How did you get on?

[Tee-Cee]

I well remember watching 'fishermen' (3/4 of them) on the beach outside Folkestone towards Hythe dragging any number of mackerel out on multi hook rigs time after time, and just leaving them to rot on the pebbles. They took some away, but it looked as though they were only intent on catching as many as possible with never a thought of putting them back! M.ust've been huge shoals close to the shore

I did think about taking some home but having seen raw sewage along that coastline close to the shore, I didn't really fancy it............This was 20+ years ago and the sea is probably pristine these days??

 

[no-one in particular]

I well remember watching 'fishermen' (3/4 of them) on the beach outside Folkestone towards Hythe dragging any number of mackerel out on multi hook rigs time after time, and just leaving them to rot on the pebbles. They took some away, but it looked as though they were only intent on catching as many as possible with never a thought of putting them back! M.ust've been huge shoals close to the shore

I did think about taking some home but having seen raw sewage along that coastline close to the shore, I didn't really fancy it............This was 20+ years ago and the sea is probably pristine these days??

The sea will be cleaner these days as sewage treatment has improved but maybe not pristine! more likely to be micro plastic these days. I have seen mackerel land themselves on that beach along that stretch as they over-chase the whitebait but that was many years ago as well. Unlikely to see that these days or only in small numbers. Shoals could be huge once but these days if they turn up usually small shoals and smaller fish as well, what the nets don't get in my opinion. As to the blokes you saw, well, bad anglers, I have seen similar occasionally myself. Bad anglers in all branches of the sport I am afraid but most are not.

 

[103841]

PS, winds dropped my way and the sea is clearing out nicely, you could be good for a spot of lure bass fishing again.

Yes a lot calmer than the onshore breeze yesterday. Spoke with a couple of locals that gave me some sound advice and I’ve also been swatting up on tides, neap,flood etc., all new for a townie like me! Going to explore a new mark later today.

 

[Pete Shears]

Just back from a week in Devon at a very private lake chasing very cute and wary carp.Absolutely sweltering for the first two days and as the lake is surrounded by massive beech & oak trees the fish just live for sun and follow it throughout the day but are careful to only bask where it is impossible to cast to them,they were lying motionless,head slightly higher or playing follow my leader up & down etc etc.One tried head butting my mixer bait but that was as good as it got.Still had 11 fish to 14lb 8oz on bottom baits,one being a pristine wildie of 8lb 12oz.Up to eight moorhen chicks with one adult prowling around me expecting food,kingfishers settling on the rods to attack marginal fry,ravens kronking and noisy jays and nuthatches.when it warmed up in the morning you could hear the jungle buzz - millions of things with wings & teeth flying through the woods.Nearly got away with a week in Devon without getting wet - until the last afternoon with a barrowful of gear on the track through the woods when torrential rain hit for 45 minutes.Going back in early September for some more brain baffling fishing.

 

[thecrow]

Club water again today, I only took 6mm low oil pellets as feed along with some cubes of the salt dried spam I did yesterday and some 14mm halibuts.

Slow start very slow compared to when I use meat, hemp and corn as feed, must have been fishing for a couple of hours before the first bite came along which proved to be a small Tench. Continued feeding pellet (each time I did those Mallard chicks came scurrying over to take those they could reach) mostly using the meat as hook bait trying the halibuts every half hour or so.

Ended up with 8 Tench to around 3lbs all to meat, no Carp again but I am determined to get one on the float from there might just be a case of waiting for one to come along with the Tench. The large common that I have seen 3 times visited again along with 2 mates having the cheek to feed on spilled pellets right in front of me.

Just a bit on that salted and air dried meat, it was very tough and didn't rehydrate as I thought it would, could be just the job for the hair when the rivers are in better condition.

 

[mikench]

I have found meat coated in a glug such as F1 or left alone to be most successful! When it dries out in the heat and becomes hard it is, seemingly , less palatable to the fish! Mind you that's mho and not the fishes!

 

[Tee-Cee]

crow...I did read in an old Walker book many moons ago that he caught carp that patrolled the margins (I think where small fish attacked the bait..) by having his longish rod suspended out over the water with the bait wound up to the tip, and when he could hear/see the carp approaching he would carefully lower the bait onto the water with bale arm open (no baitrunners back then!) and wait for the line to start running out!
Can't see any reason why it shouldn't work in daylight if you have carp close by..........


ps Time may well have 'embellished' the above account but the essence is sort of correct, I feel...


pps I tried it once with a baitrunner, but nearly lost the rod as the line wouldn't run quickly enough!!

 

[stillwater blue]

A parcel from AGM arrived containing some new toys so I set off for a relatively deep lake to jig for perch. The wind proved too strong and I couldn't keep in touch with a 5g jig head, so plan B was put into operation and I headed off for a tree line stretch of river close by.



I was surprised at how much the river had dropped since I last fished it but I guess with the weather I shouldn't be that surprised. It was still hot and bright so I fished into the shade under the trees, most of bites came as the lure was dropping or within the first few turns of the handle but the fishing was hardly prolific.

Walking down the river I ended up in a slightly deeper pool where the river narrowed, I changed over to a pink and chartreuse wee paddle tail and it was a bite a chuck for ten minutes from mini zander.

 

[103841]

The size of that tail in relation to the mini sized body of the zander!

 

[neil1970]

I went down to Poole Quay with a couple of mates on Saturday.
The fishing wasn't as good as what it has been, but still had an enjoyable day.

 

[peter crabtree]

Fished the evening series match tonight on the Wendover arm alongside the flour mill factory in Tring. A cool and pleasant evening but the industrial noise from the machinery and huge fans opposite was rather imposing...

A very shallow stretch of canal, at best 3' deep and clear in the margins, plus me perched on a high bank didn't bode well. Set up a little 2no1 Stillwater blue waggler with strung out no10's and no11 droppers for a slow falling bait, punch.
Had some nice roach, and lost a few too in the first half hour before the local catamaran ( 2 canoes lashed together rowed by 4 robust women) crashed through .
No more bites for at least an hour.
Picked up a few more roach between 8:30 and 9 when the all out sounded.
Having been dislodged from the top of the league last week the match was won by the same angler again tonight so he's now about 5 points clear at the top, ( I came nowhere with 1:11 ) hopefully I'll remain in 2nd place helped by my having the biggest overall weight as some are on equal points to me...
2 more to go...

 

[Another Dave]

Lovely pics neil, did you get them on isome worms or some other lure? Must remember to take some ferrero rocher containers when i next go sea fishing.

pc, that's a great pic too. We're all rootin' for you as the appointed FM matchman. Might i suggest dropping a few decent sized cubes of luncheon meat in the clear margins. I realise our respective venues are quite different but when i've been out chubbing i've been fascinated by the way minnows try a futile nibble, then dace and roach and then perch or trout start coming to have a look at what all the fuss is about.

 

[wetthrough]

On the WA Mill Pool yesterday. The water's gone up a bit from 33 to 34.5". Probably due to the heavy rain the night before but there's an algal bloom developing - not good. I got up late and didn't start fishing until about 8am. Bites were hard to come by but got about 15 half decent Roach through the day, the biggest being about 9oz. Most successful bait being corn. Even caught a couple of good sized ones with corn on the drop which surprised me a bit. There were some feeding bubbles around the float on a couple of occasions but no interest. Tricky getting a maggot past the tiddlers and down to the bottom but I did manage on a few occasions by feeding a pouch of casters to the side and quickly casting. It was bit frantic and on this occasion didn't achieve much. No interest in bread whatsoever which had been really successful on a previous occasion and still no interest in Tares. There were some big bruisers cruising around and ingnoring me, thankfully. I might stand a chance of landing them in snag free water but I was fairly close to a patch of what someone called arrowheads, not sure of the proper name - no chance.

 

[neil1970]

Lovely pics neil, did you get them on isome worms or some other lure? Must remember to take some ferrero rocher containers when i next go sea fishing.

pc, that's a great pic too. We're all rootin' for you as the appointed FM matchman. Might i suggest dropping a few decent sized cubes of luncheon meat in the clear margins. I realise our respective venues are quite different but when i've been out chubbing i've been fascinated by the way minnows try a futile nibble, then dace and roach and then perch or trout start coming to have a look at what all the fuss is about.

Hi dave, yep all on isome - we tried metals in the evening, with no joy.

 

[barbelboi]

I decided to take a stroll over the fields for a short roach session on one of the local streams. Fished from 10-2pm trotting 50/50 from wherever I could drop a line over the bank side vegetation with reasonable access to the water. Lots of roach about this size but couldn’t locate anything larger today....................

 

[mikench]

Not well! It was very overcast early doors and stayed that way all day! The sun threatened to break through but never quite made it although the heat it generated did! Oh I do wish the fish would indicate which part of the day they were going to feed and not let me hang around for hours in hope!

I had a carp at 8.30am then nothing until 3.00 pm when this chap arrived to cheer me up!
View attachment 5188

A couple of his mates also turned up so I packed up reasonably content! There is always tomorrow!

 

[thecrow]

A shirt sleeve early morning start again, I took my mobility scooter with me ( it breaks down and fits in the car boot) so that I could venture a bit further than I normally can, I settled on a swim with large bushes extending well out over the water to the right of it.

The usual hemp corn and meat went in with a piece of meat impaled onto an 8s to 6lbs Maxima straight through from a pin, depth was 10ft.

Confidence was boosted by the sight of a mid double mirror head and shouldering next to my float and seeing 3 others emerge from beneath the bush I was fishing next to, wasn't to be though (again) first bite was a Tench followed by nothing other than the odd lift and dip from small stuff at the bait, wrong swim choice perhaps or maybe the warm overcast weather bringing them all to the top.

I meant to ask the bailiff about surface baits but forgot again :doh: I have looked at rules in my book and on signs around the fishery and can't find anything about them.

I am sure if it wasn't for those bloody Mallard chicks I could catch one from the margins but they find everything and dive down to it, I don't want to hook one.

What was it Baldrick said about cunning plans well I have one that doesn't involve turnips and will maybe be out on Friday to give it a go, it will involve the scooter again though I don't care if it looks daft it gets me where I want to be

 

[Tee-Cee]

Well, I bit the bullet this morning and with complete disregard of aches and pains I set off for a session of indeterminable length on a small still water. What I found on arrival was a sorry looking water with levels well down compared to two weeks ago. Everything looked dry and dusty and was more reminiscent of a drought pool in darkest Africa, and I've seen a few of those!

No matter, I chose a swim that I could reach easily (and more importantly get back to the car, from) and would give both me and my swim, constant shade. As is my wont at this time of year I fished hemp and tares at various depths, chopping and changing from one side of the swim to the other, if bites dropped away. I found the water to be very warm, (hardly surprising!) and bites very finicky, despite going down to a 20 for the small grains of hemp, but I did mange somewhere between 15/20 roach, mostly swingers, with perhaps one matching that shown on bb's post.

Come 10am said aches and pains started up and over the next hour grew steadily worse so I gave it best at eleven. ...

It was really good to be out again and well worth the effort of rising at 04.30. Just a pity I couldn't manage another couple of hours.

All being well I will venture out again on Friday. I keep looking at the calendar and thinking these early morns are no going to last forever, so I have to see past the discomfort and just go for it!!

ps I've had a large foam 'wedge' made for my seat (by UK Foam in a day) which has the effect of raising my butt above my knees to hopefully help me sit with better posture, and this it did perfectly this morning. Unfortunately, it made not a blind bit of difference to the pain.................so back to the drawing board, I'm afraid!

 

[maggot_dangler]

Well .
Bits and pieces here and there recently came 2nd in the last club comp nothing to write home about 2.5lb of skimmers . I fished a canal i have not fished for a time a few days ago for some small roach and skimmers , was on my new fave spot monday night some more decent Perch and Bream nothing major big but worthwhile all the same i was getting rapid pulls reel in no maggot no matter what i tried same result i sat watching the water for a few mins then noticed 2 white stripes moving spaced about 3.5 " apart dropped a hook with a single maggot right in front of it bang DANG Signal Crayfish then i started watching the place is over run with them Cray fish cookout anyone i dont think it would take too long to fill a few traps judging by what i had seen .
Now the dilema do i put back or splat and leave out not sure .. ?

PG ...

 

[peter crabtree]

Don't put them back dead or alive, it is against the law.

You can search FM and find out all about it on numerous crayfish threads...