How did you get on?

[S-Kippy]

If you have left them on the bank I think that you should contact the EA and report them as a bio hazard, signs need to be erected warning the dog walkers and other anglers of their presence

They should be reported as a "suspect package" and destroyed in a controlled explosion !

 

[dorsetandchub]

Give them to the Nottingham Gaol ghost tour people. If visitors didn't believe in hell beforehand, they would after that.....

 

[barbelboi]

Another early start reaching the bank of an overgrown stretch of the river a few miles down the lanes at just after 9.15am. Wall to wall sunshine, gin clear water and very little flow – it’s getting a familiar pattern.

After a couple of hours of trotting a stick for 9 swinger roach and a couple of chublets I got itchy feet and decided to do a bit of wondering/stalking to see what I could find. About half a mile downstream 3 decent roach were holding station in around 4’ of water close to the bank. I took up position in the cover of some bushes and weed growth about 15’ upstream, removed the stick and bits and set up to free line some flake – who could resist some lovely fresh Warburtons? – apparently all of them, 11 times. Clear water, so little flow – they’ve got too much time to have a good look as it passes by. Also the tricky part was retrieving the line/hook without spooking them, a deft flick from a vertically held rod sent the hook into orbit well above the fish and only landed in the bush once.

Time for plan B, a little trick that I use for spooky chub in clear water. I disturbed the river bottom from my upstream position with the end of the landing net and watched as the (now cloudy) water covered the roach position and set another piece of free lined flake on it’s way. One very decent roach soon in the net, unfortunately with all the commotion of the ‘fight’ the other two bu99ered off and seeing the time was 1.20pm it was time for me to do the same............

 

[Pete Shears]

Another early start on the resrvoir - still running off water to the GUC, area of water shrinking slowly but no mist unlike yesterday. Managed to catch 6 bream, biggest 5lb , the smallest a skimmer of about a pound - plenty of perch hammering the fry all over the place with the little terns joining in. Big brother to them, an osprey, turned up flying round and round but didn't stay,pity they do not hunt cormorants as 2 were sitting on the opposite bank sunning themselves.

 

[peter crabtree]

Been a while since i posted in here, but I did something a little different today so thought I'd share it. My mate borrowed a 5 man rib and we went off for a day on the Thames at Lechlade fishing.

Much fun was had, nothing massive was caught but we had a few species and it was really nice to be able to get to all the spots you would normally struggle to get to.

We caught roach, rudd, bleak, dace and chub and....... A coconut. OK we didn't catch it with a rod but did find one floating down the river ?

After we left we had a pint and he went home, I decided to use the last few hours to pop to a stillwater nearby to use the rest of the maggots up. Had a lovely pair of tench, no Scales but I'd guesstimate the first at 5lb or so and the second at 3lb. I also caught and landed a signal Cray on the method feeder ? which I promptly dispatched.

All in all its been a great days fishing.

I don't have many pictures as I'm a bit rubbish but here's the ones I do have.

Errrrm? Tom, mate lol... Not sure what to say really?
Just noticed this pic innit sunshine....?
Is that you gently holding your " bivvy friend?"

 

[binka]

Looks like a right cushy number to me

 

[tom_moran]

Ha! The seats were hard in the boat. Can you see the strain on my face? ?

 

[tigger]

Today the weather was warm and sunny but not too much to make things uncomfortable, it was just right really and the atmosphere felt great. I fished a stretch that i've not fished since last summer and i'm glad I chose to do so! At the beginning of my session the downstream wind was quite strong and made keeping the float on the line I wanted a bit awkward. On several occasions I wished i'd taken a reel with a line guard as the downstream wind kept blowing my line round the reel foot.
The barbel where up for a trotted bait today for a change, in fact today was my best session of the season so far, I caught 14 barbel and probably double that number of chub with four nice trout to add to the mix. I landed every fish I hooked, no bumped fish or fish that came off during the fight etc.
I didn't take many pic's, I was fishing from halfway across a very rocky slippy river bed and it was alkward to take fish back to the bank, I released most of the fish without even touching them .
Here's a couple of pic's that I did take....

 

[skov]

Had a couple of hours at the Quayside yesterday evening.
I've never fished here before due to it being in the town centre and full of boats, swans, people, and seagulls...
I thought I'd give it a try though as it's potentially somewhere I can fish in the dark without too much trouble.

I've previously seen a few nice looking perch cruising around the bridge, so thought a good bet would be to ledger worms under one of the arches.

It started off quietly, but after about 30 minutes I got my first bite and landed a nice perch of maybe a 1lb.
After that the bites came fairly regularly, often straight after the cast as I was trying to tension the quiver tip! Failing that, a little nudge to the bait often triggered a response.
About an hour and several nice perch later the bites dried up and I called it a (successful!) night.

They were mostly around the 1lb mark,

but a couple were surprisingly small considering I was using double dendras, greedy sods!

 

[barbelboi]

After a couple of days trotting a stick this week I decided to meet up with a friend at 9am (I know –but he wanted an early start) for my third and final go for the tench challange. We were on a club gravel pit, approximately 15 acres of gin clear water with a good covering of pond weed, and only one other angler in sight.

A bit more cloud cover today from time to time along with the sunshine was welcome and we followed the wind towards the far end of the pit. After finding a gravel patch some 15 yards to my left I fished artificial casters at neutral buoyancy on a hair over some real ones.

After the tench to 6.6 on the first visit in March, and then only taking carp on the second visit a few weeks ago I was hopeful for some more tench this time. And my hopes were answered when five tench to 6lb 12oz graced the net. Not enough to challenge the leaders but an enjoyable few hours until we packed up just after 3pm.

I did have one traumatic moment though when I thought I’d hooked a snotty. Thankfully it was only one of the smaller tench coming in blindfolded by pond weed until most fell off just before the net..............

That’s the last time I’ll be fishing the pits until the river close season so congratulations to this year’s winner – whoever it may be.

 

[Pete Shears]

Thick fog over the reseroir this morning but very mild, tried ti drizzle but soon gave up, Managed to get five bream to just over 5lb, no tench for me but two for my mate Clive.
Five white egrets prowling banks competing with four herons - some lapwings on the mudflats in the no-go area,don't usually seem them until the autumn.With wet & windy weather forecast over the next two days,think I will be staying at home catching up with essential but boring household jobs.

 

[binka]

I met with Crow again early this morning for a session that just wasn’t producing barbel from a painfully low and gin clear river, not just for us but generally according to the bailiff.

I opted for the stick float and maggot which was picking up small roach and perch in a fourteen foot deep swim and despite chasing around the depths it didn’t produce anything better.

I have this swim earmarked as a big perch hole, I've had modest fish to 2-11 from it so far and I intend to put a lot of effort into it during the coming months and true to form in five put ins with a float paternoster livebait rig it produced three perch and, I’m really sorry to say, another lost monster.

I honestly can’t believe my bad luck with these big perch, in this case no sooner had I hit into the fish and Graham saw the bend in the rod and declared “If that’s a perch you’re gonna be wanting a photo” before everything went slack and I was retrieving a bare hook.

The typical head shaking and no sign of any teeth marks or damage on the 8lb fluorocarbon trace.

Damn it!

Once again, a truly awful feeling but given the alternative of overcooking the delay on the strike and bringing in a deep hooked fish then I reckon it’s the better of the two options by a country mile and I will continue to bide my time for my big perch.

Nevertheless the biggest of today's three cannibals came in at 2lb 8ozs and it seemed clear to us by their overall condition, as per others landed in the past, that these fish have never seen a hook in their lives…



Back out but on stillwater with a couple of mates and a kilo of worms on Saturday, it should be another good craic.

Cheers Graham... :w

 

[tigger]

Just got back from several hours trotting on a small river. The river was low and wasn't flowing very fast but there be fish beneath the surface .
I had a nice dace after a couple of trotts through and just as I was about to swing it to hand a fresh water shark chomped it...made me jump to such an extent I nearly fell in the freakin' river . After that I had to be careful that esox didn't snaffle anymore. Throughout the session I had a few very nice dace, one decent fat perch and a couple of strange looking hybrids that imo are chub x dace, here's one for you to make your own mind up what kind of mongyou think it is ....



I had several nice buttery colored chub of about 2lb also...



I must admit it doesn't look buttery at all in the pic, just looks silver dun'it ...it was buttery though .

I know there was a barbel in my swim because I saw it, it jumped out right in front of me and I honestly think it jumped out to see where the hell all those maggots where coming from! I really tried to catch it but to no avail...maybe next time.
Just before I came away I had a small chub and dangled in the swim, within a couple of seconds esox which i'd estimate at between 15 and 20lb latched on it and for a few moments I thought i'd hooked the crock as it was going up and down stream and bending the drennan carp waggler double but eventually the poor chub was released by the beast. I swung it to hand and amazingly it wasn't mashed up so I released it in a safe spot.

 

[103841]

I met with Crow again early this morning for a session that just wasn’t producing barbel from a painfully low and gin clear river, not just for us but generally according to the bailiff.

I opted for the stick float and maggot which was picking up small roach and perch in a fourteen foot deep swim and despite chasing around the depths it didn’t produce anything better.

I have this swim earmarked as a big perch hole, I've had modest fish to 2-11 from it so far and I intend to put a lot of effort into it during the coming months and true to form in five put ins with a float paternoster livebait rig it produced three perch and, I’m really sorry to say, another lost monster.

I honestly can’t believe my bad luck with these big perch, in this case no sooner had I hit into the fish and Graham saw the bend in the rod and declared “If that’s a perch you’re gonna be wanting a photo” before everything went slack and I was retrieving a bare hook.

The typical head shaking and no sign of any teeth marks or damage on the 8lb fluorocarbon trace.

Damn it!

Once again, a truly awful feeling but given the alternative of overcooking the delay on the strike and bringing in a deep hooked fish then I reckon it’s the better of the two options by a country mile and I will continue to bide my time for my big perch.

Nevertheless the biggest of today's three cannibals came in at 2lb 8ozs and it seemed clear to us by their overall condition, as per others landed in the past, that these fish have never seen a hook in their lives…



Back out but on stillwater with a couple of mates and a kilo of worms on Saturday, it should be another good craic.

Cheers Graham... :w

I can think of nothing more despairing than losing a possible four pounder, fortunately (so far) this has only happened to me once as far as I know, it's almost as painful reading other anglers accounts as yours above. I'm convinced this Autumn will provide that magical moment we are both striving for.

 

[barbelboi]

I didn't take many pic's, I was fishing from halfway across a very rocky slippy river bed

TFFT - my mouse wheel's overheating with that lot..................

 

[Graham Elliott 1]

Tigger.


Looks like a true dace to me??? Poss bit of roach. ?

 

[binka]

It's clearly a dace/bream, commonly known as a...





























Dream

I'll get me coat...

 

[barbelboi]

There’s snotalott of evidence of uncertain parenthood..............

 

[binka]

I suppose it could have been a bream/dace in which case it would have been a brace.

Except that he only had one instead of two so there's no way it could have been a brace

 

[tigger]

Tigger.


Looks like a true dace to me??? Poss bit of roach. ?

Graham, it's deffo a mong, I thought roach chub at first but the scales are far to small and tightly packed together. In the flesh it has a wide head and mouth like a chub.
Here's a true dace and the mongy fish below...




---------- Post added at 22:37 ---------- Previous post was at 22:26 ----------

I suppose it could have been a bream/dace in which case it would have been a brace.

Except that he only had one instead of two so there's no way it could have been a brace

I catch 'em whenever i've fished that river this season, sometimes quite a few of 'em and they go thicker and chunkier as they get bigger and they put up a better scrap than any true dace, chub or roach of their size.
I reckon they're either a dace x chub or a dace x roach but i'd lean towards the former.