How did you get on?

[103841]

Nice one Ralph, good luck on Monday.:thumbs:

 

[fishplate42]

Nice one Ralph, good luck on Monday.:thumbs:

Thanks John,

It might be a bit easier to fish on Monday, as some of the overhanging branches have no been cleared. Later this month, the trees are going to be polarded as they are in danger of falling or shedding branches into the river. That will make the fishing much easier. On Monday, we are going to have to repair one of the wooden jetties before we can fish as the end of it has rotted. We have now removed the ladders as well, as these were putting a lot of strain on the structure and nobody uses them.

I plan to try a spot of ledgering and to try the Polaris floats again, now it is possible to make a decent cast. I will post some pictures.

Ralph.

 

[103841]

Do these Polaris floats work well in rivers with tow and currents Ralph?

Sounds like Tim’s Swim is coming along nicely, whose going to be chopping the trees, the EA? It’s nice to have room to cast a longer rod but at the same time are you losing valuebale cover for the fish?

Still waiting for an invite.

 

[Another Dave]

Nice going Ralph.

Pretty sure i use the exact same Dinsmores net and the same lightweight telescopic handle as you.

 

[108831]

Arrived late after having to visit a tackle shop for maggots and a replacement rod rest,one car there,I walked up and when I reached the swim a guy was standing there with his gear still not set up,having a chat with him he said he was of a good mind to go as the river was so weedy,I slowly meandered upstream looking back to see him go,I went back and fed a fair few handfuls of hemp and regular doses of maggot,after an hour I stopped feeding and crept to a vantage point and watched,nothing.......after half an hour a few small chub came out,after an hour I saw a barbel right under the far bank,not to be seen again for another hour,I went upstream and fed another swim with hemp and lowered a feeder full of maggot,a gudgeon bite a cast followed which resulted in me packing and walking back to the original swim,I fed ten 10mms boilies into the swim and watched to see the results,well,after three quarters of an hour four chub and a barbel were spookily venturing onto the gravel,,a little longer two barbel were at the tail end of the gravel so I got my rod out of the holdall and placed it three quarters of the way down the run and waited,then all hell broke loose a canoe hurtled through spooking all the fish,I say there hoping they'd return when he came back,ffs,off home I went after another hour and a half with no fish caring to come out.

 

[fishplate42]

Do these Polaris floats work well in rivers with tow and currents Ralph?

Sounds like Tim’s Swim is coming along nicely, whose going to be chopping the trees, the EA? It’s nice to have room to cast a longer rod but at the same time are you losing valuebale cover for the fish?

Still waiting for an invite.

I really don't know how the floats will perform. There is not a lot of tow and current on this stretch of the river as it is upstream of Allington lock. Most of the time the river is like a stillwater in river form. I am still experimenting with slider floats at the moment.

The trees are being cut by a firm of tree surgeons employed by the building's maintenance fund. It appears there is some money available to get it done before any of it comes down and causes a problem. The trees are on private land owned jointly by the four apartment (Flat, to you and me) owners. I don't suppose the EA would have anything to do with it unless they landed in the river...

Getting a session at Tim's place is hard enough for me at the moment. It usually comes as part of a 'work' package. Also fitting around his shifts is always a problem. Once the trees are tsorted, I am sure an invite will be 'in the mail'.

Ralph.

 

[fishplate42]

Nice going Ralph.

Pretty sure i use the exact same Dinsmores net and the same lightweight telescopic handle as you.

I bought that small net for dropshotting The Regent's Canal as we have to get their by train. It collapses down to a neat little stink-bag that takes to 2m handle which collapses to 600mm. The net is branded Dinsmore, and the telescopic handle is NGT.



The rod came from eBay and is also labelled NGT (as is the reel) and made in china.



The rod/reel is not the best of kit but perfectly good enough for a short session on our local river.

Ralph.

 

[tigger]

Do these Polaris floats work well in rivers with tow and currents Ralph?

I know your talking to Ralph, but I thought i'd mention it might be worth you looking at the cralrusso floats. I've alway fancied trying one but never got round to it, but they are supposed to be good for static float fishing in a river.
There are a number of different models so you'd need to check them out and get the correct one.

 

[Another Dave]

I bought that small net for dropshotting The Regent's Canal as we have to get their by train. It collapses down to a neat little stink-bag that takes to 2m handle which collapses to 600mm. The net is branded Dinsmore, and the telescopic handle is NGT.

Yeah my net is identical and my handle looks identical except under a different brand 4 Piece Stalker / Travel Landing Net Handle ( 2 m ): Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors

It was the lightest combo i could source that would fold away (~450g), i roll it up in my mat for transit, which now has a carry strap.

I didn't fish today but i explored some of the upper reaches of the Can, only inches deep and a couple of feet wide, but i did find a couple of interesting deeper holes that will have something in them.

 

[Another Dave]

 

[peter crabtree]

Saturday morning my neighbour and I stayed local choosing the canal at Croxley. We walked up to the trees section in order to get some shade.

Waggler across to the far shelf soon found some roach and a big hybrid which gave me the runaround for a while.

Sunday I set off down to Surrey, a club fixture on the beautiful Bury hill old lake.

Not a lot of variety in this lake, zander, a few carp, but solid with bream. Out on the cage feeder I had 3 in the first half hour on worm before they backed off. Changed to method feeder to get a bit more distance and picked up a few more. Had 2 bite offs which I suspect were zander?
Ended up with a disappointing 13lb for absolutely nowhere. I honestly can't blame any of my tactics for such a poor show?
Funny place?

 

[stillwater blue]

Had 2 bite offs which I suspect were zander?

I doubt it. zander's teeth are round in cross section, much like a dogs tooth, so they can't bite through mono.

 

[jon atkinson]

Thought that it was high time I had a river session - PASC gained a consession this year to fish a stretch of the Dee by Pickhill Hall, a little way upstream of Wrexham. As ever with these sort of locations, the first time you visit it's a bit of a 'mare establishing where exactly you're suposed to go, not to mention jumping in & out of your vehicle to open / close multiple gates. Once you've been it's totally straight-forward! Lovely stretch of water the first swim that I opted for was pretty fast & although it had been reported that the river was very low, I was still in over 5' deep! Feeding maggot steadily with two on a #16 B911 on a 4lb hooklength I proceeded to run through. This stretch was a lot more turbulent than anything I had fished previously, at least on the surface so plenty of "is that a bite?" moments, some of which was just the water, but it transpired that minnows were also in the equation - how does a fish half the size of my little finger get a #16 in its mouth?? It was actually more difficult striking & trying to work out whether there was actually a fish on or not!

I moved a little further down & a more positive bite resulted in a small brownie, followed by a small dace, a slightly better brownie... next up, my first ever grayling... which shed the hook as it was coming to the net mg: - close, but no cigar - this was the first of 5 that I got close enough to id, only for them to get away at the death, so grayling is stilll on my 'to do' list :wh

I tried a couple of different swims on either bank (there's a very convenient footbridge) - had a few more brownies to about 10" and a couple more minnows, but that was it, no sign of the chub that I'd been hoping for - apparently blokey on Friday had 18 out, all between 3lb & 5lb 12 - I suspect that I'll be back sooner rather than later!

 

[103841]

Warning, this post has graphic images that may upset some people.

I returned this lunchtime to the Stour swim that had plenty of chub on display yesterday, guess what? they've moved on. Had a couple of perch and dace trotting maggots before deciding to try the recently discovered swim a few hundred metres downstream.

This swim seems to attract a shoal of bream right in the near margin, I often wonder what’s the attraction, no particular cover or anything.

They are incredibly difficult to catch though, never had any luck as is the same of other anglers I have spoken to. But it was a very handsome carp amongst them that grabbed my attention, possibly into double figures. The bream had no interest in the hemp and maggots I threw into the swim but this carp started hoovering up the morsels without fear.

Over the next hour this blooming fish sucked in my bait only to spit it out on no less than three occasions, that’s three raisings of the heartbeat! How could it resist a juicy lobworm or a large bunch of maggots on a discreet size 16 hook? but it did.

The carp finally sauntered off having enjoyed my freebies but such was the nice afternoon sunshine I stuck it out for another thirty minutes and lo and behold the line tightened as I finally had hooked one of these elusive bream.

Like some fellow FM’ers I’m not a great fan of the bream but have to say, it’s bronze colouring and dark fins were beautiful and the fight was a surprise, my first bream from the Stour, so it’s ok by me. Weighed in the region of 4lb and only a few minutes later I hooked another, much much bigger, but foul hooked and managed to slip he hook as it was heading into the net.

A return with boiles, meat and bread for the next trip and see if that will tempt the carp.

 

[mikench]

That's a lovely bream John and a fish to be proud of! They are peculiar though I find! Sometimes the take is timid and you know it's a bream and on other occasions thebream thinks it's a carp and the take is savage! After 20 seconds however it just gives up!!

 

[108831]

I'm afraid that most bream on the Stour do tend to pull back a bit,similar to a chub,not a barbel but...and most look like that one,I've had them to 9lbs on the Stour and they pull a bit.

 

[binka]

View attachment 5479

A big well done Nick and my God, what a first!

Chuffed to bits for ya... :w

 

[S-Kippy]

Well I dont know.....one day I will post a picture that isn't uppy side down.

Couple of hours on the Thames this afternoon fishing hemp and tares simply to prove to the BF that I can still do it. Fish were there straight away though it took maybe 30-40 mins to get them lined up where I wanted them. 9-10 foot of water at the rod end and I ended up fishing maybe 2 foot off bottom with the better quality fish literally under me rod tip. It was all going terribly well until I started to feel really unwelll.Thought I might manage 3-4 hours but tbh after 2 hours I was feeling pretty ropey. I've not been well for ages so I thought I'd better give it best while I was till capable of standing upright. I honestly though I needed assistance but after throwing up I felt a bit better and headed for the car. I probably only managed about 2.5 hours and I'm home now but feeling dreadful..

I had probably 35-40 fine fat roach. Mostly around the 4-5 oz mark but maybe a third were fish of the stamp in that pic with the best 3 maybe 10-12 ozs. In the circumstances I'll take that. Every one a roach....not a dace to be seen.

Proper fishing....13ft Matchpro Ultralite with my beloved Bewick pin. Just wish I could have lasted a bit longer but clearly today was a bridge too far.

 

[tigger]

View attachment 5491

Well I dont know.....one day I will post a picture that isn't uppy side down.

Couple of hours on the Thames this afternoon fishing hemp and tares simply to prove to the BF that I can still do it. Fish were there straight away though it took maybe 30-40 mins to get them lined up where I wanted them. 9-10 foot of water at the rod end and I ended up fishing maybe 2 foot off bottom with the better quality fish literally under me rod tip. It was all going terribly well until I started to feel really unwelll.Thought I might manage 3-4 hours but tbh after 2 hours I was feeling pretty ropey. I've not been well for ages so I thought I'd better give it best while I was till capable of standing upright. I honestly though I needed assistance but after throwing up I felt a bit better and headed for the car. I probably only managed about 2.5 hours and I'm home now but feeling dreadful..

I had probably 35-40 fine fat roach. Mostly around the 4-5 oz mark but maybe a third were fish of the stamp in that pic with the best 3 maybe 10-12 ozs. In the circumstances I'll take that. Every one a roach....not a dace to be seen.

Proper fishing....13ft Matchpro Ultralite with my beloved Bewick pin. Just wish I could have lasted a bit longer but clearly today was a bridge too far.

Nice roach Skippy, sory to hear your still poorly, fingers crossed you feel better soon!

 

[S-Kippy]

Nice roach Skippy, sory to hear your still poorly, fingers crossed you feel better soon!

Thanks Ian....unfortunately it looks like its going to take quite some time. I am on some seriously strong meds and its the side effects that are doing me in. Its not chemo btw which is a blessing.

Those roach are absolutely mint. Fabulous sport