Should Have Stuck To Plan A

Plan A was to fish a different still water, instead I went back to the last one I visited and blanked. The reason for this was that my mate had been talking to a work colleague who had five pike out last week the largest of which was 8lb 4oz. From the pictures the other four may have managed 8lb between them, very pretty little fish though. Sadly we were unable reproduce this. Not even a single run or even a chewed bait.



















With little to say about the days fishing I thought I'd have a quick run through the tackle used. This is the set up I use on small still waters. Most of the time the baits can be swung out so heavy rigs aren't required.. The rods are Nash Peg One, which can be fished at 9'6" or 11'. I mainly use them at 9'6" because of the overhanging trees. The reels are Shimano 4000DLs loaded with 35lb Drennan braid. The floats are Drennan Zeppelins in various sizes attached bottom end only and weighted with 1,2, or 3 SSG shot. the wire is 24lb Drennan with Drennan double hooks.

I Wonder What Happened Today

Yesterday I spent a while carefully making up a selection of pike traces, to replace the rather crinkly ones left from last season. Sadly the pike,today, were not impressed with my efforts. The venue today was another local pond, this one though hadn't been as badly effected by the hot dry summer as the previous one. I'd chosen a peg that provided access to a nice selection of pikey looking swims, sunken trees, edges of dying lily beds, a cut through, etc. There were even signs of predator activity as I set up, in the shape of scattering fish. Although the little pike causing the panic wasn't much bigger than the roach is putting on. Wobbled, drifted, static, popped up, nothing induced a run.

At lunch time I was joined by a friend I don't often get to fish with, due to our work patterns. While he wandered round the pound dropping small roach or sprats under overhanging branches or near tree roots, a favoured method of his that usually results in the odd jack or two. I moved a few yards , to the other side of a large tree which gave me access to another large are of the pond and several pikey looking features.. Around three O'clock my friend returned, water licked. For the last hour he chucked a couple of dead baits in to the middle of nowhere. A tactic with a remarkable success rate, but not today.

With the arrival of rain and the impending darkness we headed home and thence to the local of a couple of pints and the formulation of excuses for the blank.

Starting the Winter Pike Season

Arriving at a local lake just before light it was obvious we'd had a dry summer, at least two foot of water was missing. This made selecting a swim a problem, as the normally sunken branches were now out of the water and the areas around the tree roots had at most six inches of water.










I decided to start at the first swim and give each one an hour or so. I had sardine, lamprey, sprat, and roach with me. One rod to any feature and the other out to a dying weed bed or straight out to the middle. I was in the second swim when the sun made an appearance through the trees creating an orange blob right where my float was, near one of the few bank side features. As I squinted through the shades the float popped up about two foot nearer to me than it had been. I retrieved a slightly chews roach. This was the only action I saw for the next few hours as I moved from swim to swim. It wasn't until the last but one swim that I got another run, again dropped. Just before I was about to move to the last swim I latched into a nice jack of nearly 70cm. Which, in a tribute to the late John Wilson, shed the hook in the net.

It's going to take a while for the pit to get back to a better level, although this isn't the lowest I've seen it.

Gauging the River

Thursday I was looking at the gauges on Shoothill GaugeMap, after the recent rain, somewhat puzzled. The gauge immediately above the section I hoped to fish, on Friday, was all over the place. The next gauge upstream showed a falling river, only a few centimetres, and the one a bit further up, a rising river again a few centimetres. The one downstream had moved a few millimetres. From experience I knew the river wouldn't be too bad and I needn't be taking 6oz feeders with me. Although it may seem confusing at first, looking at four gauges over an 18 mile stretch of river all doing something different once you know where the gauges a positioned it makes a bit more sense. The upstream gauges is on a rather narrow section. The next one downstream on a wider section. The next is at some sluices and actually measures something different to the others. While the last one is at a weir. Of coarse, the gauges can't tell you what colour is in the river or how much debris is floating down, but, combined with experience, it will let you know if the river is within your comfort zone.

 








Arriving Friday morning the river didn't look too coloured as I drove over the bridge and didn't seem to have a lot of leaves floating about either. The walk through the woods was as treacherous as ever, slipping and sliding all over the place. Once it's got a good soaking the path really is interesting, not only does it go up and down, but it tends to slope towards the river or a nice steep bank. The swim I choose had a nice slack downstream of me and another across and upstream. Tactics were to be similar to the last outing, caster and chopped worm in a feeder with caster/maggot/worm on the hook and groundbait feeder with chopped worm and a lob on the hook. The far bank slack proved to be a tackle thief, so was abandoned in favour of the main current and this is where all bar one fish came from. It was a steady flow of fish that came to double maggot or half a dendrobena. Apart from a couple of minnows and a ruffe. they were all roach or gudgeon. The roach around the 4-6oz mark, while the gudgeon were all on the small side compared to previous. A total of 17 roach and 23 gudgeon. While there wasn't much surface debris I did manage more than a few sticks as well.

The main excitement of the day came when I had bites on both rods. The inside rod providing the biggest roach of the day and the only fish from the slack and on lob, a fish of 13oz. The other, a fish of 11oz, coming to half a dendro. The other highlight came when a gudgeon suddenly got heavy as I was winding it in. What felt a bit like another stick turned out to be a rather scruffy and underweight perch of 1lb 10oz.

 








Not a bad day given the unsettled weather of late. The fish don't seem to have moved into their winter refuges yet, apart from the minnows thankfully.

Hunting River (Perch) Fish

Aren't tackle shops wonderful places - lots of nice shiny things to buy and a great source of (dubious) information. Today's information was, however, correct. The river was a bit coloured  and had been up about a foot at the beginning of the week. A match, upstream of where I intended to fish, was one with 8oz. This information was ominous enough with out them pointing out that there'd been hell of frost last night. The river was about 6" up and coloured when I got there. 

 








To cut a long story short. I fished three swims. The first produced one bite to maggot feeder. The second swim produced four bites to maggot feeder which resulted in a small roach and a bullhead. The third swim produced the only bite to worm. A particularly savage bite that resulted in the hook going missing, so I'm going to assume it was a pike.











The first proper frost of the autumn and a recent flood are not the best conditions for for fishing, but I didn't blank. Surprised at the lack of bites on worm as they normally do well in coloured water.

Hunting River Perch

A change of venue this week, back to the Derwent in search of perch. I intended to fish 3 or 4 swims that had produced the odd decent perch in the past. Tactics were to be simple feeder rigs. Worm with crumb feeder on one and double caster with maggot and caster in the feeder on the other. While setting up, in the sunshine, I was distracted by four deer wandering along the hedge line - too far away for a picture with the camera on the phone though. Having got set up I realised there was one slight hitch, the best position for the rod tips meant I would be looking straight into the sun. The tips would have to be lower than I'd like which would make them less sensitive. While the gudgeon whack the tip round, like the mini barbel they are, the perch just tend to give a tentative rattle.

 








With the worm rod cast down near the tree roots on the nearside and the caster rod over near a snag on the far bank I settled back and waited. The gudgeon were quick to oblige, with 4 coming in quick succession to caster, before the worm rod rattled a bit and a nice hard fighting perch of 1lb 6oz graced the net. A little while later the caster rod rattled and a slightly larger, though slightly tatty, perch of 1lb 9oz was in the net. Not long after recasting, the worm rod whacked over just as the caster rod rattled about. I struck into the caster rod, assuming the worm had been taken by a gudgeon. A smallish perch was quickly netted on the caster rod and I turned my attention to the worm rod. The thump thump clearly signalled a decent perch and sure enough after a short battle it was in the net with the little un. Much to my surprise the larger perch was the tatty 1lb 9oz fish and just released. These were the last bites from the swim.

 








 








The next swim produced a gudgeon and a roach to the worm rod and a couple of minnows to caster. The third swim a couple of gudgeon after quite a wait.

 








The final swim was awash with gudgeon for the first twenty minutes before it all went quiet. It was now heading towards that 'magic' time at the end of the day when the experts tell you all the big perch a caught. Doesn't normally work for me though, so I was thinking of packing in when the worm rod rattled and a perch of 1lb 11oz put up a brief struggle before being netted. This gave me the incentive to stay. Ten minutes latter the the tip rattled again and I was in to a very nice perch just shy of 3lb at 2lb 14oz, which put up hell of a fight.  Just before It got truly dark the worm rod rattled again and I was into a crazy little pike that shot all over the swim as I tried to get it under control. Matters were not helped by the landing net getting snagged on a bramble and been stuck three foot above the river. Eventually the little beastie was landed It was to be the last fish of the day despite fishing into dark.

 

One of the problems with this time of year is clothing. When I arrived it was T-shirt weather, by the time I'd finished I could have done with a big coat. Trying to be reasonably mobile and carry extra clothing as well a tackle and bait doesn't make life very easy.

 

Lucky, Lucky Perch

Managed to get a bit earlier start today, not that it mattered in the end. I was going to use the same tactics as yesterday, trotting lobs, but in swims I'd not fished in a long time. Arriving at the river I was greeted bay the tapping of a woodpecker. I assume it was a woodpecker as I couldn't see it despite the fact I was sure which tree it was in. This was soon drowned out by the noise of RAF jets preparing to land. The rather pleasant, but bright conditions didn't bode well.

The first swim had plenty of small fish topping, but nothing was interested in my lob worm. I did, however, manage to catch several pebbles. The swim shallowed slightly before deepening again and if I didn't check the float quite right to swing the bait up the hook would occasion snag an empty larva case stuck on  a pebble

Four more swims failed to produce before a jack grabbed the worm as I retrieved. It was the usual, play it for a minute before it bit me off. The sixth swim produced four small perch before a larger one took the bait, only to be grabbed by a good double pike. After three or four good runs everything went slack. Thinking I'd been bitten off I wound in slowly only to realise the perch was still on. Just as I was bat to net it the pike appeared again and grabbed it again. This time it just circled around just out of landing net range with the perch across it's jaws before letting go again. Much to my surprise the perch was still alive and not that badly damaged. After resting it in the landing net I took it with me to the next swim and released it there, just in case the hungry pike was still around.

Nothing more bothered my bait before it was time to leave. While it may not have been a productive day fish wise I did find some nice swims with one or two interesting features that should be worth a bit more time spent in them.

This little beastie was sat waiting to get in when I got home. I persuaded it that it would be better hiding in the leaf litter under the shrubs rather than in a nice warm house.