How did you get on?
- Thread starter peter crabtree
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After watching 78 laps of the Monaco Grand Prix which was very exciting, or was it very boring,
mg: I fancied some fresh air and with HT at 6pm headed off to a Westgate with a lure rod for an hour chasing down a bass.
The wind was too strong for my liking so moved on to another mark about a mile before Margate, very overcast but well sheltered from that breeze, looked promising.
Not a touch for 45 minutes and many casts and was thinking of heading home when a nice tug on the braid signalled a bass, small but my goodness these fish fight like a perch on steroids, goodness knows what it would be like to play a decent sized one, hopefully one day I will be able to tell you.
Caught another a little later of a similar size.
Since starting last year I must have amassed many more lures than fish caught so far and some are blooming pricey but I’ve now got a favourite that seems to have caught nearly all so far, a lump of metal that’s now rather bashed about costing less than two quid!
mg: I fancied some fresh air and with HT at 6pm headed off to a Westgate with a lure rod for an hour chasing down a bass.The wind was too strong for my liking so moved on to another mark about a mile before Margate, very overcast but well sheltered from that breeze, looked promising.
Not a touch for 45 minutes and many casts and was thinking of heading home when a nice tug on the braid signalled a bass, small but my goodness these fish fight like a perch on steroids, goodness knows what it would be like to play a decent sized one, hopefully one day I will be able to tell you.
Caught another a little later of a similar size.
Since starting last year I must have amassed many more lures than fish caught so far and some are blooming pricey but I’ve now got a favourite that seems to have caught nearly all so far, a lump of metal that’s now rather bashed about costing less than two quid!
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Roger Johnson 2
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Greetings from France, not been reporting much lately as there are only some many ways to say walk to the river and caught bream/ barbel, also been singularly unsuccessful in fluff chucking for brine trite. So by way of a change I knocked off work early to spend the evening at a smallish still water that I’ve got earmarked for stalking a carp if I ever get time.
quite busy when I arrived with many of the swims on my preferred bank occupied, so chose to fish an open swim on the road bank from where I could see most of the water, light waggler and sweet corn on one rod produced a couple of nice roach and a lost tench and a cage feeder and sweet corn came up with a tench about 2 and a bit. Nice to see a float going under for a change. Predator activity in the margins was mad, I must take some dropshot or light jigs next time intrigued to know if it’s perch or black bass doing the damage. I’ll also fish in the more shallow Lilly covered end in the hope of more tench.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
neil1970
Well-known member
We went down to Swanage Pier on Saturday.
Despite the gin clear water and generally good conditions we only managed 7 fish between the 3 of us in 2 hours.
Moved on to Poole Quay where the water was really murky with May rot and the fishing was better.
We all caught a good amount of fish and between us managed 11 species.
Despite the gin clear water and generally good conditions we only managed 7 fish between the 3 of us in 2 hours.
Moved on to Poole Quay where the water was really murky with May rot and the fishing was better.
We all caught a good amount of fish and between us managed 11 species.
John Keane
Well-known member
Went for a day out at our club lake today. The portents weren’t good as it started stair-rodding as we were setting up. We fished in the steady rain and subsequently in the patchy showers before the sun (and wind) cleared the skies for the rest of the day.
I started out on a small Guru Hybrid Feeder with moistened micro pellets and a 6mm Ringers Chocolate Orange Wafter on a 4” hooklength. First cast had hardly settled when along came a football-shaped carp and ripped the tip round.
When the fish allowed me a respite I was setting up a rig using Enterprise Tackle Meat Mates, a system with a plastic tube running through the centre of a cube of meat on a hair rig. What a load of faff! Another piece of tackle to catch fishermen, not fish. Caught me anyway!
Anyway, continued by using cubes of Garlic Spam on a Quickstop rig and utilising a Guru Impact Lead filled with moistened pellets with the addition of a blob of Tiger Nut Goo, prior to casting.
On the subject of Feeder pellets, I use Ringers Method Micros as they are simplicity itself to prepare and can be frozen after use. The batch I was using today have been frozen and thawed five times so far and retain their shape well.
Anyway, I digress, the bites (rip-rounds, mostly) kept coming steadily and I finished with around 15 carp, F1’s and a barbel of around 4lb. I’m not a fan of Barbel in Stillwater but this one was in prime condition.
*Managed to put some photos in but they aren’t in the order I selected them! Grrrr!
I started out on a small Guru Hybrid Feeder with moistened micro pellets and a 6mm Ringers Chocolate Orange Wafter on a 4” hooklength. First cast had hardly settled when along came a football-shaped carp and ripped the tip round.
When the fish allowed me a respite I was setting up a rig using Enterprise Tackle Meat Mates, a system with a plastic tube running through the centre of a cube of meat on a hair rig. What a load of faff! Another piece of tackle to catch fishermen, not fish. Caught me anyway!
Anyway, continued by using cubes of Garlic Spam on a Quickstop rig and utilising a Guru Impact Lead filled with moistened pellets with the addition of a blob of Tiger Nut Goo, prior to casting.
On the subject of Feeder pellets, I use Ringers Method Micros as they are simplicity itself to prepare and can be frozen after use. The batch I was using today have been frozen and thawed five times so far and retain their shape well.
Anyway, I digress, the bites (rip-rounds, mostly) kept coming steadily and I finished with around 15 carp, F1’s and a barbel of around 4lb. I’m not a fan of Barbel in Stillwater but this one was in prime condition.
*Managed to put some photos in but they aren’t in the order I selected them! Grrrr!
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mikench
Well-known member
Well what a difference a few days make! I met up with Gordon( Wetthrough) for a days fishing on our local water recently reopened after pollution. Last Friday I had 13 carp today I had just one and not a nibble on the float rod. There were few fish rolling and topping and few others caught. A new chap I met moved three times and still blanked. It was most odd that even maggots could not induce a bite. No pics as there were no subjects
It was enjoyable non the less and the rain showers threatened but didn't amount to much. Thanks Gordon and I'm sorry for the lack of interest from the fish; most inconsiderate!
It was enjoyable non the less and the rain showers threatened but didn't amount to much. Thanks Gordon and I'm sorry for the lack of interest from the fish; most inconsiderate!
wetthrough
Well-known member
No need for apologies Mike, that's fishing! I think Mike got the one and only fish from the pool we were fishing which must count for something.
Mike's Mirror:
I missed the one and only bite I got due to the reel handle getting caught under the chairmg:
Still, the company made up for the lack of fish
Mike's Mirror:
I missed the one and only bite I got due to the reel handle getting caught under the chair
mg:Still, the company made up for the lack of fish
mikench
Well-known member
That could be the answer Pete. The fish were stressed because of high nitrate levels and that may have delayed spawning. I will give them a couple of weeks to catch up .
Alan Tyler
Well-known member
28/5/19 “Dry mat, wet dog.”
When I think of Holborn, which is seldom, three things come to mind: Gamage’s department store, Fred Wedlock’s line about “Smoking black Old Holborn resin, mainlining on draught stout and ‘aving ‘ang-ups”, and Adrian Mitchell’s immortal hymn to the irrepressible human spirit, “Celia, Celia”:
“When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on.”
Gamages of Holborn comes first because, for my first forty years, their warehouse was my next-door neighbour, but their products were far to posh for the likes of us, and nothing took me to Holborn, so I don’t recall seeing the store at all. So, my curiosity got the better of me when a Gamage’s rod, a 10’6” Light Match, came up, and I bought it, regardless of the warning of splits. The following weekend, I bought an old glass rod for £3, the rings alone being worth that. The blank is one of those super-thin, translucent jobs that were all the rage in (I think) the late ‘seventies. Spigot joint; whippings, hairy and moulting like a yak in a heatwave.
So, having bought these “new” toys, and becoming less scared of my similarly “new” car, I trundled out to my local lake this morning, far later than planned, starting at about seven.
I cast a mussel to my left on the glass rod, then set up the Gamages one to fish wet bread to my right. The first cast produced a little roach, which was soon followed by a steady stream of other roach and small bream, so that works, and feels pleasant in the hand, too. Gamage’s would have bought their rods in from specialist makers, and had too good a reputation to risk buying duds. Duly christened, and I’m happy.
At some point in the proceedings, the Rapidex on the glass rod shrieked, and I found myself attached to a carp which was unimpressed by the rod’s power, or rather, its flexibility. Despite the tip diameter making me worry that it might be more suitable for tope than coarse fish, it has a soft, through action, and the carp almost made the lilies pst the next pitch. Locking up and pumping slowly brought the fish to the tree on my side of the next pitch, but then everything went very slow, and a large lump of tree emerged. By the time I’d extracted it, the carp had shed the hook, warned its mates, and done a vanish. Have some chub been put into the lake and shown the carp some new tricks?
No further carp action, so the mat stayed dry.
A bit after the branch/line catastrophe, voices approached and a large canine head appeared at my elbow and made off with my liquidised bread! I never realised that labradors had a stealth mode…
The owners had the good grace to look a bit sheepish and apologise, especially as one of the dogs had turned the stealth up to eleven, gone for a silent dip, swum round the tree and was slipping back out in my pitch! When two of them came back, their hounds were safely clipped up, but the third, a bloke, turned up, and seemed to think it was my fault for being there, where “lots of dogs go through”. They do indeed, but they’re supposed to be under control. And many of them are.
“Mine are under control!” “Yes?” (two of the three were nowhere to be seen)
“Ben! Charlie! Come ‘ere!”
Very long pause.
“Control as in, one word from you and they do just as they please?”
Off goes this intellectual titan, muttering under his breath, then I hear “Ben! Charlie! Come ‘ere!” a few times. By the time he caps it all with “Ben! Where’s Charlie?” as though Ben would suddenly morph into a pointer (or learn to speak) and grass up poor old Charlie, I was laughing too hard to call “Don’t tell him, Ben!” in anything like a Captain Mainwaring voice...
After the dog shriekers came the wind, making the floats hard to see, then the parakeets arrived and started picking fights with the natives. Peace and quiet were dead and buried for the day, and so home for breakfast.
When I think of Holborn, which is seldom, three things come to mind: Gamage’s department store, Fred Wedlock’s line about “Smoking black Old Holborn resin, mainlining on draught stout and ‘aving ‘ang-ups”, and Adrian Mitchell’s immortal hymn to the irrepressible human spirit, “Celia, Celia”:
“When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on.”
Gamages of Holborn comes first because, for my first forty years, their warehouse was my next-door neighbour, but their products were far to posh for the likes of us, and nothing took me to Holborn, so I don’t recall seeing the store at all. So, my curiosity got the better of me when a Gamage’s rod, a 10’6” Light Match, came up, and I bought it, regardless of the warning of splits. The following weekend, I bought an old glass rod for £3, the rings alone being worth that. The blank is one of those super-thin, translucent jobs that were all the rage in (I think) the late ‘seventies. Spigot joint; whippings, hairy and moulting like a yak in a heatwave.
So, having bought these “new” toys, and becoming less scared of my similarly “new” car, I trundled out to my local lake this morning, far later than planned, starting at about seven.
I cast a mussel to my left on the glass rod, then set up the Gamages one to fish wet bread to my right. The first cast produced a little roach, which was soon followed by a steady stream of other roach and small bream, so that works, and feels pleasant in the hand, too. Gamage’s would have bought their rods in from specialist makers, and had too good a reputation to risk buying duds. Duly christened, and I’m happy.
At some point in the proceedings, the Rapidex on the glass rod shrieked, and I found myself attached to a carp which was unimpressed by the rod’s power, or rather, its flexibility. Despite the tip diameter making me worry that it might be more suitable for tope than coarse fish, it has a soft, through action, and the carp almost made the lilies pst the next pitch. Locking up and pumping slowly brought the fish to the tree on my side of the next pitch, but then everything went very slow, and a large lump of tree emerged. By the time I’d extracted it, the carp had shed the hook, warned its mates, and done a vanish. Have some chub been put into the lake and shown the carp some new tricks?
No further carp action, so the mat stayed dry.
A bit after the branch/line catastrophe, voices approached and a large canine head appeared at my elbow and made off with my liquidised bread! I never realised that labradors had a stealth mode…
The owners had the good grace to look a bit sheepish and apologise, especially as one of the dogs had turned the stealth up to eleven, gone for a silent dip, swum round the tree and was slipping back out in my pitch! When two of them came back, their hounds were safely clipped up, but the third, a bloke, turned up, and seemed to think it was my fault for being there, where “lots of dogs go through”. They do indeed, but they’re supposed to be under control. And many of them are.
“Mine are under control!” “Yes?” (two of the three were nowhere to be seen)
“Ben! Charlie! Come ‘ere!”
Very long pause.
“Control as in, one word from you and they do just as they please?”
Off goes this intellectual titan, muttering under his breath, then I hear “Ben! Charlie! Come ‘ere!” a few times. By the time he caps it all with “Ben! Where’s Charlie?” as though Ben would suddenly morph into a pointer (or learn to speak) and grass up poor old Charlie, I was laughing too hard to call “Don’t tell him, Ben!” in anything like a Captain Mainwaring voice...
After the dog shriekers came the wind, making the floats hard to see, then the parakeets arrived and started picking fights with the natives. Peace and quiet were dead and buried for the day, and so home for breakfast.
mikench
Well-known member
Whatever it is you have consumed Alan , i want some! What prompted this crie de cœur ?
Alan Tyler
Well-known member
Parkland fishing and the poor dogs who are led astray by "Entitled" (in the modern, ironic sense) bipeds with far less "common" sense than their pets.
I haven't laughed so hard in ages! (Silently, of course. Just.).
Having spent longer writing it up for my diarythan I had on the bank, it seemed a pity not to share.
"Ben! Where's Charlie?"...to a DOG?
I haven't laughed so hard in ages! (Silently, of course. Just.).
Having spent longer writing it up for my diarythan I had on the bank, it seemed a pity not to share.
"Ben! Where's Charlie?"...to a DOG?
barbelboi
Well-known member
Did you use to watch Stanley Unwin by any chance Alan.........................
seth49
Well-known member
Well we had an early start yesterday, finally got mick to realise it’s worth getting up early at this time of the year, so set off at five thirty and arrived at the fishery by six, new club water we’ve joined this year, this is the nearest and together with four more lakes it’s good value at twenty pounds for the year with the OAP ticket, plenty of carp and bream and some nice tench to over four pounds.
We were the first there so had our choice of swims, picked two swims which are known to be good for carp, I won the toss so got the best one, started with my Kodex 9 foot carp rod, fishing a robin red pellet on a lead clip, which is supposed to be the best method here, very slow to start, had too carp of about seven pounds each, it then went quiet for a while, when the bailiff came round he said it was quiet for the other anglers who were fishing as well, but we should catch of these pegs, he also showed me were the best parts of the swim were.
Another angler who was passing stopped for a chat, and said if the pellets or boilies weren’t catching, to try a method feeder, as he had good results with this, so I rigged up my Shimano quiver rod with a method feeder, using soaked two mm pellets and a ringers chocolate orange Walter on a four inch hook length to a size twelve guru QM1 hook.
This was better and I added a further four carp and lost one, before the bream moved in, fished till three and then went home, at lt least it had stopped dry apart from two small showers, I like this fishery easy access and helpful people.
Still kept my membership on the club I’ve been in for the last five years, but it gives us alternative fishing, and makes a change, and I’ve possibly got a chance of the twenty pound carp I have been after for years, in fact one water has a thirty in it.View attachment 6777
View attachment 6778View attachment 6779
We were the first there so had our choice of swims, picked two swims which are known to be good for carp, I won the toss so got the best one
, started with my Kodex 9 foot carp rod, fishing a robin red pellet on a lead clip, which is supposed to be the best method here, very slow to start, had too carp of about seven pounds each, it then went quiet for a while, when the bailiff came round he said it was quiet for the other anglers who were fishing as well, but we should catch of these pegs, he also showed me were the best parts of the swim were.Another angler who was passing stopped for a chat, and said if the pellets or boilies weren’t catching, to try a method feeder, as he had good results with this, so I rigged up my Shimano quiver rod with a method feeder, using soaked two mm pellets and a ringers chocolate orange Walter on a four inch hook length to a size twelve guru QM1 hook.
This was better and I added a further four carp and lost one, before the bream moved in, fished till three and then went home, at lt least it had stopped dry apart from two small showers, I like this fishery easy access and helpful people.
Still kept my membership on the club I’ve been in for the last five years, but it gives us alternative fishing, and makes a change, and I’ve possibly got a chance of the twenty pound carp I have been after for years, in fact one water has a thirty in it.View attachment 6777
View attachment 6778View attachment 6779
Mark Wintle
Well-known member
First bar of gold yesterday from a local water followed by the smallest crucian I've ever caught at 2" (not photographed as it flipped back in - then two minuscule tench, again the smallest I've ever had.
peter crabtree
AKA Simon, 1953 - 2022 (RIP)
13 codgers turned up yesterday at the Aylesbury arm near Tring for our weekly therapy.. The water was nicely coloured and looked promising. There was a chilly NW wind blowing down mixed with the occasional shower, I actually felt very cold even with a jacket on.
My peg had a nice bush opposite and the shelf was about 3’ deep.
I soon found some small roach which were very cagey and hard to hook on my punch. I also found I would only get a bite if I cast into the small bay in the bushes, some feat with a waggler in a crosswind.
As usual the bites dried up after an hour or so.
There were 7 DNW’s and 4 who framed. Our oldest codger Joe, who is 90, still drives an estate car and carries his own gear, came 2nd with 2 bream for 7lb 10. What a truly inspirational chap.
My peg had a nice bush opposite and the shelf was about 3’ deep.
I soon found some small roach which were very cagey and hard to hook on my punch. I also found I would only get a bite if I cast into the small bay in the bushes, some feat with a waggler in a crosswind.
As usual the bites dried up after an hour or so.
There were 7 DNW’s and 4 who framed. Our oldest codger Joe, who is 90, still drives an estate car and carries his own gear, came 2nd with 2 bream for 7lb 10. What a truly inspirational chap.
mikench
Well-known member
Off to France for a couple of weeks tomorrow and after the fish no show yesterday , I felt I needed a confidence booster and to use up some maggots and meat. I was set up and fishing by 6.00am and stayed the morning as there are things to do this afternoon.
I had 52 fish including carp, bream, roach rudd, perch, gudgeon and I think, going off the above pic several roach bream hybrids.
The gudgeon are real clonkers and the one above stretched across my thigh and was at least 6" long. A very rnjoyable morning and well worth the effort.
I had 52 fish including carp, bream, roach rudd, perch, gudgeon and I think, going off the above pic several roach bream hybrids.
The gudgeon are real clonkers and the one above stretched across my thigh and was at least 6" long. A very rnjoyable morning and well worth the effort.
mikench
Well-known member
I didn't weigh it because i thought it couldnt possibly be a pure roach. I am convinced it was getting on for 2lb. Doh!
At least I know they are there so my pursuit continues! Thanks a lot John you're a pal!
At least I know they are there so my pursuit continues! Thanks a lot John you're a pal!