How did you get on?

[markcw]

Tony have you tried mixing some hemp with the liquidized bread when you are on the bank ?
that way you can alternate between bread and hemp on the hook when bites start to dry up on one bait,
keep feeding the hemp/licky mix whichever bait you are using, It works around here.

 

[seth49]

Seven thirty start yesterday , tried a different pond today, the main one is still very slow, eight fished it the day before for two bream, so had a walk round and saw a swim I fancied in a corner, bit overgrown but a bit of work with the weed knife on the net handle sorted that.
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Put carp rod in as a sleeper as usual, to my left in the margin and as I was going to fish only a couple of rod lengths out I thought I’d use my cane rod and pin for a change, used a small drennan glo tip I bought the other day, it takes two no 1 stotz and one no 8 to set it just right, bait was six mm expander pellets, maggots, corn, and some six mm punched luncheon meat.
Started on maggots and caught small roach,skimmers, and Rudd, changed to pellet and caught a few better roach and skimmers but none of the bigger bream which are in here.


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Did get a good scrap of this one must have some roach in it.
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As usual I was feeding a few dog biscuits to see if the carp were interested as one or two started taking them I thought I’d have a go with the cane rod, so I removed the hook length and tied a size ten hook to the six pound mainline, and super glued a biscuit on first cast one took it and gave me a good scrap, trying to get under some branches and into the margin irises, rod handled it well no problem, it weighed just over eight pounds.
View attachment 4940
Went on to catch another later a bit smaller, so in total I had two carp and forty eight silvers, a good day, the cane rod always seems to do well for me, have to use it more. It was a better day weather wise cloudy and warm all day, with no bright sunshine which is always better.

 

[neil1970]

A short vid from April in Weymouth - how not to land a Garfish

YouTube

 

[103841]

Neil’s final comment just about sums up my day.

The day started with a glorious sunrise and Stonar was like a mill pond without a hint of breeze.



That turned out to be the best moment of the day. After nine hours fishing every depth from under the rod tip to 50 metres out using a various baits I had the sum total of four small bream.

Roger the Rudd I am not.

 

[mikench]

Well today was a good day after skiving in France for a while! The weather was perfect, overcast mostly, warm but with a cooling breeze ! The fish must have liked it because I ended up with 30 mainly F1's with skimmers, roach and rudd and, I am pleased to say one of these;

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Only around 1.5lb I reckon but very welcome nonetheless ! Kev you have not lost your teaching skills! spam and maggots were the favourites today! Wetthrough ( Gordon) popped by for a very enjoyable chat and kindly gave me some casters he had prepared himself ! Thanks Gordon !

I also caught a few of these which I reckon is a crucian but I will let Mark Wintle decide!

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Another days fishing planned tomorrow with my new large landing net( optimistic or not) and the Avon !

 

[Tee-Cee]

markcw.........I hear what you're saying and I have tried crushed hemp mixed with the liquidised and this to keep all of it falling through the water at a similar speed. In a deep swim (say anything over 7', or so) I do wonder if the hemp, left whole, will separate and being heavier, fall faster reaching bottom much quicker?? (that's a question!)
Would it make a difference anyway - probably not!

ps I think this should be on a separate thread, actually!!

 

[tigger]

Well today was a good day after skiving in France for a while! The weather was perfect, overcast mostly, warm but with a cooling breeze ! The fish must have liked it because I ended up with 30 mainly F1's with skimmers, roach and rudd and, I am pleased to say one of these;

View attachment 4945

Only around 1.5lb I reckon but very welcome nonetheless ! Kev you have not lost your teaching skills! spam and maggots were the favourites today! Wetthrough ( Gordon) popped by for a very enjoyable chat and kindly gave me some casters he had prepared himself ! Thanks Gordon !

I also caught a few of these which I reckon is a crucian but I will let Mark Wintle decide!

View attachment 4946

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Another days fishing planned tomorrow with my new large landing net( optimistic or not) and the Avon !

Mike, I think that's a goldfish bud....nice fish though .

 

[mikench]

I think it's an Fi in truth but these looked different to the dozen or so i caught! I only posted the pic because the water does have crucians and Mark asked for a photo of one for his record of crucian waters! The ones I caught previously were more obviously crucians but I had no pics!

Are you champing at the bit Ian!!!

 

[Pete Shears]

Another early start on the reservoir today with SW breeze blowing and it was warm.Two method feeders out through a gap in the weeds in about 4ft of water hoping for tench.About 7.15am distracted by two ospreys over the water,one carried on but the other did three laps of the water before moving on too.A positive bite and I was in to a tench which immediately found a thick piece of weed leaving the hook in it -Grrrrrrr - still ,watched kingfishers zooming around,proud greylags with six youngsters and a wren that seemed to be on a mission to deafen me,roll on Saturday for a complete change of style.

 

[Tee-Cee]

Who needs fish,eh...

Nice selection of bird life.

 

[wetthrough]

Tuesday: Fished a WA club pool at High Legh (Cheshire). Nice middling sized pool, once you've found it!


Arrived around 6am. I haven't fished the place before so picked what I thought was a good spot and set up to find I'd about 18" of water in front of me so moved to where you see the picture taken from where there's 48" about 3 to 4 rod lengths out and 37" just out from the margin. Whilst I feed the margin swims and keep trying them I never seem to have much luck there. Usual light waggler setup and 3lb/18s picked up some small Roach and a couple of small Tench quite early on white maggot, boy are they slippy:



Lovely fish, the photo doesn't really do it justice. That was quite early, maybe around 8am. Some more small Roach and then a slow take and I'm in to a rod bender which gives me the run around before slipping the hook A lovely small Crucian came after that but why did my phone camera decide to take a picture of the skymg:

I start getting hammered by tiddlers fishing maggots/casters so go onto soft pellets which isn't my go to bait but at least the tiddlers seem to leave it alone. Another slow take on the float and another rod bender which didn't throw the hook:



I didn't weigh it but I'm guessing 5:6lb and considerably easier to bring to the net than my last encounter with a mirror on Lymm Dam. This time we were much more evenly matched. Had another Mirror just before packing up at around 3:30pm around the same size. All in all a good day.

 

[sam vimes]

I also caught a few of these which I reckon is a crucian but I will let Mark Wintle decide!

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A lateral line scale count would suggest brown goldfish.

 

[tigger]

Are you champing at the bit Ian!!!

not really Mike although I do fancy a little dabble again.
Can't decide what to do on opening day, looking at the forecast neither can the weather !

 

[thecrow]

Settled on a swim with the wind blowing into it, after an hour I wished I hadn't as it just got stronger and stronger making it difficult fishing it was like autumn with leaves covering the surface, fortunately around mid morning it changed direction and was blowing more over my shoulder sending the leaves away from me.

Meat again on a 16s to 2.5 supplex it looked very carpy with the wind pushing in and sure enough it wasn't long before the clutch was whirring like a good un took a while to get it to the net looked a mid double mirror then the hook pulled float and line ended up in a bush, not a good start, tackled up again as it was easier than trying to untangle the mess in the bush which was just cut and rolled up to be put into my rubbish bag.

First Tench was around 3lbs




This one although not the biggest of the morning was in great condition and gave me a bit of a run around. The float is one I made from Sarkanda, its nice to use one that you have made yourself.



Finished up with 8 Tench 3 Bream and 2 of the illusive Crucians, the Bream still had spawning tubercles on them and one was so rude as to deposit some milt over my camera and my fag box uke:

 

[mikench]

We'll another good day! The forecast was poor with very high winds promised for late morning and early afternoon! I nearly didn't go but am glad I did! Float fishing was out of the question so I settled on the feeder with spam and hard pellet ( not together obviously) Gosh those gusts were strong!

I went to the club lake I have frequented quite a bit this year in my search for tench! This is the pond which was supposed to be restocked with them in February but wasn't! I had never caught one, nobody I had spoken to had caught one and the conclusion was they had disappeared ! Why was it a good day well because of this little fella;

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In View attachment 4955In my excitement I forgot to weigh it but I reckon a good 2 lb!!! It made my day; they do exist and are thus worth pursuing! Only the one but beggars cannot be choosers!

Oh and I caught 17 carp all bar one around the 4 lb Mark and one double that! I wish they had all been tench

 

[Tee-Cee]

Unlike 'crow' above I couldn't face the prospect of sitting into a head wind this morning. This, and the fact that all the surface dust/detritus had gathered in the facing swims, had me walking to the other end of the lake where we had pristine water, but nothing is free as I would be facing the sun - if it came out!
As it turned out I had scudding cloud all morning with just the occasional 5 minute shower which ceased just as the thought of umbrella came to mind...

I had a very good day but it was hard work chopping and changing float, shotting and baits just to keep the bites coming. I had some decent enough roach on the 10mm disc of bread fished over depth, some smaller fish on hemp at mid depth and at one stage I thought I had hit a big shoal of fish at 5' taking single reds on the drop. I caught 7 or 8 fish all about 10/12ozs on successive cast but then for some inexplicable reason the bies just stopped. To catch them I was casting very close to an overhanging bush and then pulling the float (on a very short line) toward the bush as quickly as possible. The shot then took over and before the float had settled it was sinking.
I was feeding small amounts of hemp (loose maggots were attracting sub surface carp) and I always felt the dropping bait would eventually fall foul of one but it didn't happen. Anyway, the bites stopped and that was that! (I did try again just before packing up but not a touch...)

Out in front of me I thought I could see roach topping, so I set up another rod with a quill float set at 6 deep or so with just No 10 shot down the line and well spaced to give a very slow drop. I tried large hemp and reds, spraying a few as loose before casting over the top. Some of the bites were really vicious almost as soon as the bait hit the water and the float immediately jagged away. I could feel the 'bang' at the top of the rod!
Most bites of this sort I missed regardless of the fact that I was waiting for them, but those I hooked were around the 3/4lb mark. Again, it was all crash bang wallop for 20 mins and then the bites ceased......

In all I had around 40 fish with a significant number of 6" fish taking the 10mm bread disc with impunity. No difference in bite at all that I could see, so I was never sure what was on the end!!


Not an easy day to fish in a blustery wind that continued to change direction all morning. Challenging to say the least...


I might just go back tomorrow, though..

 

[Specihunter]

It was a tough day on Sunday, but managed 1 bream on the float.

 

[john step]

I braved the high winds today on a club water where I could get behind a conifer hedge. There were bites all day but nothing of any size. Plenty of small perch,roach and skimmers. The roach seemed to like my stewed wheat the best.

 

[flightliner]

Specie, just looked on your blog/ profile. That's an impressive Tench you're holding!!

 

[mikench]

It certainly is and I should know! A fabulous tench!