For my final session of the river season I went down to a local river which was at a very nice height for pike fishing. Plenty of slacks to fish. I fished four of them with float-fished deadbaits. Herring, sardine, and roach were used. None of which were attractive to the pike. Like most last sessions it was a bit of an anticlimax.
Not the best of pike seasons at all. All jacks not even a double. The stats are as follows.
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Despite there been very few days left of the river season and the rivers at a reasonable height I didn't fancy battling the very muddy riverbanks. I therefore took myself down to the local estate lake. I was not best pleased to find little poked into the brambles by my chosen peg. Especially as I'd recently done a littler pick around the lake.
The first baits out of the bag were a herring and a roach. Out they went under the usual float rigs. Twenty minutes later the roach was grabbed and the float moved away. Like the previous occasions I'd been here the fish came adrift half way back. I wasn't too bothered as on the previous occasions it was the third run that produced a fish, so two more to go.
After the pegging out the previous day I was geared up and ready for the draw with fifteen others. It's not a viciously competitive match, more of a social. The arrangement is that you can fish between your peg and the peg downstream. All the pegs had the sort of feature grayling like so any peg could win. The only advantage of drawing early was that you could get to your peg quicker. I waited to near the end before drawing 13. A couple of deep holes and a long riffle on my allocated stretch.
A total of ten grayling were caught. Three lost. A couple of bullheads showed up along with more than a few trout. The winner had 5 grayling. The winner of the fly fishing cup two grayling. The biggest grayling was 8oz. The beck has been up and down since Xmas, colouring up on occasions. Not the sort of thing grayling like, but it was still rather disappointing.
I spent the morning invertebrate sampling for the River Monitoring Initiative. Along with quite a few sticklebacks and bullheads the usual suspects turned up in the samples. Plenty of Cased Caddis, Caseless Caddis, Baetis, Gammarus, and a couple of BWO. Stonefly and Mayfly are occasionally found but Heptagenes aren't found in this beck at all.
Sunday I arrived first light at another stillwater. Nobody else about until I started setting up, when another angler arrived and headed round the pond. I'd decided where I was fishing on the way there. It's roughly square and I'd caught on three of the four sides in the past so decided to fish the side I'd not so far caught from. There was a nice overhanging tree to my left and a small corner to my right. A bluey went to the left and a sardine to my right.
Around mid morning, as I was contemplating a cuppa, the righthand float bobbed and moved away. A feisty little pike had taken a fancy to the the sardine and was soon bundled into the net. A pot bellied little piggy of a thing covered in leeches. A new sardine was tossed out to the same spot.
As I set about boiling the kettle for a cuppa the 'pin stated to scream. Another. slightly longer, little piggy pike had snaffled the sardine. This one put up a bit more of a struggle but was kind enough to spit the hooks out in the net.
Another sardine was plonked into the same spot. This time I was allowed to make my cuppa in peace. After my cuppa I move the baits about a bit. When the breeze got up I tried drifting a bait about but nowt else bothered me. The rain had stayed away, but started around lunch time just as I was packing up. Two more to the tally but the average is still under one per trip.Saturday I was at another lake at daybreak. One man and his tent was in one corner carping. I setup in another corner with the same rigs as last time. The sardine plonked by an overhanging tree to my left and a roach over to the tree to my right. As the day wore on the floats were moved about. The sun got out and made for a pleasant day. Three other anglers arrived at various points. None caught while I was there. Nor did I either. The bright sunshine, clear lake, and very low overnight temperatures probably weren't the best combination. Still it was nice to be out on a sunny day and not be getting wet.
Another trip out to the Vale of Mowbray again in rather chilly conditions, along with a nasty cold breeze. I'm sure there are more sensible things to do on a day like that. Never the less there I was on a frozen river bank. Despite the welcome sunshine the wind took away any heat it provided. Even the ice at the edge of the river didn't melt.
Some people fling themselves into the icy North Sea for fun on New Year's Day. I decided on something more daring. I ventured to the Vale of Mowbray to fling dead fish into a river while sat on a muddy river bank in what purported to be a moderate breeze. What was moderate about it I don't know as it was a damn cold northerly blowing straight downstream.
A quick chuck about with the Deeper showed there to be 16' of water from a third of the way out nearly to the far side. The first third was just over 6'. A small smelt under a float was dropped downstream near an overhanging tree and a half Bluey tossed nearly 30yd to the far side. Over the next couple of hours they were recast to different spots but all to no avail.
After a spot of lunch I moved on to another swim not far away. Fresh baits were chucked to similar spots. The old baits were chopped up in to small bits and flung around the swim. Just as I sat down the downstream float moved away. I tightened down to something but the strike hit nothing, and the bait was gone. The something happened again then minutes later with the same result. I brought the far bait back across the river until it was at the bottom of the drop off on the near side. I was beginning to think I may blank the float stated to head upstream. The strike hit a fast moving fish. After a bit of a battle a nice fish was in the net. The pike round these parts a quite powerful for their size. Given it's barbel territory it's not surprising really. A slightly battle scared fish of 12lb 15oz and 101cm. My second double of the pike season so I was well pleased.
I didn't recast the rod as it was nearly time to depart. The other float trundled off towards the middle of the river as I was just about to wind it in. Again I contacted with nothing. Not sure what was taking the little smelt, Jack, chub, barbel could all be to blame. The first half of the season hasn't been great with an average of 0.75 pike per session and only one double. Hopefully the second half will be better.
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.
So far this season I've caught the following native species in Yorkshire rivers: Barbel, Bleak, Brown Trout, Bullhead, Chub, Dace, Grayling, Gudgeon, Minnow, Perch, Pike, Roach, Ruffe, Silver Bream, and
Stone Loach.
Those that remain to be caught are: Bronze Bream, Eel, Rudd, Stickleback, and Tench.
I must admit I was surprised I'd not caught a Bronze Bream or an Eel. Although I did hook and eel while nymphing for trout but it dived straight into a morass of weed and never came out. There are a couple of spots that have Rudd in them and Tench can turn up anywhere on most of the rivers. One local river, that I've not fished this season, contains a good head of Tench. First up though was a Bronze Bream, so Thursday i headed out with maggots, worms, and groundbait to see if I could catch one.
I'd made up half the ground bait previously so hauled out a dozen balls, laced with chop worm and maggots, into the river after having had a cast about with a lead to see if there were any snags about. I set up a feeder rod and a waggler rod. I would be mainly feeder fishing but if things got boring I'd have a run through with the float. The first hour was remarkably quiet with jut a couple of very quick bites on the feeder. A change to float quickly produced half a dozen roach and a couple of gudgeon.
Things then went quiet again, so I tossed out half a dozen more bails of groundbait and had lunch leaving the swim to settle. The first bit after lunch came from a 1lb 9oz perch before things went quiet again. Alternating between float and feeder produced the odd bite and chewed maggot but nothing came of it. I'd tried both live and dead maggots, worms, and worm maggot cocktail. With an hour to go before I had to be of the tip pulled round. Something solid had taken the worm. I thought it may be a chub but something felt odd. When I got it to the surface it was a large bream that had got itself wrapped in the line. The little landing net I'd recently acquired wasn't much bigger than the bream. Hauling the fish in sideways and trying to get it into the landing net the hook came adrift. The fish lay there far a little while just beyond the landing net before swimming away. I'm not sure it whether it was foul hooked or not. A little while later the tip pulled over again. This time a it felt like a bream. A reasonable one at that. This time I made no mistakes getting a similar sized fish in to the landing net. 6lb 10oz of bream. one more from the list.
I was surprised to arrive at an empty parking spot so early in the season. It would mean I had the choice of swims over the three miles of river. After careful consideration I picked the first swim I came to. mainly because I couldn't be arsed going much further. Besides this swim had a nice three foot run a rod length out. This river is exceedingly variable in depth ans speed over a very short length. Further out it was a bit slower and five foot deep but the run came to an abrupt halt so far down at a cliff face.
The water was about six inches up and peaty coloured as expected. A 6xNo.4 wire stemmed stick float was set up with the centrepin and a 13' 6" rod. Bait was to be maggots over hemp. It was a lovely sunny afternoon with Kites noisily fly about. I did spend some time trying to get photos of the by listen to their squawking and hoping to judge when they'd glide over the trees into view. This was easier said than done. They seemed to be more inclined to come close when I'd put the phone down and started fishing.
Feeding hemp down stream and maggots in front on alternative casts. It took a little while and some adjustment to the depth before I got my first bite. Several more followed which I couldn't hit before I took two bleak in quick succession. A small dace followed soon after. Then the beasties I'd managed to avoid so far turned up. A pike took the next fish I hooked then one attacked the keepnet.
