How did you get on?

[Tee-Cee]

Yes, a fine bit of spec fishing, tigger and bloody well done with the barbel!

I keep thinking about that 'monster' dace, though. No actual weight or pic - what a pity......

 

[tigger]

Yes, a fine bit of spec fishing, tigger and bloody well done with the barbel!

I keep thinking about that 'monster' dace, though. No actual weight or pic - what a pity......

Thanks Tee Cee, I was stood mid river when I had that large dace but I could have taken it to the bank for a pic if i'd wanted one, can't post pic's now so pointless anyhow. I have prolly had more than my fair share of monster dace....just lucky to have the waters with them present as they arn't hard to catch. I didn't weigh it but having caught a lot i'd say it was a pound, give or take an ounce or two.

 

[103841]

I’m convinced today’s session was affected by the World Cup!

All will become clear (or not). A trip to Stonar for a days Rudd fishing, a grey start to the day and refreshingly cooler

The Rudd were feeding from the start with some plump pound plus coming to the net.

Had a stonking roach too, I’d say a pb but I’m thinking it’s a hybrid?

Ah yes the World Cup. The lake was surprisingly quiet with few if any of the regular carpers bivvied up and I think it no co-incidence that unlike any previous visit I got broken up five times by rogue carp gatecrashing the Rudd party, managed to land two of them, a tight squeeze in my Map match net!

They rarely come in so close due to the amount of feed that is launched out into the depths on a regular basis but with the carpers absent they zoomed in on whatever bait I used.

Maybe also be the reason I couldn’t find any of the larger specimen Rudd, still managed forty three according to my Rudd counter.

 

[barbelboi]

As much as I like the hot weather we’re having I don’t particularly enjoy fishing in it – so I didn’t.

With today slightly cooler I ventured over the fields for a couple of hours stream fishing for roach. Although the river/stream water here is pretty much normal depth for the time of year, even though we’ve had no rain for weeks (mind you we seem to miss out on most of the rain anyway), there is the usual lack of flow and very little colour (the pic of the fish was taken with a zoom into about 5' of water). It was back to stalking the fish with plenty of bank side vegetation for cover. Bait was (slowly)trotted 50/50 flake, fished from 10-2pm covering around a mile of water for 15 roach (and none 'bumped off'):wink-new:.



I’ve been talked it to some more stalking onThursday (if the weather is no hotter than the 26C that is forecast – otherwiseit’s beer on the patio in the shade watching the 0DI) this time for some carpoff the top from a local gravel pit..............

 

[jimlad]

A couple of river swale barbel over last few days. Caught on float, feeding caster and hemp. Not had one on the float before, so very pleased with results so far






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sam vimes]

Well found, Jim. Once you've found somewhere that they live, you're laughing. I've yet to find hide nor hair of a barbel on my usual bits of the Swale. Just seeing any fish, other than minnows, is a bit of a challenge. Ridiculously low levels and masses of snotty green stuff is not good news. If work lets up I may have to take a trip a bit further downstream. I know at least one place I have access to that will be clean and have a bit of flow.

 

[mikench]

I had a plan and it involved the same venue, tares and the pursuit of roach! I suppose 2 out of 3 isn't too bad!

View attachment 5137

I decided I might as well have the same peg as it was effectively prebaited! It was hot though and shade disappears around midday!

I caught 17 roach with non smaller than this;

View attachment 5138

Several were bigger and this was the best at just up under 1.5lb!

View attachment 5139

Sadly not a one was interested in hemp or tares despite my best efforts! 6mm expanders were the dish of the day! I even had a couple of carp which went into the lily pads and were lost! I had 4lb main line, 2lb hooklink and a size 18 hook so not a surprise! It is amazing however how a hooked carp can become a hooked clump of lily pads. They must have been taught magic by David Copperfield.

All in all an enjoyable day which I terminated before I cooked.

 

[wetthrough]

Sadly not a one was interested in hemp or tares despite my best efforts!

Nice fish Mike I'll post a write up for yesterday later but I was fishing maybe 90yds away on the opposite side from where I was picking Roach up all day with Tares a few weeks ago. Couldn't get any interest in Tares at all yesterday

 

[wetthrough]

Fished the Dam again Yesterday. With the temperature dropping I decided to fish the West side. Overhanging trees left and right so I would be in the shade most of the day although the water should get some sun early on. Started fishing around 5:30 at about 20M in 63" of water. Couple of loose balls of groundbait and 4 solid balls on the bottom, hopefully. Somewhat overcast and not much wind meant it wasn't going to be hard work on the float although it did get a bit blustery on odd occasions.

It's unusual to see Kingfishers more than once, maybe twice in a day on the Dam but they were busy all morning but too far away to get pics. Great to see though.



I almost always start by hooking a maggot just to see if there's anything there at all and true to form out comes a tiddler. At least there are fish there. I seemed to have to keep changing baits. I'd pick some OK fish up then it would go quiet, change bait and pick some more up and it carried on like that all day. Some nice Roach, the biggest being about 12oz. I didn't take a picture. I had such a hard time getting the hook out I decided it had been stressed enough and didn't want to keep it out of the water any longer. It was hooked just inside the mouth but must have been in the bone and was absolutely solid. I had to use the pliers in the end. dropped to a 16s when it went quiet around midday. I could see there were other fish feeding as there were bubbles coming up in the feed area but they weren't interested in corn, maggots, bread, Tares or some soft pellets I had with me. I don't usually take meat to the Dam but just as as I was leaving home I decided to grab a chunk from the freezer - about 1/8th of a small tin. Popped a piece on that was way to big for the hook and out came a skimmer, I think.



Sorry, poor picture I couldn't get any shade over it.

Hybrid maybe? Two more followed along with 4 or 5 Perch at various times through the day. Only one of which came to a bunch of dead maggots. Perch on corn??

It could be my imagination but as sun moved round casting a shadow across and in front of me the fish seemed to move out with it. I kept having to cast beyond it to get bites until it got so far out I couldn't reach but by that time it's around 4:30pm and I'm ready for home anyway.

Happy days

[Edit] Nearly forgot - it rained for about 30 seconds

 

[thecrow]

Tuesday was forecast to be cooler but the temp on the car gauge said 12 degrees when I left home at 04-45, I took some stronger tackle with me with the intention of having a bash at some of the carp that did me last time while I was tenching.

Started as usual by feeding hemp, corn and meat catching roach and bream before the first tench turned up, in the next 4 hours I had 9 tench amongst the other fish most around 3lbs it then went dead, as there were lots of carp about I decided to pack the tench stuff away and set the heavier stuff I had taken with the intention of fishing for the carp, 6lbs straight through on a pin to an 8s using biggish cubes ( 3/4") on a rod that Steve gave me that should be up to the job float was a 3 ssg waggler with an ssg 6 inches from the hook.

This set up had only been in the water for 10 mins and as I was messing with something else out of the corner of my eye I saw the float slide away and the line tighten to the rod, struck felt the fish but it wasn't a carp it was a tench, 4 more followed in the next hour all on the same set up

No carp but I did see a large common again that came by me that I estimate is high 20s, I was surprised that I caught the tench on tackle meant for carp but I learned something about the tench so I came away happy, I will be taking the heavier stuff next time i go there,its a bit awkward casting from that swim as there are trees each side and a high bank behind me, the water is 12ft deep so I got round this by fishing a slider.

One thing I did notice was that the tench didn't fight as hard as they normally do on my mach 3, I don't know if its down to the hot weather, the water is deep and the club have been using pumps around the lake to aerate the water so there shouldn't be low oxygen levels.

 

[peter crabtree]

With a welcome dip in the daytime temperature yesterday I decided to have a practice on the venue for tomorrow's old codgers match.
A nice shady pound near Hemel.

There were loads of juvenile chub on the top at 9am when i arrived.
What a difference from my last visit when we had to break ice to fish..

Started pinging hemp as I set up my 3bb waggler with just 2no10 and 1 no11 shot as droppers to an 18 b511.

The chub immediately started taking my tare on the drop and it was hectic for the first hour. No roach at all?

Most were about 6 to 8" long but fought like demons.

They soon disappeared so I changed to maggot across to the far bank in search of their parents. After feeding heavily with maggots some quality roach showed and some chunky gudgeon.

By 1am I packed up and went home to prepare for the evening match at Tring.

Drew for the evening session and found myself on a feature peg.

I do like a nice bush to stick my pole in...

Fished punch tight to the bush for the entire 3 hours for small roach a chuck and hoping for a bream but it didn't happen.
Weighed in 3lb:4 for nowhere and was toppled from my lead in the league for the first time in the series

 

[Redeemed]

The lad and myself went to one of our usual haunts today, and whilst I can't speak for the lad I found that certain things are beginning to fall in place.

We didn't get on our favourite pond so settled for one we hadn't fished which also offered some nice shade.

Both started on the method, being aside the huge aerator made the float a no-no and like everyone along the bank we weren't getting a sniff.

No problem, go up to favourite pond, manage to find 2 non adjacent pegs but not before a toothless expert informed me loudly that I should be fishing "mayte" (meat) on the previous pond and our lack of action meant we were doing it wrong. Right.

He declined my offer to swap pegs and give me a lesson so we set up and get to it. Float is pointless, you just get mithered endlessly by fry so on to the method and pellet feeder it is.

So - what did I learn?

Well I'm getting more confident with my casting the method, a lot less anxious and that helps a lot with accuracy.

My striking can be a bit Jack Douglas but again that's anxiousness in the heat of the moment, I'm getting calmer every time.

I'm also getting more confident playing fish and landing them, not dragging them out but not fannying about either.

The fishing was good, for us anyway, and we fished the arse off the expert next to us whose head dropped lower and lower when my lad pulled in a succession of crucians and large roach

As the afternoon wore on and the bites slowed I started to seed the margins, something I've never done before, with some skrill pellets.

Soon as I then dropped the method in the margin the rod bent and nice roach were almost queing up to take the bait.

I alternated each side, fish one seed the other and then it happened and I learnt my hardest lesson.

Something took my bait, the rod bent and before I could say "why didn't I engage the bait runner, or at least the front drag?" it snapped 8lb reel line and took off with my hybrid method feeder in a split second.

There are some big fish in there including double figure carp and some tasty barbel and chub but due to the weather and the sheer amount of weed you rarely see them, and today I managed to lure one out unwittingly.

Won't make the same mistake next time



Never mind, we caught plenty

 

[mikench]

I do like a nice bush to stick my pole in...

There's no answer to that ! At least it didn't stop you fishing!

 

[mikench]

y 1am I packed up and went home to prepare for the evening match at Tring.

It's in Moscow Peter!

 

[binka]

I’ve had several relatively brief sessions since my last report and in the main they’ve been spur of the moment affairs which haven’t involved much of a plan, I think the heat has drained my motivation somewhat.

A couple of points of interest, the first being a Perch session where I sat under the shade of the brolly for several hours throughout the afternoon whilst temperatures nudged thirty degrees, I was biteless until the sun dipped over the top of the banking just before dusk and I then took three fish in three casts, all comfortably over the 2lb mark and all falling to floatfished worm right under the rod tip.

They all gave a good account of themselves but especially so the last one and the reason why I think I didn’t have any more in the remaining few minutes of dusk.

I then took the newly made Driftbeaters out to test them on a large water where there is always a good amount of tow and that too was a quiet affair.

The float sat very nicely though…



I had to wait until last knockings before the very aggressively shotted float, with 5 BB bulked around 3” from the hook, shot up and out of the water like a Polaris and this resulted in a worm snaffling Carp.

Not the best picture, it belies the fading light but it was job done on the floats…




It's noticeably cooler today so circumstances permitting I might have a few hours this afternoon into evening... :w

 

[maggot_dangler]

Well been quite busy recently so not a lot of fishing going on or posting for that matter

Thought i would have an mooch around part of my local canal not fished (no tow path) any how part of it is on the side of the estate i live on about 2 mins walk from the door so traveld light rod landing net rod and a few bits + maggots . found a patch with a nice concealed bit over a 2 foot or so fence so even i can stride that one bingo looks like it has never been fished so make my self a bit of space lots of over head obstructions so out with the dropshotting rod & reel attached a 4gram float and a 10 hook bunch of assorted maggots and in we go,, WELLLLLllllll bang away it goes perch huge dang thing maybe 4.5 to 5 lbs . anyhow i spent a couple of hours there and perc of that calibre just kept coming must have had 20 of them but heres the rub fish the self same spot from the Tow Path across the cut and all you get is tiddlers work that one out neeedless to say i have been a frequent visitor to that spot .

Fished the club comp last night for second place big problem there were flying ants around the fish wanted them and nowt else death knell to a comp them flying critters ...


PG...

 

[mikench]

An interesting day in as much as my levels of incompetence reached new heights!!

I returned to the day ticket water on my club card and by arrangement met up with Gordon( wetthrough ) for a chat about my Korum chair and for Gordon to have a look and a sit down in situé so to speak! I chose this peg which would not look out of place in a Japanese garden!

View attachment 5150

I finished setting up when Gordon left me to it but was disrupted by a lengthy call from er indoors who , blissfully, is in France, but who can still phone me! It was my duty to listen to 45 minutes of wittering before I claimed I had a large fish on the line which I had to deal with and so à bientôt !!

I finally started fishing at around 8.30 and fished my 8' bomb rod with the 1/2oz tip I broke about 2 weeks ago adapted by me ( badly it turned out) and a small feeder! It didn't feel right so I decided to cut my losses and replace the tip! I detached the rig and rewound the line back to the spigot, attached the new tip to the top half of the rod and fed the line back through! The incompetence bit involved passing the line through the next eye again thus creating a loop! No wonder my casting became abysmal but to the naked eye ( mine at least) the problem wasn't easily recognisable ! I nearly packed up, broke the rod and cast the reel into the depths!! Anyway I replaced the reel( an Okuma baitrunner for lightness) for my Shimano 2500dl and correctly threaded the line and never looked back! Quite why I persisted with a cheap reel when I had the the Shimano I'll never know! It will be given to a worthy recipient!

I ended up with 19 fish mainly crucians then F1's, skimmers and carp! This is a pic of a typical crucian of about 12 oz for Mark Wintle to observe and approve as a true crucian or otherwise!

View attachment 5151

You know what Gordon I might just go back tomorrow!!

 

[wetthrough]

I'm glad I wasn't around when all that was happening. You can blame me for distracting you. Good haul in the end though

 

[103841]

Nice fish Mike but where’s the 10lb Tench?

 

[mikench]

Gordon any poise and finesse I may have disappeared completely and I felt an idiot! I know I can be but this morning was exceptional ! I blame er indoors and my sister ( who also rang) for distracting me and upsetting the delicate rhythm of my setting up process!!!:wh