How did you get on?

[108831]

Well,been back to Bedford,a bit downstream from where I was saturday,the river had dropped and was running clear so I used a small cage feeder with g.bait and bread flake on the hook,missed bites the first two chucks which I thought were roach,next cast I hooked it,a chub around two and a half pounds,after this not a touch,on an anything,packed up and went to the deep club lake and had 8 roach to 12ozs.

 

[Pete Shears]

Clear and bright this morning on the banks of the Wreake,level had dropped again but still had pace and colour.Struggled to get a bite in the usual swims on float or leger using flake,worm and crust.
Had a white egret in the next pool downstream and crows were chasing a buzzard in the distance.
Eventually moved to a totally different stretch and had a heavy hard fighting fish fall off,so downstream again for half an hour trying another swim with no luck.Returned to the first swim and had a chub of 2lb 2oz first cast on legered flake.Will return to have another go at the biggie that fell off.

 

[peter crabtree]

A good turnout today on the codgers match with 16 fishing.
For a change we went to a lake on a day ticket venue near Leighton buzzard.

The weather was very pleasant with bright sun and a gusty SW wind, fortunately I drew with my back to it.
At the start I fished an 0:80g pole float 3 rod lengths out with punched meat over 2 balls of gb..
The angler on my right (venue regular) was fishing magg and waggler and catching roach and ide.
I quickly changed rigs to a waggler and basically copied him...
I was soon getting bites and building a net of roach and ide. These were taken with my slow fall maggot fished a foot off bottom in 8’ depth whilst pinging a few loose ones every chuck.
Sometimes they’d back off and a longer cast found them, I was constantly chasing them up and down in the water too, anything from 7’ to 4’ deep.
At the end i was beaten by my right hand peg 4:11, a lesson for me, my left hand side opponent battered both of us with 8lb:1.on squatts.
I had 4:7 for 4th so last in the frame.

Another one of those “if only days” ..

 

[S-Kippy]

Just back from my latest ( failed) assault on the perch record. A mate of the Big Feller's who does a bit of match fishing told the BF that on the silvers match he fished on Sunday at a local day ticket water 7 of the blokes weighed in perch over 2lb. Got to be worth a go said the BF and I agreed.

So off we went. Got where we wanted and fished for about 6 hours until boredom set in. Himself on the maggot and me playing the sh*t or bust card on worm/prawn....feeding red maggot over the top.

He was into fish from the get go...mostly small roach with the odd better fish and perch ( ditto). Nothing requiring a net.

Next door I was feeling very frustrated as I could not get a proper bite....just dips,bobs and dithers. Eventually I hit one and.....the horror.....it was a skimmer. I had 3 more of those bloody things, a few decent roach on dendras and despite 15 mins on the maggot not a single perch.

Eventually it all got too desperately boring for the BF so he packed up and went. I thought I'd stay another hour but then thought " What for ?"....so I packed too and earned a few house points for being home early.

Funnily enough I enjoyed this session less than the complete blank of last week though on the plus side it is only 15-20 mins from home and I dont have to use the M25.

 

[103841]

My assault on the perch challenge paid off a few years ago, a bit lucky as nobody bettered my 3lb plus winner that particular season.

I shudder to think just how many hours I put in, plenty of blanks on freezing cold days, not sure I could or would want to do it again.

 

[nottskev]

Once a year - if I'm lucky; it could well be more - I undergo a spell where I fish like an idiot and catch little or nothing. I think I could be there now. Sunday I met up with Binka for a day on a lake over his way. It's a nice place to fish - like a big (7 acres) deep estate lake - but we ended up on the end of a steady, sometimes gusting, cold wind that didn't do much for us or the fish. Steve plumped for heavier float gear quicker than I did, and caught a few extra nice skimmers on top of the bits and pieces, occasional nice perch and skimmers that we both caught. We were off by 4pm, despite the longer evening. Still, I always enjoy our days out, and this was no exception.

This afternoon I thought I'd go and catch a chub on a little local river. The chub had other ideas. I even managed to get a bit lost in the maze of backstreets around this urban stretch, and I got a lecture from the off-duty copper who was coming out of the one-way street as I turned into it heading the wrong way. I've never failed to catch a chub in the feature peg I was headed for, but I did today.




Roving on this river needs a car; the distances between swims that hold fish can be pretty big. I wasn't going to blank if I could help it, so I got back in the car and headed a couple of miles out of town. This time, I got in the wrong lane at a giant roundabout, and earned a one mile detour. This swim - the top of a big "S" bend looked a bit prettier




I was thankful when the tip twitched and pulled round




It's just a pity that you can never get more than one in any given swim. There are a couple of nice swims half a mile upstream - but between me and them was a herd of cows looking over the gate at me, with a come and have a go if etc look about them. So that was it for today.

 

[bullet]

Sounds and looks a lot like one of my Chub streams, Kev, get one straight away in a swim, then thats it!

 

[103841]

This only goes to prove that a few hours in the company of Binka encourages you to break things, in Kev’s case breaking the laws of the Highway Code.

 

[john step]

Where do those weather people get their forecasts from? Seaweed?
Mild today. Hardly. I sat on the Tidal today in a freezing wind in full winter get up.

Needless to say the chub didn't bother me. Another blank.

 

[Pete Shears]

Another piking trip this morning to the bigger reservoir some 20 miles from home.In the half light I just saw a barn owl drop from the top of a hedge into the long grass/ditch for breakfast and a little later and a lot closer to the reservoir,a red kite was flying hedge high parallel to the road.
Weather forecast all wrong,mild - cold westerly blowing straight across the water not a mild southerly so with the brolly well anchored ,set up three dead bait rods and wondered if a fellow members use of a bait boat would pay off just further along from my swim.Just after 8am I had a run and landed a pike of about 4lb and the chap further up also hit into a fish about the same size,then nothing for either of us - for hours.Managed to stop the wind from wrecking the brolly but could not stop false bleeps on all three rods.Still - no blank and saw another red kite,three buzzards and a kestrel and at the far end was a flock of lapwings.

 

[S-Kippy]

Where do those weather people get their forecasts from? Seaweed?
Mild today. Hardly. I sat on the Tidal today in a freezing wind in full winter get up.

Needless to say the chub didn't bother me. Another blank.

I agree. Taking no chances I layered up under the babygro with thick Trakker hoody over, double fleece on top, neck gaiter and fleecy titfer and though I wasn't cold I've certainly been a lot warmer. This in probably the most sheltered spot on the lake too.

 

[Tee-Cee]

It was Nottskev who put me onto the idea......

He'd found some old, (mushy, I think he called them) 'past their best' tares in his freezer and promptly went out and caught some roach on them, and being one who stores such information (always the odd good tip or two on HDYGO thread) I raked around in my freezer and found a bag of the same, in pretty good order.

I looked upon this bounty as a 'give them a try when the days warms to the promised 13 degrees' sort of thing, but after an hour of flogging maggots to death, I changed to a set-up more suited to tare fishing and with hemp accompaniment and rod rests cleared away, I set about some under the rod tip tare fishing. Expecting a Nottkev type response I held the rod and was soon into a nice rhythm of sprinkling a few grains and casting over the top.

Nothing for 20 minutes or so, but then the float dipped once and my whipcord reactions found me attached, not to a roach but a bl**dy carp of some 3lbs. Just a passing fish thought I, but not the case as some 15 minutes later I had a repeat performance and yet another carp, this time one of about 5lbs, which again managed to ruin a perfectly good hook length! I won't wax lyrical again so suffice to say I was blessed with yet another, even bigger fish, which was more frisky and took an age to land.
That was it..........

I continues to flog the tares at all levels and in different parts of the swim to no avail for another 2 hours, before changing bait and doing the same. Still nothing.....
Around noon my back started to ache (it didn't need the effort taken to lift the carp from the water!) so with heavy heart I headed off home to lick my wounds. A lovely day that didn't reach the 13 degrees but my friendly robin enjoyed the continual flow maggots, so not a wasted trip.

Nice idea Nottskev, but the mushy tares didn't work for me today, roach wise. Howeve,r I think they have promise and all being well (like, if I can walk!!) they will get another outing tomorrow morning. Surely the roach will start to feed soon

Good to be out in the fresh air, with not another angler in sight - bliss..

 

[nottskev]

It was Nottskev who put me onto the idea......

He'd found some old, (mushy, I think he called them) 'past their best' tares in his freezer and promptly went out and caught some roach on them, and being one who stores such information (always the odd good tip or two on HDYGO thread) I raked around in my freezer and found a bag of the same, in pretty good order.

I looked upon this bounty as a 'give them a try when the days warms to the promised 13 degrees' sort of thing, but after an hour of flogging maggots to death, I changed to a set-up more suited to tare fishing and with hemp accompaniment and rod rests cleared away, I set about some under the rod tip tare fishing. Expecting a Nottkev type response I held the rod and was soon into a nice rhythm of sprinkling a few grains and casting over the top.

Nothing for 20 minutes or so, but then the float dipped once and my whipcord reactions found me attached, not to a roach but a bl**dy carp of some 3lbs. Just a passing fish thought I, but not the case as some 15 minutes later I had a repeat performance and yet another carp, this time one of about 5lbs, which again managed to ruin a perfectly good hook length! I won't wax lyrical again so suffice to say I was blessed with yet another, even bigger fish, which was more frisky and took an age to land.
That was it..........

I continues to flog the tares at all levels and in different parts of the swim to no avail for another 2 hours, before changing bait and doing the same. Still nothing.....
Around noon my back started to ache (it didn't need the effort taken to lift the carp from the water!) so with heavy heart I headed off home to lick my wounds. A lovely day that didn't reach the 13 degrees but my friendly robin enjoyed the continual flow maggots, so not a wasted trip.

Nice idea Nottskev, but the mushy tares didn't work for me today, roach wise. Howeve,r I think they have promise and all being well (like, if I can walk!!) they will get another outing tomorrow morning. Surely the roach will start to feed soon

Good to be out in the fresh air, with not another angler in sight - bliss..

Oops! Sorry about the carp. After catching a few on the mushy remnants, I took fresh tares on the next trip. Two of us fished tares exclusively with a bit of hemp feed - and the ratio of carp to roach was 1:40 or so for us both. Neither of us saw the carp we hooked. I'm going to try wheat today........

 

[peterjg]

I fished a commercial yesterday, so different to my usual venues. The lake is about 5 acres and quite deep. My swim was 18ft deep, so I float legered with a sliding float and used a small homemade cage feeder. Started with dead maggots but caught small roach. Soon swapped to a size 12 long shanked hook with 3 bits of punched bread on the hook to try and catch bigger roach. Ended up with 23 roach with some around the pound mark and 4 carp to around 12lbs. The fresh wind was bloomin' cold!

The fish fed well up to about 3.30pm and then bites stopped. At the same time the wind died and the sun came out. Did the bites stop because the fish fed all day and were sated or was it because of the wind dying and the sun coming out? Water temperature was 44F.

It made a nice change to catch so many fish but to sit facing other anglers is not really my thing.

 

[mikench]

Today was my first real opportunity to get out for over a week and with a great weather forecast, I could hardly wait! I ditched the layers and the parka and arrived at my chosen venue at 8.00am!



It was in fact cold so I layered up again( my car is a moving wardrobe as well as a tackle shop). I float fished with my newly acquired Titan hoping for some decent fish to put a bend in the rod! I failed! 35 roach collectively might have made 2lb in weight!

In fact the biggest roach of the day landed on my windscreen! A large gull plucked it from the water and couldn't swallow it or fly with it very far! I saw it land on the car and the gull retrieve it and make good it's escape! It was easily bigger than every one of mine! The cold wind eased as the afternoon wore on but fishing was hard and maggot on a size 18 was the only way to get a bite!

There is always next time!!!

 

[nottskev]

What with the tares etc, I thought I'd have an afternoon on the Old Lake with only seed baits. Just to see what happens.



Two light rigs, 10m out, starting with one set about 15" off bottom, one 1" off, and two swims, one fed with hemp and the odd tare, one a few grains of wheat from time to time.


The wheat tempted a couple of nice roach, but they were few and far between




Tares got bites from the off. But.... The main benefits of using tares, for me anyway, are that you catch a better stamp of roach, and the bites are generally positive ones with few missed. Today, the hemp and tares feed filled the swim up with 4 oz roach, and I must have missed 30 or 40 bites. Meanwhile, around me, the lake filled up with schoolboys on half term, who enjoyed sprinting round the lake from peg to car to grandad and back (I wish I was fit enough to run and shout at the same time), and even a few carpers, some of whom celebrated the warmest afternoon of the year by sitting in a little tent. I got plenty of bites, but it did feel like a continuation of my own personal silly season. Might be a good idea to get it out of the way in February?

 

[mikench]

A good net full there Kev! My total would have looked lost in my smallest landing net if not my little net for catching tropical fish!

 

[john step]

A good net full there Kev! My total would have looked lost in my smallest landing net if not my little net for catching tropical fish!

You can't catch em if they aint there!

 

[mikench]

But why not Pete! They knew I was coming and in a state of excitement with a new rod to try out! Bit inconsiderate in my book!

 

[Pete Shears]

Another trip to the Wreake this morning,very hard to get bites,eventually getting two chub to legered flake,the biggest 1lb 2oz.Moved and tried the swim where a heavy fish had pulled free two days ago - not a glimmer of interest from anything even minnows.The surprise of the trip was having my licence checked by an EA bailiff.