How did you get on?

[fishplate42]

This was to be a four parter with a succession of trips long and short planned over this Easter break.

The first went according to plan with a trip to the estate arriving at 8-30am on Friday, two other anglers present, blue skies and warm sunshine. Fished til 4pm and had the sum total of two roach and two skimmers, very disappointing but just nice to be out in this glorious weather. The day was further improved, I mentioned there were two other anglers present, one being the newest member of this exclusive syndicate, a fellow FM member and friend Ralph! He enjoyed his first day catching roach, Rudd and skimmers on a short pole, hopefully we will both be amongst the crucians and tench very soon, they are much slower waking up this year compared to last year when I had a number of tench in April.

I hadn’t been feeling the full ticket and felt worse on Saturday with a definite case of man flu on the way but a short trip to the sea was irresistible and I’m sure the air would do me some good. Chucked lures of various shapes and colours into a flat and calm Westgate sea but no takes, a couple of anglers had small bass using bait but the sea was showing signs of May bloom which I’ve read puts paid to any chances of success with lures.

Felt awful last night and this morning so further trips to the estate this evening and tomorrow are on hold....unless I make an amazing recovery.

Sorry you are feeling worse than you did on Friday, John. It was a good day, although the walk back to the van nearly killed me! I must take the trolley next time or do as you did and drive down to the lake. Let's hope we get plenty more days at the lake in the near future. I will be after those tench next time.

Ralph.

 

[fishplate42]

Two fishing trips in three days...

At last, I managed to get a couple of days out over the Easter weekend. On Friday I met fellow FM member and friend, John (s63) at a syndicate lake that I have just become a member of. I had a great day and caught lots of small fish on my cheap elasticated 5m pole. Nothing of any size, but it was an enjoyable day, nevertheless. Now I have an idea of what to expect, I will be after some of the bigger fish, next time.



On Sunday, I met another mate of mine at Mousehole Lakes in paddock Wood, another venue I have not fished before. Again, the day was great fun. I caught lots of fish and spent a full twelve hours fishing in the warm sunshine chatting with my mate and other anglers at this very popular venue. For anyone who is interested in more about my Easter trips, I have written up the two days, with lots of pictures, on my blog.

Ralph.

 

[108831]

Kev,it's a deep lake,that has decent fish of all species,it's absolutely stuffed with roach,of all sizes,the bigger roach have to be worked at as usually you have to wade through the smaller fish,it's chocka block with pike,which are a nightmare when catching the 4ozs up,as I posted before,they sit under the rod waiting for you to return a roach,had one taken over 10ozs yesterday in this manner,but it it wasn't for the pike the roach size would be smaller.For all the anglers on the lake it didn't fish well for the others,that isn't down to me fishing brilliantly,just trying to pick an area the wind was blowing into,with a bit of shade.

 

[108831]

Finally found a tench on the gravel pit. Just like buses, a second one came along very soon after the first.

View attachment 6618
3lb 10oz for the first one.
View attachment 6619
3lb 15oz for the second.

Now all I have to do is beat the 5lb 12oz which was my best from the water last year.

Lovely mate...

 

[Molehill]

A visit to a local ticket fishery to try for tench, soon catching plenty of babies plus some nice roach and only a matter of time before I connected with a decent fish.
Mid morning I started to feel a bit "off colour" and thought it was the heat, by lunchtime I felt sick as a pig and knew I had to get home, managed to carry the gear to the car and made it the half hour drive back home.

Sick as a pig and well flushed out both ends overnight, picked up norovirus somehow - sat in bed feeling sorry for myself but worst of it over. Ruined a good day fishing!

 

[wetthrough]

Bit of a catchup. Fished the WA Mill Pool a week last Friday. It was sub zero overnight but the day was forecast to be relatively mild so I thought I'd give it a shot. It's very shallow, 4' at the very deepest so tends to be a bit hit and miss temperature wise. The resident Heron obviously didn't think the fishing was worth getting its feet wet for. It was stood in a field opposite until about 12am which should have told me something. Fished til 4pm without a single bite. The following Tuesday was set to be quite warm so gave it another shot thinking the Tench might have woken up. It was generally slow but I picked up a few nice Roach, nothing huge and a surprising absence of tiddlers which is unusual on this venue. No Tench although I did see a couple landed so at least they're awake. Clear blue sky and no shade for most of the day and I really regretted wearing jeans under the summer bib and brace.

Fished the Dam again Friday. Some nice Roach to about 6oz, 20+ from memory but generally slow. It's a fair sized water so probably one of the last to warm up enough for the Carp and Bream. Back on the Dam yesterday starting around 6:30 first out a nice Roach of about 4:5oz then shortly after my first Bream from the Dam this year at a guessed 4lb ish on sweetcorn.



Fishing on the bottom with the 2.75g Glow Tip Antenna picked a few more Roach up and a Skimmer of around 2lb, all on caster. After the Bream I couldn't get anything to look at the sweetcorn which is a big turnaround from last time I was there when it was picking out the bigger Roach. Virtually no interest in bread. It pretty much died around 11:30 which is not unusual there but I had a suspicion mister Pike might have put in an appearance. I'd set up the 10'6" rod for the margin and had a bit of fun picking small Roach up at about 18" deep about 15M out, it's 7'6" to the bottom. My Pike suspicions were confirmed when one came crashing out and narrowly missing my catch. Kept going back to the bottom setup to see if they'd returned but had to switch to a 5bb straight Peacock as the tow was picking up. Picked up another skimmer of around 2lb and a few more Roach so not a bad day, 27 all told and at least I was in the shade

Edit: Lost another 2.75g Glow Tip Antenna! Whatever happened to the tip I've no idea. Just cast in and it had gone.

 

[mikench]

It's a subtle plot by Drennan Gordon!

 

[fishplate42]

I have also broken several of those floats on even the lightest of casts. I have even had them break as a fish has taken the bait. They always break in the same place, just above the float body.

 

[john step]

I took a mate as a guest to a lake today with the promise of some rod pull rounds from carp and f1s. I was getting a bit worried as its important for a guest to actually get a bite let alone a fish. It just never happened all morning for both of us.

Luckily the wind got up lunchtime and they started biting. Most importantly my mate had 4 mirrors and a few f1s...........Phew

 

[mikench]

I checked in to my club website to discover my favourite water(day ticket as well) is closed due to the fish being stressed. B***** h*** the modern malaise is affecting fish now ! I was aware that many fish had died from the middle pool during the gales of late march but surely " stress" is a euphemism for something more worrying and noxious!

 

[john step]

I checked in to my club website to discover my favourite water(day ticket as well) is closed due to the fish being stressed. B***** h*** the modern malaise is affecting fish now ! I was aware that many fish had died from the middle pool during the gales of late march but surely " stress" is a euphemism for something more worrying and noxious!

I have known large numbers of fish die from what was labelled as stress because tests revealed no known disease and not lack of oxygen. On both occasions it was after some serious new stocking or should I say new over stocking.

 

[mikench]

This pool had not been restocked at all! I suspect run off from slurry in an adjacent field but what do I know. I know the owner quite well and am sorry for his predicament and hope the problem is resolved soon. I had left the middle pool alone for weeks sensing something seriously amiss but it clearly hasn't resolved itself!

 

[sam vimes]

Back for another go this afternoon from 4pm. I managed to get away just as the forecasted heavy rain arrived at about 7.30.

4lb 13oz (a badly damaged fish I think I had last year. The other side is worse, but at least you can't see internal organs now!)

5lb 1oz

4lb 9oz

5lb.

 

[108831]

I love tench,at least that damaged fished is healed and thriving.

 

[Another Dave]

I love tench,at least that damaged fished is healed and thriving.

Astonishing powers of regeneration from that doctor fish there.

 

[theartist]

Had my butt kicked by the Aylesbury Arm at the weekend which was refreshing seeing as the GUC has been so kind to me in the colder weather. Finding nowhere to park at my first choice my back up was a poorly chosen one on the day, either that or I was found wanting, bit of both I reckon. Either way I turned up to find a plumbed depth of a good three feet quickly turn into barely a foot and a half as a succession of boats made their way down the cut, emptying it in the process. Normally you see very few boats and foot traffic is minimal, this was a hot bank holiday and my ideas that it would be it's usual quiet self were far from the mark, there was a woman chopping wood and another on a ride on mower on the opposite bank, plus cyclists and joggers, it was chaos and the water was like liquid mud.

I stuck at it but on days where you're trying everything you feel like you're fishing like a numpty but I think the cut started to settle down just before ideas of packing up were coming to the fore, I finally got a bite and it was a ruffe to the rescue thus avoiding a blank on the hottest day of the year so far.



The following day I take the missus to a local club pond armed with a loaf of white bread and a sprinkling of maggots left over from before. It was a contrast to say the least as a Koi of around 7lb slurped down my bread freelined bang on it's nose first cast. Whilst this pond is not heavily over stocked it would have been quite easy to have whacked out carp all day off the surface but they only go to low doubles so I changed to a light pole float with the left over maggots, ironically to try and catch a ruffe as there have been some monsters come out of this pond in the past.

I got through what maggots I had left catching only roach and bream much to the confusion of those left and right who were whacking out method feeders, I had a shoal of carp in front of me feeding off the bread I was chucking in to keep them AWAY from my bait. As the splosh of feeders edged a bit closer it was time to whack out the freelined bread again and a few more carp found the net, it was fun but too easy, the missus seemed impressed though although I was happier with the ruffe the day before.

It's a funny old game

 

[john step]

A ruffe or as I used to call them POPE. How nice. I have not seen one for donkeys years.

 

[103841]

Are there different types of Ruffe? I use to catch loads of what we also knew as Pope out of the Thames when I was a kid, I don’t remember them looking like that, they were very ugly almost prehistoric looking things.

 

[john step]

I remember them as per the photo from the Thames and Lea. Laying flat like that you cannot see the spiky dorsal. I always thought they looked liked pale perch.

I wonder as a kid did you confuse them with bullhead /millers thumb.

 

[peter crabtree]

You need a pole on that peg Rob..