How did you get on?

[nottskev]

Today had a bit of everything, some of which I could have done without. I thought I'd try the tench lake, but no crack of dawn stuff; I thought late afternoon would be best, given the endless cold weather. When I got there at 2pm, the weather was just like the forecast - cloudy with a light breeze.




But the forecast hadn't mentioned the persistent rain that set in at 2.30. Or the violent thunderstorm and torrential downpour at 3.30. By then, I hadn't had a bite, so I was really glad I'd come.

First bite was a blink on the well-dotted float. I expected a roach, and I was surprised when an abnormally big tench - most of them are 1-3lb - bustled and banged its way 40 yards out into the lake. It stopped with the .14 hooklength intact. Got you, I thought. Until the tench kited over to the submerged trees on my right, plaited the line and broke off.

I tackled up again and eventually got a few roach



And even a bream



Bites were few and far between, and you couldn't force the pace. Instead of throwing any bait in, I put up a few sections of pole and potted in little balls of groundbait with a few pinkies and maggots. At 5pm a little tench appeared




With a couple more before I lost another proper tench and called it a day at 6pm. I was packing away the soggy kit when the owner passed by, heading for the stables. I offered to pay for my ticket; don't bother; you can have this one , he replied. As I said, it had a bit of everything.

 

[john step]

That storm passed over me at about 4pm Kev. I was not fishing but doing some maintenance work at a fishery.
What made the afternoon was a barn owl out hunting in broad daylight. It caught a vole and flew off with it. I think it probably has an early chick or two.

 

[nottskev]

That storm passed over me at about 4pm Kev. I was not fishing but doing some maintenance work at a fishery.
What made the afternoon was a barn owl out hunting in broad daylight. It caught a vole and flew off with it. I think it probably has an early chick or two.

Lovely! Nothing so dramatic where I was - just the resident grebes and a robin by my elbow. It had the trees swaying for a bit, didn't it?

 

[binka]

It’s a fair old while since I smeared the pages of this thread, certainly many weeks if not a couple of months.

The first quarter of this year has been a bit of a buqqer to say the least, some of it due to planned circumstances and some of it due to the unforeseen and so I jumped at the chance of a few hours today.

I headed off to my town centre dam, I had other options nearby but this was what I expressly wanted to do as it is very much grass roots type of fishing.

With all the extra water coming down the feeder river I fancied my chances for a few gudgeon and set myself up where the mouth of the river enters the dam itself, the intention being to fish the crease where the flow meanders past the still water and at fourteen inches deep it might seem a gamble but with barely eighteen inches anywhere else it probably made little difference.

There was a very nice tinge of colour to the water and I was cautiously optimistic.

The rather urban looking collapsed brickwork, which I was nestled upon, may look recent but I can well remember setting down a basket on it the thick end of forty years ago and it invoked some fond memories…



I also set up the gudgeon quill which I made a couple of weeks ago and with two no.12 locking shot and a further no.12 dropper it sat very nicely…



I went with single red maggot to a size 22 and 1.3lb bottom and fed very lightly to begin with and the first hour yielded very little.

Things did improve however, not least due to some very lightly mixed groundbait, and I went on to enjoy a steady day catching nice, stamp size roach and netter skimmers along with a solitary small perch…







No gudgeon, unfortunately, although I know from previous trips that they are still very much there and it was really good to be back out after so long, a thoroughly enjoyable day for the sake of half a pint of maggots, a cup full of groundbait and a spot of free fishing which I had all to myself.

With the weather being as it has been I feel it’s a little early for the Spring perch run on another water but I hope give it a go, circumstances permitting, over the coming days...

Just in case… :w

 

[Hugh Bailey]

Normal service is resumed.

 

[Tee-Cee]

Yes, good to see you back Binka, as catch reports a little thin on the ground of late (from me, anyway). Simon not included!!

Tell me it doesn't give you much pleasure to slide one of your float creations up the line at the start of a session and to see it vanish from view as a good fish makes off. I always have a little smile as something new settles in the water and proves to work beautifully.....

Loook forward to hearing of perch, very decent......

 

[mikench]

Good to read of your exploits again Steve and love the wicker basket! I inherited one as a boy, my mum replaced the leather straps which attached the lid and my son left it on a lake bank!

 

[103841]

Enough of this adulation, there we've all been, well most of us anyway, blanking our nuts off in horrible conditions whilst a certain member takes a few byes with all manner of excuses and casually slips back in just as the action starts to warm up.


Just saying.

 

[fishplate42]

Enough of this adulation, there we've all been, well most of us anyway, blanking our nuts off in horrible conditions whilst a certain member takes a few byes with all manner of excuses and casually slips back in just as the action starts to warm up.


Just saying.

Who got out of the wrong side of the bed then?

Ralph

 

[103841]

Who got out of the wrong side of the bed then?

Ralph

You can pipe down too Mr. Pied Piker.

To answer another thread, yes fishing can be very cruel.

?

 

[103841]

I feel better for that.

This day seems like it's been a long time coming and has been a constant image in my mind over this miserably wet, cold and what seems a long winter. So the first visit of the season to my local estate lake was one of anticipation, having said that my expectations weren't optimistic in the knowledge the water temperature is still very cold.

Just a short session of a few hours so travelled light and was fishing within minutes of arrival....sun shining, blue skies, so glad to be back.


Set up light which I'm going to concentrate on this year and fished a small cube of meat over a Drennan Stillwater Blue. After two hours not a bite and my attention turned to a couple of Buzzards giving me a great aerial display overhead, luckily I refocused on the float just in time to see it slide away with a strike meeting a pleasant solid resistance, a few seconds later a rare capture from this lake of a plump perch a tad shy of 2lb.


After a further period of a motionless antenna tip I switched to paste and instantly had a skimmer followed by three more, enough of that and switched back to meat for a few last casts of the day.

The perch and the site of those Buzzards made for a lovely few hours, can't wait to return.

 

[john step]

What a lovely sunny day. I took my passport out and went over the border into Nottinghamshire to view a commie that my club has booked for a benefit match. I don't ordinarily do matches but this is a special one.

Still very hard for a commie. I had a decent carp and roach and hybrids. My excuse is that I only witnessed a few fish caught by about 10 anglers and I had most of them. Good old free worms.

I was amazed to see the extent of the flooding of the fields alongside the Trent on my way. It looked like a lakeland.

 

[peter crabtree]

A lovely sunny day indeed, a mate and I took a 16yr old beginner fishing on a day ticket lake in Bucks. Already fairly proficient on the float he wanted help with feeder fishing.
Between us we helped him present baits with different feeders, method, cage etc.
It wasn't long before he had the hang of it...

 

[nottskev]

This was one to forget. Geography teachers used to say the prevailing winds were westerlies from the Atlantic. This winter, the winds changed direction daily, and today’s brisk north-easterly had me walking past pegs on the Deep Lake I wanted to fish in favour of one hiding next to a tree.




The aim was to catch bream on the pole at about 11m, and as usual I plumbed up to find spots left and right, several yards apart, to let me try feeding differently. These bream are fickle, picky creatures, whose bites barely move the float, and you can’t be sure what they’ll eat or how much, til you try. A couple of dozen dampened micro-pellets went in on the left; a nugget of groundbait and a few pinkies on the right.

Only small roach showed up on the maggot. First put in on pellet and an impressive amount of elastic came out as a large bream plodded about. A big gust of wind swept the pole around and that was the end of that. I dropped in again, the float buried and the first gatecrashing carp of the spring had me hanging on waiting for the inevitable as it disappeared beyond the tree to my left. Luckily (?) the hook pulled and everything - float, shot, hook - came back, just not in the same order.

I put a fresh rig on, and eventually caught some bream. But the likes of the first lost fish didn’t show up, and those that did came in two sizes.

Small



And a bit bigger but nothing to get excited about



Tackle malfunctions joined forces with the weather and the lost lost fish to increase the enjoyment. I put on a rig that was last used in this peg, and was trimmed to a speck on the surface with 4 no 12 stotz. It refused to stay up until I’d removed all 4 – have you tried to get them off? – and after that never it sat in the same position twice. The hook was sharp – but I must have lost 4 or 5lb of fish that came off halfway in for no apparent reason.

I decided to have one last spell on the pellets, cupped in a few micros and followed them with the float. I got a bite straight away. I’d played the fish to a standstill – another of the lakes big carp, well into double figures – and was sizing up how to squeeze it into the net when the hook pulled out and saved me the trouble. I didn't have the heart to go back in, and wrapped up.

Fishing mate a few pegs away also spent half his time tackling up after various disasters. But he had a 3lb+ ide and a big chub to go with his bream, which just rubbed it in a bit.

 

[Pete Shears]

Two trips to the reservoir hoping for early tench this week,whilst yesterday was fantastic weather,brilliant sunshine and light variable breezes and a joy to be out, today however was the completely different with hazy cloud and a strong cold SE wind hacking towards the dam with nowhere to shelter from it.The only common denominator was no bites whatsoever but washing groundbait off my hands I understood why instantly - fffff freezing cold water ! Wildlife watching was the only other option,surprised to see a small flock of fieldfares this morning also three buzzards, a red kite and two crows hassling a kestrel.

 

[mikench]

but I must have lost 4 or 5lb of fish that came off halfway in for no apparent reason.

...and I thought this phenomenon was peculiar to me and down to my lack of basic skill! You have done the hard part, got a fish to play ball, got a fresh hook, decent tackle and you still lose the fish when you are confident of landing it! It's almost as bad as a blank! You have my sympathy and understanding Kev!

 

[nottskev]

...and I thought this phenomenon was peculiar to me and down to my lack of basic skill! You have done the hard part, got a fish to play ball, got a fresh hook, decent tackle and you still lose the fish when you are confident of landing it! It's almost as bad as a blank! You have my sympathy and understanding Kev!

Cheers, Mike. It happens. Sometimes there is an explanation, and something you can correct. In deep water, if your elastic is too light or you don't strike hard enough, you can find the hook isn't set properly, for instance. Or, on any water, your set-up has you striking at the wrong time, or you have too much bait on the hook for it to go in and hold properly..... But I've fished here countless times, and that's a new one. I think I landed 10lb and lost 25lb off the hook, although the big carp are a separate matter. And endured a mate walking over with his landing net asking things like "What d'you think this ide weighs?" (About 4lb!) and "Have you ever caught a chub in here before?".

 

[Tee-Cee]

No mikench, it nothing at all like a 'blank' of which I am becoming the expert.....

Actually I lie, because I didn't blank yesterday simply because my float went under, just the once. This happened at around 08.30 and followed around 90 minutes of ziltch. Conditions were fine, if not more than a little breezy and although the water was very high and over the bank after more heavy rain last week I felt, well sort of confident. I fished single reds on a 22 just off bottom..
(The excitement/expectation was closely followed by another couple of hours of nothingness before my bodily aches and pains took over and I could not longer sit on my chair................)

The fish? On the strike (I thought I had missed it as I felt nothing) but suddenly the line kited to the right (I kid you not!) and I was able to lift from the depths a beautifully conditioned perch. It isn't always necessary to talk of size and for my money too much emphasis is placed on such these days, so suffice to say it wasn't big. Personally, I was very pleased to see this little chap as it was my first fish for some time...

Oh alright, it was 50/60mm long and in pristine condition. Markings and colouration as beautiful as I've ever seen, like it was brand new......I slipped it back with a smile on my face.

 

[wetthrough]

At last. After some hard fishless days, a fish. Maybe Spring has arrived at last. Fished a WA club pool yesterday. It started off a lot colder than I
was expecting given the forecast but a lovely place to fish nevertheless.

The Kingfisher put in a brief appearance. Always good to see. Not so the Cormorant and a couple of mating Crested Grebes (I think) although the
Grebe display was something I hadn't seen before.

Fished the waggler about 3 rods out. Lots of silkweed so fished about 1/2" off the bottom and still ended up pulling for a break maybe ten times
throughout the day. Never lost a hook to the weed surprisingly but I think I paid the price, read on. Missed a few bites and then this little beauty
came.

Weighed in at a tad over 5lb and fought like a demon. It took what seemed like forever to land it although I was on fairly light tackle. 3lb
hooklength and 20s hook with a small piece of sweetcorn. Nicely lip hooked as well which is always pleasing. Learned something as well or more
put something I'd read into practice. I haven't been fishing long so I've still a lot to learn about playing fish. The fight is a lot calmer with the rod
low, even in the water. With the rod low the fish would more or less follow the pull. Lift the rod up and it would turn and pull in the opposite
direction. Finally managed to land it though but it got it's own back. I'd let my nails get a bit long and dug them into the palm of my hand drawing
blood!

That was about 11:40 I think. A few more pulling out of the weeds but nothing 'til about 4:00, just about the time I was ready to leave when I got
a bite and managed to hook it. It felt quite solid and a good sized fish. I was just about to flick the anti reverse off and ping, it broke at the hook
Maybe the previous fight and all that pulling out of the weed weakened the hooklink, who knows. Something I didn't notice as I was fishing was
the water level. It went up about 4" from when I arrived and was slopping over the peg by the end. It wasn't 'til about 2:00 that I noticed and I
thought I was fishing 1/2" off the bottom!

A great day all the same and well chuffed.

 

[mikench]

Was that GMM? Nice tench!