Short Evening Session

Well didnt think I would get out for a couple of weeks with work load but managed to do a short after work session . Now this session was to have 2 aims neither of which happened . Firstly the YSG clothing was supposed to have been delivered and Jon Preen was meeting me to hand mine over , unfortunately despite him waiting til lunchtime there was no sign and when he contacted home late evening still no sign , secondly while people have been struggling with the hot weather some have been having some good catches on maggot and float , now didnt have time to pick any maggots up so went with hemp and pigeon conditioner as loose feed intending to fish corn , hemp and wheat over the top .

As a back up I also took some liquidised bread and a light feeder rod . To be honest I picked the wrong swim as I had 12 feet of water a rod length out and little flow , I gave it a couple of hours without any success , there were roach starting to swirl at my loose feed and so decided to make a change , my plan was to remove the heavy avon float and bulk weight and switch to an ordinary stick float and fish shirt button style to try and catch a roach . Rather than waste valuable fishing time I mixed the liquidised bread with some hemp and pigeon conditioner and added some of the water from the sweetcorn and set up a 30 gram gripmesh feeder and attached a 6 foot hooklink of 4lb line with size 14 carbon feeder hook . 

The feeder was filled and a grain of corn put on the hook and cast 3 rod lengths out into a deep hole . now I hadnt taken any alarms so set the baitrunner fairly loose . I picked up the float rod and stripped off the rig and had just attached the other float when the baitrunner sprang into life , lifting into what was obviously a barbel , after a few minutes of careful playing on the light tackle the fish rolled into the net . On the scales it went 5lb 12oz not massive but more than welcome .

I rebaited and recast and continued with setting the float back up , all the while feeding a little hemp and pigeon conditioner . As I completed the set up a couple of knocks on the feeder rod signaled a roach of around 10oz . I took the opportunity to try the new float set up but after half an hour of battling the wind which had now increased a little and was pushing down stream and into my bank control was out of the question so was put back in van and went back on the feeder . Another roach of similar size to the first one was soon on its way to my net . It then went very quiet , my attention was taken by the site of a grey heron flying over my head to the far side of the river where it was met by 2 large black birds which mobbed it and sent it flying back to my side of the river . Around the same time 2 swans appeared on the far bank and then proceeded to get down to mating , now I have never witnessed this despite fishing for 45 years but the noise they made were incredible , it sounded like someone been throttled !!!!!!.

I noticed my rod tip just not once and then drop back , I dont know why but decided to hit it ans was soon connected to a very angry fish , the fight was totally different to the first a more plodding fight than the tearing runs which is usually the signal of a big fish however when the fish finally rolled into the net it didnt look much bigger than the first and on the scales this was confirmed as it went 6lb 10oz .

I managed to take a bream of around 2lb the next cast .

Now as the light faded fish began sowing all over the river and I fancied I might just nick a couple more but as this pic shows that would prove difficult as I had forgot my isotopes for the tip of the rod and though I could see the odd knock on the tip there werent clear enough to hit and was getting shredded corn .

At 11pm and having been up since 4.30am for work I called it a night and to be honest was more than happy given the way the river was fishing .

Back on the River

Well bout time I re countered my opening month of the season . My opening days would be spent somewhere different to my last 2 seasons which I had spent on a syndicate stretch of the tidal Trent , this year I would be on the middle Trent with fellow YSG member Jon Preen , now due to work I planned to get down around dinner time and give myself nearly 12 hours to get set and have a catch up with other anglers , last year I was the only one on my chosen stretch and the year previous there were 5 other people , this time there was only 11 recognised swims and when Jon txtd me on friday evening to say there were 6 anglers already down , I decided that I should get up at first light and get there and then grab some sleep .

Van was loaded and I was away from home at 4am , on arriving  at the river at 5am the anglers who were there already were obviously still fast asleep . I parked up and walked down to where Jon was bivvied up and sending out zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's on having a look near him there was no swim available so back to van and drop in another one . Got the bivvy up and everything out of van and the rain started , everything was thrown either back in to the van or the bivvy and I retreated inside , the wind was all over the place and at one point blowing straight into bivvy so door went down and I sat waiting for a break . Now an hour later and getting hungry I decided to break my own rule and got the stove going and the bacon and sausage was in the pan at this point the sun came out and the temp in the bivvy went mental .

As you can tell there was no way of moving stuff outside so finished breakfast inside which consisted of a bread cake with 3 rashers of bacon , 3 sausages , a slice of mexicana cheese with ketchup on .

I plated this up and moved stove outside and picked up the butty and wondered down to see Mick the bailiff who had the kettle on and knocked me a brew up . After catching up with a few of the guys and Mr Preen , I got my lead rod out and checked the river bed and discovered last years floods had changed the make of it and finally found some gravel , got the rods set up and marked up for the spot and then settled down and relax and await midnight . Now the far bank is a day ticket stretch and it was lined with anglers in fact there was double the amount of anglers to swims which pointed towards a tough start .

Midnight came and the Rioja was opened and the toast for a good season made , now on my bank we started at midnight as we should however the other bank casts were made from around 10pm !!!!!

The first cast was made and the waiting game started , now due to the amount of bait put in by anglers opposite I decided to just feed through the feeder on one rod and straight lead on the other . Casting the feeder every 20 mins for the first 3 hours and then every half hour after that resulted in nothing at all . There was one bream caught on the far bank was greeted with masses of head torches running up to see a fish !!!! report from Jon's end was much the same though he had managed to take a couple of  barbel and bream but there was no anglers opposite him . At 7am my first fish of the season arrived an eel of 1lb 12oz.

As anglers left the opposite bank and others took their place no more action was forth coming . Then my wife Lou arrived with out mental dog Dizzy which broke things up a bit and then out of the blue one of my rods ripped off and my first barbel of the season slipped into the net at 6lb 8oz .

The next 24 hours resulted in nothing and as calls were made it was becoming clear the river was fishing in patches as angler reported either nothing or some catching multiple barbel and chub . A swim became available next to Jon and when I'm bivvied up fully I tend not to move but thought may as well move and have a social for the last 24 hours so loaded the van and drove down , as the weather had now decided to behave I set up my stormshield brolly and packed my bivvy and non essentials away .

I got the lead rod out and found a small gravel patch on the far bank and put a few bait droppers of bait on it . Jon's dad and stepmum turned up at this point to see him so took myself off to see them and had a chat and a drink . After they left I put my rods out and soon had a bream of 6lb

This was soon followed by my first chub of the season at 4lb 14oz

And as the sunset hopes of a barbel or 2 was awaited

Unfortunately no action occurred and as the weather went hot and sunny I decided to call an end to the opening session has had to get home put my gear away and get ready for a couple of days at work .

My next session was planned as an after work overnighter , now having spoke to a few anglers I decided to try fishing maggots so purchased some from my local shop , now when I go in and the guy says when are you going I know they aint fresh but as I didnt want to detour to bait farm when I finished work I took the plunge . Van loaded off to work I went at 5am and on my 2pm finish shot home checked on dizzy then off to river , now I had planned to try the tidal but arrived to find most swims taken and no one catching so raced backed to middle and just as pulled up at the swim I fancied the heavens opened , oh well soon pass as it was showers only . half hour later and still throwing it down , no bivvy just the brolly again so dived out of van and grabbed brolly and had just about got it up when Mr Barbel himself Wayne Glossop rang me , now this is where things started to go wrong , the maggots had been in a bucket and bounced down several lanes with out a problem so when the phone went the bag with the pegs for the brolly were thrown in the van the door shut and I sat under half erected brolly . 15 mins later and call ends and return to van to get pegs and discover I had managed to hit the bucket with the maggots in and knocked it over !!!!!!! all 4 pints of maggots were now trying to find hiding places in the floor of the van , nothing for it but empty van and clear carpet and mats out and retrieve the escapees , think I found about 3 and a half pints but 10 days and some hot weather later there is no sign of the flies . . Fishing wise it was poor , 1 eel of 1lb 6oz , 2 roach around 6oz  each ,2 small perch , 1 hybrid of around 1lb that looked battered and 12 small bream with biggest going around 4lb .Ok I typed that last night and got up this morning and there was one bluebottle flying round the van now when I came out of work 9 hours later and approached the van it became apparent that all was not well as there was about 50 bluebottles all over the windows !!! so opened them and left it for a few mins while they vacated the cab , no driving home more appeared and flew out the windows , looking in the rear view  mirror and back window had a few on it so when I got home all the doors were opened and left . I have been out 3 times since opening all the doors and they are still appearing !!!!

For my next session I went to the tidal and made sure I got a decent swim by arriving at 4am as I was only fishing til 4pm due to work . Now had been warned it was fishing tough and not producing during the day so when at the bottom of the tide at 6.30am one of the Delkims sang its tune I was more than happy to slip a barbel of 6lb 1oz onto the scales .

This broke the hoodoo of the Angling Anarchy hoodie

Things then went a little quiet until the bottom of the tide when in the space of 40 minutes I landed 3 barbel of 2lb 6oz , 5lb 10oz  and 4lb 

My swim was very comfortable and the early start was taking its toll which wasnt good given I wanted to work the swim , I was kept alert by frequent visits from damsel flies

Just as I was starting the pack up I had a fish on each rod which resulted in a 2lb bream and a 2lb 10oz barbel .

 

The surprising thing about this session was in all the sessions I fished on this particular stretch of the Tidal last year I only had barbel under 7lb , good news for the future but a puzzle for now .

My last session to bring things up to date was again on the Tidal Trent and involved fishing 4pm til 8am the following morning . On arriving I discovered my 2 first fancied swims taken one of which had Jon Preen on it  , the one I settled on I had fished twice previous but not been on since New Years Eve 2011 . Now having spoke to a few who had fished this swim since the season opened the result was that no one had even had a bite off it !!!! but nothing ventured nothing gained . The river was very low and clear and while leading around I found some nice gravel and on my last retrieve I had a perch of around 2lb follow the lead !!!!! .

I decided to go with normal tactic of not putting a bed of bait down but just put bait in through the feeder and build it slowly .

Low and clear and looks like the sky is in the river !!!!

On my first retrieve of the downstream rod a jack pike of around 4lb grabbed my feeder unfortunately it spat the feeder out at the net . After around 2 hours I got some silly taps on the upstream rod and the feeder started to roll and I lifted into what I thought was a small bream but after getting me snagged and freeing it with the fish still attached it turned into either a small barbel or an average chub and then for no apparent reason it came off , gutted doesnt come close as the way the river was fishing that could be my only chance . Despite be careful with my casting and about how much bait I was putting in nothing was forth coming and so on sunset I was still fishless and had seen no other sign .

As darkness fell fish began moving and showing along the far bank including my first ever seas trout bouncing up stream but still no action . I remained biteless til 3.10am when out of the blue I was attached to a very angry barbel which pulled the scales to 9lb 6oz and my biggest of the season so far 

Half an hour later and I hook and land another barbel of 6lb 7oz

And finally at 4.15am I had my last fish of the session of 7lb 5oz 

While that was the last of the action I watched a nice sunrise develop 

And that brings me upto date and as I type this we have just had 4 scorching hot days that has seen everyone who has been out struggle for bites but may mean the fish have finally got their spawning out of the way . I'm hoping to have a short after work session in a couple of days but will be trying something different to tempt a fish or 2 .

Breaming

Well for my final session before the rivers open I decided to try a club lake I have only fished once before and this time was going prepared . I arrived at 4pm after work to find fellow YSG member Jon Preen already there as he had arrived the day previous and enjoyed bream after bream , so things looked good other than there been alot down and only one swim left on the favoured bank unfortunately it didnt fish into the main lake but a back bay . Never mind get the bait ready which was ground vitalin mixed the night before and rolled into 30 balls and a spod mix of casters , hemp , corn , whole and crushed boillies and mirco pellets , that done I got my marker rod out and found a gravel bar about 40 yards out that was only 2 feet shallower than the water round it but looked a good bet . I put the balls of bait in and then put 15 spods over the top . Having spoke to Jon I decided to follow his lead and leave the bait to settle and get my camp set up

It was good to get my old faithful JRC Sti up as some will know it was retired last year in favour of a new model from another company that turned out to be a serious white elephant .
I got my rods and pod set up and then went for a brew with Jon and the bailiffs , can honestly say they are 2 of the best I have encountered and a good laugh even though they are carpers lol.

I returned to my rods and got them out in position and set about waiting for the action .

Now what became evident was that the carp were preoccupied and looking in the margins it was hard to see why !!!!!!

The black things are tadpoles and there were thousands everywhere . On dusk the liners started and were continuous for most of the night and other than one aborted take nothing hittable happened til 5am the following morning when I positive take resulted in a nice bend in the rod and the usual nod and plod of a good bream which when I placed on the unhooking mat and weighed was a lovely 8lb 2oz at this point I realised I hadnt set my camera up so placed the bream back in the landing net and secured it in the deep margin , now I have done this countless times with numerous species and never had a problem ,as you will see below there is something missing from the pic because as I was getting the self take ready the bream somehow managed to flip out of the landing net and returned itself just as the practice self take took. This has been a source of amusement to everyone who has heard the story .

You will notice that I am well wrapped up as it was a little cool which didnt last long !!!!!!!

An hour later I had my second bream which this time I photo'd without incident and weighed 5lb 12oz

You will tell from this pic the sun had come out and made pics a little difficult , within half an hour I had another bream of 5lb 8oz.

Suddenly the temperature went through the roof . I reeled my rods in and went for a chat and discovered that everyone had struggled though the night , in fact no on had a fish during dark and even Jon who had had 19 bream and a small common carp over the previous 36 hours couldnt buy a bite .Jon went up to the shops to pick a few things up and I asked him to get me a bottle of cold drink as hadnt expected the weather to be so hot , when he got in his car the temp gauge showed 32 degrees !!!!!!!!!!! The rest of the day the carp started getting ready to spawn and you could sense the bream were not far behind .

My rigs as you will see below were different on both rods , one was a method feeder with balanced fake corn and the other was 15mm boillies with a stringer attached .

Other than fish crashing and the odd liner nothing happened , so tea time we treated ourselves , rods were reeled in and we gathered and had a chinese takeaway and had a chat . I returned to my swim and put some more bait in , more in hope than anticipation and so it proved as other than constant liners and one fish that fell off nothing happened and I awoke to the sight and sound of bream and carp crashing through the reeds and it became obvious that carrying on was pointless so I had a leisurely pack up and a quick chat before heading home and have spent the last week preparing my tackle and bait for the glorious 16th which I will be spending on a different stretch of the Trent for the first time in 2 years but thats for next time .

Tight lines everybody

Small lake

Well at the end of my last blog I said I was pulling off the complex for a while and trying a club lake today unfortunately my Mrs has had a bad chest infection the last few days and last night she kept us both awake coughing so the 4.30am start wasnt going to happen so decided to sort myself as and when I felt like it . So at just after 10am I was ready to go trouble was the thought of driving the 20 miles to the lake didnt really appeal so back to complex and after having a good walk round I decided to try a small lake that I hadnt fished before , now I knew it didnt have any monsters in so decided to go with a small porcupine float , now on plumbing up I was surprised to find there was only 3 foot of water . Never mind give it ago its nice looking lake as the pictures below show .

My choice of baits was hemp , caster and corn

I fed a couple of pouches of the mix on the left and right of the swim and started on the right and from the off I was into fish nothing big but finished with around 40 crucian carp between 6oz and 1lb , 30+ roach between 4oz and 12oz and 3 small carp 2 mirrors and a common all around 2lb  , I really wish I had used my keepnet .

The highlight of the session for me wasnt the fish but the sight that caught my eye around dinnertime , just to the right of me there was a small bush standing in the margin and I noticed something move and on looking closely I spotted a water vole pulling leaves off the bush and eating them . Below is the best picture that I could get . Til next time tight lines everybody

Tench , carp and skyliners

Well I intended on staying on top of my sessions but somehow its over a month since my last up date , were is time going ?
On 4th April I attempted a short 3 hour session before work on the specimen lake but it proved fruitless and I suffered my first ever blank on the venue and other than one strange dropped take nothing much happened .
My next time out turned into something much different  friday the 19th April was my first 4 days off since my shift pattern change that come the river season will see me doing over nighter's on the Trent but today was to be one last attempt on the Specimen lake . The weather was supposed to be light showers from early morning til midday , it was spitting when I arrived and my pet hate of setting up under a brolly in the rain was a reality , within minutes of getting brolly up the heavens opened properly .

While its hardly the ideal weather it didnt seem to bother  the fish who went on a proper munch through the day resulting in me landing 24 roach only 7 of which were under 1lb and the others ranged from 1lb to 1lb 6oz , these were also backed up with 3 hybrids all aroud the 1lb mark , 3 bream between 1lb and 1lb 10oz ,  1 small perch around 6oz and to top it off an unexpected eel of 1lb 15oz . The rain well other than the odd 10 minute spell it kept up right up until I packed up at 4pm plus the wind swung round and I had to rapidly move everything to the opposite side of the swim and repostion the brolly.

My next session saw me change target as the following monday 22nd April I switched to the match lake in search of the tench , now this lake is alleged to have them to 11lb but my biggest is just short of 6lb off here .

My set up due to weather conditions and need to fish under the tree on the right of the picture was to be method feeder and a back up of the float .

Now this swim has a depth of 12 feet inches from the bank and under the tree it drops to 16 feet , so the float was set for the inside and method dropped into the deeper water , another problem on this lake is that a few years back the then new owner stocked all 5 of the lakes with carp which has made it a little tricky to catch anything else consistently , so small amounts of bait was the order of the day . Hook bait choice was maggot on the float and sweetcorn and mini boillies on the method rod . Within 15 mins my first tench of the campaign was in the net at 3lb 2oz it wasnt a monster but as you can see from the picture it had no lips !!!

Baits for the day.

This fish fell to the method rod and the float due to the wind was put to one side then the skimmers moved in and I had 6 one after the other small fish between 12oz and 2lb , I decided to leave the method for a while and try the float again but after 6 or 7 roach 6oz - 1lb I decided to sit it out on the method . I then had 4 common carp of 4lb 1oz , 4lb 10oz , 4lb 12oz and 5lb 12oz which is pictured below  in the space of half an hour .

Just as I was thinking of calling it a day I had 2 tench of 3lb 11oz and 3lb 14oz in space of 10 mins

My following session was an after worker for 3 hours on 25th April , I tried a new swim and again the depths were similar and again the spot was under the end of the tree branches.

Been a short after work session I went straight in with the method rod and managed just 3 carp 2 mirrors of 7lb 10oz pictured below  , 6lb 10oz and a common of 6lb 3oz the 2nd fish down

Short after work sessions have become the order of the day at the moment so with that on the 7th may I returned and decided to fish the same swim as the previous session and also tried a new rig pictured below it is similar to the KD rig  I had also invested in a method mould which has made baiting the feeder much quicker and cleaner.

I felt confident today as it was a little warmer and the carp were on or near the surface so maybe a tench or 2 was possible and so it proved as in the first half hour I landed 2 of 3lb 8oz and 3lb 9oz pictured below .

I then had a bream of 2lb 10oz and it went dead , one of the locals came round who had been fishing all day and had told me he had only had a couple of small roach and he came round to complain he couldnt catch the carp he was after , I then decided to show him something which afterwards had him walking away mumbling to himself . I dropped a satsuma size ball of ground bait 3 or 4 feet from the bank into 3 feet of water and within 5 minutes 4 carp were tails up sifting it , the guy commented that they couldnt be caught while they were like that , so I removed my method feeder and lowered 2 grains of freelined corn into the area and within 10 seconds or so the line tightened and I landed a mirror of 7lb 4oz , obviously this scattered the others but just to rove it wasnt a fluke I repeated the ball of groundbait and even changed bait to a mini boillie and with 5 minutes landed another hard fighting mirror of 8lb 12oz seen below.

I called it a day and called for a chippy tea of chips , haddock and curry sauce .

My final write up of this post is very frustrating for a number of reasons . This was supposed to be a full day session but turned into a 6 hour session for a couple of reasons , firstly my mother in law had to go to hospital for a check up on her eye which it seems she had now lost her sight in permanently so while mrs took her I sorted the dog out for the day and so arrived at just after 11am and was surprised to find only one person on the match lake though that might have something to do with the howling gale that was blowing . since I am not keen on having some of the guys on this venue near me I settled into a swim with the wind straight in my face so obviously the float was out within 10mins of casting out I hooked and landed a mirror of 7lb 7oz seen below , you will notice it only had one eye .

Heres a close up of it

I then landed another mirror of 4lb 10oz . At this point the session started going down hill , first the guy who was already there and fishing a good 100 yards away turned up telling me how he had just had his rod pulled in , now thats fair enough to have a look and see if you can see it but what he didnt next made my blood boil , now I'm fishing quite close in and sat well back from the edge and this numpty not once but twice walked up to the edge of my swim kicked the front staging and stared over the edge . When I pointed out what he had done he just looked at me and said wont hurt anything , now I'm afraid that I couldnt possibly print my reply as I had a really good rant at him and he quickly disappeared and other than seeing him in his swim that was it !!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . Anyway I then got the bream back and after landing 4 between 1lb and 4lb I reeled the rod in and left it a while . Now here comes incident number 2 this guy turns up with a carp barrow and the barrow bag full of bait and a pole with a baiting spoon and he goes round 4 or 5 swims dumping bait with the spoon right under all the over hanging trees and sets up 5 swims away from me . I decided to have another half hour as it was getting silly now but worse was still to come , I hear a voice behind me and spooning man is wandering up and down the path behind me chatting on his mobile !!!!! when he does return to his rods he casts out and sets his alarms , I manage to hook and land another mirror of 6lb 11oz and yet again only 1 eye !!!!! Now this is were I make a mistake as I think lets give it another half hour , oh dear !!!! the wind which had dropped starts picking up and gusting and spoon man appears to have no idea how to use his alarms as with every gust they go off and boy has he got the volume up !!!!!!!!! Thats it I have had enough and start to pack up just as it starts to rain and I mean RAIN !!!!!!!!!!!!! only took me 10 minutes to pack up and get back to van but I was drenched .

6lb 11oz mirror

So as I write this up i have decided to pull of this venue until the winter when I will chase the roach and perch again . I have today joined the Tenchfishers and hopefully by next spring will have made some friends who are local and can point me towards a venue with a chance of a decent tench and some more sensible anglers . Tomorow I am planning on doing a session on a club lake that is out of the way and will be trying for some of the big bream , roach and rudd that live there .