How did you get on?

[peter crabtree]

Club match today on a shallow farm lake, I fished a corner peg where the water turns to the right and forms a narrow snake channel.

It's only around 3' deep and often gin clear but today there was a tinge of colour. Set up 2 pole lines (3actually) but one got trashed first put in.. 2 were enough, one for short under the hanging branches to my left and one for 11:5m out under the trees.

For the first 3 hours it was small perch on maggot or pinkie, either long or short until they petered out. No bites for an hour and a half until I noticed a shoal of roach topping under the tree long.
I shallowed up to 1' deep and took the shot off my Hooklink, then pushed all the shot up directly below the float. Single red pinkie seemed to be the bait they wanted, in the final hour and a half I had about 20 small roach, none over 3oz and most around 2oz. Incredibly hard work at 11:5m trying to keep my line off the water and holding the float still in the surface drift.

At the scales I had 2lb:8oz which surprisingly saw me in 4th position.

There are some bigger fish in there and the framers managed to find some of the resident bream and tench..

 

[nottskev]

My starts are getting later, and it was tea-time by the time I rolled up at the Old Lake. On another hot day, I thought the evening would be the best time , and it would mean I'd get a bit of peace when the casual danglers departed. I was in a fairly casual mood myself, so I was unperturbed by the spliff-fuelled antics to my right, and by the little girl who collected all the ducks in the lake for us by throwing bits of bread at my float.

Carp are usually uninvited guests, but today I'd decided to invite them. Plan A was to fish down the deep margin in the corner with various seafood baits. I also planned to sit on a chair rather than a box and use green luggage. Couldn't fail, could it?



Well, it did, and an hour of that turned up two tench of 1.5lb and a large roach. Around the lake, nothing was being caught, although all kinds of fun were being had. Fortunately, a change in the wind turned my swim into the classic scum corner.



With the breeze coming into the bank, and a fine head of scum accumulating, the odd carp started to show on the surface, which prompted me to change to Plan B. I'd stopped off and bought a large white sliced loaf on the way, and Plan B consisted of a sophisticated rig - a size 8 hook on the end of the line - and bits of white bread squeezed enough to stay on for a bit but not enough to sink. Flicking this about 15m out, and catapulting bits of bread out, had me on the edge of my seat (literally - how you fish from these things I don't know) for the next couple of hours. It was really engrossing, trying to figure out when to strike with all the splashing and slurping going on, and pretty exciting when a decent fish could be seen sharking in on your piece of soggy bread. I missed countless takes, and still got 13 out in two hours. They were all this type of size. I'm not sure if you can read the butt, but the rod is a Fishing Magic Concept rod, built on a Harrison Avon blank, and bought about 16 years before if occurred to me to join the forum.








It made a nice change to catch carp on gear that put you rather than them in charge, and I think I'll look into floater fishing, if only to find out how I can miss fewer bites.

 

[no-one in particular]

I was going to fish the carp free lake same as last week but found a new place to try closer to home, I thought I new them them all but came across this on the net, just a name mentioned on a forum. Funny the name on the net was different than the name on the entrance board which was all battered.
When I set up I could hear loads of splashes from carp which I had not come to fish for but pressed on regardless. Loads of carp swimming about on the surface as well. I set up a small float with just one BB and a 10 hook, same as last week sweetcorn seemed to be the best bait and I caught 6 nice rudd, not huge but satisfying enough.
The owner turned up and charged me a tenner which I thought was a bit steep seeing as thats all it was, one lake, nothing else and no fish and chip shop. He said some good tench and roach but not many of them, no bream, some big eels and rudd to over 2lb. He reckoned the biggest carp was 40lb+, well maybe or just his bit of blurb. He said it was better at night, late evening and early morning which turned out to be the case, my bites dried up about midday. He also said he had decided to change the name of the place because people didn't like the original name!
All in all a lovely lake though, mainly a carp lake so maybe I will go back for the carp on a day when the conditions are carp conducive with the gear for them, in the meantime I enjoyed a very peaceful day with a few nice rudd and totally on my own, no one else there!-

PS- found these on the way home, a fox attack or something, about the size of a pigeon maybe or bigger, the feathers about 8 ins long; I just cannot think what bird they belong to, picture at the bottom-

 

[mikench]

They could be tawny owl feathers!

 

[no-one in particular]

They could be tawny owl feathers!

You know I think you got it Mike. could have been on the ground just got a vole or something and a fox nabbed it. They do this at night, I have seen dead swans nabbed while they are roosting. I would not have thought of a tawny, went through all the common birds, crows etc. That will be one family of tawnys without a parent then. Cheers mate' I like to know these things.

 

[wetthrough]

Sunday: I usually fish weekdays. It's quiet and I can usually get the pick of the pegs as I start quite early. The Trafford Ecology Centre which is on the Altrincham Anglers Card is slap bang in the heart of Trafford Park. Formerly a boating lake belonging to the de Trafford family it became a dumping ground during the industrial revolution to be cleaned up in recent times. You can Google it to find out more if you want. Unusually for a place of this sort it's closed to the public at weekends, locked up with a high fence all round and a porta loo! Just one other angler on I'd met when scoping it out the previous Sunday who turned out to be both friendly and helpful. Having somewhere quiet I can fish weekends is handy if for some reason I can't get out during the week.

You can just see the Ecology Centre building to the right and far end of the photo. It's hard to believe it's in the middle of Trafford Park.


The lake is gin clear, shallow and the top end near the Ecology Centre is very weedy - blanket weed I think.

Species according to the card are Roach, Rudd, Crucian, Tench, Perch and Bream.

Fishing about 4 rod lengths out in 35" of water on the waggler picking up the odd small Roach, maybe 9 through the day while Stewart a few pegs away is demonstrating how it shold be done picking up three nice Tench close in. All around the the 5lb mark. I didn't take a picture of the Roach as they had the black spots apparently due to the presence of snails and Herons of which there were 2. Interestingly the they had jet black backs. I've never seen a Roach as dark. Stuart comes over to tell me to fish under/by the trees which turned out to be 5" deeper. There are lots of 'pits' and holes around the lake apparently. Still wasn't picking much up but as the light dropped I can see the fish, lots of them and big, just not where I was fishing

Made my mind up to call it a day at 4, then 4:30 and 5 and... you know how it is. Finally and absolutely definitely going at 5:30, but I can see the fish are becoming more active. This has to be the last cast, two reds and at 5:32 fishing far out:


5lb4oz and very welcome after a somewhat lean day

Apparently the place was stuffed with Crucians when it belonged to Salford Friendly AS but was netted at some point and Stuart hasn't seen a Crucian since

 

[neil1970]

I went out with a few mates last night.
Good social session . - I managed 4 Ruffe on the lure, giving rise to a 'silly' photo opportunity.

 

[lakhyaman]

Although we all live in the capital my family's original home is some 35km North by East of the city in what used to be a quiet and rustic village but is now a small town. The place comes complete with a small pond. Well, I suppose you could call it a pond, more a rectangular hole in the ground, all 40 by 50 yards of it.

I caught my first fish in it as a four year old under the watchful eyes of my father and one Otith Mollah, then a young man, whose family have lived forever in the village, and himself an accomplished fisherman with a cane pole. I still remember the gentle disappearance of the float and my father's urgent command to strike into what was only a baby Rohu of about a pound.

Many a monsoon has come and gone since then, my father too has passed on, but Otith has been my constant companion whenever I have fished there.

We were there together yesterday as well.


The "pond".

The weapon of choice, given that I had only the one rod with me, was a 14 foot Hardy Supero specialist float rod with a Hardy Ultralight fly reel loaded with mono. No, I was not deliberately trying to out Hardy the redoubtable Binka himself!

A fly reel gives you the option of a drag and an exposed rim and there is a huge choice of size, depth,width and weight on the market. You can get centerpins with drags but the choice is not as wide. For me, at least, it is difficult to control hard fighting fast running fish just with the exposed rim and I like the assistance of a good drag with the direct contact with the fish that a fly reel/centerpin gives (especially in a small pond). I usually fish at the rod tip so casting is not an issue. A six inch length of peacock quill and a single AAA one and a half inches from a size 6 hook completed the set up.

Bait was the Standard bread paste with ants eggs kneaded into it which is used all over Bangladesh for carp and carp like fish. "Groundbait" was an equal mixture of rice bran and wheat bran wetted with water from the pond. It sinks in the form of a cloud when wet and forms a bed on the bottom (or so the theory says). It works!


Otith Molla insists on mixing the groundbait, making the bread paste, wielding the net, and even baiting my hook as he does not believe I have progressed much in learning the art of angling since that first fish which he landed for me! He may well be right!


He even insisted on climbing a tree to retrieve my rig, the result of an over enthusiastic hoick on the rod in response to a sudden disappearance of the float. I did ask him not to and to break the line but he would not have it! He is 70 years old!

It is an easy water, well stocked with the usual culprits , Rohu, Catla, Kalabans, Mrigal, Common Carp, and others. Nothing huge, but big enough to put a bend in the rod and run out line. We did catch a few.


Rohu


Mrigal

All the best

Lakhyaman

 

[103841]

congratulations if you’ve made it this far. FM is still slow and hard going, not unlike my fishing trip today.

A 4-30am call was a shock to the system, haven’t been up that early in quite a while, but needs must, fish feeding at unsociable hours and the need to bag a decent swim on the ever popular Stonar lake.

My heart sank a little when I peered through the bedroom window to be greeted by a thick wall of fog. However, on arrival was pleasantly surprised to find the hot swim “sheds” empty without a bivvie in sight. Hot that is, with the carp boys and it’s the amount of feed going in regularly that feeds the other species too including Stonar’s super Rudd.

Set up two whips, a Harrier 6m flick tip for the Rudd just below the surface and an elasticated Tommy Pickering whip for fishing deep at approx 16ft a couple of rod lengths out.

The fog was persistent not lifting til 10.


Took nearly a hour to get a bite, a nice dip of the float resulting in my first Rudd of the year, very welcome sight it was too.



Over the next few hours the sport was sporadic with a few more Rudd, eels and bream. A gatecrasher spoilt things further, took a good fifteen minutes to net a nicely coloured 7LB common, good job is was on the elasticated whip.



The last Rudd of the day showed the older they get the golder they become.



Not a minute of sunshine today but got home with a face still glowing from the constant wind.

 

[bracket]

I had three hours on one of my Club's still water venues this morning. A couple of years ago the lakes were drained, all the carp removed, then refilled and restocked with pure strain crucians and tench. It is now a delightful venue. I had tried it a few months ago and blanked. So the choice for me was obvious, go back and fish the same peg again. Fortunately things were different this time around. I took 47 fish consisting of: 9 small crucians and 2 rudd. The remaining 36 fish were tench ranging from little bars of (golden) soap, like this
View attachment 4898

The majority being like this:
View attachment 4899

And finally, on the last put in of the session, this turned up:
View attachment 4900

I don't do Personal Bests, but I must confess in 68 years of angling I can't recall bagging over many tench like this one, it went 4lb 12oz. So come Noon I give it best and wended my weary way back to the motor, feeling a tad chuffed. Pete.

 

[maggot_dangler]

Well i dont know about how did i get on

For me so far 2018 has been the worst year for at least a decade with Another unplanned week laid up in some hospital , Outings so far for 2018 3 and only 1 of those was worthwhile
I can wait for 2019 as pink floyd put it shorter of breath and one day closer to death it may be but it also may be a lot better than 18 has so far .



PG ./..
...

 

[The Runner]

Just back from a few days on Skye, mostly measuring up and generally sorting out new home ( purchase completed last Wed, will finally be moving in two or three weeks) but did put telescopic rod, reel and a few bits in the bag. Had one evening session about a mile out of Portree on a rock mark where I'd done reasonably well in the past, admittedly mostly small fish, but not this time. One bite on a prawn first chuck which I missed and then lost a decent fish half an hour later that took me into the rocks close in, and that was it, a blank....
Took a long walk around the north end the next day to check out marks for future reference and really should have taken rod with me - spent half an hour watching good sized Pollack chasing baitfish in gin clear water in a bay on the east side of Rubha Hunish and found a few cracking looking spots a bit further south at Kilmaluag. Getting down to Rubha Hunish, and back up again, with tackle could be, er, interesting though. Might be easier to put rod in an unbreakable tube and just throw it down in front of you.
Need to sort myself some fly gear as well as sold it all about quarter of a century ago...

 

[Redeemed]

Went to a new pond, a club we've joined, andd it's well stocked with carp, tench and some large perch! we had called on Saturday for a look and this guy was reeling the buggers in happy as larry.
so today we go and settle on a couple of pegs. the water was vile green, apparently courtesy of the wash off from a horse centre further up the field.
finding the fish was tricky but a trio opposite were pulling a few in fishing about 2' depth and on the method, so the lad started on the float and I went for the cage feeder with the bait popped up slightly because the bottom is very weedy.

we spent the day chasing fish, I managed a nice little carp of about a pound and a couple of silvers on the cage/method using corn and worm, and I took another carp to a pound on the float with worm on the drop. the lad managed a nice haul of skimmers despite forgetting his landing net head which made life interesting chucking a net between us when separated by bushes!

the other side of the pond were pulling the buggers in with gay abandon! even the daughter who knew n'owt about fishing and had her dad untangling her every 5 minutes was fetching them in up to about 4lb! an old chap some pegs further down on the same side from us was also doing well, again we were fishing the same depth and tactics but struggling.

interestingly though where the triumverate of terrors over the other side were fishing was where the guy on Saturday was also fishing , and the old boy on our side was also where the pond starts shallowing out.

next time if we can get on there we'll try the other side, although I did notice late in the day I was fishing peg 13!

 

[Philip]

Thought I would post this as it was a bit of an unusual one.

Arrived at a little local pond for a quick dusk session. I planned to fish a couple of float rods in a spot over some marginal reeds. Both rods were already setup prior to arrival but had no bait on, just bare hooks and pellet bands. I swung one out to check the shotting. The float cocked ok so I left it there in the water and started to put together the second rod. Sods law, I had mis-threaded a rod ring so cut off the rig and rethreaded it all again in the rapidly disappearing light. Once re-tackled I swung the second rod out to check the shotting on that…all of a sudden the first rod sort of collapsed to one side, at first I thought the rod rest had just fallen over but suddenly realized that it was being pulled over by a fish. I grabbed the rod and battle commenced. Given there was no bait I was sure I had foul hooked it as it had patrolled the margins but the fight did not seem to be of the foul hooked type & the longer it went on the more I became convinced it was hooked in the mouth. I was on quite light tackle so it took a fair while to get it in but finally I netted a chunky common. First thing I did was to check where the hook was and yep there it was fairly hooked inside the mouth.

Not sure if it counts as a true “bare” hook capture given there was a pellet band attached but I thought it was worth posting never the less.

 

[nottskev]

Another tea-time start, this time on the Tench Lake. The pegs I'd intended to fish were occupied, but I was glad they were. I bumped down the lane to the other end - and found the bloke who'd put me onto the place years ago. He was just packing up, so we sat and chatted for a while. I was in no big hurry to set up.



It was the type of evening you imagine in the winter when you're stuck in every night - sunshine and a light, warm breeze. A heron was on the next peg but one, a great-crested grebe was fishing out in front and there seemed to be a wood pigeon calling in every tree. A far cry from my more er urban expedition on Sunday evening.

I started at 5.30, with the usual rod, pin, pellet and meat approach but I didn't catch a fish til after 6. It was slow for a while, but at least the tench were a step up on the soap-bar juniors



And a couple of the lakes dark-coloured bream showed up



The only disappointment of the evening was bream-related; I'd have loved to have landed the bin-lid sized one that followed that one, but the hook pulled at the net.

The owner likes you off by 9pm, so I wrapped up at 8.30. When you find a water like this, the last thing you want to do is antagonise the owners. I even stopped on the way out to take my money round to the kitchen door. He was cooking a pork chop, and had forgotten about me, but I could tell from his reaction to the fiver that I'd be welcome back.

 

[Tee-Cee]

Nice bit of fishing, Kev....

I thought you were a died in the wool roach man, though??

 

[peter crabtree]

Tonight we fished the first of a series of 8 evening matches on the Aylesbury arm in Aylesbury town centre. Fishing 6 to 9pm. My peg had a nice willow hanging over opposite and I targeted that with the pole.

Just pinged a few pinkies over via catty and fished double red pinkie at dead depth on a 20 B511 to 0:07.
Had 10 skimmers and bits for 8lb:13oz which comfortably won me the match. 2nd had 3:12 and 3rd 1:14.

 

[nottskev]

Tonight we fished the first of a series of 8 evening matches on the Aylesbury arm in Aylesbury town centre. Fishing 6 to 9pm. My peg had a nice willow hanging over opposite and I targeted that with the pole.

Just pinged a few pinkies over via catty and fished double red pinkie at dead depth on a 20 B511 to 0:07.

Bit of a cliffhanger. What happened next?

 

[nottskev]

Nice bit of fishing, Kev....

I thought you were a died in the wool roach man, though??

It was so warm this evening, I took the woollie off

 

[seth49]

Well another blank yesterday, tried float and feeder for a couple of hours, not a touch even the small perch and roach weren’t interested, swapped over to a couple of carp rods and sat there in the sun, nothing doing with the carp either, seemed like all the fish were up on the surface, roach,Rudd,bream, carp, even a small shoal of tench.

Tried spraying maggots over some of them, they never moved, one chap had been there since five am, and just had a few bream, when the sun came out they stopped, supposed to have been cooler and cloudy but it was sunny all day and twenty five degrees, still got these east winds till next Tuesday when it finally goes back to the west, Hopefully it will get back to normal then.