Sunshine And Swans

 As it was a glorious sunny day and the river was nearby I had a couple of hours chucking a feeder into it. A few maggots, turning to casters, and some hemp all left over from last week were to be used up. One thing that puzzled me was the bank side vegetation had been nibbled at but there were no beats in the filed. Nor had there been for sometime. This was solved as I tackled up the feeder rod. Three cygnets swim up and when I offered them nowt they started munch on the vegetation before making their way up stream. Strangely there were no adults in sight. It's not very often I've seen cygnets with out the adults before they get their adult plumage.

First drop in with the feeder and the tip shot round. A cute little minnow being the first fish of the day. A couple more followed all producing positive tugs on the tip. The little roach that followed only managed to produce a pathetic rattle on the tip.

How these little things get a size 16 and double maggot in their mouths I don't know. A few more of them followed. The final minnow of the session was grabbed by something as I wound in. Not a pike but a 1lb perch had taken it for a change. Amazingly the slightly battered minnow was still on the hook and swam away when released. Another smaller perch followed a couple of casts later. The a steady procession of gudgeon then followed.

During the lull that followed a family of swans swam sedately upstream.

Followed a little later by a cygnet that seemed to be desperately trying to catch them up.

With about half an hour to go before I had to be away a shoal of decent dace showed up in the swim. I'd had fourteen of them before with ten minutes to go. While I was checking the time on the phone I put the rod on the rest with the chewed maggots dangling a few inches below the surface. I saw the swirl as a little jack took a fancy to them. I didn't mess about, bundling it into the net as quick as I could. This brought proceedings to an end as it must have bitten through the line while in the net. No point in retackling now as I couldn't be late for my appointment.

Not a bad little session sat in a t-shirt watching a quiver tip bounce about.

More Slider Fishing

 Thursday was a fine autumnal type day. Sun with a chill wind. Too warm for a woolly, too cold for a t-shirt. I'd ventured down to another deep stretch that's kind of defeated me over the years, apart from winter pike fishing. Others do well on it with some nice bags of roach. Some of us, though, tend to spend our time scratching about for the odd fish here and there. The swim I choose, for no good reason, was around twelve foot deep. With 1 fifteen foot rod I could have fished a fixed float, but a breezy day and high bankside vegetation can make casting such a rig awkward. I, instead, set up a 6g Dave Harrell slider float. For a large rather bulky looking float it is remarkably sensitive.

Having had a few trots down with out any bait on to see if there was any snags of whatever. I then lobbed in a few balls of groundbait laced with maggots and chopped worm. While I left the swim to settle I had a cuppa. I then had a couple of casts with a maggot feeder to get some maggots in the swim. I'd misplaced my bait-dropper and this was the only way of getting them down to the bottom with out the minnows and bleak intercepting them.

First few trots through produced either small gudgeon or tiny roach. I then took a small bream. The next cast I had a similar sized fish but after a couple of turns of the reel handle it was snatched by a pike. New hook length and out again. Every half dozen or so trots I  tossed the maggot feeder out  to get more bait down. After this the fish would arrive in twos and threes then things would go quiet. By afternoon I was get a lot of unmissable bites that I couldn't hit. A change to caster produced less bites but these were hittable. I did try worm, worm & maggot, and worm & caster on the feeder rod but only got a few rattles.

 

As usual things hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped. Thirty three fish, plus a few minnows, for five hours fishing. I will get the better of this stretch one day.

Sliding Down The River

 Thursday wasn't looking great weather wise. Overcast, drizzly, windy, an easterly at that, but you just never know. I wandered down the stretch a bit to just above a large sweeping bend. The wind wasn't too bad but gusting downstream. A bit of plumbing showed there to be nearly fifteen foot of water. With this in mind I rigged up a 5SSG sliding waggler with a 5g olivette a couple of feet above the hook. The weight should get the double maggot bait past most of the bleak and minnows that tend to appear. Half a dozen tennis ball sized balls of ground bait laced with chopped worm and maggots were flung in with remarkable accuracy. The gudgeon were the first to move onto the bait after a little while.

It was a fish a chuck with a couple of dozen soon amassed. Three or four dace soon followed before it it went quiet. A couple more balls of ground bait wee added. After some adjustment of the depth so that it was fishing over depth a steady precession of hand sized roach. Again as the bites tailed off I put out a couple more balls of groundbait. The next few fish were tiddlers and minnows, before the roach returned.

I then put the kibosh on matters. Having thought to myself that it had been nice not to get pestered by pike the very next roach was grabbed by a pike. After a minute or so of battle it let go of the roach. With no more bites even after fiddling with the depth I hurled in the last of the ground bait. Sone after a rather fine Ruffe turned up.

A bit more depth fiddling followed as I was not getting any more bites. With the bait an inch or two off the bottom. Some thing a bit bigger took the bate. The thump thump as I played it suggested a perch. A rather nice fish of 1lb 7oz. Next cast produced another a couple of ounce bigger. A couple more trots down I hooked another which felt even bigger. Unfortunately it came adrift.

I fished on but only got the occasional chewed maggot, the odd tiny minnow, and a bleak. Not a bad haul in the end considering the gusty downstream wind and occasional bouts of drizzle.

A Wander Along An Old Stretch

Tuesday I fished a stretch of river I'd not fished for years and years. Nor had anybody else by the look of things. I did eventually find three or four accessible swims, but none them really had room for a spot of float fishing. The trees growing out into the river meant I couldn't see very far down stream, so I resorted to feeder fishing maggot. As I'd finally acquired a lighter 1oz tip for the rod it would be a useful to see if it would be as useful as I'd hoped. It was. The minnows would whack the tip round like a barbel bite.

After battling through a succession of minnows a tiny dace then an equally tiny roach showed up.

These were quickly followed by a brace of the perch. The largest being 1lb 6oz.

 

Things went rather quiet after that. I stuck it out for another fifteen minutes with out a bite before moving to the next swim. This too produced an awful lot of minnows to start with.

Eventually a shoal of bleak moved in grabbing the hook bait is it dropped through the water. You could see the tip bouncing about as the bait fell. 

After a little lull the next fish to take the bait as it dropped was a small jack pike. Not what you want. More minnows followed before a little bullhead grabbed the bait. I was then bitten off twice by small jacks. So decided to move on.

The third swim seemed to be devoid of minnows as I proceeded to catch several gudgeon before things went quiet for a while.

I then got bit off by another very small jack. This was immediately followed by half a dozen reasonable sized dace. Another little jack grabbed the maggots as I wound in. It proceeded to cause havoc as I unhooked it. It managed to flip as I got the hook out and catch my left hand pinky. It then flipped again and cleared the net landing back in the water. I managed to get a plaster on the half inch long cut which continued to bleed profusely.

The next time I wound in a larger jack grabbed the feeder and bit me off. That was it. I only had a handful of maggots left anyway. Time to back up. The expense of the extra tip for the feeder rod has been worth it as I hit a lot more bites than I had with the heavier tip. I think another trip later in the year, when the vegetation has died back, may be on the cards.

Waggling A Slider

A trip to one of the deeper sections of a local river was the plan for Friday. In order to avoid the bleak and minnows that normally pester you down there I intended to fish sweetcorn over groundbait. After a bit of balsam bashing to create a swim I got set up. Plumbing up showed the swim to be just over fourteen foot deep. Because of the downstream wind my usual bolo style slider was ruled out in favour of a three and a half gram peacock waggler. 

While I mixed up the ground bait I tossed out a feeder rod with some hemp in a blockend feeder. Having mixed up the groundbait I wound in to find a tiny dace had managed to hook itself. I chucked it out again having thrown in several balls of groundbait. I'd just finished setting up the float rig when the tip whacked round. In came a feisty little chub.

I continued on with the feeder for a while longer but attracted nothing else. I then changed to the float. It was quite a while before I got my first bite. A respectable roach. Another one followed next cast. Followed by another three of four casts later. I had eleven over the next ninety minutes before things went quiet. I tossed out some more groundbait and let things settle while I had a cuppa as it was now rather worm and sunny. Even the wind, which was getting stronger, was rather warm. The bites came a bit quicker over the next couple of hours with eighteen similar sized roach coming to the net before things went quiet again.

The last of the groundbait was tossed out and after another cuppa I trotted the float down again. The float had barely settled when it shot away. At first it felt like I'd hooked a small pike but it turned out to be a rather large perch which came adrift just beyond the net. I continued on for another half hour with out any more bites on the float. I tied the feeder for a whole but nowt was happening. Time to pack up I thought. Not a bad haul and a lot more pleasant than striking at maggot stealing minnows and bleak.

Stick N Pin On A Falling River

 I had a careful look at the river levels Friday morning after the heavy rain on Thursday. Te little river  intended to fish had risen a foot overnight but had since dropped about six inches and was still falling so should be OK. Looking from the bridge when i arrived an colour there had been seemed to have dropped out of it. This time I headed downstream instead of up like last time. I soon found a nice looking swim, but the descent into it was a bit dodgy on the wet grass. I set up the float rod with a quick depth finding rig and made my way down. I didn't want to get all the tackle down there and find some sort of snag filled hell hole. Luckily there seemed to be a nice smooth run, so the rest of the tackle was brought down. As I sorted myself out  noticed a bit of mono on the bank a bit down from me. It turned out to be three log lengths of heavy (barbel?) stuff. This wasn't a snap off it was clearly dumped. Why?

After the tidy up I set up a feeder rod and a float rod with a 4x4 stick float. The plumbing had shown the swim to be a bit over eight foot deep. The float was shotted shirt button style. I was going to be fishing maggot over hemp for what ever turned up.

First cast and the float failed to settle. In came a tiny little bleak. Not wishing to contend with them I bulked the shot a couple of foot above the hook. Next cast I avoided the bleak but ended up with a equally tiny roach. Third cast The float got half way down the swim before disappearing. Another tiny fish that I thought was a leaf at first. A gudgeon this time.

Just after I swung the gudgeon in fish scattered throughout the swim. Damned pike. I continued to feed hemp and maggot but didn't get a bit for a good forty minutes. When I did it was from a good fish. Just as I got it to the surface a huge mouth grabbed what looked like a chub of around two pound. What looked to be a good double figure pike shot at great speed into the tree roots downstream. I chucked the feeder rod out as I rerigged. The tip went over not long after I tightened up. A perch that imagined it was a lot bigger was swung out so as to avoid the pike following it. That turned out to be the last pike I saw. The next fish was a hand sized roach.

I had very few bites on the feeder, which I'd left out while I had lunch. After lunch I resumed with the float. With constant feeding. I started to get a decent run of fish. Not quite one every cast but steady none the less. I've no idea how many I caught or what they weighed but it wasn't a bad afternoon at all considering how hot and bright it was.

The only reason I stopped was that i had to be elsewhere. The bites, typically, were getting better and more frequent. One problem, of my own making, was I but my phone on the side tray causing it to over heat again. Placing it in the shade under the seat cooled it enough for the final photo. The heat had, however, corrupted the memory card and It took me several hours to sort things out and get the photos off the phone. Several were corrupt and couldn't be rescued though. I think I should take an ice pack to place it on.

Stick N Pin N Pike

 It was quite a cool morning as I arrived at the river. Very pleasant indeed, but I know it was going to get hotter. I intended to do a spot of stick n pin fishing so wandered along the flood  bank looking for a suitable swim. It wasn't long before I found one that looked good. A bit of a steep descent into it though. Once on the bank I quickly set up a small chubber float with a couple of SSG shot. I'd not fished here for a long time so didn't know much about the state of the swims. I trotted the rig through a few times until I'd found the depth, just under five foot. I'd not found any snags or weed either. The chubber was then replaced with a 3 No6 wire stemmed stick float. A few trots through with out any bait just to check the depth etc. again and I was under way. Two maggots on the hook and a few tossed into the swim and the float disappeared. and the first fish appeared. A tiny roach.

The next fish was a small gudgeon taken a bit further down the swim. Feeding a few maggots each cast I either got a small roach half down or a gudgeon the the end of the swim. After a few of these a dace was little dace was taken on the drop. This is how it continued for a bout half an hour before a pike grabbed a roach i was bringing in. Ripping it from the hook.

Next cast the float shot upstream. Another larger pike had grabbed the maggots on the drop. While I was playing it three jacks came downstream close to the bank. This was not looking good. Eventually a 30" 6lb 15oz was in the net. After a bit of a lull the same pattern as previous returned. All small fish though. Again a fish was grabbed by a pike as I was reeling it in but this time I was bitten off. Again things went quiet for a while before some larger roach showed up. Which were more than welcome. Then another pike showed up grabbing a roach as I brought it in. A tiny little jack that decide to put on a display of tail walking before both came adrift.

 

The morning was now getting warmer and judging by the fish scattering near the weed on the far bank the pike were just as active as ever. It was back to the little dace and gudgeon came back but he bites were harder to hit. I tied feeding  twice per trot but this didn't seem to help matters. As I was winding in after a trot down with out a bite another fair sized pike grabbed the spinning maggots. After a brief battle I was bitten off again. That was it. Time to go. So I did. Besides I'd nearly run out of bait. One thing I noticed on my way back was the number of grasshoppers in the field. None of them would stop still long enough for a photo though. Nice to see as they are another inverabrate that seems to be in short supply in many places.