How did you get on?

[peter crabtree]

Not yet mein furher

I believe you mean Fuhrer...

 

[mikench]

I believe he did! I thought this was going to be a PC special with fantastic fish amidst inclement weather conditions and general adversity! I will have to wait!

 

[jon atkinson]

I was told that most of the waters at my new club fish best at dawn or dusk so I planned an early start yesterday morning, but you know what they say about "the best laid plans" :wh. I eventually got to the club car park about 08:45 - exactly the same time as the sun woke up, tricking me into thinking that regular wellies & a light coat would suffice. It hung around just long enough to allow me to work up a bit of a sweat walking 10 minutes to the pond called "Tench" & then bu99ered off for the rest of the day - the round, shiny git!

Off to a (very) slow start with nothing happening on either the waggler (maggot) or feeder (corn); I was getting that all too familiar feeling of a Serge coming on when finally the waggler dipped & this (very) little fella 'saved the day'!

Not a sniff on the feeder, so I switched to soft pellet but plus ça change - gave it half an hour then back on to corn, which duly obliged about 10 minutes later, sadly not with a tench, on such an enticingly-named venue, but a pastie of 3 - 4lb.

Which was followed by another of the same stamp about 5 minutes later which I initially thought was the same fish, as the scales on one side were so similar, but it was completely different on the other flank. A third, slightly smaller one came to the net about 15 minutes later, after which... nothing!

I had another only slightly larger perch on double red on the waggler, before deciding to switch to corn which gave me another mirror of a couple of pounds or so after about 15 minutes, but that was my lot. Not that I'm complaining, the solitude at this venue is wonderful for a misanthropic git like me - hardly any discernible traffic noise, plenty of bird song including the first chiffchaff I've heard this year, buzzards circling majestically overhead & plenty of hares running around again, yep, life could definitely be worse, &... I get to go again tomorrow :w

 

[peter crabtree]

Went to my usual Saturday morning venue but couldn't get parked, it was also pouring with rain. Didn't really feel like getting soaked so I headed off towards home. En route I came to some lights and thought, if I turn right here there should be a canal bridge somewhere? There was and it had a small free carpark next to the towpath. Thought I'd give it a look for future reference and it looked promising.
By now the rain had stopped so I thought I'd give it a go.



The little bridge there is where the river Gade re-enters the canal, the flow was quite strong on the inside of the peg. There was an inviting looking crease out towards the middle which was reachable with 8m of pole.



Started on a light punch rig and after a while had my first bite, a small roach. I wasn't happy with the rig though, it was too light for the slightly turbulent water.
I attached a more positive rig with a good bulk of no8's and dropper and tried maggot, immediate response, a minnow....



I fed 2 small balls of groundbait but before I could pick up my topkit a barge approached and turned around, realised I was sitting on a turning bay... Re-fed after all the revving and disturbance had settled and first put in a decent skimmer . Landing it was fun as it caught the flow inside and nearly ended up under the boat to my left...
Sometimes shipping parallel can be tricky.

Every time I fed a ball of gb it seemed to cue a boat to turn aroundmg: Bites were patchy but I had a few fish, roach and skimmers only though. At one point it hammered it down with rain and I had to speedily put up the brolly. Minutes later it stopped and it was bright sunshine?



Between 3 and 4pm I couldn't buy a bite so I packed up. Just managed to get everything in the car before the heavens opened once more.



Happy enough with that from a new untried venue....

 

[108831]

Went again yesterday to my club lake,slider and maggot in 15ft of water(opposite end from last week)and caught 30 roach between 4ozs and 1-10,with five over the pound,with a 5-6lb bream,a good day considering temperatures,varying wind directions and light levels(not to mention the never ending rain).

 

[jasonbean1]

After fishing so much at the end of the river season I gave myself a 2 week break which is very rare for me. So last Sunday I was back on the bank on a spring open series on the oxford canal, I was up against 18 good local anglers and with the canal fishing hard for the last couple of years and no apparent flyers on the stretch we were fishing bonus fish would be the difference at the weigh in.

Started off on the punch and picked a few small fish up and worryingly they were very smal but as I was getting bites I stuck at it....luckily after 30 mins a big skimmer over a pound was in the net, first bonus fish.

For the next for hours it was a matter of plugging away at the small fish on pinkie and squatt but I kept looking at and feeding the track with worm, I fussed I had around 4lb in the net which from what I could here on the bank was probably the best weight. The last 20 mins I went back down the track on worm and the float slid away and after a bit of a tussle a 2lb perch was landed. At the weigh I had 6lb 3oz for first spot with 4lb 2nd...good result and as I thought it was bonus fish the difference.

Yesterday was a pleasure day on states lagoon at Witney which is a nice size gravel pit and one of the few proper bream waters left in Oxford. It was a day to take out a pair of drennan acolyte distance feeders, big reel with braid, groundbait, pellets worms, maggots and casters. The pit was 2 foot up so sitting out in the water to clear the trees was needed. One rod set up with standard feeder the other with a flat bed method. Found the far side of the deep hole in front if me at 62 meters and clipped both rods up at that.

Cut a long strory short I stayed for 8 hrs and had an amazing days fishing taking 23 bream with smallest around 5lb and the biggest not quite 8lb all on standard feeder tactics... They didn't like the method. 2 big perch made a guest appearance both bursting at the seems ready to spawn at a guess.

I have to say the dirennan distance feeders a beautiful to cast and play fish with, they,re like casting with silk and playing and winding in big bream was light work with a decent reel.

Guess where I'm going this afternoon

 

[maggot_dangler]

Finally made it out today .

Took a trip to the club pool lots of fish apparrent but i had only got bread with me i meant to get some maggots yesterday
but ho humm never got any so bread it was .

I was saved from a blank by a single Bream of around 2.5 lbs .

Weather looks orrible for the next few days so maybe next weekend will be next visit unless Wednesday is better than forcast .



PG ...

 

[peter crabtree]

Fished an open match today on the GUC at Tring. The canal is only 11m wide on this venue but it is deep. I drew no1 so end peg.. Lots of boat traffic made it a little tedious, not to mention these 4 ladies who do this week in week out regardless of the conditions..



Punch across tight to the far bank was my opening gambit, had 5 roach and a gudgeon in the first hour. At 12:30, halfway through the 5 hours I was winning the match according to a runner.



I did however mention to him that there was a good chance of someone landing a big perch up on the high number pegs.
Unfortunately this proved to be the case, in fact the winner had 2, another 3 had one apiece. I ended up coming 6th with just 7oz 8dr...
During the last hour I fed chopped worm in my margin and also across in the vain hope of a big perch or bream but to no avail...

At least it didn't rain and I enjoyed it.
13 fished and 6 blanked....

 

[mikench]

Punch across tight

I bet that got rid of them Peter!:wh

 

[neil1970]

I don't care how tiny this trout is.
2 hours ultra hard work on a very low
chalk stream within the M25.
More clambering through woods and walking than fishing. This little gem was my reward on the first day of
trout season.

 

[103841]

A little beaut and a species I've yet to catch.

Tell me Neil, does that fly float or sink?

 

[neil1970]

Thanks S63. Its a sinking one, extremely light tungsten head, but my 0-7g rod can cast it as far as I need.
With my last rod I used a small split shot to get the distance I needed.

 

[john step]

Lots of bike tracks on the towpath PC. Was that the Cow Roast section? A pleasant stretch if it was.

 

[103841]

Thanks S63. Its a sinking one, extremely light tungsten head, but my 0-7g rod can cast it as far as I need.
With my last rod I used a small split shot to get the distance I needed.

Can't quite see from your pic, is that a fluoro leader you're using Neil?

 

[hammer_jamie]

On Saturday my 5 year old daughter asked if we could go fishing, So i sorted out the tackle box and off we went to my local commercial lake Redbridge Lakes.

Simple float fishing was the method i was using 2 bb shots, size 18 hook, float and red maggots. Had a few small fish and then out of no where the float slammed under the water and to my surprise it was a rainbow trout ! Not had one of these before, Made me very happy

 

[jon atkinson]

I opted for a somewhat later start on Sunday; given the overnight temperatures I figured that walking the dogs first would give the waters a chance to warm up a little. Although the site is only 15 miles from where I live, they'd obviously had a serious amount of rain that we hadn't seen based on the sodden, muddy state of the field, not improved by the horses that 'live' in it :nightmare:. However, I don't know whether there are any Rugby League fans on here but the state of the pitch at Castleford Vs Warrington certainly lends some perspective!

Not wanting to traipse through more mud than I had to, I opted for Misty, the second pond you come to in the field & as on Friday, I had it to myself . Conditions were looking pretty much spot on, I had a relatively late pass, plenty of hot water for tea - all I needed now were some fish...

I tried a variety of baits, but caster was undoubtedly what they were tuned into - I had some 30 roach, none of any real size - the one shown below was typical, a couple of rudd & 5 small perch - I've never really thought of caster as an obvious bait for perch for some reason - I guess I have it in my head that they tend to be more attracted to a bait that moves?

So not a lot to put a bend in the rod, although I did get snapped off at one point, almost certainly a carp , but a splendid day to be out amongst the cacophany of birdsong. No hares on Sunday, but I did clock a stoat bounding across the field.

 

[neil1970]

Yes 3lb S63

 

[peter crabtree]

After sitting at home yesterday because the forecast was rain all day, which in the end was totally inaccurate, I made a point of going today regardless.
Miss Kirkwood was spot on when she said there may be a shower or two in the morning before brightening up pm.
15 min drive up to Bourne end and fishing by 10:30.





Only set up a 4m whip with a fairly heavy rig (4x16 F1 float) with bulk and 2 droppers to a B511.
Bait today was just punch, in fact I used just one 1 slice of bread in the whole 5hrs...



The first 2 hours were slowish but productive, things slowed up for the final 3.
Not a bagging session but enough to keep me interested.
And of course they were all wild fish so every one counted....

 

[thecrow]

And of course they were all wild fish so every one counted....

............................

 

[bullet]

I don't care how tiny this trout is.
2 hours ultra hard work on a very low
chalk stream within the M25.
More clambering through woods and walking than fishing. This little gem was my reward on the first day of
trout season.View attachment 4200

What's wrong with fly gear ?