Impromptu Lure Session

 It wasn't my intention to go fishing on Sunday, but I'd woken up early and It was lovely and cool out with a bit of drizzle so I decided to give it a couple of hours. Rod, reel, landing net, and a few jigs and shads stuffed into my pockets. It really was nice wandering about in the drizzle given the impending heatwave. Somewhere, out of sight, I could here a couple of buzzards squeaking. The lower hay meadows had been cut making it hard going as the hay was hiding the path.The previous day when we'd gone for an early wander by the river only the upper meadows had been cut.

A three gramme jig head with a Grass Minnow in Chartreuse Shiner (green and sparkly) had it's tail bitten off on the first cast. The replacement was hit very hard but no contact made. A couple of casts later and a lively jack was impaled on the hook. This was the first jack I'd caught down here, much to my surprise.

A couple of casts later and a perch shot up from the depths as I started to lift the lure from the water. Quickly dropping the rod tip the perch grab hold as the lure descended I put up a spirited fight despite the nasty wound to it's back and dorsal fin. It also had small hook in the corner of it's mouth. At 33cm and 1lb 3oz it was a bit on the light side.

The next couple of swims produced nothing.

The fourth swim is quite deep right off the bank at seven foot or so, before steeply shelving away. A couple of cast upstream and close to the bank showed there to be a lot of snags which I was luckily able to ping out of. It did, however produce a perch of 35cm and 1lb 10oz. I pushed my luck a bit to far and ended up losing a lure. The down stream direction only had a bit of weed in it and after a few casts produced a perch 33cm and 1lb 7oz.

The next swim produced a very hard fighting fish of  34cm and 1lb 7oz and 33cm 1lb 6oz that hit the lure on the drop in the middle of the river after several casts along the edge.

The final swim produced another couple of fish. One at 35cm and 1lb 8oz and one at 29cm and 1lb 1oz. Again both taken on the drop in the middle of the river after quite a few casts along the edge.

Not bad for a couple of hours or so fishing. All the perch seem to be from the same year group. I've taken smaller ones on maggot around here but they don't seem to be fans of chasing lures.

A Sticky Problem

 With the country about to catch fire and the rivers boiled dry I'd ummed and ahhed about fishing. However I'd been informed by and  authoritative source that a local river was in quite could nick. The temp wasn't too high and the dissolved oxygen levels were pretty good. So, off I went to a deep section of the Ure on a bank I'd not fished before. I was surprised when I got there and dunked my arm in up to my elbow how cool it was.. I was also surprised to find I needed another layer after half an hour in the string breeze. It wasn't quite warm enough for a T-shirt and too warm for two.

After a bit of plumbing about I found a five foot deep ledge just over a weed bed and eleven foot about a third of the way across. Far shallower than I remember this section. A small stick was set up for the inside line and a waggler for the far line. The stiff breeze was blowing straight downstream, but as the sick line was just beyond the rod tip I had decent control of it. Anybody that's fished the Ure will know about the downstream wind. It doesn't matter whether you're fishing Tanfield, Ripon or Aldwark it only blows downstream and at twice the speed of the surround area.

The far line was to be fed using groundbait, maggots and chopped worm. The inside loose fed with maggots and chopped worm. After launching half a dozen tennis ball size balls of ground bait out to the far line I set about the inside line. Bleak were the first out followed by some micro dace. After an hour of beak and micro dace I went out to the far line. Things weren't much better there as there only seemed to be tiny gudgeon yank the three swan waggler under. The occasional small perch would turn up out of the blue. I did manage to catch a ball of mono full of split shot and a couple of bullet weights for a bit of variation. 

I alternated between the two lines, but the same species kept coming. A few decent roach showed up on the far line after I'd topped it up with more ground bait, but the gudgeon soon returned along with the small perch. I was surprised not to take perch on the inside line as it looked an ideal spot right along a weed bed.

I've no idea how many fish I caught as I thought a keepnet wouldn't be a good idea so didn't bring it. I know I caught 35 in the first hour. One problem I did have when packing up was the joints on the fourteen footer were stuck. What to do, as it wouldn't fit in the car like that. Eventually I managed to remove the top section and with a bit of wiggling and seat manoeuvring I just got the lower two stuck sections in the car. A bit of a dilemma could have ensued if I hadn't been able to split  one section of. I have had this happen before but there were other anglers about who could help. I suppose I could have asked one of the golfers or wandered the village for assistance.

Alarming Failure

The threat of a heat wave type thing suggested an early start might be a good option. For an early start you have to be up early. This normally involves and alarm which you have to set the night before. Which I didn't, so ended up waking a lot later than intended. I changed my plans to fish match hours instead. As it was it didn't get quite as hot as expected, partially due to a nice breeze. I was fishing further downstream then my last couple of visits as I'd been reminded that there was access available to the middle of this long stretch.

 

Tactics were to be much the same, though I intended to use a slider this time. I'd been through my float collection and picked a few appropriate ones out, but I'd failed to put them in the bag. As I've mentioned before I always seem to forget something. I'm trying to keep things to a minimum but this means taking things in and out of the bag and invariably something goes missing. A slider would have been wonderful today. While there was a twelve foot deep shelf a rod length out it was full of debris. Nearly every trot down I snagged some weed or reeled in a twig. Two rod lengths out it was sixteen and half foot deep. With a fifteen foot rod this was going to be fun.

 

I also set up a waggler rod at about twelve foot initially in case the fish were higher up in the water. I could shallow this up if needed. Out went the groundbait laced with maggots well downstream. I then loose fed maggots for the waggler rod hopping they would land near the ground bait. An hour with the waggler rod produced two minnows, a small roach, and a tiny dace. A change to the bolo set up got me a couple of perch and a couple of chewed maggots. Despite trying all sorts of depths  and things I then failed to get so much as a chewed maggot of a couple of hours. Then in the last hour I managed half a dozen decent dace and six roach. It was hard work for an average of one fish every fifteen minutes. There clearly wasn't many fish in the swim.

 

You can tell how much I was concentrating on getting bites, I only took three photos.

Perch Free Bike Graveyard

 Another taxi run to the station and a another chance for some perch around the bike graveyard. This time I tried a cannibal shad instead of the crankbait in the hope of attracting something bigger but after half an hour it had produced nothing so I changed back to the crankbait. This too produced nothing. I spotted some fish scattering on the far bank so crossed the bridge for a go at them.

Neither the crankbait of cannibal shad produced so much as a follow. A bit further along I spot a few small perch swimming about close to the bank. I changed to a small translucent green shad on a 2g jig head and was straight into a small perch. Then another one. Then nothing. They'd disappeared. Fan casting about, though produced a few more. Nearly all of these were taken as the bait dropped through the water on the cast. Only a couple came on the retrieve.

Seventeen small perch in thirty minutes from around the same spot was quite good fun. I wish I could have stayed longer but as it was I was cutting things a bit fine as I had to get across the city in rush hour.

Fishing Among The Bikes

 As I was dropping somebody off at the station this morning I snuck a lure rod and lures in the car for a spot of urban fishing at the back of the station. I suppose real urban fishing involves manoeuvring a lure between abandoned shopping trollies but there wasn't one in sight. There was. however, plenty of bikes that had been thrown in. Probably by people nicking them to get to the station then dumping them.

I started off with a Salmo 3cm Hornet crankbait which quickly attracted the attention of some very small perch that would happily chase it and occasional manage to get themselves hooked. There really was a lot of them about. Sometimes half a dozen would chase the lure in. Hooking them was another matter though. It was surprising how often the lure was hit but they managed to avoid the hooks. Even with the low hookup rate I still managed over a dozen small perch in the short time I was there.

As the time to leave approached I latched into something larger. After a brief battle I had a nice 29cm perch in the net. Way way bigger than anything caught so far. I persisted in throwing the lure around the area a bit longer but nowt else materialised, not even any of the little 'uns.

 

Not bad for the short time I was there. The hookup rate was a puzzle, although some of the perch were tiny. As I'm making the same trip to the station tomorrow I may have another go.

What a Load of Bolo

 For the last day of the month I headed down to the slow deep stretch of the Derwent again. This time I was (slightly) better prepared as I'd put a couple of bait droppers in the bag. I'd also dusted of an old Harlow 'pin. A big beast at 5¼" diameter. The reason it hadn't been used for a long time is that the reel foot is larger than modern reels. This means it doesn't fit a lot of modern reel seats but it did just fit the Greys 15'.

On the way to the swim I collected a bit of soil from a molehill to add to the groundbait. The ix was a simple one; dark breadcrumb, molehill soil and crushed hemp. Mixed firmly it should get down the bottom of the 15' deep swim before breaking up. I was also going to introduce maggots and hemp with a bait dropper in the hope this would not attract as many small dace or bleak. This idea seemed to fail as the first fish out was a minnow, but this turned out to be the only one of the session. My other attempt at avoiding the little bits was to use a 6g bolo float. I reckoned it would be enough weight to get past the bits.

After the minnow it was a little while before the next fish showed up. Mainly gudgeon with a few small dace mixed in. I put a dropper of hemp and maggots every half dozen casts and a ball of groundbait every thirty minutes, or so. Eventually some decent sized dace turned up but I had trouble hitting the bites at times. This was probably down to the size of the float. I think a slider may be a better option, even if I don't like fishing them, as it would allow me to strike through the float.

After another lull the roach turned up. Mainly hand sized or smaller. Their bites were a lot easier to hit being a lot slower. Out of no where I struck into to something bigger. At first I thought it was a perch but when it surfaced it was a larger roach. A rather nice fish around the pound mark. I managed a couple more smaller ones before are rather large pike turned up and snaffled one I was reeling in. I managed to play it for half a minute before it bit me off.

Obviously things went rather quiet after this, but I did manage three smaller perch before bites dried up completely. I did try down the edge but this just produced a lot of chewed maggots. I did manage 7lb 2oz of bits. Although 15% of the weight was the one large roach.

I think I'll have to sort the slider floats out for these deeper venues. Once they get beyond 10' they're a bit problematic. Especially when heavy weights are used to avoid the bleak and minnows.