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.

One More To The Tally

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 had one more bite before I had to be away. With the river having lifted a bit I expected a bit more action, but a couple of decent not a bad day. Only tench, eel, rudd, and stickleback left.

Trouble With The Wind

 The weather forecast for Thursday was for gusts above 40MPH. Not ideal float fishing weather but it made it a good time to try out the new feeder rod. I'd acquired a Daiwa N'Zon 12' Medium Feeder the other week but not got around to using it. 

I've know idea what an N'Zon is but the rod is of a three piece design and come with two tips rated 1.5oz and 2oz. It's supposedly capable of casting 80g. I reckon 50g feeders would be enough for today. After a bit of balsam bashing I set up a simple running rig with a two foot hook length and the lighter of the two tips. The intention was to sort of alternate between a cage feeder and a blockend feeder. I started with half a dozen casts with the cage feeder load with groundbait before switching to the blocked loaded with maggots.

It was quite while before I got any bites I could see. The gusty wind was wobbling the tip about despite the fact I was protected from the worst of to by a willow to my right. When the bites came they were very fast often leaving me with just a chewed maggot. I tried a shorter, foot long, hook length. This resulted in me being able to hit a few of the bites which turned out to be rather small dace.

I continued with three casts of groundbait then one of maggots as roach displaced the dace. The bites were few but more positive, again this was the ones  I could see. The roach vary in size somewhat. Half a dozen been caught in as many casts before things went quiet again.

After a couple of gonks put in an appearance a reasonable chub followed. It had a bit of a gash on its back. A couple of smaller ones followed.

For a while I picked up the of small fish. Now that the wind had dropped a bit the bites were easier to see.  It looks like a light 1oz tip may be needed though. Especially on slower rivers. I then started to get bites the moment the feeder hit the bottom. Although the tip pulled well round I just couldn't hit them. I tried striking the moment the feeder hit bottom but this didn't help. I still ended up with no fish or maggots on the hook. Except when a jack pike intervened. A rather battered beastie around the 2lb mark hooked in the scissors.

The jack had clearly managed to empty the swim as I didn't get any more bites. Not even a chewed maggot. l had managed 29 fish for a tad over 6lb, plus the jack. Roach, dace, chub, gudgeon, but no perch. This really surprised me as the fish had a good head of perch last year.

Despite the wind the rod had performed well. Not too stiff. The handle not too long like many these days. A softer tip is definitely needed, although I don't think it would have helped in the strong wind.

With out the wind I'm sure I could have doubled the number of fish but ti was still a nice session.

Pike Fishing an Old Estate Lake

Having carefully considered the moon phase, air pressure, water temperature, wind direction, etc. etc. and with only one other angler at the lake I opted for a swim near the car park that had produced pike before.

A small roach was dropped in by an overhanging tree and a large smelt into deeper hole in front. A small handful of mashed bread was dropped in by the floats in the hope of attracting  some baitfish. Despite a couple of cups of tea nothing happened. A Bank Vole popped out of the undergrowth occasionally. I tried putting a bit of the mashed bread down in the hope of getting it to stay still long enough for a photo but it didn't seem to be fond of bread. I could hear it at time munching on whatever in the undergrowth.

About midday the float by the tree bobbed about and headed under the branches. There was no time to strike as the pike shot towards the roots, just a good heave to pull it away. It felt like a little jack at first but soon burst into life taking three attempts to net it. In the net it was clearly bigger than I'd thought. At 10lb 1oz and 93cm it was one of the biggest I've had from here in recent years.

Another little roach went out, but this time next to the overhanging tree to my left. A bit more mashed bread was tossed in as well. The smelt was replaced with a larger roach and the smelt chopped up and the bits flung about the swim. There they sat until dark. The Bank Vole became bolder in the afternoon and I was able to get a few shots of it on video which helped to pass the time.

Another double so not a bad session. Should I have moved to another swim? Maybe, but this is a swim that often produces two or three fish so I couldn't see any point.

Waiting For Babet

 With the imminent arrival of storm Babet I'd been watching the weather forecasts. Thursday had been looking the best day for fishing. Not too wet not too windy. The amount of wet varied day to day but the various forecasts I look at all seemed to be in agreement right up to early Thursday morning when there seemed to be some disagreement about how long it would rain for. Anything between an hour and four hours. As it turned out it was about three hours of drizzle starting around ten and a twenty minute heavy shower in the afternoon. Nor did it get very windy at all.

 I thought of fishing a river but I suspected that the rivers would be already rising and end up at an awkward height where you couldn't be at the bottom of the steep banks so would end up quite high up. Also if things did turn nasty I didn't want to be far from the car. I therefore ended up at the gravel pit. I opted for one of the corner swims with plenty of features. Lilies and tree roots to the right. A couple of beds of Arrow Head in front. I tossed out a couple of balls of liquidised bread near the lily pad and the tree roots to attract some bait fish, hopefully.

A small roach was dropped by the lily pad and a medium smelt went out towards the first patch of Arrow head. Just after the drizzle started and as I was pouring hot water into my cup the far float shot into the weed bed and stopped. Having careful placed the kettle and cup were they wouldn't come to any harm, or harm me, I wound down and struck. It felt like I'd either pulled the bait out of the pike's mouth or it had been dropped and I'd just ripped some weed out. Muttering under my breath I started to wind in what felt like a big lump of weed. Some five yards out a weed free pike surfaced and all hell broke loose for a minute or so before it gave up again and came in peacefully. A fish of 84cm. Not a bad start.

During a lull in the drizzle several bait fish scattered near the tree roots. A good sign until a coot popped up. I don't know if they're capable of catching fish but I'm sure it would look like a predator to the baitfish. Even so I moved the small roach to near the roots. As I started to prepare my pot noodle thing the far float moved away from the weed patch rather slowly. Again the kettle and food was stowed carefully before I struck. A smaller fish of 75cm that put up more of a fight on the bank.

That was it for the day despite moving the baits around what should be pike holding feature. I was surprised the lilies didn't produce as there's normally a small jack hiding in there. Judging by the lack of bait fish scattering I don't think the pike were on the prowl. I've never done particularly well in heavy rain for pike but drizzle has never been a problem.

 

Time to batten down the hatches and await Friday's tempest. I have my barbel gear readied for a bit of floodwater fun but I suspect with the amount of rain predicted they may well rise every quickly.

A Tad Nippy

For the first time since spring I had to scrape ice off the car window. I even packed the big coat, though I ended up not needing it. Arriving at the car park I found two other cars there and a couple of carp anglers. By the time I'd got set up in a swim near the island the sun had poked through and it was looking like a nice autumn day.

The usual float rigs were to be used. A small trout was dropped a rod length or so out where the pike tend to patrol. A large smelt was dropped in a deeper hole near the end of the island that had produced pike in the past. The was quite a green tinge to the water still and it got more intense to my right which was down wind. The first run came after an hour to the smelt. A little scrapper of a jack at 74cm. I also got my bait back which is a plus, so out it went again.

Another hour passed before the float on the inside moved away. As I stuck the other float moved off. I grabbed that rod and struck and felt a bit of resistance then nothing. Dropping that rod I retrieved the little jack of 68cm on the other.  I didn't have any more large smelt so put out a small mackerel instead. Another little trout was dropped on the inside.

Another hour passed before I got another run. Again it was the inside float that moved away, but this time I failed to contact with anything. There appeared to be no teeth marks on the bait either. As I had lunch the was a sudden influx of anglers. The number triple in half an hour. I've not seen that many on here for a long long time. It did mean, though, that the swim I was going to move to after lunch was now taken, so I stopped put. Mid afternoon the float near the island moved towards me. I wound down to the fish and struck into what felt like another small fish. As I got it near the bank it woke up and set of with a fast run straight into the other rig. This made quite a mess but I managed to chin it with out too much fuss. A fish of 80cm, around 7-8lb I reckoned.

As I went to return it gave a final thrash and drew blood. This made untangling the rigs a bit problematic, but I managed. I didn't realise how much blood had oozed out but the braid was well soaked in it. Whether this would attract the pike I didn't know. It may have repelled them as I didn't have another run. Still three fish out of a possible five isn't so bad.

Try, Try Again

After the mess I made of the last session I decided I'd have another go to see if I could do any better. I have to admit I'm never sure this is a good idea but Friday was a full moon which is supposed to be an optimum time to fish. Also I decide to try fishing a slider in the deeper swim as it would be easier to cast from under the trees. I did come across a victim of Agnes as I arrived at the ponds. 

The setups were a 1.5g waggler for the inside swim and a 4g slider for the deeper swim. A dozen balls of groundbait laced with dead reds were launched into the deep water with remarkable accuracy this time. I left this swim alone and fished the nearside to start with, feeding hemp and maggots. After half an how with out so much as a chewed maggot I tried the deep swim. This failed to produce anything either. Back on the inside I sated to get bites on the drop that I couldn't hit. After a bit of fiddling with the shot I was soon into a slow but steady flow of lovely bronze rudd. This continued until just after midday. At this point the predators turned up and fish were scattering everywhere. The attackers were small jacks, at least four of them, all around the 1-2lb mark. This seemed like a good time for lunch as no more bites were forth coming.

While I eat my lunch I had the slider rig out in the deep swim. After lunch I tried the inside line again but bites were hard to come by and the pike were still making a nuisance of themselves. I decided to stick it out over the deep swim  to see if any of the ponds bream would turn up, but all I got was the occasional small roach. A reverse of the previous session where the rudd came from the deep swim and the roach and occasional perch from the shallower swim. This time though there were no perch at all. The bream had failed to show by the time it came to packing up and the majority of fish I'd caught were in hour between eleven and twelve. A quick weigh showed there to be 5lb 1oz of shiny rudd and roach. I was quite amazed as I though there was less than three pound in the net.

If I was practising for a match I don't think I'd have learnt very much from these two sessions unless it was a pike match. In this case it seems the smaller pike feed between twelve and two. I bet they don't when I go down there pike fishing.