Last Session and Blank of 2018

Last day of the year and what better way to spend it than sat on a muddy river back. With the river back down to a level that I 'm comfortable with, a day at Beningbrough seemed like a good idea. It started off pleasant enough until I moved to the second swim of the day and decided a cuppa was in order. I'd left the tea bags at home - hot water just doesn't really cut it. Not long after the sun disappeared behind the clouds and a chill wind got up.











Pike were the target for the day. One bait was fished over the shelf to the middle of the river. The other trotted along the top of the shelf or under a bankside tree. Baits used were sardine, sprat, lamprey or smelt. Four different swims were fished and at no point did a predator show the slightest interest. The other four anglers I encountered appeared to gave no more luck than me.

 








Not the best way to end the year, but it does mean neat year can't be any worse. Happy New year and tight lines to everybody.

Penultimate Session of the Year

'Twas a far nicer day today than it was yesterday, the sun even managed the occasional appearance. I was back to the old estate lake for another spot of piking. I headed for a swim in the top corner where the dammed stream that created the lake originally feed it. The old stream bed can still be found for a short distance after the old inlet, about six inches lower than the surroundings, but it tends to be and all or nothing area. The other productive area is in front of you just beyond a two to three inch drop. This also happens to be the line often fished with waggler/pole for the silvers. The margins look inviting, but as I found you tend to spend a lot of time dredging twigs and branches out.

 








A headless herring was dropped in the old stream bed, where sadly it remained untouched for the six hours I was there. Even after I'd injected it with a bit of winterised oil. The head I'd chopped up and tossed out along the stream bed. The second rod was baited with a sprat as there's a lot of small roach around that size in the lake. This was fished in front just beyond the drop and a few small balls of groundbait tossed around the area.

 








It was three and a half hours before the first, and only, sign of action. Just as I was making a cuppa the float shot off at a great rate of knots and I lifted into a lunatic little pike that careered  all over the place. The lively little beast was equally uncooperative on the bank. At 76cm and 6lb 8oz it had fought well above it's weight.

There had been three anglers on the lake. One had three little jacks to lure, One, fishing for silvers had had a few bits and another pike angler blanked. One thing we all noticed was the number of small fish rising all over the lake at different times. I was assumed there may well have been a few hatches of midges.

Fishing On The Set Of A Hammer Horror

To save you the bother of reading the rest of this, I didn't land anything, one tiny little jack kept hold of a sprat for a short while.

 








Basically I sat, in the fog, on the bank of an old brick pond watching pike floats do very little while the trees constantly dripped on me. There was a lot more water in the pond compared to my last visit, although the the clarity left a lot to be desired. The only distractions were a natter with Adam and the aforementioned little jack grabbing a sprat presented under a tree, but avoiding the hook.

Even in winter it can be quite nice down here, but not today. I suppose if you're not on the bank you're not going to catch.

Oh Fook (X 4)

It's probably some sort of portent when the first thing you do when you get to the swim is slip on the wooden platform and nearly end up in the drink.

 















The tactics for the day were to be the usual. A sprat under the trees left and right, and half a herring at the bottom of the nearside ledge. A couple of small balls of groundbait were chucked around the floats in the hope of attracting some silvers, along with small bits of fish from the chopped up herring head. Occasionally the sun popped through the clouds making the drab surroundings look almost pleasant.

 








It was getting  on for fours hours when I got the first run from the right-hand tree. All I felt as I lifted into the run was the bait being ripped from the hook. How they manage to grab a little sprat with a hook in the middle of it and fail to hook I don't know. I rebaited and dropped the bait under the tree to the left. An hour or so later the herring float moved off. I was met with a good sold run then everything went slack. The trace had gone missing! The teardrop loop it was attached to was still there, so the wire most have snapped/unravelled . It didn't feel like it had unravelled though. New trace and new bait were soon back out. No point dwelling on it as this was the first failure I'd had for three years.

The next run was to the left-hand rod and again it came adrift. I can't blame the hook as poking it in my finger showed it to be good and sharp  Besides I've had days like this before, were pike just don't seem to stick. The last run of the day came to the herring rod just as I was starting to lose sight of the float in the failing light. This time the hook stuck till it was in the net. A spirited fish of 7lb 3oz and 81cm. It was a relief to actually land something and save the blank.

 I'm wondering if I over annealed the wire before twisting it and that weakened it. I've given the rest of the traces a good looking at and another good pull, I give them a good pull when I make them so as to bed everything in. I can't see any problems with any of them. Just one of those things I suppose, although there's a pike swimming round with a trace in it's mouth. Hopefully as the are semi barbless doubles it should be able to lose it. Having said that I've caught more than a few pike with traces in their mouths and no apparent sign of ill health.

Piking In The Rain

Fished a small estate lake today, the big house it belonged to being long gone. Well not that long, it was the remains were finally demolished in the sixties. My intended tactic of a couple of hours in a swim then move was abandoned when the wind and rain started. The pike were clearly active. While I set up the rods I'd put a couple of baits in the landing net in the lake to defrost. Having got the first rod sorted with a float rig I noticed the net heading into the lake. A small pike was clearly hungry and had grabbed one of the baits through the net. I very nearly landed it as it appeared to have got it's teeth snagged in the netting. I had a go with a wobbled bait on the other rod, but nothing occurred.

 








A sprat was fished to a near bank feature and a sardine to a far bank feature. It was nearly mid day before the first run happened and, after a brief fight, a lively little 70cm fish was landed. I had a second run on the sprat around two hours later, but after a couple of head shakes what felt like a small jack came adrift. This one coming from the pole/float line. The next fish came from the bottom of the ledge near the far bank. Taken on a sardine it came in like a wet sack. At 82cm and 6lb 10oz it was a rather hollow and tatty fish. I gave it a little time into dark to no avail and as it had finished raining I packed up. I hate packing up in the rain.

 








Nowt big, but not a blank made up for sitting in the wind and rain. One thing I did discover was that winterised sardine oil doesn't taste like sardine. Not when you get it an your sandwiches any way.

A Nice Day In The Countryside

Had a lovely day on the side of a local pit listening to the noises of the countryside. Crows cackling, tractors rattling down the lane, jets roaring overhead.

I'd been informed that the jacks were active earlier in the week, pestering a couple of friends fishing for silvers. They certainly weren't today. I fished six swims from dawn till dusk with all the usual dead bait methods and baits and never had a thing, not a run, nowt. A lure angler that popped down for a couple of hours had a similar experience.

 








I think the problem here is the low water levels, causing the pike to change their patrol routes or even the direction they patrol. My friends had noted that they were having to fish a couple of metres further out then usual to get bites, even though there is little or no change in depth.

Should Have Stuck To Plan A

Plan A was to fish a different still water, instead I went back to the last one I visited and blanked. The reason for this was that my mate had been talking to a work colleague who had five pike out last week the largest of which was 8lb 4oz. From the pictures the other four may have managed 8lb between them, very pretty little fish though. Sadly we were unable reproduce this. Not even a single run or even a chewed bait.



















With little to say about the days fishing I thought I'd have a quick run through the tackle used. This is the set up I use on small still waters. Most of the time the baits can be swung out so heavy rigs aren't required.. The rods are Nash Peg One, which can be fished at 9'6" or 11'. I mainly use them at 9'6" because of the overhanging trees. The reels are Shimano 4000DLs loaded with 35lb Drennan braid. The floats are Drennan Zeppelins in various sizes attached bottom end only and weighted with 1,2, or 3 SSG shot. the wire is 24lb Drennan with Drennan double hooks.

I Wonder What Happened Today

Yesterday I spent a while carefully making up a selection of pike traces, to replace the rather crinkly ones left from last season. Sadly the pike,today, were not impressed with my efforts. The venue today was another local pond, this one though hadn't been as badly effected by the hot dry summer as the previous one. I'd chosen a peg that provided access to a nice selection of pikey looking swims, sunken trees, edges of dying lily beds, a cut through, etc. There were even signs of predator activity as I set up, in the shape of scattering fish. Although the little pike causing the panic wasn't much bigger than the roach is putting on. Wobbled, drifted, static, popped up, nothing induced a run.

At lunch time I was joined by a friend I don't often get to fish with, due to our work patterns. While he wandered round the pound dropping small roach or sprats under overhanging branches or near tree roots, a favoured method of his that usually results in the odd jack or two. I moved a few yards , to the other side of a large tree which gave me access to another large are of the pond and several pikey looking features.. Around three O'clock my friend returned, water licked. For the last hour he chucked a couple of dead baits in to the middle of nowhere. A tactic with a remarkable success rate, but not today.

With the arrival of rain and the impending darkness we headed home and thence to the local of a couple of pints and the formulation of excuses for the blank.

Starting the Winter Pike Season

Arriving at a local lake just before light it was obvious we'd had a dry summer, at least two foot of water was missing. This made selecting a swim a problem, as the normally sunken branches were now out of the water and the areas around the tree roots had at most six inches of water.










I decided to start at the first swim and give each one an hour or so. I had sardine, lamprey, sprat, and roach with me. One rod to any feature and the other out to a dying weed bed or straight out to the middle. I was in the second swim when the sun made an appearance through the trees creating an orange blob right where my float was, near one of the few bank side features. As I squinted through the shades the float popped up about two foot nearer to me than it had been. I retrieved a slightly chews roach. This was the only action I saw for the next few hours as I moved from swim to swim. It wasn't until the last but one swim that I got another run, again dropped. Just before I was about to move to the last swim I latched into a nice jack of nearly 70cm. Which, in a tribute to the late John Wilson, shed the hook in the net.

It's going to take a while for the pit to get back to a better level, although this isn't the lowest I've seen it.

Gauging the River

Thursday I was looking at the gauges on Shoothill GaugeMap, after the recent rain, somewhat puzzled. The gauge immediately above the section I hoped to fish, on Friday, was all over the place. The next gauge upstream showed a falling river, only a few centimetres, and the one a bit further up, a rising river again a few centimetres. The one downstream had moved a few millimetres. From experience I knew the river wouldn't be too bad and I needn't be taking 6oz feeders with me. Although it may seem confusing at first, looking at four gauges over an 18 mile stretch of river all doing something different once you know where the gauges a positioned it makes a bit more sense. The upstream gauges is on a rather narrow section. The next one downstream on a wider section. The next is at some sluices and actually measures something different to the others. While the last one is at a weir. Of coarse, the gauges can't tell you what colour is in the river or how much debris is floating down, but, combined with experience, it will let you know if the river is within your comfort zone.

 








Arriving Friday morning the river didn't look too coloured as I drove over the bridge and didn't seem to have a lot of leaves floating about either. The walk through the woods was as treacherous as ever, slipping and sliding all over the place. Once it's got a good soaking the path really is interesting, not only does it go up and down, but it tends to slope towards the river or a nice steep bank. The swim I choose had a nice slack downstream of me and another across and upstream. Tactics were to be similar to the last outing, caster and chopped worm in a feeder with caster/maggot/worm on the hook and groundbait feeder with chopped worm and a lob on the hook. The far bank slack proved to be a tackle thief, so was abandoned in favour of the main current and this is where all bar one fish came from. It was a steady flow of fish that came to double maggot or half a dendrobena. Apart from a couple of minnows and a ruffe. they were all roach or gudgeon. The roach around the 4-6oz mark, while the gudgeon were all on the small side compared to previous. A total of 17 roach and 23 gudgeon. While there wasn't much surface debris I did manage more than a few sticks as well.

The main excitement of the day came when I had bites on both rods. The inside rod providing the biggest roach of the day and the only fish from the slack and on lob, a fish of 13oz. The other, a fish of 11oz, coming to half a dendro. The other highlight came when a gudgeon suddenly got heavy as I was winding it in. What felt a bit like another stick turned out to be a rather scruffy and underweight perch of 1lb 10oz.

 








Not a bad day given the unsettled weather of late. The fish don't seem to have moved into their winter refuges yet, apart from the minnows thankfully.

Hunting River (Perch) Fish

Aren't tackle shops wonderful places - lots of nice shiny things to buy and a great source of (dubious) information. Today's information was, however, correct. The river was a bit coloured  and had been up about a foot at the beginning of the week. A match, upstream of where I intended to fish, was one with 8oz. This information was ominous enough with out them pointing out that there'd been hell of frost last night. The river was about 6" up and coloured when I got there. 

 








To cut a long story short. I fished three swims. The first produced one bite to maggot feeder. The second swim produced four bites to maggot feeder which resulted in a small roach and a bullhead. The third swim produced the only bite to worm. A particularly savage bite that resulted in the hook going missing, so I'm going to assume it was a pike.











The first proper frost of the autumn and a recent flood are not the best conditions for for fishing, but I didn't blank. Surprised at the lack of bites on worm as they normally do well in coloured water.

Hunting River Perch

A change of venue this week, back to the Derwent in search of perch. I intended to fish 3 or 4 swims that had produced the odd decent perch in the past. Tactics were to be simple feeder rigs. Worm with crumb feeder on one and double caster with maggot and caster in the feeder on the other. While setting up, in the sunshine, I was distracted by four deer wandering along the hedge line - too far away for a picture with the camera on the phone though. Having got set up I realised there was one slight hitch, the best position for the rod tips meant I would be looking straight into the sun. The tips would have to be lower than I'd like which would make them less sensitive. While the gudgeon whack the tip round, like the mini barbel they are, the perch just tend to give a tentative rattle.

 








With the worm rod cast down near the tree roots on the nearside and the caster rod over near a snag on the far bank I settled back and waited. The gudgeon were quick to oblige, with 4 coming in quick succession to caster, before the worm rod rattled a bit and a nice hard fighting perch of 1lb 6oz graced the net. A little while later the caster rod rattled and a slightly larger, though slightly tatty, perch of 1lb 9oz was in the net. Not long after recasting, the worm rod whacked over just as the caster rod rattled about. I struck into the caster rod, assuming the worm had been taken by a gudgeon. A smallish perch was quickly netted on the caster rod and I turned my attention to the worm rod. The thump thump clearly signalled a decent perch and sure enough after a short battle it was in the net with the little un. Much to my surprise the larger perch was the tatty 1lb 9oz fish and just released. These were the last bites from the swim.

 








 








The next swim produced a gudgeon and a roach to the worm rod and a couple of minnows to caster. The third swim a couple of gudgeon after quite a wait.

 








The final swim was awash with gudgeon for the first twenty minutes before it all went quiet. It was now heading towards that 'magic' time at the end of the day when the experts tell you all the big perch a caught. Doesn't normally work for me though, so I was thinking of packing in when the worm rod rattled and a perch of 1lb 11oz put up a brief struggle before being netted. This gave me the incentive to stay. Ten minutes latter the the tip rattled again and I was in to a very nice perch just shy of 3lb at 2lb 14oz, which put up hell of a fight.  Just before It got truly dark the worm rod rattled again and I was into a crazy little pike that shot all over the swim as I tried to get it under control. Matters were not helped by the landing net getting snagged on a bramble and been stuck three foot above the river. Eventually the little beastie was landed It was to be the last fish of the day despite fishing into dark.

 

One of the problems with this time of year is clothing. When I arrived it was T-shirt weather, by the time I'd finished I could have done with a big coat. Trying to be reasonably mobile and carry extra clothing as well a tackle and bait doesn't make life very easy.