Barbeling for Bleak

Sunday's plan was easy, trotting for barbel. Start at the swim I was in Saturday, feed with copious quantities of hemp and dead maggot. Hack may way to another swim, feed as previous and then on to a third, feed and return to the first. Trot for 30-40 minutes in each swim while loose feeding live maggots. The only problem I could see was my nose was now streaming from hay fever and making it hard to concentrate. So I decide to ledger a 1/2" piece of meat to start with. 30 minutes in each swim produced absolutely nothing. By now, after taking another anti-histamine, my nose was under control. Time for some trotting.

Two live maggots and an artificial one on the hook and I was soon into bleak! If I got a bite it was a bleak, not a fish a chuck, but a steady flow of them taken well down the swim. If the float managed to get to the end of the swim the maggots were generally intact. This was repeated in the next swim. The third swim, though, only produced perch or gudgeon. This swim was shallower and pacier. than the other two. A change to a size 8 and half a dozen maggots did nothing except reduce the bites to zero. Perhaps If I'd gone bleak fishing I may have latched onto a barbel.

 
By now the rain clouds were on the horizon. I'd just got packed up when it started. By the time I'd got back to the car I was sodden.

Straight Ahead to the River

Saturday saw me down by the Nidd again, but on a different stretch. Judging by the sea of untrampled himalayan balsam, it looked like I was the first one down there this season. After slashing my way along the top of the bank I found a nice glide to attack with stick 'n' 'pin.





















It proved to be a steady afternoon taking chublets, dace, roach, gudgeon, perch and bleak. Late on I latch in to something heavier, which obligingly came steadily towards me, but staying deep. Once it got level it changed it's mind and shot 20 yards down stream, straight into some tree roots. Probably one of the local loony barbel, which I intended to fish for on Sunday. The rest of the evening went uneventfully with a steady flow of little uns.

Hook Thieves

Friday I returned to the NIdd, to fish the other swim I fancied. Similar depth to Thursday's swim, but with more pace. On the way I spotted an interesting new feature that had landed on top of one of the more productive barbel swims.

Like Thursday I was going to be trotting maggot for whatever. First couple of trots produced a couple a couple of small chublets. Twenty minutes of nothing then ensued before a small dace put in an appearance. Half an hour after that I had a few small roach. I then got bit of well up the hook length. As the fine drizzle had now turned to rain I put the feeder rod out while I put the brolly up and put a new hook length on. Having poured myself a cuppa the rod tip lurched over and I lifted in to nothing. Again the hook length was bitten of well up it's length.

With the rain getting heavier I tied a new hook onto the feeder rod and cast out again. As a waited a moment for the feeder to settle, the rod was nearly snatched out of my hand. This time I caught site of the assailant, a small  1lb or so jack. I really didn't fancy moving in the rain, so chucked the feeder out again. This time I'd put a braid hook length on. After fifteen minutes with out a bite the rain had stopped. I decided  to have a couple of trots before moving. Second run through and I was in to something reasonable. After a minute or so a large perch was in the net. Looking like a good 2lb plus fish I was surprised how light it was when I lifted it out of the net. On the scales it came to 1lb 14oz, but looked a god half pound heavier.

Further trots down produced either very small roach or chewed maggots. On what turned out to be the final cast of the evening, the float shot upstream. I failed to contact any thing on the strike and when retrieved the hooks was again missing. With a very dark cloud heading toward me I decided to beat a retreat. I got back to the car just as the heavens opened.


One thing I've noticed over these couple of days is, despite there been plenty of insect life on the water I never saw anything rise to them. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Opening Day on the Rivers

June 16th, first day of the coarse fishing season on rivers and like the opening day of the trout season it tends to not live up to the hype. The last couple of season I've gone down to the Nidd for opening day and had a few pleasant hours trotting for what ever in the sunshine. This year was the same, with out the sunshine.

After hacking my way through the Himalayan Balsam I was on the side of the the river, trotting rod and 'pin, couple of maggots on the hook, full of anticipation. It was a good half hour before I got my first fish, a 6" dace, a few more followed over the next hour before the little, 4" chublets moved in. If you ever have problems identifying these little fish it's easy, if it has a mouth full of maggots it's a chub, if not it's a dace.

 

 

















After a while everything went quiet. I chucked out a bomb rod while I had a cuppa and some thing to eat. The bomb rod sat motionless so I returned to the float rod, a grayling was the next fish, which was lunged at by a pike as I brought it over the near bank ledge. a couple more followed before going quiet again. 

The final hour consisted of 'unmissable' bites, little chublets and gudgeon. While not up to previous years it was still pleasant non the less.

More Mayfly Madness

With my original intention of fly fishing the river on hold due to my new fishing buddy having to work, I continued on with my investigation of the beck. Things looked promising as I peered over the bridge to see mayflies fluttering about.

Having entered the water at the bridge I found the first section to be unfishable with a fly rod due to low lying branches right across the water and a tunnel of hawthorns. There were, however, one or two fishing rising to the mayflies under the hawthorns. I attempted to drift a fly down to them by feeding the line down. Due to the swirling currents this didn't work, the fly kept dragging or swinging over to the wrong side.

Further upstream I found a trout, a veritable monster for this little beck, taking the odd mayfly. Hidden under a trailing briar, it would shoot out, grab an insect before dropping back underneath. My first cast, with a HWM, landed inches from the briar and was quickly grabbed. Luckily for me the fish shot upstream into the deeper water, after a bit of toing and froing it suddenly shot back downstream into it's lair and becoming firmly lodged there. By the time I had stumbled upstream to the briar the trout had gone, but not before knotting the tippet round a stem with a overhand knot.

After battling my way through more trailing branches I came to a very narrow section of fast moving water infested with minnows. Any fly I cast into the area was immediately nudge about by them. Passing through the area I came across some fish rising at he small midges, the mayfly had now disappeared. These turned out to be a shoal of little 4-5" dace, again they would happily nudge the dry flies about or splash at them and sink them. The fly life was now very sparse with only the occasional up-wing and a few midges to be seen.

 I continued to the top of this section with some speculative casting of one of the John Storey flies I tied earlier in the day. These had been treated with floatant on the hackle only so that the peacock body is under the water and the eye pointing at the sky, looking all wrong this is the correct way to fish it.

A cast to a couple of small trout feeding very close to the edge resulted in the tippet wrapping round a dead stalk before the fly landed on the water and was taken by one of the trout. The fish then proceeded to flap about frighten several fish away. Obviously it had fallen of by the time I got to it. As I was near the top of the section and with a long walk back I called it a day.

Abandoned Car

Sunday saw me down the beck for a short session. Like the river the day before things looked promising with swarms of midges, and a few up-winged flies fluttering about. On my way down to the downstream end of the fishery More up wings were seen and even a few hawthorn flies, but nothing seemed to be rising for them.

Near the bottom of the fishery I spotted a couple of splashy  rises, but to what. With swarms of midges about that's what I tied on, in size 18. There was clearly more than one fish feeding in the pool as I made my way up. My fly was totally ignored by the feeding fish. Ensuring the point of the leader was not floating, I cast again and again with out disturbing the feeding fish. Thinking they may be interested in something more substantial I tied on a size 14 foam beetle, which again was ignored. Deciding to go the other way, I tied on a new tippet and a size 24 IOTBB which was taken first cast. A spirited little WBT somersaulted around the pool, sending one of it's companions up through the very shallow riffle at the top of the pool while, the other passed with in inches of my waders. Surprisingly, while unhooking this fish another was rising in the pool. After a couple of casts this was taken, only to come adrift after a couple of leaps. I waited a while, but nothing else stirred so moved on. Three more fish were hooked, but only one landed over the course of the next few pools.

By now I was getting rather thirsty and having left my drink in the car so headed back there. On the way back my phone rang. Worryingly it was the police, enquiring about my 'abandoned' car and asking me if I could move it to somewhere more suitable. Given there aren't any car parks nearby I wasn't sure where more suitable was, so I moved it further down the verge. As I didn't get any more calls about it I assume I'd got it right.

Drink in hand I wandered back downstream to where I'd left off and entered the water to be greeted by small trout flinging it's self out of the water in the pool upstream. This pool is one of only a couple in the beck that I can't wade through, even in chesties. Even though there was no sign of fly life there were a couple of fish rising at something. My little IOTBB was resolutely ignored as the fish rise around it. Eventually I noticed a little upwing struggling in the surface. A change to a CDC emerger produced a take on the second cast. It very quickly became apparent that this was a larger than average fish as it circled deep in the pool. It then had a sudden change of plan and shot past me, downstream, before performing the obligatory gymnastics. After which it came to he net quietly.

In the net one thing became apparent, apart from it's size, it was missing a pectoral fin and judging by the wound it was quite recent.  This is the second one I've taken like this in the last couple of years. Otter attack? I haven't seen any sign of otters here although they are on the main river, so it is possible. After a couple of quick photos and holding it in the stream to recover it seemed to swim off strongly, back into the depths of the pool. 

By now a rather strong and chill breeze had come up which was probably why I never saw another rise. Not a bad day at all.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Some of the targets I've set myself as an angler I achieved quite quickly. Others, like catching a 20+ pike on a lure have yet to be realised. As has catching a trout on dry fly from the stretch of river I fished today. I've caught them on dry in the upper reaches, where most of the fishing is controlled by ancient clubs with exorbitant entry fees and/or mile long waiting lists. I've caught them on this lower stretch on wets, nymphs, worms, minnows, spinners, plugs, even luncheon meat, but never on dry fly.

So when an acquaintance, who'd been working near the river, told me he'd seen fish taking mayfly I thought I may be in with a chance of breaking my duck. Mainly a still water fly angler, my acquaintance was also keen to have a go. So we agreed to meet up at the river late afternoon, when he'd seen the feeding trout.

I tied up a few generic hair wing mayflies to add to my usual collection of river flies just in case.

He was already at the river when I arrived and, not surprisingly, reported a lack of insects as sod's law had predicted. We tackled up and had a sit on the bank looking for a sign. As non was forth coming we decided to have wander upstream looking for action. Non was seen, despite the occasional flurry of insects nothing seemed to be feeding on the surface. We covered nearly a mile and a half of river casting flies big and small at likely, and unlikely, spots before returning to the cars. While supping a cuppa we finally saw a rise. My acquaintance had a cast at it with a F-fly, which clearly terrified the fish as we didn't see it again.

We called it a day, as it was getting too dark to see the fly and arranged to have another go next week.