How did you get on?

[mikench]

I went to my local and former favourite water with temperatures just above freezing but flat calm and sunny so it didn't

feel cold.

I was in shirt sleeves for a while until a breeze from the east put in an appearance. I had nothing on the feeder rod which i alternated with the float( Brownings) and 2 but just 2 decent roach around 12 oz on maggot but no more. I did catch loads of gudgeon which i didnt count.

Highlight of the day was a young lad floatfishing with his dad for the first time . He caught several small roach and gudgeon and then as i was packing up he hooked a carp. He played it very well and gave everybody in ear shot a running commentary such was his excitement. He was so thrilled he just ran to all and sundry to tell the tale. Hooked for life i reckon.

 

[markcw]

Had a day on Newlands with a new member, he had only seen the place.
I told him it will be hard going with the breeze on our backs and only 8 degrees,
I set up a 10' Harrier feeder rod ,an old shimano 4010 baitrunner and PI ics inline maggot feeder,
He set a similar set up to fish, Daiwa Ninja feeder rod and Ninja reel and free running black cap feeder,
I was on a corner peg ,he was on the first one from the corner, Also set up margin pole , nothing doing on that despite a few carp showing in the corner .
I ended up with a roach around a pound on maggot feeder, My mate had a bream of 5.8lb fishing 10 yards out in a spot I said they patrol He was made up new venue and a pb bream.
We are on a place call Lodge Farm near Bicester next week, a venue neither of us have fished. I will be taking a waggler rod,chair ,reel,bag of bits and pellets and maggots. And that's it, on the assumption if the swim is bad I can up sticks in minutes and find another.

 

[bullet]

A snap decision to go trout fishing last saturday when driving past Ladybower res saw me arrive at 1—30 pm today for a half day catch and release ticket,
There were not many anglers in attendance, in boats or on the bank suggesting the weather was having a negative effect.
My rods set up, one with a floating line the other with a medium sinker and I was ready to go.
Four hours on and I had no indications of a fish, non rising or no one catching wasnt doing my confidence any good, I decided to maake a move to one of the boat platforms and it wasnt long before I had my first indication of a taking fish but sadly it never saw my landing net!!!!
A little later and Bang!
A fish on!
A nice rainbow of some two lbs or therabouts that made me work hard.
Ten minutes later and another, brother chip to the first, hit my net.
Tho really cold I was enjoying myself when another fish hit my fly but this time it cleared the hook, the same a cast later but a simple pull on the rod was all I had by way of indication.
The sun was going down now in the west, it made me think of the guys who pracriced dropping their bouncing bombs prior to the raids on the germen dams in the last war, they would have come over the Derwent dam facing that setting sun but for them doing things in darkness,
Amasing achievement when you see the hills surrounding both dams.
One of the valve towers on the Derwent dam is the Dambusters museum, if ever a member can visit when its open dont miss the chance, its all there to see!!!
Anyway a pleasant drive home thru/ up the peaks and then down to Sheffield.
Pleased with my result on a hard afternoon?
Very!

Nice one, Mick.
Looking at image 3 I reckon your Bung is a bit on the large side?

 

[Pete Shears]

A not very early start with a heavy frost on the car windscreen but with the promise of sunshine I was soon on the way to the bigger reservoir with two method feeder rods and the old Optonics pressed into service again.
A 5lb bream on the first cast, then a double figure pike grabbed a skimmer of about a pound but eventually let go , the skimmer swam off strongly and didn't seem to have any battle scars. Further bites resulted in smaller skimmers and roach to 1lb 1oz when the pike grabbed a roach of about a pound and once again charged all over the place before letting go and this fish had deep slashes from the pike but swam off.
After these interludes not much happened except the cold N,N/E wind never gave up nut good to get out.Not much notable wildlife at the reservoir but on the way home saw three buzzards together, a kestrel hovering over the verge and a red kite being mobbed by a crow.

 

[flightliner]

Nice one, Mick.
Looking at image 3 I reckon your Bung is a bit on the large side?

Bullet, not mine, it was the pike angler opposite drifting a suspended deadbait under a red balloon????

 

[peterjg]

Peter Crabtree, I must say that I enjoy reading your reports and seeing photos of places that I used to fish quite regularly. The Wendover Arm was a bit of a favourite for the roach, less boat traffic and a bit deeper at the end. There was rumour that the arm was going to be reopened to its previous size?

 

[108831]

Had a pleasant day yesterday which ended in me catching 16 crucians,5 over 2lbs the biggest 3lb 5ozs,the picture with my ugly mug on was taken by a nearby angler and he didnt know to tell me that the fish was angled and the tail bent,needless to say it was a belter....

 

[seth49]

Bright and sunny and -2c first thing, not my favourite conditions at all, it’s always a bit of a struggle when it’s like this, did get a small tench and a skimmer in the first hour, then it was a struggle for bites, tried various baits but nothing worked, didn’t want to put to much bait in with the water still being cold.

Eventually the carp started coming into the margins later, but they didn’t want any of the baits I tried till I remembered that worm worked at this time of the year usually.

I didn’t use my pole yesterday, and used my 13 ft Korum power float rod, I have a Korum feeder bead at the end of my reel line, and attach pole rigs to this, it lets me put the rod on a couple of rests, instead of holding it all the time, using one of my Young’s pins with 8 lb line on.

So a couple of dendros on the hook, and stunning them by slapping them on the water, stops them masking the hook point, eventually the float went under, and I was attached to a ten pound common carp, rod and pin handled it well, and after a good scrap I landed it, lost another too a hook pull later and that was it.

Plenty of bird life including a first for me a pair of reed buntings, also sedge warblers, chiffchafs, and a pair of long tailed tits.

 

[silvers]

Had a pleasant day yesterday which ended in me catching 16 crucians,5 over 2lbs the biggest 3lb 5ozs,the picture with my ugly mug on was taken by a nearby angler and he didnt know to tell me that the fish was angled and the tail bent,needless to say it was a belter....View attachment 14342View attachment 14343

Lovely Crucians Alan!

and may I say that you haven’t changed a bit in the 30 years since we fished together! (Albeit that photo is a bit out of focus !!)

 

[108831]

Because I had to zoom in Alex,may I also suggest you go to specsavers as soon as possible...

 

[bullet]

Tried a stretch today that I probably haven't fished for 30 odd years. It doesn't seem to have changed much in character over the years, but what has changed is that it now appears to be full of Grayling which I can't recall ever catching there previously. This spot held plenty, a few casts resulting in a couple , and they were coming readily to the dry, but obviously I wasn't after them, so moved on...

I did find a few small Trout as well, not much fly about, but a dry Grannom cast to the odd riser generally got a response, with this being the pick of the session...

 

[mikench]

Cracking crucian Alan and well done. Im reluctant to post the latest episode of Gordon and Mike Go Fishing as it doesnt quite live up to that but then when does it. We headed to a lovely water which can delight and dismay in equal measure and which today did neither. We arrived at 8.00 am in bright sunny weather and were soon too warm. Here is the metronome of consistency; he puts me to shame.
Gordon float fished for a change and i set up a feeder rod and a float rod. I had one bream on the feeder around 6lb and Gordon had the same size of fish on the float. I caught a mixture of roach and rudd but none over 8oz and Gordon did the same but caught at least 2 to my 1. It became cold when the sun disappeared behind cloud but it didnt spoil our enjoyment and we had a good catch up and plenty of laughs. I prepared 2 pieces of bread for the fish and a chicken sandwich both wrapped in cling film and put them in my bait fridge and for some reason i just picked up one parcel and i had 2 slices of plain white bread for lunch; what a plonker. A lovely day Gordon so thanks to you and here's to pastures new next week.

 

[S-Kippy]

Another shocker for me at Bury Hill.

Decided not to bother with an early start as its too bloody cold first thing. The only trouble with that is that you might not get the spot you fancy.....and so it proved,there being a bloke on every one of the 4 swims I had in mind. Some of the swims are a bit close at BH and I will not fish in a line or next to someone if I can help it. End result was that we ended up on the same 2 pegs we fished last time which, ordinarily, are right up there with the best on the lake. This time we reversed, I fished the swim Phil blanked in last week and he fished the other. By 1230 neither of us had had a bite...it was very pleasant but the water was freezing.

Anyway....the BF then had a purple patch of a couple of hours during which he had 7-8 crucian and a solitary tench,losing another. Meanwhile I still hadn't had a bite though the bloke to my right had had half a dozen fish on the feeder and the bloke to Phil's left had had about the same...also on the feeder. I decided I'd had enough so one more put in and lo and behold..a mugfish crucian around 1-10 or 12. Next put in I hooked a tench but I pulled a bit too hard to keep him out of the lily roots and snapped the hooklink. Enough already....I packed up though Phil rubbed it in by having another crucian.

I just dont think I had any fish in front of me for most of the day. There's no other explanation that makes sense to me as we fish and feed almost identically. I did have a go in the edge in case another pole stealing tench was creeping around the margins but all I had was a little perch and half a dozen pond sized rudd.

Just one of those days I guess. The water remains cold and the fish can shoal up and not move around when its like that.

 

[theartist]

The going was hard for me too on the canal this morning, turned up to see a boat going sideways like it was the Suez, the resulting silt churn up bought the bleak out and in serious numbers too, couldn't get through them everywhere as there was muck on the surface and they were loving it, a couple more boats including a dredger and a barge that got grounded in my swim ruined things further but did they? It turned out to be a memorable day as had a robin feeding out of my hand and a 3lb chub saving the day before I packed up, enough material for the blog, and quite eventful to boot.

Sometimes these hard days are the most memorable

 

[108831]

Fishing can be so changeable,last Wednesday the temperature was virtually identical,the wind was in the South West and yet it fished garbage,yesterday the wind was mainly in the North yet the crucians fed,don't ask me for a reason why,i'm absolutely puzzled....

As for Mike and Gordon's day,I know exactly what you both went through,I sat on the second warmest day of this year,in shirt sleeves and never had a touch....

 

[The Sogster]

Went to the local estate lake again this afternoon arriving about 12.30.
The plan for today was to fish the float in about six feet of water. Because the place is quite open and subject to a lot of tow I opted to fish a large bodied insert waggler with a bulk at two thirds depth and two droppers.
Bait was red maggots and corn, I also mixed some fishmeal groundbait to be fired in by catapult in walnut sized balls around the float every few casts or as the bites dictated.
Bites were slow and finicky to start with but a slight change to the position of the two droppers lead to more positive indication.
First proper bite, I felt the fish momentarily then the feeling of slack line. Thinking I had bumped the fish I went to inspect my hook only to find a curly pigtail of line. Gutted and confused because I always pull test my knots.
Retied my hooklength and set the depth again, five minutes later I had my first fish a lovely little tench of around a pound.
The bites after that were infrequent but over the next couple of hours I managed a couple of decent skimmers.
The bites dried up about 3pm for a couple of hours and despite trying various shooting patterns and altering the depth it was grim going in the cold wind.
Fortunately the fish switched back on around 5.30ish when a cracking roach of around 20oz decided it wanted three red maggots.
This was followed by a couple of 6oz skimmers and a final tench of about one and a half pounds.

Throughout the day I was constantly amused by this little chap who seemed unusually bold,

 

[tommos16]

An enjoyable days fishing today. Almost impossible to get a bite, ended up feeding bread on the off chance they'd take off the top... Which they did. Usually wouldn't warrant much of a mention but it was my first off the top and a lovely fish to boot. Always makes it better when something comes off for you

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Keith M]

Had a pleasant day yesterday which ended in me catching 16 crucians,5 over 2lbs the biggest 3lb 5ozs,the picture with my ugly mug on was taken by a nearby angler and he didnt know to tell me that the fish was angled and the tail bent,needless to say it was a belter....

Alan I might be tempted to have a late afternoon/evening session on that lake tomorrow with my son as I fancy a few of those Crucian myself

Keith

 

[103841]

Roll on 72 hours, same swim, same bait, same method, a very different result, Thats fishing!

After a biteless 90 minutes I can't believe how my bobbin shot up for this micro sized foulhooked roach.

Almost another hour until another bite, this time a better stamp of roach, had a close call with a cormorant by the look of it.

The high number of garden visitors with their children most probably accounts for the better fish not showing, I had the lake to myself, other members wise to the fact that a sunny Saturday is a no no. Still, three hours on the bank in glorious surroundings is never something to regret.

 

[john step]

I dont normally fish weekends but things have been topsy turvey this week.
Up to the Wolds and a practise with my new margin pole which I have just retro fitted a puller kit. It works a treat.

In the sunshine I had 8carp to 8 1/4 and a nice chub of 4lb on the button. Only thing that got bites was breadflake