How did you get on?

[103841]

I thanked the post, thankful David was able to post this tale.

Be careful out there everybody.

 

[POLEMINATOR]

Trotting on the lower reaches of the tidal on a large river today produced some nice chub and dace, a decent sized pike grabbed one of the chub square across it's body as I was in the process of netting it but after a minuite of tug and war it let go. Luckily there wasn't as much damage to the chub as i'd expected so it went backk ok.







In the pic below on the chub above the two you can see the two marks where the pikes jaw was squeezing the chub....

That reel looks awesome to look at, I like the look of the style

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[S-Kippy]

Off to the club lake today for another go at the elusive big roach.

I knew it was going to be hard with the barometer well into the 1030's and no wind to speak off. Even worse I had 4 bloody cormorants working my bank, pretty well exactly on the line to fish. It was nice to get out and I kind of enjoyed it because of what might have been.

Anyway....I had one bite which I didn't hit because I was convinced it was a tufty but on winding in to recast I found two very sucked maggots. That was the only indication I had.

Like I said.....I kind of knew it would be hard.

 

[sam vimes]

I took a short trip to a new (to me) stretch of river. Only having a few hours to play with meant I didn't want to walk too far. Being a little stiff from two consecutive days of beating didn't help. Unfortunately, the stretch concerned doesn't appear to be overly well fished. I ended up walking far further than I'd have liked just to find a spot to fish. Even in the two spots I managed to find, the banks were steep and overhanging trees meant I had to forego my usual long rod.

Thankfully, it wasn't all in vain. Two grayling, two trout and something bumped, turned up in very short order. It probably took five times as long, and a move to another spot, to add another three grayling to the tally. Knowing that there was a lunatic fishing my syndicate lake (a decidedly summer water), I got going while the going was good, and there was still daylight left, to go and see the nutter.

 

[sam vimes]

Today I went to a stretch of river that I was battering hundreds of dace, chublets, grayling, roach and perch out of in late summer/early autumn. Having never fished it in winter, I had little idea of what to expect. I did know that the dace tend to vacate the area and head several miles downstream. My hope was that there might be some big grayling that had also dropped downstream from their usual summer haunts.

It was a chance worth taking that didn't pay off. I had an hour in one swim without a bite. I moved downstream about fifty yards to the slightly deeper and slower end of the run. After a biteless hour, I was toying with the idea of calling it quits. On one of my last casts, I let the float run a bit further than previously. It was right on the cusp of not being able to see the float when it disappeared. I struck into some resistance. It quickly became apparent that the resistance was the immovable kind. Pulling for a break didn't actually result in one. However, my hook was well and truly opened up. I couldn't be bothered to change it so took that as my prompt to head home.

The moral of the story, go where you know you are likely to catch in winter. It's not really the best time for gambles.

 

[john step]

As Sam above I went where I know today. A small water with reasonable depth about 7 feet. I had 17 roach on dead maggot and worm and umpteen small perch until the carp moved in and I had 5 of those.

All on a pole Mike(ench)

How is it you can fish for hours in a spot then two casts in succession hit a snag that must have been there all along?

There was a theme in another post mentioning hygiene on the bank amongst other things.
This is the anti weils pump spray I mentioned. It treats virus as well as bacteria unlike the hand gel that just does bacteria. Under £5 delivered on line.



picture upload

 

[sylvanillo]

Slightly outdated report for me. I was fishing for another 90 min only - difficult to find a slot between toddler management and job interviews. Again on the canal due to the ragingly flowing Thames, never mind I like the canal :love_heart:
Sunny and pleasant day
Again feeder with the light Ms Range rod, again with liquidised bread and punched bread.

I tried different places including close to a tropical boat house. Not the shyest of tip movement of the least recalcitrant small fish! It's official, the fish is ****** off of this weather and has left to Spain.

Since there didn't seem to be any sport available to my novice and sick hands, I walked "upstream"... the canal is frozen in different stretches... and WAO! I stopped staring at amazing bubbles! Neat bubbles from several fish slowly moving from the middle to the bank, close to and between the ice patches.

Unfortunately... none of those fish whatever they are (bream? tench? carp?) wanted my bread. Probably burrowing for worms only?

Finally moved to this very very narrow place, which is much deeper. One gets lazy in his setup...:

But, it seems that was THE place! And I had only 10 minutes left! From there, I got bite after bite! And impossible to hook any of them! :doh:

So at the end it's official: medium fish hide from me, big fish ignore me, small fish make fun of me. Probably this is what they see on the bank: :j.
I'll be back and we'll see who'll laugh last. :clap:

 

[wetthrough]

Yesterday's plan was to see if I could winkle a few Roach out of the Dam. Parking can be a bit hit and miss at the Dam head so set off earlier than I needed to to keep the walk to the swim as short as possible, it's about 300yds if I can park where I want, 400 if I can't. Queue of traffic in the right hand lane but not much where I am in the left. Approaching the lights and pondering on whether to GB or not it dawns on me it might improve my chances if I have some rods with me mg:. By this time it's too late to take the short route back as the right hand lane where I need to be is nose to tail Big circular route through the town centre. Back on track complete with rods and manage to park OK despite being later than planned.

Small ball of GB in 7'9" at about 15M, 2.75g antenna, 20s Guru LWG. Some loose fed caster and maggot and it's not long before I get an indication and the first Roach on caster. Bites kept coming but taking a long time to develop. Tried other baits but caster were getting the most bites until it went quiet around 11 which is quite normal there. Getting the odd fish 'til it picks up around 1pm but still very hesitant bites, maggot working better in the afternoon. Tried other baits, bread flake got me a few but the bites took forever, maybe 10min from indication to going under. It made me wonder if it was different fish pecking at it 'til it got small enough. maybe I should have tried punch. Anyway, went back to maggot and ended up with 40, packing up at 3:50. Nothing of any great size, mostly 2:3oz with 3 around the 4oz mark. Wasn't expecting great things so a good day all things considered.

 

[mikench]

Gordon now you know why I have a mobile Tackle shop.

 

[Ray Roberts]

Just christened my new reel trotting on the river Eden, a tad over 3lb, chuffed with this start. The banks are clay and absolutely treacherous.

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[sam vimes]

It must be because I actually have something that needs doing, for a change. Third day in a row out fishing. This time, due to it being heavy going in previous days, I stuck to a familiar stomping ground.

One grayling on the second run through was reasonably quickly followed by a second. A third seemed to take forever. None of them would have surpassed 12oz. The fourth bite turned out to be a fairly unusual winter minnow. The fourth bite only came after I gave up on more grayling and upped the feed. That resulted in a hell of a scrap from a spotted hooligan that I've not caught before. I guess that the high river levels must have moved them about a bit. It jumped so often that I didn't really expect to get it out. It was safely over 2lb, perhaps pushing 3lb and came complete with the beginnings of a kype.

 

[103841]

What’s a “Kype” Chris?

 

[sam vimes]

What’s a “Kype” Chris?

It's the hooked Lower jaw that older trout develop.

 

[tigger]

I had literally one hours trotting later this afternoon and it was more than enough! Ok, you might say 6 degrees isn't too cold but the wind was savage and made it feel much colder, it even made my fingers ache like hell.
Anyhow, during the hours punishment/trotting I had a good few chub, all small ones but did I do a long release on something larger, i'm quite sure it was just a chub of a better stamp than the runts which I caught. Few pic's of some of the river runts lol...

 

[peter crabtree]

A fellow codger told me he’d had a good day on an untried pound behind the aptly named Fishery inn, Boxmoor. So armed with some fresh casters and a tub of hemp I was there at sunrise this morning..

Usual light waggler set up with just 3 no10’s spread down the line for a slow sinking effect. 12’ Normark micro lite rod, 3lb mainline to a B511 fine wire hook to 0:07.
The first 3 hours were action packed with roach, chub, perch, skimmers and hybrids.

Not a single gudgeon showed, which was a nice change, and strange as 100yds to my left above the lock it’s seemingly carpeted with them...

By midday the predictable lull in proceedings started and the pub garden began to get noisy with the lunchtime trade, so I gave it best.
Easily 8lb of prime canal fish in my net...

 

[sylvanillo]

Yesterday I've been fishing a small stream. On Thursday at school run time (which also is river check time) the levels had gone nearly back to normal, so I went to bed thinking of fishing. When I woke up the only thing I was thinking about was to go fishing, at midday I thought I must go fishing, early afternoon at last I could go. Yipii! A common feeling anyone?!

It's one of the little streams that I fly fished in the past, surely not a heavily stocked river but I love those confidential places. There are miles of those micro-rivers. The plan was to set the rig in a swim, leave it for 10 minutes then move and so on. I suppose the chub doesn't move much especially in winter but I don't know.

So after taking my painkiller I was there. Just to notice I had forgotten a section of the rod in the car. Ok, another 30 minutes walk!

It was really muddy, slippery, and I remembered a recent tragedy in UK, so feeling already a bit wobbly I became very slow and careful...

A 75 gr cage feeder was necessary to hold the ground...

On the hook, 2 Dudules, and on a hair 1 piece of emmental, 2 or 3 pieces of punched bread:

Why? Well I don't know, carpe diem for the chub today!!

In the cage, liquidised bread with a handful of liquidised vitalin. Why? Well I don't know, carpe diem for the chub today!!!

A few tip movements about 10 minutes later:

About an hour later, before dust, and again after less than 10 minutes, a bigger one of 52 cm. It gave a good fight!

This is when I noticed that AGAIN the Drennan tip had broken! As my little one would say: Oh nooo, not that agaiiin!

Have a good Sunday everyone.

 

[sylvanillo]

End of the weekend! A 45 min fishing on one of the local streams again, at dusk. Rainy and a bit windy.

Same feeder rig, same hookbait, same groundbait. Same rod except for the tip This time the only one I still have intact, which is a 4 oz carbon. Too stiff but will have to do the job.

Caught this bream which hooked itself and then gave a good fight probably due to its shape and the current.

Had then one roach of about 8 inches.

I was surprised that both fish were caught right in the middle of the stream where the current is relatively strong. Maybe because there are so many snags on the river bed in this natural venue, I don't know. Anyway while looking for chub I had 2 surprises!

The rain became too heavy for my non-waterproof trousers and I decided to call it a day. Perhaps I should go to Aldi for some new clothing

Have a nice evening!

 

[DeanoJ]

End of the weekend! A 45 min fishing on one of the local streams again, at dusk. Rainy and a bit windy.

Same feeder rig, same hookbait, same groundbait. Same rod except for the tip This time the only one I still have intact, which is a 4 oz carbon. Too stiff but will have to do the job.

Caught this bream which hooked itself and then gave a good fight probably due to its shape and the current.

Had then one roach of about 8 inches.

I was surprised that both fish were caught right in the middle of the stream where the current is relatively strong. Maybe because there are so many snags on the river bed in this natural venue, I don't know. Anyway while looking for chub I had 2 surprises!

The rain became too heavy for my non-waterproof trousers and I decided to call it a day. Perhaps I should go to Aldi for some new clothing

Have a nice evening!

I've just bought trousers and ja ket from aldi. Seem to be very good value. Shall be testing them out on Wednesday.

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[Shmoobies]

Went to a stretch branching off the medway (hampstead lane - yalding) on Saturday for a few hours, just using a float and some bread flake on the hook, felt like there were nibbles but no takes.

Anyone fished around here before? This is my 8th or 9th attempt on the rivers near me and the 9th consecutive blank, I just cant seem to catch a fish from a river no matter what I do!

PLEASE HELP D:

 

[103841]

Went to a stretch branching off the medway (hampstead lane - yalding) on Saturday for a few hours, just using a float and some bread flake on the hook, felt like there were nibbles but no takes.

Anyone fished around here before? This is my 8th or 9th attempt on the rivers near me and the 9th consecutive blank, I just cant seem to catch a fish from a river no matter what I do!

PLEASE HELP D:

I’ve just read that Teston is now a day ticket stretch, might give that a visit soon.

I’ve been fishing the same spot of river three or four times in the past week, always start off with flake, a couple of days it paid dividends, on a following day nothing, switch to maggots and the bites start coming again.....smaller fish though, can take a hour of feeding to get that first bite often