How did you get on?

[peterjg]

I went roach fishing with my wife, we were swingtipping using dead maggots as bait. At one point I struck sideways and accidentally bashed her around the side of her head! What a fuss, there wasn't that much blood, I told her that the bruising and swelling would all be gone in a few weeks! It was awful, I missed the bite! I carefully checked the rod and it was ok. She was ok really, I was more shook up than she was.

Herself ended up with 14 roach (including the two biggest) and I caught 21 roach and a snotty of about 5lbs. Swing tipping is such a good method, it is so sensitive and you have time to react properly to a bite.

 

[nottskev]

It was back to the Tench Lake again this morning. The Deep Lake gets booked by carp anglers a lot on summer weekends; the Old Lake is open to all now, and a bit too popular for me at weekends. I thought I'd have to fit in where I could, so imagine how pleased I was to find the lake empty of anglers.




A friend had some nice bream on maggot during the week, so I fed left for tench, with pellets and chopped meat, and right for bream, with maggots. If I want to fish here through the summer, I'll need to start raking swims - it's getting hard to find clear spots, and sorting the fish from the weed when you net one is getting tedious.

The tench were on the bait straightaway, and the average size was a bit bigger than the hordes of 6 -8oz fish that sometimes flock around your bait.




No sign of a bream, though, and I only succeeded in attracting a shoal of small roach by feeding maggot.
A pair of moorhens had stationed the family in the rushes just to my left, and were keeping the juveniles on a tight rein. This one came past on what looked like his first solo outing.



I haven't heard many cuckoos in recent years, but one was calling from the trees opposite. The tench here have a tendency to sit well off the bottom as the day warms up, so when bites dried up after a couple of hours, shallowing up to half depth and letting the bait drop slowly kept bites coming.



I finished the morning with a big pile of pondweed next to me - the sort that looks like drowned branches of a christmas tree. I don't think using tench to drag it out is the way forward, so I'm off to see what I get by way of rake heads.

 

[103841]

Do you count tench to get off to sleep Kev? Must be well into the hundreds now this season!

 

[Another Dave]

I finished the morning with a big pile of pondweed next to me - the sort that looks like drowned branches of a christmas tree.

Hornwort probably.

 

[nottskev]

Do you count tench to get off to sleep Kev? Must be well into the hundreds now this season!

It would take 2 or 3 of mine to make one of yours

 

[peter crabtree]

My neighbour and I agreed to a change of venue this morning so we went a mile closer to Hemel H. No flow on this pound and it was good to find no moored boats on the hot pegs.

Wagg and magg across to the bushes or deep down the track, it was solid. Chublets, perch, gudgeon and roach just kept coming, the bigger chub didn't appear to be in their usual spot. A passing local told me they were shoaled up and spawning up in the town centre along with the bream...
Nevertheless I had a very satisfying morning and a good netful to end with.
Afterwards I visited the tackle shop in Hemel old town to buy another keepnet, well worth the visit as he has some 2nd hand stuff in there.
He pulled out a Maver 3m net which looked new and unused but had no bag, I was delighted when he said "gimme a tenner".
I think they're normally about £50....

 

[mikench]

Kev you are a tench magnet! I cannot believe you actually fished for bream! Let's swap our respective magnetic qualities!

 

[markcw]

At the moment I am enjoying reading about all the various exploits due to being told I had a blood clot in my leg last weekend. so at the moment it has been small walks 2 and 3 times a day down the road and back,
No bailiffing or fishing for at least another 10 days and then it will be short session fishing,
and by then it will probably be raining, We were going to have a few days way this week, but driving a fair way is out at the moment even with a couple of stops on the way. So keep catching and posting, it gives me something to read
as I make some extra pole rigs up.

 

[mikench]

The fish will wait Mark! Just concentrate on getting well and back to normal! I will try and post something amusing next week!!

 

[Tee-Cee]

That really is tough, particularly when the better weather is seemingly here to stay(!) and the river season is about to get under way. Not something you can rush obviously, but I really hope you see some improvement soon and you are back on the bank soonest!

All the best to you..

 

[peter crabtree]

It was a toss up between a clubby on the GUC or the open match on Willows lake St Albans?
The former, lots of boats and a busy towpath or the latter, get battered by the sponsored venue experts...
Mate and I thought hard before agreeing on a change of scenery and opted for the lake...

Set up 2 tip rods, 10' Forcemaster with method feeder and 12'6" Preston Carbonactive with cage feeder.
4lb Sensor on both reels with a QM1 on the method and a Preston PR36 on the cage.

First chuck at 9am and it was only minutes before a carp took my worm/maggot cocktail and seconds before it broke my hooklink.
Upped my Hooklink to 0:17 and landed the next one.

Had just one on the method with a banded meat pellet, the rest (4) were all on worm and cage ...
Came absolutely nowhere with 19:12.
Mate fared slightly better with 38lb but also nowhere...
Enjoyed it anyway...

 

[maggot_dangler]

Actually got out this morning .
Club pool arrived around 06:30 fishing by 07:00 lots of bites from the off mainly small Roach and bream , a couple of decent Crucians and perch then that horrible feeling got hold of me again so had to pack and head home .

I am hating 2018 so far ...


PG ...

 

[no-one in particular]

Went back to the same lake as last week yesterday, an overnight carper there who did me a favor later on and a couple of other carpers turned up later so not all to myself this time. I went back to see if I could get a big tench or roach. Took sweetcorn (worked well last time for the rudd) meat and chickpeas. Not a bite for two hours so went to the deeper end of the lake. On the way asked the carper if I would be in his way at the end of the lake as he had 3 rods splayed out but it was OK by him and we had a nice chat, he had had one carp all night, 14lb and he filled me in on the lake, knew it well..
Hardly a bite and by the near end of the day I had had only one very small carp about 6 inch and one small rudd, both on the meat.
Then the carp bloke came over and gave me a bag of maggots, chucked a couple of handfuls in and instant bites and fish, all rudd, nice plump ones about half a pound. had about 20 fish in the last hour.
Funny last week they were on the sweetcorn and did not want to know this week. When I knew I had fish in the swim I tried the sweetcorn a couple of times and the meat to see if I got any bigger rudd but they did not want to know it. I often think the right bait on the day is what its all about; the conditions where virtually the same, fish are strange.
Just used a very light homemade float made from swan quill and a 12 hook paternoster style just off the rod tip.
The carp bloke told me the owner was lying last week, no 40lb+ carp in there but the bonus he did not turn up for his day ticket, £10 saved or £5 for the two sessions, more my cup of tea; they should all be £5 a day.
Two Buzzards swooping about on the way home, nothing special these days but they still have the wow factor for me. Kingfisher flitting about and bird song all day from the woods but couldn't see them.
All in all a very nice peacefully day and a late surge of fish thanks to the carp man, may go back and have another go for the roach and tench another day.

 

[mikench]

You're posting early Mark!

 

[no-one in particular]

You're posting early Mark!

I am often up early in the summer Mike, make up for it in the winter.

 

[Pete Shears]

A trip to the reservoir early this morning hoping for tench - thick fog,couldn't see past about 30 yards with a slight easterly breeze which then swung to north,north-east then south east and back again the fog finally clearing around 0845.Two method feeder rods out about 25 yards showed a couple of liners but no fish of any size rolling etc.wildlife watching then,blue darter and blue damsel flies,a family of great tits in the willows behind me.Just about out of groundbait and had a real bite - a bream 1lb 4oz dodging yet another blank.Even the carpers haven't been pestered by bream and tench this spring,the water has really switched off,the continual N,NE,E,SE winds doing nothing to warm the place up - can't wait until Saturday when the rivers open - will be heading off early to the Wreake after chub.

 

[Tee-Cee]

I purposely fished a tight little gravel pit swim this morning as I wanted to give my new 11' Ultralight a workout and fishing under the rod top for roach (still no crucians!) with flake and large hemp produce approximately 40 fish with half a dozen around 12ozs and just the one at a smidge over 1lb. I worked two parts of the swim using standard hemp as feed in one and liquidised bread in the other, to match the hook baits.
Up until now I have been using the 12' Ultralight so apart from the length difference I didn't really expect the new, shorter rod to feel any different, but I was somewhat surprised by what felt like a significant difference in weight and tip action. I held the rod (apart from rebaiting etc) for the whole seven hour session without any ill effect and the action really felt sharper on the strike.

I haven't checked the weights for both rods so it could be purely my imagination (or excitement!) that had me thinking the difference was considerable..........

Three times dang blasted carp had it away with my flake, with the result that one 7lb'er was landed (after a tour of the surrounding swims) after a struggle trying to 'thread it' into my 16" pan net on a number of occasions. I cannot say I was too pleased to see the rod bent through its middle section but it did the job in the end.

All in all I was well impressed with the rod and it dealt with the slower flake bites very well. Tomorrow I intend to speed fish with standard hemp up in the water so we'll see how the tip action fares....

A beautiful morning, and I have to say the Thames, looking upstream from Marlow Bridge toward the weir looked stunning. The water was like a mill pond and with the early morning sky refection I had to stop the car on the bridge for a minute or two, just to take it in.
I imagine most folk who have live in Marlow for years, have never even seen it.........

 

[thecrow]

Got to the small reservoir about eight this morning and was glad to see only one other angler on and a breeze blowing into the swim I wanted to fish.

Fed 4 balls of groundbait containing hemp dead reds and small cubes of meat and set up while that settled, 16s to 2.5 supplex, catching from the off but not what I was there for, small Tench after small Tench and I mean small around 8 inches long, I did manage 3 Crucians, these 2 and one a little smaller.







Later in the morning the breeze dropped then changed direction the sun came out and that was the end of the Crucians for the day, the small Tench fed on but by then it was to hot for me so packed up.

 

[peter crabtree]

Round two of our evening series tonight on the Aylesbury arm east of Aylesbury.
A pretty pound with lily pads all along the far side. It was bright sunshine to start with at 6pm but a bit chilly for June..

During the first hour I caught a run of small rudd, gudgeon and roach on punch under the bush opposite.

I tried my damnedest to find the skimmers, tried corn, maggot, pinkies and worm but just couldn't get one. Others were getting them and I felt my chance of framing was diminishing by the minute.. The last hour was even worse, what should have been the witching hour, as dusk set in, I didn't get a bite..
Had just 1lb:12 for nowhere, 8lb+ won it.
So after 2 of the 8 matches I am still leading the field with my win last week for 5 points and the 1 point tonight which everyone gets if they weigh in, but its a precarious lead...

 

[Tee-Cee]

For a change I decided to give hemp a rest after the first hour or so and went instead for bread in all its forms. I tried punch of differing sizes but this only produced sparkling little roach up to 6" or so regardless of depth. I then upped the anti and gave 5mm discs of bread a workout but the soft fragility meant rebaiting every cast, but I overcame this by carefully squeezing one edge of the disc between finger and thumb and this gave a better hook hold without affecting the bites.
I had a number of fish up to 8/9" long fishing this way (in about 7' of water) but managed to miss more bites than I normally would so I had a rethink and changed to a slightly bigger float with most of the shot 18" from the hook and two small droppers to allow the bread to sink (sort of) slowly to justt slightly overdepth.

Stupidly I only had a limited amount of fresh bread crumb (tons of it in the freezer!) but this I squeezed into small balls to break up somewhere close to the bottom and to complete the change I went for a 14 with 10mm discs of bread all of which was dropped a foot from the rod top. Nothing for 20mins but then the float sailed away only to produce a fine 6" specimen which had managed to scoff the bread and be hooked in the top lip.
Undeterred, I waded my way through another half dozen of similar ilk until a dithering bite turned into a sinker and a fine looking roach of 12ozs dropped into the net. Over the next hour I caught something like 8/10 of similar size and I thought this could just turn into a 'white stone day' (as Sheringham would call it) especially as two roach in consecutive casts looked to be over the lb but on weighing BOTH hit the scales at 1lb exactly!

I would like to say this continued unabated for the remainder of the session but by this time the morning was well on and as is normally the case the bites (and fish) and despite changing down to smaller hooks, coming shallower ,fishing on the drop etc etc only small roach continued to feed....

In the end I went back on large hemp fished 3/4' deep with liberal amounts of hemp feed and caught another dozen or so fish of 'goer' size before the early morning caught up with me and I headed off home - I was truly knackered....


In hindsight, I think the lack of bread feed going in regularly probably contributed to the bites falling away and I only have myself to blame for not checking the bag as carefully as I normally do.....I put this down to age and this last nights sleep of many hours proved I am not the man I once was.

Perhaps I need to make a 'list' of things to do and stick it to the side of my bag!!

Great day, though and I was very pleased with my approach and clear thinking.......................


Today i a day of rest with a trip to the physio and a bit of walking, but rest assured I shall be on the bank come 05.30 tomorrow and Friday. This lovely weather is not going to last forever!!

ps I did think the dithering bites might be crucians, but no such luck. Where have they gone and how do I catch them - I ask myself.......................................