How did you get on?

[Pete Shears]

Back on the reservoir piking this morning and actually had four runs and banked four pike between 4lb & 11lb 11oz,unfortunately two of the fish carried wounds from cormorants but all swam away strongly and all of them were unhooked without the need for handling as I only now use single & 2 single hook rigs.
Buzzards,bullfinches,wrens,willow warblers and a lone peregrine falcon provided added distractions.
Last piking trip of this winter on Friday . . .

 

[thames mudlarker]

Back on the reservoir piking this morning and actually had four runs and banked four pike between 4lb & 11lb 11oz,unfortunately two of the fish carried wounds from cormorants but all swam away strongly and all of them were unhooked without the need for handling as I only now use single & 2 single hook rigs.
Buzzards,bullfinches,wrens,willow warblers and a lone peregrine falcon provided added distractions.
Last piking trip of this winter on Friday . . .

Nice one well done Pete,

Do like bullfinches as I used to breed em for exhibition at high standards along with other avairy bred British finches :thumbs:

 

[mikench]

Despite the intermittent rain which was heavy at times and the absence of our intended quarry(tench) I spent a very enjoyable afternoon and evening with Tigger on a new water to me up near Preston. I caught lots of small Rudd and perch with one rudd about 6oz or so.

We had many interesting conversations and I picked up some useful tips. Cheers Ian and thanks. I had never knowingly caught Rudd before so another species is notched on my piscatorial belt

 

[flightliner]

A shortish session in derbyshire yesterday on a day ticket water.
just simple quivertipping with double red maggots.
Not many bites but a few roach made the odd mistake but they had the odd long period without showing much interest.
Mid afternoon the rod went round when a carp took the bait and made an eighty yard bid for freedom.
When it finally stopped I couldnt gain an inch but the inevitable happened and the hook pulled saving me any further armache.
One or two more roach but by four o-clock I was heading home .

 

[tigger]

Despite the intermittent rain which was heavy at times and the absence of our intended quarry(tench) I spent a very enjoyable afternoon and evening with Tigger on a new water to me up near Preston. I caught lots of small Rudd and perch with one rudd about 6oz or so.

We had many interesting conversations and I picked up some useful tips. Cheers Ian and thanks. I had never knowingly caught Rudd before so another species is notched on my piscatorial belt

Im' quite useless at guessing the weights of smalli'sh sized fish Mike and my estimate of it's weight, especially when viewing it from the other swim may have been a bit lean, it could well have been several or more ounces heavier...a lovely looking fish whatever it weighed .
You had a decent little session today, well done Mike :w.

 

[thames mudlarker]

Despite the intermittent rain which was heavy at times and the absence of our intended quarry(tench) I spent a very enjoyable afternoon and evening with Tigger on a new water to me up near Preston. I caught lots of small Rudd and perch with one rudd about 6oz or so.

We had many interesting conversations and I picked up some useful tips. Cheers Ian and thanks. I had never knowingly caught Rudd before so another species is notched on my piscatorial belt

Nice one Mike, sounds like you had a good few hrs session there with Ian " tigger "

I need to get up north and see both of yer and get fishing on that River Ribble sometime later in the year :thumbs:

 

[Graham Elliott 1]

Well the water was a bit cold for tench probably.

A hard water with the odd big one allegedly.

No sign of fish movement or bubfizzing on arrival at 9.30.
Method Moulded lead including some 8 and 10mm strawberry boilies in the mix and on the 4inch folded back
and buried hooklink.

Happy after planting 125 shrubs yesterday and having to move 30 tons aggregate on friday to have a lazy two rod wait.

And wait


And wait. And new cast.

And wait.

Went home at 7pm. As Arnie said. I'll be.......

 

[mikench]

Im' quite useless at guessing the weights of smalli'sh sized fish Mike and my estimate of it's weight, especially when viewing it from the other swim may have been a bit lean, it could well have been several or more ounces heavier...a lovely looking fish whatever it weighed .
You had a decent little session today, well done Mike :w.

Let's call it 1.5lb then:wh

 

[thames mudlarker]

Let's call it 1.5lb then:wh

Funny PMSL

 

[mikench]

This is it so you can judge for yourselves. A beautiful fish!

 

[thames mudlarker]

This is it so you can judge for yourselves. A beautiful fish!

Lovely fish Mike, bit difficult to judge, going by the mesh and I think it looks like a leaf in the net, maybe about 1/2 lb or so :thumbs:

 

[mikench]

It was a piece of wood Stuart that I caught with the fish. I reckon your assessment is about right! Some of the perch were so small that Tigger queried whether it was the fish which had grabbed the maggot or the other way round

 

[peter crabtree]

Club lake today to practice for a forthcoming match. A small pit with depths up to 14'. Being mild today I chose to fish the pole shallow with maggots.

View image in gallery​

Float choice was this Tubertini 4x10 with 3 no8s directly under the stem so it cocked immediately and wouldn't tangle. Below that 3' depth with strung out no11 shot to a 20 b611 to 0.06 link with single red maggot. I blacked out the top with a marker pen for better visibility in the white water.

View image in gallery[/

Fishing @8m out and pinging a small pouch of maggots every half minute I was soon into some pristine ( virtually unfished for here ) roach, skimmers and hard fighting hybrids..

View image in gallery

View image in gallery​

By midday the sun was getting hotter and once again I was shedding clothes.
Towards 3 o'clock I'd had enough so packed up. No keepnet today but I estimate I must have reached double figures which in a match here at this time of year would probably frame if no carp or big bream showed on the day.
Happy with that I drove home feeling confident that come the day I'll fish without so many breaks and may even double that weight.
At 3:30 the thermometer in the car hit 23degrees ​

 

[barbelboi]

You're making me jealous Simon - it was gale force winds (across the open fields) and white horses here, almost got blown off my X-lite. I'll post tomorrow and show the difference in the water surface.............

 

[thecrow]

Winter was forecast to be over today and because of that I had planned to make an early start to my first outing of the year, got up this morning and it was persisting it down so I sat looking on here waiting for the rain to stop which it eventually did at around midday.

Fished a local commercial pool that doesn't see a lot of anglers for some reason could be because it only contains carp but I wasn't bothered as I intended to have a bash with my untried centrepin for the first time.

12ft match rod centrepin with 6lb maxima on it with 4bb loaded waggler 3.3 supplex hooklength of around 4 feet long ending in a fine wire 10s. Bait was wet bread with liquidised bread as feed another first for me today.

I would like to tell you that I got on well with the centrepin but I didn't but that was down to not having the patience to persevere after I had set up almost blind due to leaving my specs at home so off it came and on went the fixed spool, same reel line same everything, swim was 8feet deep 2 rods out and although it took a while to get my first bite once I did they came at fairly regular intervals all carp most around 4 to 6 lbs which gave a great account of themselves on a float rod ended up with 8 before I packed up. I shall be having another bash with wet bread I think.

End of session bonus was the bailiff not coming round so I saved myself £6 on the ticket

 

[associatedmatt]

there a local club water like that near me and went last year over 10 times and only paid twice !

 

[binka]

A nice day to be out on a lake and even better to have seven acres to myself for the vast majority of it, a little disappointing if not unsurprising that the bigger perch were absent without leave, no doubt having it away in the shallows somewhere.

I’m certain they’ve spawned even earlier on some waters this year judging by the fish I’ve caught recently and I was on a different lake today, closer to home, and I’m trying to hit the right time and right place as I did last year for a few red letter days as they begin to disperse after their nookie but it certainly wasn’t today.

No shortage of bites though, mainly from small perch that are still reading their comics and haven’t graduated to the hardcore stuff yet.

Early days and traps set…



First up, after a sail away bite on a very large worm, was this stunner which came in at 4lb 7ozs (a-herm)…



It was a big float and the unhooking mat is a double divan mattress covered with something green and waterproof :wh

Even my ace card of the largest maggot clip filled with worm couldn’t bring anything much bigger…



A few skimmers to around a pound and a nice roach of half that size gate crashed the session but this is by no means over!

Next instalment Saturday, back on what is currently my favourite perch water… :w

 

[S-Kippy]

I was all set for a bash at the Bury Hill crucians today.Nearly didnt go as I woke to a rather unpleasant gurgling in the nethers the blame for which I laid firmly on Mrs S or Typhoid Mary as she is currently known. After a bit of unpleasantness and a breakfast of dry toast and Immodium i decided to give it a go.

M25 was a mare. Trust me to pick the day when they are holding the National Truck Slalom finals.

Arrived at OBH. Wasn't expecting to bag up as the BF fished on Tuesday and found it hard. It's a bit early yet i think but what the hell.....it made a change to get the pole out rather than the zander rods. It was red maggot or nothing on Tuesday so that's all i had....plus a little bit of groundbait. Fished just over the marginal rush beds as the lilies are not up yet and open water seemed barren .Bites very hard to come by and they didn't want much feed at all..... too much and they backed off double sharp. 2 small balls of Supercrush killed it for an hour so i reverted to loose feeding rather than potting in and not too tight so they had to move around a bit. Seemed to work but i had to work really hard for every bite. Basically chasing them round the swim.

I had 6 lovely crucians ...... the best maybe 1-12. Around 12-15 cracking roach with 4 over the pound and a best of maybe 1-6 or so. Really nice fish too. Absolutely mint. A sprinkling of decent (6-8oz) Rudd, one random perch and ( the horror!) a bloody skimmer ! That will teach me to use groundbait and maggot.

It wasnt easy fishing , there was a nasty scuddy wind and the geese and coots were just going mental but I thoroughly enjoyed meself..... apart from that damned brim !

First swallow of the year sighted and the trees full of chiff-chaff. Spring is definately here even if my rod licence isn't.

The Immodium did the trick btw. No frantic dash into the bushes with the groundbait towel necessary.

 

[thecrow]

I see you have had your second skin removed ready for the warmer weather

 

[mikench]

A nice day to be out on a lake and even better to have seven acres to myself for the vast majority of it, a little disappointing if not unsurprising that the bigger perch were absent without leave, no doubt having it away in the shallows somewhere.

I’m certain they’ve spawned even earlier on some waters this year judging by the fish I’ve caught recently and I was on a different lake today, closer to home, and I’m trying to hit the right time and right place as I did last year for a few red letter days as they begin to disperse after their nookie but it certainly wasn’t today.

No shortage of bites though, mainly from small perch that are still reading their comics and haven’t graduated to the hardcore stuff yet.

Early days and traps set…



First up, after a sail away bite on a very large worm, was this stunner which came in at 4lb 7ozs (a-herm)…



It was a big float and the unhooking mat is a double divan mattress covered with something green and waterproof :wh

Even my ace card of the largest maggot clip filled with worm couldn’t bring anything much bigger…



A few skimmers to around a pound and a nice roach of half that size gate crashed the session but this is by no means over!

Next instalment Saturday, back on what is currently my favourite perch water… :w

Beautiful presentation as usual Steve. Any perch worth his salt should have been delighted to participate in the perfect setting you created! The rod and pin in perfect symmetry and harmony; all it needed was a 4lb + stripey.

I still have a long journey ahead :