How did you get on?

[SBurt]

I had a days float fishing at Marlborough Pool on Friday. The weather was forecast to be sunny and very warm, which it most definitely was. I set up so that the sun was behind me as I do not like the reflection of the sun of the water.

I used a mixture of baits throughout the day. Dead red maggots, bread and sweetcorn all worked well. I also tried Robin Red flavoured meat but the fish, on that particular day, were not interested.

Ground bait was a mixture of sweet flavoured cereal based and banoffee fishmeal based ground baits along with some sticky bloodworm, small amount of dried pigs blood, (used for making black puddings), 2mm and 4mm trout pellets and a dash of green lipped mussel powder. A couple small balls of this were trickled in throughout the day along with a couple of pouches of dead maggots, sweetcorn, and 4mm trout pellets

I caught lots of small Rudd and Roach. Unbelievably greedy given I was using either 5 dead red maggots, two grains of sweetcorn or a large piece of bread flake on a size 12 micro barb hook, fished six inch over depth in four feet of water.

I also caught a handful of skimmers up to 2lb, a 2lb Roach/Bream hybrid, (first I have caught in 50 years of angling), and a 5lb 8oz Bream. The first run from the Bream was quite impressive, but then it reverted to type and gave up completely after an initial attempt to find the reeds. The hybrid put up a spirited fight for it's size.

I would say 80% of my catch came before 12.00pm, having started at around 6.30am, understandable, given the conditions.
The blazing sunshine and clear blue skies didn't help, but it was an enjoyable summers day spent float fishing a shallow pool..

 

[@Clive]

A day on the Vienne for me. Half an hour to get there and welcome shade all day. It was warm and sunny and the river has a much higher flow than normal summer levels that has resulted in much less weed growth.

I set out to meet my Nemesis, a fish that has plagued me for ten years. I had an Ugly Stik Uptider rod, Okuma Trent reel, strong line and a triple boilie welcome for it. But, it seems like she wasn't at home.

The triple boilies were however attracting some interest. The bobbin kept rising and falling all morning. I had been feeding pellets, sweetcorn & chick peas as well as crushed boilies. I suspected that the culprits were carassins, the French cousin of the crucian. After lunch I set up a cane rod & old reel with a ledger, short 8" 6lb leader and size 12 fine wire hook armed with double chick peas. I hadn't finished attaching the bobbin before it began jumping up and down. The result confirmed my suspicions.

Back to the big rod and catfish baits without a sniff of a bite.

 

[Alan Whitty]

Well my Christchurch holiday comes to an end on Friday, with the possibility of no more fishing (possilble rain) so my total at present of 14 chub, best 5lbs 4ozs (pic below), one of the smaller fish below it, no barbel, or even a sign of one, with one fish coming out to mine and the locals knowledge of 12lbs on the stretch I fish, seems to get harder every year for the species....

 

[nottskev]

An odd kind of day here and not great for fishing. A swirling wind, bright sun and sudden showers. But I've got things to do for the rest of the week, so I tucked myself away in a swim sheltered from all three and gave it a go.

The water was low and clear, so I was hoping the fish might feed better under the film of scum in my corner of the pool. I dribbled in small amounts of loose black groundbait, bits of chopped meat and maggots. I started fishing at 2pm and I still hadn't had a bite at 5pm and had written off my chances. When my float didn't cock - 4 no10 at 10m - I thought it had been held up for the umpteenth time by the debris on the surface, so I was chuffed to find it was a fish at last

It's not the first time the fish in this pool have disappeared until tea-time, and a few bites between 5 and 6pm saved the day

 

[mikench]

Gordon wasn’t able to fish this week so I grabbed my chance of a day on a PAAS water I have fished regularly but not for at least 12 months because of events. I turned up at 8.00am and was set up by 8.30. My iPhone had been on charge all night but had stopped charging. The Apple charger and iPhone batteries are carp imo . I realised on arrival that i was down to 20%.

First cast I had a take on the feeder filled with micros and sticky krill powder and a krill pellet on the hair all topped off with a blob of krill haze. If it is good enough for Andy May on another of my club’s waters it’s good enough for me. The pegs are level with the water but are carved out of the hillside and the slope can be treacherous in wet weather. I was pleased to see that steps had been put into the bank.

A significant improvement. First cast produced a bite from a feisty common which conveniently unhooked itself on the unhooking mat but then flopped about and into the water before I could take a photo and weigh it. It might have been a low double. As it happened the phone battery gave up the ghost in any event so no more pics. I had another 3 carp all smaller than the first and at least 20 skimmers. It was very windy and looked like rain from 11.00 am onwards but thankfully it didn’t arrive. The trees and shrubs have really grown so a little gardening was required. At this time of year a pair of secateurs are an important addition to the tackle box. I lost a few carp which shed the hook near the net.
All in all it was a good day and very enjoyable even without the presence of the Maestro. I met with the new bailiff to whom I produced my card. He then remembered me from previously and was a little embarrassed. No matter that’s his job and I have no objections.

You choose the venue for next week Gordon.

 

[Steve King]

Yesterday (Wednesday 21 August) I fished Top Barn fishery and had two good carp on 8mm Bloodworm pellets. The carp fought long and hard leaving me totally exhausted!

 

[Kevin Perkins]

Decided to give the lake ‘where you can’t blank’ a miss and have a short session back to the smaller pond where I have blanked, but there are larger (but many fewer) fish. Of course, I chose to go when after days of blue skies, the heavens opened.

Arrived just after 6.00am and had the place to myself so picked a spot where I have had some albeit limited success in the past. Well, I say to myself, except for a rather persistent diving duck who thought it was great sport to chase my loaded feeders to the bottom of the lake after every cast....

Despite (or maybe because of) the attentions of this little bu66er, I did manage to catch a couple of fish.

And also caught sight of the resident kingfisher, always a bonus

Alas, I also had a personal disaster. I have had these 2 bobbins since 1984,

and they were bought because the isotopes were guaranteed to last 20 years (!). The lights have long gone out (I’m sure there’s a metaphor for something there) but I have continued to use them for one specific reason. And that is the satisfying ‘click’ sound made when line is pulled from the clip. No matter what else is going on around me, for some reason I am attuned to that particular noise and I am instantly alert.

But, I hear you say, the isotopes may be useless but I could glue the broken tube back together and carry on using them. Except, I don’t know where/when the bobbin broke and so I can’t find the missing clip to effect a repair.

I only noticed the damage today when I set up and although I searched all round my swim and rummaged through all of my tackle boxes/bags it was to no avail. I have had to resort to using plastic bobbins for todays session and it’s just not the same

Funny how such a seemingly minor thing can cloud what turned out to be quite a successful days fishing by any other measure.....

 

[mikench]

Could you try a hair clip Kevin glued in or even two interconnected. Plasticine or those epoxy resin putty blobs you mix by hand to activate the hardener , would fill the hole with the hair clip inserted.

Lager fish there’s a novelty. Were they carling you.

 

[Ray Roberts]

I took a trip back to where I took the grandkids last week just outside Tonbridge. This time I was on my own. It’s an odd place, the car park is in a country park, where you have to buy a ticket for the lowest price and display your club parking permit to park free for the rest of the day. Entrance is via a barrier which at this time of the year is 7:30am to 9:00pm but changes throughout the year. Once the barrier is shut you are effectively trapped until morning, eek. To reach the lake you have to walk the length of the old ballast pit and it sits behind a locked gate. Next to the gate is a sign board stipulating the rules for this particular water. Float fishing, only, no bollies, line between 4 and 6lb breaking strain, hooks 12 or smaller, etc, etc. the breaking strain of the line wouldn’t really be a problem if some swims didn’t contain some tough stemmed lilies. I made the mistake of only taking one rod, you are only permitted to use one rod but the mistake I made was using my Acolyte Plus, which has a through action. It’s fine for open water but not when you try stopping a decent fish gaining the sanctuary of the lily pads. From being straight to fully bent the tip must give about 8ft of movement. Which is more that enough to get snagged. Nevertheless I still had a reasonable day. The FreeSpirit float rod I have would have been a better choice as it is a bit stiffer in the but and mid sections. Anyway it was slow to start, I was the first there and several people came and went without catching much. Small baits like maggots or corn tend to get blitzed by small fish. To avoid this I fished; garlic sausage, raw king prawn and mussels on the hook. I was going to put some ground bait out but decided against as it was a fair bit cooler than of late and there was a bit of a chill wind blowing. I put out a mixture of pellets and garlic flavoured hemp. I had fish at fairly regular intervals during their day and wound up with five tench, mostly around 3lb the best being 4lb1oz, some carp up to around 6lb and a few roach and rudd. It actually fished poorly compared to other trips. I lost four good fish to the lilies due to hook pulls which was annoying.

 

[flightliner]

I wont say what I was trying to catch( you may well geuss tho) I set off to my chosen venue yesterday and paid my fishing fee then chose my the area where I wanted to try my Luck.
I assembled a 1.5 tc rod a reel holding 8lb line a number six Drennen wide gape hook, a loaded waggler with some lighter shotting immedietely below the float to make it cock just right with the hook baited with lump of bread that i pinched to make it sink, and big enough to choke a donkey.
Free bait was bread slices soaked in water, balled up and thrown 2 maybe 3 rod lengths from my bank and allowed the bread to sink slowly towards the bottom.
I did this until one o- clock without a bite before deciding to come near the margins.
After a half hour my float sailed away and i caught my first fish, later i lost a small carp but the original fish kept coming along with two of another differant species,
In total I had 16 fish, here are one of fourteen of them!

 

[riverman]

nice outing today.picked my mate up at 6 bells and went to westerley lake nr york.ended up with 45 in total.carp up to 4lb countless skimmers perch and f1's.there are some cracking roach in there and i had a few over the 1lb mark today.used a wide range of baits on the waggler such as prawns mussels bacon grill and corn.pineapple pop ups and worms on the leger accounted for the f1;s,lovely lake this and one of my personal favourites and no longer match fished.

 

[Steve Arnold]

Sally and I took the campervan to a site run by a Dutch couple, about 1.5 hours drive down the Lot valley. Although it is on the river Lot I was not hopeful of fishing, it's holiday season and low water conditions so fishing was not really on my mind.

But our neighbours had two teenage boys and one was well into fishing. He had caught one small barbel night fishing but the swim in front of our part of the site had a reef stretching well out into the river, that meant any hooked fish would involve a walk out over slippery uneven rock gullies to net a fish. Given the uninspiring conditions I did not intend to bother, but their mother was on my case to at least try and eventually my fishing ego gave in.

I used my homemade bait dropper to put out a dozen loads of fish pellets and about twenty small boilies, then had a few drinks and hoped that some flow would appear (in the river! ). About 5pm the flow picked up, one of the HE power stations must have opened up, so I started fishing. I had a deadline of 6.30 pm to get a result as a barbecue was arranged. At 6.15 a bite and a small barbel meant a wade out to net, made the deadline anyway!

It was still just daylight when we finished the barbecue so I decided to return to the fishing. Just one more small barbel quite quickly, so I fished into the darkness, but the only bites then were from mozzies!

 

[Aknib]

Playing catch up as usual...

Had three and a half hours on the river the other afternoon and landed nine good Barbel in three and a half hours bouncing four hair rigged grains of sweeetcorn along a crease in a savage flow with a 3/8 oz lead...

Go figure, my bait bill was 49p and this wasn't the biggest...

 

[nottskev]

5 minute drive to the disused canal this afternoon. I was planning to trolley my gear to the far limit in search of peace, quiet and bigger fish, but when a bloke packing up at the car park end told me he'd caught some bream, I jumped on the excuse to avoid a walk. I was fishing just far enough away from the car not to hit it when shipping back.

Last time I was here I the ide snaffled everything intended for the tench and bream. I set up a pole at 8m with a tiny float, 3 no12, set shallow and a waggler to fish in the 3' deep swim against the rushes 16m away. The tench and bream weren't interested in the pellets and corn I fed over there, so I was grateful for the ide.

These fish were a couple of ounces not so long ago, but they're good sport on canal gear now they're this size

They're onto the feed and bait as soon as it hits the water. You can miss countless bites - and I have at times - so there's a bit of a challenge in trying to get one each time you drop in

The nearest I got to hooking something big was when one of a trio of hooligan cygnets which bothered me all afternoon got itself briefly snared, and that was enough to get me packing up.

 

[Steve Arnold]

My main requirement for yesterday afternoons fishing was SHADE!..... 33c and a fierce sun, but I needed to get down the river for a few hours-

So I chose this scenic swim, enjoyed the shade from tall trees and there was even a slight breeze blowing along the river.

Bites from the off but clearly just small stuff. I cracked eventually and swapped my 18mm boilie for an 8mm pellet, this was the result....

After a few more of those baby barbel I went back to the bigger bait and fished until the sun dropped a little and a shadow was creeping out from the high cliffs across the river. That often tempts the fish out from their daytime lairs under the trees, but not today!

Fishing into darkness would probably have seen better fish, but I wanted a good dinner myself. Time to go home!

 

[seth49]

Back on club fishery yesterday at last due to the weather, I was first there around 6.30 am so had my pick of the swims, so straight to my current favourite which fishes well for carp in the margins, so for a change fished my 9 ft kodex stalky rod with a float to the left and my 9 ft nash dwarf to the right with a floating pellet loose feeding dog biscuits to the right.

i swapped between the two , fishing the float and feeding a few biscuits to the right to get the carp’s confidence up, had two carp and a tench on float, and eight carp of the top, 3 doubles best 12 lb 13 oz, and the other five all over 6 pounds, about 80 lbs of fish altogether including the fully scaled mirror I caught last time.

it did rain most of the afternoon, but ok under brolly with my bags on the barrow sheeted up, and it did stop long enough to pack up in the dry, a good day enjoyed it, a lot more than mick who only had one carp and a few skimmers .

 

[seth49]

Duplicate post.

 

[seth49]

Just testing

 

[wetthrough]

Had a day on a club concession yesterday. Forecast was grim for later and for various reasons @mikench didn't fancy a soaking so on my own. Windy with the threat of rain influenced my choice of swim. Our usual one is the grassy stretch by the toilet block in the picture. The toilet block is at about 10 past 12 of where I'm set up. Unusually the wind was where it was supposed to be. Right to my back. On reflection I don;t think I've ever caught anything big in the usual spot - another thing that influenced my choice.

Three smallish balls of GB in for a rather slow start. Had a small skimmer/hybrid and a small Rudd. Didn't get hooked into anything really big but five skimmers/bream all around the same size, about 1.5lb.

Quite pleasant with my back to the wind, til the rain started and it was set to get heavy rain by 3pm so packed up at two. Not a bad day just missing a few Roach and Mike.
Edit: Just to add that I had the environment agency guys round checking licenses, a first for me.

 

[mikench]

At around 2.30 as the rain came down in torrents , I thought of you Gordon, with your hood up and huddled under your brolly. Thankfully you had packed up.