Penultimate River Pike Session

My pike season on the rivers, like many other up here, hasn't been great at all. The constant floods have made life awkward with some especially slippy banks when the water has dropped. In the hope of picking things up a bit I headed for a well known hotspot. The river had been up about a metre following Sunday's rain but was dropping so things wouldn't be too bad I thought. Following a later than intended start due to finger trouble I arrived at the pot after a rather laborious trudge through muddy files and slippy paths. I was surprised to find nobody else there on either bank.

A float fished roach was dropped into a nice slack in thirteen foot of water and a large smelt was ledgered in twenty three foot of water. I moved the baits about as best I could in the slacks. A couple of other anglers arrived and setup in another larger slack that I intended to move to later if nothing was happening. Both baits were given a dose of oil after an hour or so. The slowly dropping river meant the slack changed shape necessitating changing the position of the baits. The drizzle and chill wind wasn't making life pleasant. Part way through the morning one of the other anglers landed a pike. A high single by the look of it.

While investigating a couple of other swims, now the rain had stopped, I spotted a Tansy Beetle loitering on some nettles. I don't know if the eat nettles when there's no tansy about. These things are rather rare. The Yorkshire Ouse and somewhere in Cambridgeshire are it's only remaining populations in the UK. After lunch I moved to another swim upstream that has produced pike in the past. The float now sporting a piece of lamprey had to be set a twenty two foot and was tossed in at the upstream end of the slack. The edger was dropped in at the downstream end with a small headless mackerel. The same angler that caught earlier had another. His friend, like me, ended up with  a stick. I must admit the stick I caught gave a very convincing impression of a pike run.

The trudge back up the hill was damned hard work with the sticky mud trying to rip my wellies off. Not the day I was hoping for but one more session to go and a my be able to pick things up, or not.

Avoiding the Barbel Again

 A change of venue for this weeks barbeling adventures. Admittedly the reports hadn't been great, but I'd heard the few that were coming out were taking small 6-8mm pellets. With this in mind put the lighter top on one rod and set it up with a smallish feeder and hook for fishing the small pellets. still with a 10lb hook length though. The second rod was fished using the usual big feeder tactics and two 22mm pellets. If everybody else had been fishing small pellets the barbel may not be as wary with a big bait. The lighter setup went in down stream under the overhanging willow and the big bait out in front into a hole just over halfway across. I swapped the rigs around every half hour or so for the next three hour. Before I got a bite. A little gudgeon on the small bait under the trees. This was quickly followed by a minnow on a 6mm pellet. How it managed to rattle the tip I don't know. The next cast had the tip whack over the moment the feeder hit bottom. Not the barbel I was expecting but a little jack that must have taken the pellet on the drop.

There then followed a series of rattles to the tip from the bait under the tree before I contacted with an odd looking roach. The tail end looked like it was from a roach half the size of the head end. Another quickly followed. This one had a monster tail belong to a roach twice the size. A more sensibly proportioned one was the next out. This was followed a little while later by a little chublet.

Just after the chublet a few fish scattered signalling the presence of a predator and things went quiet. I swapped the baits around for a while before returning the small bait to under the tree. I then had a visit from a pair of swans one of which decided to wander up the bank and stare at me. I assume it was hoping for food. One thing you often don't realise as you rarely see them is the the size of their feet. They're huge. Another thing mentioned to me by a passer-by was that there seems to be a lot of pairs of swans but very few seem to have cygnets. Thinking about it I'd seen this on another river as well. By now it was stating to get noticeably cooler. As I put my fleece on the rod tip started to bounce around and in came a rather chunky dace. This was followed a by another slightly smaller one. I didn't see a bite from the final fish of the evening, a roach. It was there when I stated to wind in to pack up.

No barbel but I did have a few fish to keep me occupied. I may pop down again with a lighter feeder rod. There again I'd probably end up been smashed up by barbel on a light setup.

Penultimate Day Of The Season

The river had risen a lot higher than expected when I looked at the gauge this morning. It was at the height I expected in the afternoon and didn't look like it was going to ease off. My mate was just setting off when I rang him. As he said "It's easier to give up than get started." Despite misplacing himself he still arrived at the same time as me. Our first thought when we saw the river was that we should have brought worms and not dead-baits. Still there were plenty of slacks in evidence so we picked the first two and got underway.

I'd just finished plumbing the depth when my mate shouted frantically. I whipped down to his swim to find him trying to keep a decent jack out of the semi-submerged tree and get his snagged landing net out of the tree roots and brambles. I untangled the net and soon a feisty 5-6lb jack was on the bank. Apparently it had taken the roach on the drop. This gave us some hope.

We gave each swim about 45 minutes before leap frogging along the swims. As I walked past him in his second swim the float shot away and this time it was a lot smaller fish about half the size that had taken a smelt. Like me he was using up whatever he had in the freezer. Buoyed up we continued along the bank but had had no more as it came up to lunch time. We were now both in front of a couple of large slacks/eddies and get two rods out. We stayed here a bit longer while we had lunch. Wind had got stronger and gustier so you had to make sure everything was nailed down.

The only other anglers we saw all day arrived on the opposite bank just after lunch. One of them was obviously well sheltered as he managed to get a brolly up, something we couldn't do. It would have been nice as the periods of rain were getting longer and heavier. We slowly worked our way back fishing the swims the other had fished on the way down. By the time we got back to the top of the section the river had risen a metre and showed no sign of slowing.

Two fish to my mate and nowt to me was not what I really wanted but under the circumstances was better than we'd thought possible at the start of the day. What to do for the final day I don't know. I'm thinking a spot of barbeling may be on the cards, but I'll wait until the morning to make a descension.

Cardboard Guards and Hedge Laying

 I must admit I wasn't too confident as I headed to the river. It had dropped to below a metre up, but the temperatures had also dropped again. I quick wander round showed only a couple of swim to be safely accessible in the freezing conditions. The current was quite fast and coupled with a downstream wind float fishing would be near on impossible out in the main river. So, I opted for a ledger rig, something I don't often do. A float rig was still used in the inside slack though.

After casting out the ledger rig nearly half way across on to the feeder line I tried to set up the drop-off indicator but some thing was pulling the line. Eventually my brain switched on and realised it may be a bite. The strike suggested something heavy but it didn't really feel like a fish. About half way back everything went slack. Don't know what it was, maybe some debris. Out it went again with another half a small mackerel on. The float was dropped into the slack with a smelt on. I recast every 30mins or so but nowt showed.

After lunch I moved swims same tactics as previous but this time the ledger rod had a large piece of lamprey on and the float a small trout. Again the baits were moved every half hour or so. Around mid-afternoon the float moved away. As I wound down a branch near the float started to move towards me. The line had been blown into the overhanging tree with the pike trying to pull the branch one way and me pulling it another. The line eventually came free but the ensuing slack line allowed the fish time to shed the hooks. Bugger! At least one fish was feeding so there may be more.

That was it for the day. First blank of the year. As I left I discovered what the noise of chain saw had been doing. I'd seen that a couple of hundred metres of hedging had been planted with cardboard guards rather than those dreadful plastic things. The chainsaw, though, had been used for a bit of hedge restoration. A nice thing to see. Don't know how the cardboard guards will cope with the rabbits and/or deer.

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.

Third Session of the 2022 River Season

 Tuesday's session was to a stretch that I've regularly fished for pike but not done any maggot drowning in for years.  It didn't get of to a particularly good start though. I found a nice swim with a six foot shelf a rod length out, just beyond some weeds. A couple of rod lengths further out the depth doubled. I set up a stick and 'pin for the inside line as it was protected from the downstream breeze. The deep line I set up a waggler rig with an ABU 506 as waggler fishing with a 'pin is a pain. By now the hayfever had kicked in. My nose was streaming and sneezing so bad I thought I'd dislocate my head. Still I persevered.

Hayfever like that doesn't do much for your concentration. Three time I snagged a tree when casting forcing me to re rig. I developed a total inability to throw groundbait with any form of accuracy other than hitting the river. Just to ad insult to injury one wellie had developed a leak. The inside line produce nothing but bleak, not the perch I was expecting. The waggler line also produced bleak, but by bulking the shot well down the line I was able to bypass them more often them not. Despite scattering groundbait all over the place I was into bream pretty quickly. Between sneezing and a streaming nose I managed to bump off three of them and lost another three in the weeds. At this point I decided a cuppa and some medication may be the order of the day.

While partaking of a cuppa I chucked a feeder rod out. All this did was bounce about and I'd wind in some chewed maggots. Eventually a small perch hung itself on the hook. Admittedly I was far too busy trying to get a photo of an egret chasing fry on the far bank, I failed. I did manage a, poor, photo of some of the four dozen gooses that same past. A couple of lambs charged them as they arrived at the cattle drink. The lambs weren't as brave when a couple of gooses flew at them. A heron was also chased off by the gooses as well.

After forty five minutes or so the sneezing and streaming nose had stopped. After a few trots down the inside line only to find the bleak were still there. I chucked some more groundbait in, this time with a lot more accuracy. First up on the waggler line were roach and the occasional perch. Much to my surprise the odd, three to the pound, chub turned up. This was nice to see as chub have notable for their absence in recent years. Late on I started to pick up skimmers, most of which I managed to get to the net. I still managed to bump more than I should have done.

I think if I'd not scattered groundbait everywhere early on I could have put quite a nice bag of fish together. Still it wasn't a bad day in the end. It appeared I was on an Oyster Catcher's flight path as it came backwards and forwards across the river. Whistling just before it came over the flood bank it never really gave me enough notice to get a photo. There was also a surprising amount of salmon leaping about. Some coloured and some still a shiny silver. On the way back to the car I also saw a very large hare zig-zaging across the field. Not seen one that size for years. There was also a quite a few hedgepigs wandering about. I nearly stood on one as it came out of the long grass on to the path.

It's Not Getting Any Better

Back on the pike hunt I headed to a stretch well above the city and one I've not fished for years. It's one of those stretches that contains some big pike, allegedly, but they rarely get caught.  Unless you talk to the match anglers, who claim to have lost every other fish to a huge pike. I spent 30-40 minutes in half a dozen swims in the morning for not a lot. The most excitement was when laziness in the last swim had me check the depth with out removing the trace. I'd cast straight into snags. Pulling the rig hoping to bend the hooks resulted in the swivel breaking. First failure have had in a swivel for a long time. I spent the afternoon in the same swim hoping to intercept a passing pike. This didn't work either.

Just after lunch I talked to a local who'd fished the stretch a dozen times this year for two small jack. He reckoned it was the worst he'd known it. He normally only blanked ever other session. previous years. At the car park at the end of the day two other pike anglers were there and had blanked as well and were equally baffled by the lack of pike.

Strike Three

Friday morning after a night of snow, sleet and freezing temperatures the car took some defrosting. I soon arrived at the fishing spot I intended to fish on Monday. This time I wasn't thwarted by a match, but I'd forgotten I'd be facing straight in to the sun for a large part of the day. The river was now only a couple of foot up, but it did rise a few inches during the session. The area I was fishing was classic territory, on the inside of a bend with over hanging trees creating nice slack areas.  It had also produced some good weights in the last couple of matches held there.

The usual tactics were employed, float-ledgered, paternoster, trotted and even ledgered out in the middle. Mackerel, lamprey, trout, sardine, and roach were used as baits. I fished four different swims. It wasn't until the last swim that I got my one and only run of the day. As I made my last cuppa of the day the float shot away. Before I could put the kettle and cup down the float had popped back up and all I ended up with was a chewed sardine.

If these pike don't start to frame themselves I think I might have to take up chub fishing.