How did you get on?

[dorsetandchub]

Quite sure it wasn't Canada?? mg::wh

 

[greenie62]

.... We either went out for an extended lunch (found a very pleasant Tabac in a local village with a very pleasant ‘Madame’, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Juliette Binoche! Bliss, and that accent!) or pulled in the rods and cooked by the lake. Having a break keeps you sane.

Anyway, we kept at it and managed eight between us in the end, incuding a 52, a 49, four further 40’s (including my first) and a 37 and 29lb Common...

Following on from Phil's query on whether you went to Canada - d'ya get any photos for proof? - not of the 52lber - I was thinking of 'Juliette Binoche'!

 

[stu_the_blank]

Following on from Phil's query on whether you went to Canada - d'ya get any photos for proof? - not of the 52lber - I was thinking of 'Juliette Binoche'!

I wish! Mind, I think that a recording of the voice would melt most! Certainly me.

Stu

 

[arthur2sheds]

This week has been fraught.... shift changes, rush orders, an engineering shutdown and hardly any sleep.... By hook or by crook I planned to get my bottom parked on a chair by the water...
My club waters were running a match, so I toddled off to Newlands down at Roxwell... I settled down with my Marco Test and my new Speedia, with a corn and bread mash I baited with a couple of mushy balls and dropped my corn hookbait over the top, although the sun shone, there was an edge to the breeze and I grateful that I'd dragged a warm jumper along with me...

I didn't have long to wait and sure enough my float started a slow tow off to the right, on striking however the bait came out of the water, puzzled I recast.... a few minutes later the float did the same thing again, this time a crisper strike connected.... but not with a fish...

The fishery owners wants these clawed critters out and so it was quickly despatched... as were the 6 others that pestered during the day, but in between the interruptions from Ronnie & Reggie and their families, some Autumn Gold shone through, a few small Carp snaffled the corn hookbaits and these little chaps were small but they managed to put a slight bent in the Marco's tip.
After a cup of tea (Earl Grey) and a pork pie, I cast out and this time the float sailed away majestically and my strike connected with something slightly more substantial

I slipped the little Carp back and rebaited and recast and then followed a purple patch and caught loads of little carp with the odd Cray putting in an unwelcome appearance...

After a while I noticed that there were a couple of tail patterns in the margins so I turned the chair round and fished along the bank to see if I could pick up a chunk...

using the bread and corn mash I dropped a couple more balls into the margin and held my breath.... the float had hardly settled and the rod tip was dragged round as a huge bow-wave toe into open water and headed for the reeds opposite, I applied a hefty bit of sidestrain, then uttered a rude word as the tip sprang back and the line went slack... as the fish had powered off I caught a glimpse of a broad bronze back possibly a good mid double... With a sigh and trembling hands I recast and settled down to another cup of tea.
A short while later the float started the dip and bob as tail patterns formed around it then it slowly submerged and my strike was connected to a little Carp that tore off into the deeper water and duked it out for about 20 seconds before popping up to the surface with a waved pectoral of surrender... into the net it went and onto the mat for a quick picture and back it went... by now the lure of a Sunday roast was calling to loudly to ignore so I packed up my toys and headed home... I have to say I'll not be back to Newlands any more, as the Crays were too much of a pest... The bailiff said they were a lot worse last season with 30 or 40 taken a session..... to me one is too many... Still I loved my little bars of Gold

 

[The Runner]

For one reason and another hadn't fished for three weeks, no match on this weekend so bought two and a half pints of maggot yesterday for a pleasure session down the Colne today. Went to the pub yesterday afternoon to watch the Newcastle game, bad mistake, and walked round the river on my way home , the state of the river, a foot below normal, insanely clear and with much of the weed gone, made it look like buying the bait was an even bigger one.
Was in two minds this morning whether to go or whether to just stick the bait in the freezer. In the end wandered down there with just a stick float rod, nets, and a few bits in a rucksack.
Started around 11 45 on one of the deeper swims, 4 to 5 ft of water running down to a fallen tree, 2BB stick, 20 to 0.10 for an hour for a minnow and an inch long perch.
Time to move, thought about the weirpool but would have the sun full on it for the next two hours, so dropped a few swims below where I started where had a 20 yard run, about 3'6" deep, of dark water under trees although no real cover, used to be a noted chub peg but poor last season . Left same rig on and quickly started getting some nice roach and dace with the odd perch although minnows and micro dace a bit of a pest so started feeding more heavily.
After an hour of this, thump, and a real thug of a chub. Got it out without too much difficulty but seeing the size of it decided had better up things to 0.13 and a 20 B911 Surprisingly made no difference to the roach and dace which I kept picking off down the middle even after increasing the feed again. Kept changing bait combinations and then on double red got a chub even bigger than the first, looked huge in the landing net and had visions of a new PB. Kept piling the feed in , one more chub of 4 lb or so and a few perch, pulled out of another chub and then things went dead. Stepped the feed up again to try to buy another, but no go and ran out of bait at 5 15
Biggest of the three chub went 6-5, next 5-10 and with the 4 pounder and about 7lb of other fish had around 23 lb in all, nice return for just over 4 hours in the swim.
PB still stands though at 6-9, todays fish must have been a bit more hollow than it looked as I honestly thought at first it would be nearer to 7.
Lovely afternoon out

 

[smudger172]

Forgive me simon for i have sinned its been two weeks since my last post..

Anyway yesterday saw me up at 3am and drive down to billingsgate fish market to fill up the deadbait freezer. 2 stone of mackerel came to 60 baits for £25. A stone of a fish called boop boop (latin name) and a box of needle fish. Going a bit exotic this year. All cost £60 and the freezer is almost full. On to today..

Went down the ouse possibly for the last time this year. Had a cracking day perch to over a pound as well as lots of roach in the 10 to 12oz bracket. Had a pike rod out and had 5 jacks on bleak livos. At one stage it was a bite every trot down but when an otter swam bold as brass upstream the bites instantly dried up for half an hour. Other highlights of the day was a kingfisher landing on the pike rod.

As its now predator time i will hopefully be reporting next how that is going..

Smudge..............

 

[S-Kippy]

With the weather on the turn thought I'd have a go today as it looks a bit ugly for the next week. Roaching again only without the wind this time. Very pleasant in the sunshine but a bit bright for fishing.

Put a bit of bait in while I set up and typically for this place had to wait 10-15 mins for a bite which promptly bottomed my elastic. Might have been a big perch but I suspect tench or carp. Anyway....40 mins or so feeding and I was getting some interest but I was missing 3 out of 4 bites on the caster no matter what I did. Switched to maggot and that proved better. Mostly roach but about 7-8 perch NO skimmers ( thank you Lord) and the first gudgeon I've had for ages. I never thought I'd ever be so happy to see a pongo on me hook. I miss the little blokes something rotten.

Anyway....I fiddled about with bait and depth and found maggot about 18 ins off bottom in 5 ft to be most productive but kept trying caster and kept missing bites. Later on the bites became a bit more positive and last hour I was getting a bite a chuck and a fish most put ins. I ended up with around 40- 50 roach with most around 3 ozs but a good smattering of half pounders and maybe half a dozen fish of 10-12 ozs. The best was around 14 ozs so not huge fish but a very nice bag of mixed nuts. Been a long time since I've fished like this and I am seriously rusty but it was coming together towards the end and I thoroughly enjoyed meself.

What pleased me most ( apart from Captain Gudgeon) was the condition of the fish. They are absolutely mint...bright silver with that lovely blue sheen and not a scale missing on any of them. Lake roach can be horrible pale slimey things but not these. They are as beautifully conditioned as any river roach and a pleasure to behold.

If I'm not careful I could get into this. I need to go a-barbelling and get a few more blanks under me belt.

 

[tincatim]

Things have been mental for me recently what with work, kids and family commitments I've not had time to fish much or even look in on here. Since I smashed my pole up three weeks ago I've been back on the bank just twice.

First time was an early morning trotting session on the river Don just down the road from where I live. I picked a nice steady glide running down to a bridge, it felt great to be trotting my 6 no 4 yellow topped Dave Harrell lignum steadily down stream while the mist rolled ominously past. I soon got in to a rhythm, feeding a handful of maggots and inching the float through the bait then holding back to let my double maggot hookbait flutter up. This produced a bite on nearly every run through. Firstly some lovely Dace, then perch, a single roach and then the Gudgeon muscled in.
I had around 30 whiskery gonks to go with about 20 Dace, roach and perch. At this point the sun had got up and was blinding me directly in the eyes making the float, and indeed everything, very hard to see. My stomach was beginning to rumble so I called it a day and was back home by 10:30 for a nice fat bacon butty

More recently, I put some annual leave in on Friday and took myself off to a lake not from my work. It's a gorgeous looking lake, completely reed lined and a good variety of fish. I'd normally pole fish somewhere like this but as I'm now pole-less I set up a waggler to fish about 20yds out in open water and also to fish the margins, after about ten minutes plumbing up and covering my rod with Tippex, I baited up and set up a method feeder for the far bank. To cut a long story short, the far waggler line produced a skimmer, two roach and a perch. I then focused on the margins, fed each side differently. The lightly fed side offered some nice roach and better perch. I fed the other side with handfuls of maggots and micro pellets. This got the carp interested, I took three from here before it quietened.

Time for the feeder. I love the Drennan method feeders, they just seem to work perfectly filled with micro pellets and they cast really well. I clipped up to within a foot of the far back reeds and settled down with a nice ham and egg sandwich. Didn't take long for the tip to start twitching as the fish investigated my feed. I normally fish 6 or 8mm coarse pellet on a hair rigged band, or double corn on a quick stop, but today I banded a 12mm halibut pellet instead. It seemed to do the trick as my first bite ripped the rod round and something hefty ploughed towards the reeds. Having a 10lb hook length and a size 12 Kamasan Animal hook, I was confident of giving it some stick. I managed to turn it from the snags and played it into open water. It was much slower than the usual 5lb mirror carp that kite about like crazy. But when it wanted to shift it could, I don't use drags preferring to back wind instead. At times I had to watch my fingers as the reel went into meltdown. Eventually it surfaced and succumbed to the net. An old boy fishing nearby had come over to see and kindly offered to take this photo.

A lovely looking fish, very thick set across the back and the biggest carp I've had in over a year. Made me a happy chap. I fished on and had around eight more carp, nothing bigger than about 5lb but fun all the same.
Can't wait to go again, whenever that will be...

 

[jimlad]

Managed a few hours tonight after chub. River was low but still confident of bagging a few. Despite the conditions, the rod hoofed over on more than one occasion, great fun!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[neil1970]

I received a few bits and bobs from my Dad's old tackle today - very pleased and will find space on the shelf soon

 

[arthur2sheds]

Ooooooh.... love that Ambidex No1..... shelf space.....? use it man... it's what it was made for:wh

 

[neil1970]

Just given it a clean and oil Arthur & it feels quite smooth.

I may well use it in the future, but for the moment...it's on the 'shelf'

 

[chub_on_the_block]

Had a few days on the Wye last week with a few others. On one day alone we managed 35 Barbel to 9Ib+ (not mine) and 2 Chub to 5Ib 6oz (mine!).

Highlight for me (other than a new PB Chub which had stood since 1982) was playing a Barbel when the gears on my old Mitchell 300A packed in - I could turn the handle but the drum would not rotate. This called for breaking the line and re-tying to a replacement reel (a Shimano DL4500 also loaded with 8Ib Maxima) ... in other words a "mid-fish reel change operation" (a first for me). All went well and i was able to land the 6Ib odd Barbel a short while later.

This was one of the prettier swims i fished, although it only produced one Barbel on the day.

 

[peter crabtree]

This was where I fished last Sunday. A club fixture on the tidal Thames below Kew bridge in west London. I drew down by the railway bridge which you can see above is at the downstream end of Oliver's island. The tide started go out and once the gravel was exposed we climbed down and commenced fishing. A simple cage feeder and groundbait and double maggot was all most used. My first bite was a small dace. As I waded out to place it in the keepnet it flipped out of my hand to freedommg: Ater a few hours of continually moving forward as the river receded it became extremely shallow and deeply coloured, barely 6" deep on a 30yd cast. In all I took 6 dace. 3 of which ended up in my net, and 3 (including what was probably the biggest dace I've ever caught) escaped. Came nowhere in the match with the winner weighing in 21 odd pounds of bream.
Biggest bream caught was 6lb. The angler next to me lost a huge carp too.
At least the weather was nice and settled though maybe a bit too bright.

 

[binka]

On a rather belated note from last weekend…

The big perch quest continued but not to any satisfactory conclusion.

Having taken a few nice gravel pit perch which encouraged me to believe that the big one was really on the cards (as usual!) several mugwumps then moved in to wreck the party, of which this was one of them…



I did contemplate kicking it up the bank with all the others in order to create bio mass space for more worthy species but I have to confess to admiring such a lovely looking fish and good fun on a 3.6 hooklink, only joking about kicking it up the bank by the way.

I sell ‘em to the local Chinese instead :w

 

[Aussie Bob]

The weather has finally warmed up in a big way and we have topped 31 degrees yesterday which is very hot for this time of year. Last 3 sessions can be summed up as follows :-
1) Fly fishing at dusk , nice hatch duns started coming up , odd rise from trout. Trout smashed something on surface about 3 metres in front of me must have swam under my fly line to get to it. Missed bite right as the light went was thinking "oh that's close to my fly" forgot to strike ...got annoyed went home
2) Fly fishing again at dusk , trout was obviously chasing something just subsurface again about 4 metres in front of me, again swan under my fly line and mudeye , tried about 5 different patterns nothing. Went home even more annoyed.
3) Decide to ride the bike round the lake and take a spinning rod with some lures. Was standing on a small platform that rowers use to get in and out of their boats heard a boof and splash thought i had dropped something in the water. Checked everything on the vest all good . About 20 minutes later happened again , fish had smashed something under the platform just seen the tail disapear . Spent another 20 minutes trying to lure the b*gger out of under the platform . Ended up with a huge tangle on the reel. Chopped off the line packed up went home even more p*ssed off.
Think i might take up tiddlywinks....

 

[no-one in particular]

Fascinating, my sister lives not far and I fished it a few times, more Barnes though. Never caught much, I remember a little Plaice or Dab once, not a Flounder it had red spots; surprised me that far up the river. To think 6lb Bream, big Dace and Carp. Looks are deceptive. I shall be taking my gear on my next visit, Sister wont be happy, hates fishing and screams her head of at the sight of maggots, tough luck, a mans got a do...........

 

[wa1115]

Had a quick short hour and half session this morning on the local river, to be honest I wasn't going to bother due to the weather forecast but I couldn't resist. When I arrived it looked excellent and the weather was perfect. Mr Postman had delivered some new lures (Z-Man Scented Leechz) so I stuck one on a 3g jig head and started with my first cast. These lures are amazing, I was getting hit after hit, fish after fish!! Like I said it was a short session as the heavens opened as forecast, but or such a short session and test of my newly delivered lures it was a success.

Sorry about the quality of photo's had to use old phone as had a slight mishap with my newer one.

 

[flightliner]

It sounds strange does'nt it, last week the river was running fast with clouds of mud n silt and I was fishing tiny floats and fine lines that gave me a lovely bag of superb redfins, yesterday it was calm, very clear and I,m doing the exact opposite, still float fishing but this time with a slightly longer, beefy rod with a battered , old, forty year old reel with eight lb line, a big home made quill and balsa avon that needed three SSGs and two number six droppers with a size ten hook and three/four maggots.
It was no good trying for the roach, such clear water just isnt much good so I had opted for a few hours trying for a barbel or two.
I have several areas I favour with the float but when I arrived I was dissapointed to find there was someone else on the opposite bank of my first choice so I left and went to option B.
A good move as I was very much on my own which is as I like it.
The first run down and I clipped a snag but was able to get te gear back ok but justin case I lowered the float a few inches or more and ran the gear downstream again and this time it cleared the snag, ok, I was up and running.
At this point I,d better say that over time I have learned never to put any freebies in for perhaps the first half hour as very often a fish will often secumb to what they see on the hook and yesterday was no exception.
The third trot down and right on the snaggy bit of river the floats under and on striking for a split second thought I was maybe going to have to start pulling for a retrieval. Not so tho as a tiny "thump" on the line told me I was connected to a fish.
At first it just hung there , not doing much but eventually it strarted to come upstream without to much effort on my part but something told me I had a better than average fish , its easy enough at times to be fooled with barbel when flote fishing, some six n seven lb fish can have you thinking its far bigger and vice versa --- the one on the end of my line was in the "versa" class, just coming upstream but with an air of quite menace about it, if it was a biggie then I was in for a long protracted struggle under the rod, an experience that I,ve had before and one where you need plenty of patience that if lost for a split second cn end in tears.
It was maybe a full five minutes before I saw my float appear in front of me, not for long tho as the nearer a barbel comes towards daylight out of the gloom there off , mostly in my experienc a little way downstream but sometimes midriver.
Finally I had my first sight of the fish, only a quick one but it looked B I Ģ !!!
Away it went again, and again, and again, but each time a little less with my noticing I was seeing my float come into the air a little more and for longer each time.
The swim was deep but with sloping banks made up of sharp rocks was now my main concern as twice in the final stages of the fight I felt two or three definate "twangs" as the fish turned to power of on one of its now shrort runs that had me nearly having an embarrassing accident ---- not now lord after all this struggle and having come this far--- please !!!!
One more time close to the landing net , only inches away and it had one last run but it was his last, up he came on his side and just camm the slightly downstream to the waiting net.
WOW !!!! Er WOOOOW !!! My pb barbel on the float is-- was a superb 13-13 a few seasons ago I've had them much bigger but on heavy lines n leads but this looked bigger .
I unhooked the fish in the net and then positioned it safely to rest while I composed myself with a drink and a bikky. A friend nearby came over to do the honours and witness the wieghing which he did and on both our scales the fish went 14-1 -- I was over the moon, who would'nt be, a quick pik and the fish was away into the deeps.
We sat there bankside chatting for over an hourabout various things, fish caught, fish lost, anything really but we kept coming back to the barbel.
Anyway my friend had to leave and a little bit of me thought the same--- whats there left to fish for after a stunner like I"d landed earlier ??. But it was only about two thirty so I thought why not, it was forecast rain around four so on the slightest sign I would up sticks.
Maybe it was three thirty, no bites, no nothing when the float dissapears again and I"m connected to another nice fish that again had me thinking " big" , and so it was, another hard fighting barbel that was just a little over 11 lbs ! , it doesnt get much better than that on a days float fishing for barbel -- well, maybe three.
I saw the rain coming and I was in the car pretty quick but going thro a small market town nearer home Was held up by serious flooding that put an hour on my trip.
Footnote -- I checked my line after landing the big one, those "twangs" were definately rocks as my 6lb hooklength looked like hairy string but due credit to ultima , it did a great job.

 

[smudger172]

Finally I had my first sight of the fish, only a quick one but it looked B I Ģ !!!
Away it went again, and again, and again, but each time a little less with my noticing I was seeing my float come into the air a little more and for longer each time.


Fantastic story Flight. Felt as if i was there watching.......