and said that I'd been bitten, the receptionist asked "what breed of dog was it?". I tried to explain that it wasn't a dog but it was a pike - over the phone I then heard her laugh and say to someone - "I've got a right one here, he's been bitten by a fish!". No doubt much hilarity!
 
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