How did you get on?

[Pete Shears]

Another biteless morning on the reservoir - tench still on holiday somewhere warmer - cool NE/E/SE breeze with fog which lifted eventually into gloom revealing swallows and martins flying over the water,bigger optimists than me.Did spot long tailed tits gathering nesting material in the hedgerows,will have to wait for it to warm up a bit more but staying at home only guarantees a blank.

 

[Hugh Bailey]

Evidently there are some common/mirror carp and bigger/older fish in the ponds, but I have yet to encounter them. On my last visit (Thursday) I caught a fish of about a pound in weight, which seemed to be some kind of bream, but perhaps you guys could confirm the exact species for me, in the last picture below. I noted the strangely small mouth (????)...

A few pictures:

pristine small perch

example crucian

example roach

example tench

weird bream?

Cheers, Bob

Nice one Bob - haven’t fished the ponds but have wandered around - it’s quite nice there and I’ve seen a few carp come out. One of the tench looks like a golden. I’d guess the bream is a hybrid (Rudd / bream). The Basingstoke (although out of season now) is full of roach and bream, with a few tench and perch (and lots of small pike).

 

[maggot_dangler]

Spent most of the day on the club pool yesterday After seeing the Bikers off from the olocal pub on the easter kids run .

Very quite to start with few nibbles on bread and maggot but no hitable takes for a good 2 hours then a few hungry Bream started to show along with a pair of Chubb few roach and strangley only 1 perch and normally that place is nutts with perch taking almost whatever you throw in ..

Hope for a better day Wednesday weather allowing ....

PG ...

 

[Bobnewboy]

Nice one Bob - haven’t fished the ponds but have wandered around - it’s quite nice there and I’ve seen a few carp come out. One of the tench looks like a golden. I’d guess the bream is a hybrid (Rudd / bream). The Basingstoke (although out of season now) is full of roach and bream, with a few tench and perch (and lots of small pike).

Hugh, thanks for the tip about the club and also for the ID. I didn’t realise that the silver fish would hybridise so much, but that may explain the small mouthparts of the odd bream. I will look into fishing the Basingstoke canal if any day tickets are available in the open season.

 

[Another Dave]

Bob all those fish look supreme, gorgeous colour on all of them. Except the breamanoid with the surprised look. We'd need someone who likes counting anal fin rays to be sure what it actually is, hopefully the picture of the crucianesque fish should act as an attractant.

 

[Aussie Bob]

Another sortie with the light lure rod beautifully warm cloudy evening, Little walk around the lake after about 20 minutes throwing the little fly spoon around i hooked into what i thought was a decent fish which went deep. I never really got a look at it during the fight and it ended up burrowing into the weed in front of me. After trying side strain , giving the fish some slack and hope it swims out it dawned on me i was going wading to get it out.Luckily only just above knee height i floundered around pulling weed and using the landing net to open up the weed , the odd tug on the end of the rod reassured me the fish was still there. After finally spotting red fins i managed to net the perch. Although it was a pretty standard 30 cm 1lb ish fish it was still a good catch and will feed me tomorrow night.By the time i got the treble out of the landing net it was going dark so i called it quits.

 

[swizzle]

example roach

Cheers, Bob

What beautiful little fish. I hope they always stay in such good condition. Just one moment of pedantry I'm afraid, I believe the roach to be a rudd. It is of little consequence either way.

 

[Bobnewboy]

What beautiful little fish. I hope they always stay in such good condition. Just one moment of pedantry I'm afraid, I believe the roach to be a rudd. It is of little consequence either way.

That is fine by me, I am learning the species as I go along as a newbie. Just out of interest, what is the differentiator between a roach and a rudd? Is there a easy way to tell? I have probably been mixing these up for some months now!

Cheers, Bob

 

[103841]

Colouration isn't always as obvious as the illustration, for me, the prutuding lower lip of the Rudd is a good reference.

 

[Another Dave]

I think we can all agree that Brian is a nice name for a rudd, not so sure about the other one though.

 

[mikench]

The more I look at that photo the more I think it is a roach . No rudd I have caught looked like that! What do I know though!

 

[S-Kippy]

That's no roach. The underslung mouth is a dead giveaway.

 

[Tee-Cee]

I would've thought someone (such as Mark Wintle) would be doing a scale count as I write.

I think it's a 'Road' (roach x rudd)

Strange how two of the fish shown have the protruding lower lip.................

 

[nottskev]

It poured down all morning, but I took a chance it might clear up and headed off to the tench lake. It was still raining and windy when I arrived, so the choice was between flat clean pegs with the rain in my face, or the wind behind down a mudslide in a bit of a parrot cage. I hate facing the wind, so I set up on top of the bank then slithered down to the little ledge at the bottom.



I set up the rod and pin, plumbed around to find the bottom of the shelf - 8' deep about 6m out - shotted and trimmed the float and cupped in a bit of groundbait and a few pinkies left, and just corn right. Then I dropped in, got stuck on the bottom and when I pulled my carefully set up rig went up the tree. It all came back - in a ball about 6" in diameter. I didn't have the heart to do all that again, so I fished out a suitable pole rig and decided, since I had it out to feed with, I might as well fish with it. So now I commenced plumbing up again over the spots I'd just fed, which is not really the way to do it.

At least it stopped raining, although the day never got beyond gloomy



And once I stopped pratting about and actually began fishing, it didn't take long for the first little tench to appear; and welcome it was, too.



The place is clearly warming up. A week or so ago, it took a good while to induce bites with the bare minimum of feed. Today the small tench were happy to home in on a small ball of groundbait every now and then and a dozen maggots after every fish. A while ago, I'd put some fancy elastic in a top kit - black hydro - but never used it. I tried it today, and it was just right for this (12 oz to 2 1/2 lb) size of tench - none came off, and none got into the snags and branches either side.
A lovely afternoon's fishing, and I ended up with 34 small tench and a roach. Sorry the pic is poor - not much room on the shelf for me and the fish, and I couldn't get up the bank with the net.



It did occur to me though that, enjoyable as it was, something was missing.

So when I bumped into the owner on the way out I told him: you wanna get some carp in there, mate :wh

 

[103841]

That is not a poor pic Kev.

 

[mikench]

I do like irony Kev! Give me tench any day!

 

[Bobnewboy]

I do like irony Kev! Give me tench any day!

Me too. Can’t wait to get a few more in, but I’m not at that level

Cheers, Bob

 

[mikench]

Fantastic net full Kev; well done ! I have never seen so many tench! Couldn't you catch a carp?:wh

 

[nottskev]

Fantastic net full Kev; well done ! I have never seen so many tench! Couldn't you catch a carp?:wh

Sadly, no.

 

[S-Kippy]

I would've thought someone (such as Mark Wintle) would be doing a scale count as I write.

I think it's a 'Road' (roach x rudd)

Strange how two of the fish shown have the protruding lower lip.................

I thought so too which is why I went for " not a roach" rather than " its a rudd". It could just be the photo though I wouldnt rule out a bit of roach in there somewhere. The eye looks a bit roachy and the fins dont look quite right for a true rudd.