Last Session Of 2021

Instead of fishing upstream of the city, as previously, I decided to try downstream, provided the river hadn't risen too much. It was falling Wednesday evening, but expected to rise again Thursday. I didn't expect it to rise much though. As it was the river dropped a couple of inches overnight then rose four inches during the day before dropping again.

After battling the combination lock on the car park gate I was at the first swim. This section is a lot shallower than the previous sections with no discernable shelf in some swims. I dropped a paternostered sardine about a third of the way across with the intention of moving it closer every fifteen minutes or so. A length of lamprey was dropped near the bank under an over-hanging tree. After forty minutes with out a run I swapped the rigs around. I replaced the sardine with a roach as it was falling apart and tossed the bits under the tree. I suspect this was one of the older baits in the bait bag and it had probably defrosted at some point. Not long after the float above the roach jagged away and I was into I nice little 70cm jack that stayed on the hooks. In fact it had engulfed the bait, a six inch roach.

By now it had turned into a rather warm day and layers had been removed. I gave the swim another half hour before moving downstream. Same tactics as before. One bait to a feature and one out a quarter to a third they way across. Giving them thirty to forty minutes before swapping them around. It wasn't until the fourth swim of the day that I got my next run, which I missed. Upon retrieving the lamprey I found a small area of damage in the middle of the bait that looked like it had been made by an eel. The nice day had now turned to drizzle and darkness would soon be on us so packed up. It was nice to end the year with a fish.

Despite the number of dog walkers I'd had no problem with nosey dogs. The only one to cause a little bit of grief was a very excitable spaniel puppy on only her second walk out. Though on a lead she'd managed to grab my towel hanging on a branch. After a bit of an amusing wrestle it was retrieved and returned. As it's owner said - it's a good job the wag their tails all the time, can you imagine how much more energy they'd have if the didn't.

Substitute Bank Holiday For Christmas Day Pike Expedition

The river had started to rise on Christmas Day and slowly continued through Boxing Day and into the Substitute Bank Holiday For Christmas Day before levelling off. It had only come up a couple of feet since I was last there on Christmas Eve. I'd gone to the same stretch, but started further down and intended to head back towards the car. Same tactic as previous. Float ledgered lamprey and a paternoster rig, but I started with a small rainbow trout.

The fog was quite thick bay the river, I could hear the trains behind me but couldn't see them. The first swim was rather deep, a full three fathoms. over the drop off in the crease of a slack. The paternoster rig was dropped on the top of the shelf behind and over hanging tree. After half an hour the rigs were swapped round, but no runs were forthcoming. This was the pattern for the first five swims, apart from the injection of a bit of oil in the baits.

The final swim was also the final swim on the previous outing. Just as I was going to swap the rigs round the paternostered trout produced a rather iffy run which produced nothing. I checked the hooks with the 'does it draw blood when the point is poked in the thumb method' and all seemed OK so I swung out the same chewed trout back in to the same spot. A couple of minutes later I was in and like the previous outing a small jack spat the bait out when it got to the surface. The same very chewed trout was swung back in and just before it got too dark to see the floats properly the float was away again and again I failed to contact.

I sometimes wonder why I bother pike fishing. Sitting on a damp, misty, muddy river bank just for the pike to drop off the hooks does seem to be a rather silly pastime. It only takes a decent double to get my enthusiasm back up.

I Don't Like You

After completing  a couple of last minute Christmas chores I headed down to the river. It was a section I've not pike fished for a long time and I'd not heard any reports from there of pike, but there had been some nice roach catches so there's bait fish about. My intention was to do a bit of lure fishing as I wandered about looking for pikey looking swims as I wasn't sure how many swims there were on this length. 

As I got the lure fishing gear out of the car I realised the bib-and-brace and big coat were missing. Good job it wasn't cold. I spent an hour and a half wandering about and chucking lures. While I found several nice swims I didn't get a thing with lures. Didn't even have a follow. My theory about why lure fishing from the bank on the Ouse doesn't work to well in winter is the sudden drop off near the bank. It can go from four foot deep to twelve foot in less than a yard. From experience the majority of pike runs I get in winter are at the bottom of this drop off.  By the time the lure reaches this area it is six to eight feet above the pike and they aren't going to launch themselves that far up for a meal.

Returning to my first choice of swim with the deadbait kit a little tot, defying her parents calls, came running towards me. She stop in front of me and announced, with a silly grin on her face, "I don't like you" before running off laughing then stomping about in a puddle. Clearly full of the Christmas spirit, unlike her exasperated parents, who finally caught up with her as she kicked the muddy water about.

What followed  was basically the same in each of the three swims I fished. Two float ledger rigs were used. One with roach, the other with lamprey. One was fished just over the drop off and the other about a quarter to third of the way across the river. I got a couple of runs in each swim. One was dropped and the other the fish let go of the bait as it got near the surface. The three fish I saw were not big, maybe two to three pound, but any of them would have done to save a blank.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Good Things Come To Those That Wait

Thursday a weather warning had been issued for fog on Friday. As it was it wasn't too bad, more like mist. The temperature, though, had plummeted overnight and the track to the parking spot was full of frozen puddles. The grass in the field was white and crispy. The riverbank was nice and solid making the swims easily accessible. The temperature made my cunning plan of tossing a lure into some likely looking swims, as I wandered up to the swims I intended to deadbait in, rather unpleasant. The spray off the wet braid on the baitcaster quickly made my fingers a tad numb. I abandoned the idea after three swims and headed to the swims I intended to fish.

After a bit of plumbing about I tossed a paternostered sardine over the firsts shelf behind an overhanging willow. The float failed to settle properly, assuming I'd landed on a snag I started to wind in. Sure enough there was a dead weight on the end. This changed into a small jack as it came to the surface. Just before  it broke surface it let go of the bait and hung, seemingly confused, just under the surface. As I went to swing the bait back in it fell off spooking the jack. Whether the jack got the sardine as it fell through the slightly mucky water I don't know.

By now the day was starting to warm up. The sun had appeared above the horizon causing it to be warm enough to remove the big coat. I gave each swim forty five minutes to an hour. The sardine paternoster just over the shelf and a float ledgered lamprey section a quarter to a third of the way across the river. Before I moved from each swim I had a few casts about with a lure. This resulted in one follow from a very small jack just after lunch with no sign of anything else. Come three o'clock the sun had disappeared below the horizon and it was back on with the big coat.  I decided to have a go in one last swim while I had a cuppa and KitKat. just as I settled back expecting a blank the lamprey float was away. The ground had started to defrost so was now rather greasy which meant I got down to the rod rather quickly, but had to take care moving along the bank. The fight was a short dour affair with one bit of acrobatics at the end. A rather nice pike of 17lb 14oz and 97cm in length. The short fight meant my cuppa hadn't got cold.

I gave it another thirty minutes before calling it a day. This was not a swim for wandering about by torch light. Besides a high double from a river isn't a bad fish at all and made up for the last few blanks. I'm actually surprised I got a video of the action as this action cam isn't to fond of the cold and I'd also knocked the camera so it wasn't pointing quite where I'd intended.

 

I've off sixteen days off over Christmas, so should get a few sessions in between dealing with the usual family Christmassy stuff.

Sitting In The Sun By The River

It was my hope that the river would be fishable on Thursday, but it had started to rise again early Wednesday and had risen two foot by the end of the day on top of the five foot it was already up. Thursday morning it had risen another eighteen inches, but appeared to be levelling out. At this height there would be some nice slacks behind the over-hanging trees, so the river was still on. Arriving at the river Thursday morning it was somewhat colder and frostier than at home, but the river levels looked OK

 

I started at my chosen swim with a large half mackerel float ledgered to the right and a small roach fished on a float paternoster rig to my left, and there they sat doing nothing as the sun came out. A quick trip back to the car was called for to get the clip-ons as I could no longer see the floats. After another hour I moved swims.  By now the river was barely rising, but the main current was clearly getting faster. Another hour went by with nothing to show so I moved again, back to where I started.

After lunch I tried the swims either side of me. Just the one rod was used as they were a bit tight. Half an hour with each bait produced nothing at all. The last hour or so into dark was spent in the swim I started in. Again nothing happened. by now the river was starting to drop very slowly.

 

It can get tedious a series of blanks, but if the fish aren't feeding then there's nowt you an do really.

Sitting By A Pond

As the rivers were out of sorts and I'd had reports the local gravel pit was fish well for pike I thought I'd give it a go. Arriving just as the light started to appear another angler was already there setting up in one corner. I opted for a corner diagonally opposite. Float ledgered smelt was dropped at the bottom of the shelf to the right and a roach to the left and there they sat. The only movement was when I twitched them a couple of feet towards me every half hour or so. As it got light I thought I saw some bats flittering about around a tree down the bank. As they got closer I realised it was a flock of small birds and could now here their twittering. As they were silhouetted against a grey sky I couldn't really see and colours to identify them. Apart from the occasional squawk  from a crow or pheasant this was about all the wildlife I saw or heard.

Making a cuppa or my lunch seemed to switch the pike on. A carp crashed a couple of times in the afternoon just to prove there were fish in the pond. The other angler gave up mid-afternoon, fishless. I stayed on until dark having switched baits at various times, with lamprey, sardine and eel section all tried, but to no avail. If there had been a bit of a breeze I'd have tried drifting a roach about but when I tried it it just remained suspended in one place. which didn't work.

Clearly the pike were having a rest before the weekend.