How did you get on?

[lakhyaman]

Edited to show the images

 

[mikench]

Very nice post Lakhyaman ! Would those little fish be similar to what are known as Bombay Duck?

 

[lakhyaman]

Mikench

Bombay duck is made by sun drying the Lizardfish, Harpadon nehereus, a sea fish. But a sundried version of the Punti is available. A version of belachan is also made from it.

All the best

Lakhyaman

 

[peter crabtree]

My neighbour and I went to our usual Saturday morning haunt today, arriving around 8am. I hoped yesterday's rain may have speeded up the flow on this canalised river Gade pound, but it was plodding along as normal...

11' ultralight and waggler today with punch, plenty of liquy bread soon got the skimmers and roach going. There's something really satisfying watching a float gently glide along in a slow flow before bobbing under, I never seem to tire from it.
Later I upped to an 18 hook and tried worm across in the shallows close to a sunken willow, hooked a big perch, which I seem to do regularly here and promptly lost it, which seems to happen every time too..

Packed up after a few more roach on the punch at 2pm, then off to buy some fresh maggots for tomorrow on the Thames..

 

[tigger]

Re: How did you get on

In Bangladesh,if any depression in the ground is filled by the rains for three weeks or so it gets seeded with fish fry as if by magic. There will be no connection to another water but the fish will appear.

The usual culprits are the various members of the genus Puntius, most commonly Puntius sophore or the Spotfin Swamp Barb. It is much prized as a food fish though it rarely grows beyond 5-6 cm. and I have to admit that I too am quite partial to it. Cleaned, spiced and fried to a biscuit, it can be popped into one's mouth, chewed and eaten bones and all and makes a fine accompaniment to a single malt.

The home pool (50x40yd hole), like any other pool of water, has become well seeded by any manner of small wild fish including our friend Puntius.

Tiring of catching and releasing the various major Indian Carps (as the larger Indian cyprinids are called), hard fighters and shy biters though they are, Otith Molla and I turned our thoughts to the plentiful "Punti" or Spotfin Swamp Barb. That I had just been gifted with a bottle of Aberfeldy single malt, some 18 years of age, was entirely incidental.

Two 5 weight fly rods, with two mono filled fly reels, two little 2no.4 Drennan crystal wagglers above a micro swivel, a .15 mm hook length of 18 inches, a Drennan super specialist size 16 hook, was the set up. A single no.1 shot two inches above the hook cocked the float. Bait was a bb sized blob of bread paste spiked with ants eggs.

One does not need to fish either far or deep. A foot and a half was all that was needed for depth.

It was a bite a chuck for the Punti is a bold biter. A gentle strike when the float sails away after a couple of bobs does the job. But you will still miss a few.

View attachment 5367
Punti or Spotfin Swamp Barb (Puntius sophore)

It was not long before another self seeded interloper put in an appearance.

View attachment 5368
Bronze Featherback (Notopterus notopterus).

The Bronze Featherback is not a large fish but is quite the predator. It builds a nest to breed and will give you a painful nip if you wade near the nest! The Punti are school fish and will crowd around a bait, fry and adults all together. No doubt this had attracted the little hooligan.

Otith's rod suddenly took on a mighty curve

View attachment 5369

only for him to be smashed in the marginal weed as one of the larger fish made its presence felt.

An upgrade was required, so we replaced the hook length with some 0.16 braid and a size 12 hook. Since the original mono on the fly reels was 12 lb test we thought we were good to go.

View attachment 5366
The final rig

So it proved.

View attachment 5370
Rohu

While fish up to 8lbs kept getting in the way, an hour and a half saw us with a bag of well over fifty Punti in a well aerated bucket. The fly rods, with their endless curves, and a lightly set drag on the reels, slowly but surely brought the larger fish to bay.

Otith immediately separated forty or so Punti into a placcy bag and left me with about a dozen. He declared that was a fine fifty-fifty division, having obviously failed in maths. He took his home, as is his privilege, I released mine, single malt notwithstanding.

All the best

Lakhyaman

Great pic's and write up Lanky !

 

[tigger]

Re: How did you get on

Just got back from a short dace trotting session, had a few but not nearly as many as I expected. Strangely it seemed like the rainwater had slowed them down! The surface of the river was strewn with what appeared to be oil or petrol or similar, no idea if that had affected the fishing or not but it didn't look good and I gave my reel and rod a good cleaning off with wet ones at the end of the session!
Even so I did have a good few dace and a number of very decent ones amongst them. All the fish where swung to hand using my 12ft ccolyte carp waggler rod. Some of the dace must have been 12 ounces and the tip of the rod held up ok as I lifted them from the water and swung them back to my hand....nowt wrong with that tip gents ......yet .

 

[thecrow]

Edited to show the images

Thank you they were worth the wait, those bronze featherbacks are a strange creature

 

[thecrow]

The surface of the river was strewn with what appeared to be oil or petrol or similar

Possibly all the **** from the dry roads that had been washed in upstream?

 

[john step]

Edited to show the images

Those PUNTI have got to be related to our ROACH???

 

[S-Kippy]

Re: How did you get on

Just got back from a short dace trotting session, had a few but not nearly as many as I expected. Strangely it seemed like the rainwater had slowed them down! The surface of the river was strewn with what appeared to be oil or petrol or similar, no idea if that had affected the fishing or not but it didn't look good and I gave my reel and rod a good cleaning off with wet ones at the end of the session!
Even so I did have a good few dace and a number of very decent ones amongst them. All the fish where swung to hand using my 12ft ccolyte carp waggler rod. Some of the dace must have been 12 ounces and the tip of the rod held up ok as I lifted them from the water and swung them back to my hand....nowt wrong with that tip gents ......yet .

Are you serious ? Swinging 12oz fish to hand ?

 

[tigger]

Re: How did you get on

Are you serious ? Swinging 12oz fish to hand ?

Had to test the rod tip somehow!

 

[tigger]

Possibly all the **** from the dry roads that had been washed in upstream?

My thoughs at the time Graham.
Although the sewage wprks up the road may have been responsible as I didn't see any of it up beyong the works.

 

[lakhyaman]

Those PUNTI have got to be related to our ROACH???

In so much as they are cyprinids I suppose.

 

[The Runner]

Had a few hours on Loch Portree yesterday, nice tide with high water about 8pm, so went and dug myself about 30 lug with a few bonus white ragworm which reckoned would be enough for a five hour session with two rods, given that the loch at this time of year doesn't seem to produce anything requiring big baits.
The bait store...
View attachment 5372

Home for a bite to eat, and to check the Newcastle score, and then a mile walk out past the Black Rock to the chosen spot. Boat moored in swim...
View attachment 5373
Set up 1.75tc barbel rod for a 50 to 60 yard chuck, can hold bottom here easily with an ounce at most and 13' Normark Multitip for close in to the rocks (about ten ft deep at low tide)
Rapidly became clear that wouldn't have enough worm. Loch Slapin was overrun with baby coalfish the other day, it was baby cod here. They were mostly a bit bigger than this one, but not much.
View attachment 5374
Tip rattling within seconds of bait hitting bottom on the close in line, so binned this off and concentrated on further out where better chance of larger fish. As tide rose, started to get a lot of loose weed rolling through on the bottom well out so started dropping shorter, 30 yards or so, on Multitip with three quarter ounce bomb And after another couple of codettes (must have had about 25 in all) had a much better bite which resulted in this chunky little wrasse
View attachment 5375
which was followed in quick succession by three more, one of them a little bigger before it went quiet again and after another little codling and a stray whiting, ran out of bait just before high water.

Certainly kept busy.

 

[no-one in particular]

Float fished a couple of lug-worms of the jetty for a couple of hours, not a squeak. The sea was choppy and cloudy hence the lug worms, most of the jetty to myself except a dozen anglers on the end so searched a lot of sea right up to the shore almost, the other anglers not a squeak either; some were feathering some were bait fishing hard on the bottom. Nice bass-ish sea and I did catch one small one last year fishing like this and I like float fishing but not today. I missed the mackerel a few days ago as well, typical; there before and after but missed the main event; they will come back and I will have some fish before the summers out. It does not matter, its a short walk for me, rods always made up and a packet of bait costs £2.75 so catch or not, nothing lost and always nice to be out.

 

[103841]

Is it pot luck when the mackerel “come in” or are particular conditions required Mark?

 

[no-one in particular]

Is it pot luck when the mackerel “come in” or are particular conditions required Mark?

It tends to be when the sea is flat and clear like we had a few days ago S63 but today the wind has been up for a couple of days and the sea was cloudy and choppy, that's why I didn't bother trying for mackerel. I knew they were about a few days ago as I saw a Chinese bloke unloading two buckets of them out of the boot of his car down the road from me and a mate also told me they had been catching plenty but, I couldn't fish those days. The blokes feathering for all their worth today hadn't had one which I was not surprised really; you do sometimes catch them in a murky sea but generally not very good. A couple of hours either side of high water usually best as well. A storm laden calm sky and clear sea in the evening, when everything seems silent before the storm coupled with high water is a prime time as well.
So today I still float fished but wafted a couple of lug-worm around near the bottom and over some rock close by hoping for a bass or anything else that came along. Sometimes bass come very close in to the beach liking the waves breaking right near the shoreline along the wall, they like the oxygenated water so I dabbled all along the wall.

 

[bracket]

My daughter and son in law came down from the Midlands for a visit this week. That, in simple terms means they ate all my food, drunk all my ale and helped me spend my coin. I loved it. Come Thursday Chris wanted to fish, but nothing taxing, so I took him to Todber Manor Farm, first time he's been. I just wanted a lazy day so fished the "splodger", Chris fished the waggle on his 15ft Acolyte. To cut a long story short, what should have been a nice laid back day with my son in law turned out to be a carp bash, which is OK once in a while I suppose. We fished four hours. I had 71 carp to seven pound and 4 tench

Chris had 51carp and 3 tench. I finished the session with back ache, bum ache and a dead right shoulder. Chris had to have 3 hours kip when we got back to my drum(lightweight) l had a shower and a shave and was ready to rock and roll. Chris and Ann took me and my Lady for a meal, by way of a thank you and Chris made a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to get me bladdered. So a pretty good day around and when I finally turned in I "dint need no rocking". Pete

 

[peter crabtree]

Club fixture today on the Thames in deepest Oxfordshire. My peg was on a high bank on the inside of a sweeping bend.

Set up a cage feeder rod and a 15' float rod.
Plumbing up with my usual big sliding waggler I was surprised by how shallow it was. Casting out 30 yds it was only 4' deep? Hmm inside a bend, oh yes. Scrapped that and changed to a small crystal waggler taking 3AAA, 20b511 to 2lb bottom.
At the off at 10am I chucked the feeder as far across as I could in search of the deeper water, maggots smashed by bleak and chublets before I could put the rod in the rest. Chucked that up the bank and got the tares out. Balled it with VDE dark roach groundbait and cattying hemp . Out on the waggler and I was soon into quality roach, the bites were mainly on the drop. Elderberries also worked well. Missed a lot of bites as is common on this method but put together a nice net of roach.
Packed up at 3'oclock and walked along to my nearest fellow angler who informed me the match actually finishes at 4pm.mg:
Damn I said or something similar, I could have had another couple of pounds in that hour...
After what seemed like an age the scalesman eventually arrived at 4:45. I had 8lb:4oz of pristine roach with a few dace and chublets too.

Winner had 14lb10, bream and perch on the feeder.
2nd had 10lb mixed bag of skimmers and roach on hemp and tares waggler.
Surprisingly, despite only fishing 5 hours, I came 3rd..

12 fished.

 

[103841]

That’s a double whammy for Peters today. Finishing a match an hour too early and the poor Salpeter pulling up a lap early in the 5000 metres.