Fish From The Beck

Yesterday I was to talking to a friends brother who had been for a wander along the canal in the hope of photographing deer. He told me that he'd seen several pike attacks with fish scattering all over. One attack by at least two, possibly three, pike had resulted on three small roach leaping on to the bank. While two had flipped back in one had landed in a puddle. He'd returned it to the canal just as another attack took place. He didn't manage to see any deer though.

I should know that following up reports like this usually results in disappointment, but with nothing better to do I thought I'd give it a go. As he'd said the weed was dying away and the canal was fishable. I started with a Salmo Slick Stick in Real Bleak as the water was clear and a natural colour would probably better. This proved to be the case as after a couple of casts I got a take from a small jack. Sadly it shook the hooks. A few casts later some bait fish scattered close to the far bank. Firsts cast in the area and I was in after a bit of violent head shaking and zooming about I had it heading towards the net. With great aplomb it managed to avoid the net and dive into the bankside vegetation. After a bit of heaving and poking with the landing net I just ended up with a clump of weed.

I had a natter with a chap fly fishing for pike. He'd had one hit and lost a fish under his feet  as well. After a cuppa I had a wander in the opposite direction. With nothing to show from the canal I decided to have a chuck in the flooded beck. Due to recent dredging it was rather coloured so I tried a Rattlin Hornet. After a few casts I got a good solid hit and was connected to a very angry jack. After a great deal of acrobatics and hurtling about like a lunatic I had it in the net. Not very big at 60cm or so but it had put up a great struggle in the narrow confines of the Beck. It even managed to keep it's angry pose for the photo.

I spent a little while longer fishing the Beck to no avail. Back on the canal things weren't much better. I'd changed the lure to a small Salmo Butcher as the waster was a bit deeper here. I had a couple of follows from some wasps but that was that for the day. I did, however, spot some deer dashing form thicket to thicket.

As the weed growth is dying back on  some stretches it may be worth spending a bit more time on them now.

It Was A Reconnaissance Trip Really

 Yesterday, after returning from my fishing trip, I got a call from a friend I'd not fished with for a while. He suggested a canal neither of us had fished this century. He'd been in the vicinity of the canal and had a look round. He reckoned it looked quite good and there were a few anglers about. Some silvers were been caught but the pike anglers weren't doing too well.

This morning I headed out there with his directions and a thick fog.  By the time I got to where the directions were needed the fog had lifted, but this didn't stop me heading down a dead end road. It wasn't the correct next turn on the right. Back in the right direction I stated to recognise places, but then began to wonder where I was again. Narrow roads with no obvious landmarks. The last instruction was "down to the end of Main Lane, left at the T-Junction down to the parking spot". The problem with this was that Main Lane didn't reach the T-Junction. It veered to the right at a fork in the road. This road turned in to a farm track. A helpful dog walker pointed me in the right direction. Apparently the Parish Council had helpfully put a street sign up at the junction and more than a few people had ended up turning down there instead of continuing down the more obvious left fork.

Eventually I arrived at the parking where there was only one other car, my mates. He was surprised it was empty as yesterday there was half a dozen cars there. A look at the canal didn't inspire me. It looked a bit coloured and bits of weed were drifting along. The plan was simple. I would fish perch size lure and my mate would fish pike sized ones. After two hours with nothing to show but a foul hooked roach we found ourselves back at the cars. After a cuppa we decided to head in the other direction. By now, though, the amount of weed drifting down made fishing near impossible. A natter with a dog walker convinced us that maybe we should give up. He told us there was a lot more coming down from higher up as they were clearing the drainage channels. That's probably why there were no other anglers about.

We had a look at a lower section but it was far too weedy for lures. By now we reckoned a pub lunch was the order of the day. Not the best of sessions, but I now knew where to go for a return session. A few frost would probably help. One annoying thing, though, was the magic disappearing photos on my phone. Only three survived. The rest were not to be seen even scanning with file recovery software. Oh well. We'll try again later.

Good Grief, A Blog Post

 Had a my first fishing trip since I suffered a Glenoid Fracture at the end of July. The fracture repaired pretty quickly but the soft tissue damage is still under repair.  Plenty of physio have given me back plenty of movement and for most everyday things the shoulder is OK. Winding a fishing reel is well with in my capabilities. I'd decided on a short trip to a local canal despite the dodgy weather forecast. I'd be sticking to the nice level areas and descending any of the high slippery banks. Despite the recent rain and frost the canal looked clear and in good nick.

I started with a brown sparkly cannibal shad that was already on the line  and with in a couple of casts had a solid hit from a very athletic 35cm perch. A couple of cast later a somewhat smaller perch gave a solid hit. Then the alarm sounded and the sluice opened washing leaves and foam into the canal. This rendered the area unfishable unless you wanted to catch leaves.

 

On to the next feature. After a couple of casts I was getting hits but not hooking up. Instead of my usual two or three turns of the reel, let the lure flutter to the bottom, repeat, I tried a more violent retrieve. I flicked the lure off the bottom with the rod tip each time it hit bottom. This resulted in very solid hits but still no hook ups. A change to a smaller cannibal shad resulted in me contacting with one in three of the hits. Over the next half hour I had a dozen perch up to 28cm before every thing went quiet. One problem I did have was using the landing net as I was getting on for six foot above the water. It put a bit of a strain on the left arm. Changing hands solved this, sort of. I'm not used to using a landing net with my right arm and lost a couple of fish at the net due to my clumsiness. Still a dozen perch wasn't bad.

The next level feature was a lot closer to the water, but not somewhere I'd ever had perch from, only little jacks. This time proved different. In ten casts I had eight perch to 28cm. I kept them in the landing net as returning them can scare the shoal away and it was pretty close to the bank. As the expected rain started all hell broke loose. Perch and little silvers scattered out of the water around the area I was catching the perch. As the rain had turned to a downpour I retreated under a tree. I'd forgot my waterproof and my shower proof jacket doesn't cope with that amount of rain. 

As the rain eased off after five minutes or so I thought I'd head back to the car. I'd had a good couple of hours. Obviously I had to have one last cast. This resulted in a very acrobatic killer cucumber. The next five casts produced three more of the little horrors. Great fun on light tackle, leaping about all over the place. The last one had also deigned to remove the tail of my lure. This should have been a taken as a hint to go home, but I'd seen a large jack cruising along the edge just beyond where I was catching the others. I grabbed the first ready rigged lure, a cream and pepper thing. I cast about a foot in front of the pike and it hit it straight away. Unfortunately it dived into the weed and it was just a case of cranking in a mass of weed and pike.   Another half dozen casts produced nothing, but the drizzle was now turning to rain. I decided not to push my luck and headed back to the car. I'd just made a cuppa when the heavens opened. It continued like that while I had my cuppa and all the way home.

Not a bad return at all. I'll have to avoid high banks where I can for now. I'm meeting somebody for another go tomorrow. This is on a canal I haven't fished since last century so should be interesting.

Impromptu Lure Session

 It wasn't my intention to go fishing on Sunday, but I'd woken up early and It was lovely and cool out with a bit of drizzle so I decided to give it a couple of hours. Rod, reel, landing net, and a few jigs and shads stuffed into my pockets. It really was nice wandering about in the drizzle given the impending heatwave. Somewhere, out of sight, I could here a couple of buzzards squeaking. The lower hay meadows had been cut making it hard going as the hay was hiding the path.The previous day when we'd gone for an early wander by the river only the upper meadows had been cut.

A three gramme jig head with a Grass Minnow in Chartreuse Shiner (green and sparkly) had it's tail bitten off on the first cast. The replacement was hit very hard but no contact made. A couple of casts later and a lively jack was impaled on the hook. This was the first jack I'd caught down here, much to my surprise.

A couple of casts later and a perch shot up from the depths as I started to lift the lure from the water. Quickly dropping the rod tip the perch grab hold as the lure descended I put up a spirited fight despite the nasty wound to it's back and dorsal fin. It also had small hook in the corner of it's mouth. At 33cm and 1lb 3oz it was a bit on the light side.

The next couple of swims produced nothing.

The fourth swim is quite deep right off the bank at seven foot or so, before steeply shelving away. A couple of cast upstream and close to the bank showed there to be a lot of snags which I was luckily able to ping out of. It did, however produce a perch of 35cm and 1lb 10oz. I pushed my luck a bit to far and ended up losing a lure. The down stream direction only had a bit of weed in it and after a few casts produced a perch 33cm and 1lb 7oz.

The next swim produced a very hard fighting fish of  34cm and 1lb 7oz and 33cm 1lb 6oz that hit the lure on the drop in the middle of the river after several casts along the edge.

The final swim produced another couple of fish. One at 35cm and 1lb 8oz and one at 29cm and 1lb 1oz. Again both taken on the drop in the middle of the river after quite a few casts along the edge.

Not bad for a couple of hours or so fishing. All the perch seem to be from the same year group. I've taken smaller ones on maggot around here but they don't seem to be fans of chasing lures.

A Sticky Problem

 With the country about to catch fire and the rivers boiled dry I'd ummed and ahhed about fishing. However I'd been informed by and  authoritative source that a local river was in quite could nick. The temp wasn't too high and the dissolved oxygen levels were pretty good. So, off I went to a deep section of the Ure on a bank I'd not fished before. I was surprised when I got there and dunked my arm in up to my elbow how cool it was.. I was also surprised to find I needed another layer after half an hour in the string breeze. It wasn't quite warm enough for a T-shirt and too warm for two.

After a bit of plumbing about I found a five foot deep ledge just over a weed bed and eleven foot about a third of the way across. Far shallower than I remember this section. A small stick was set up for the inside line and a waggler for the far line. The stiff breeze was blowing straight downstream, but as the sick line was just beyond the rod tip I had decent control of it. Anybody that's fished the Ure will know about the downstream wind. It doesn't matter whether you're fishing Tanfield, Ripon or Aldwark it only blows downstream and at twice the speed of the surround area.

The far line was to be fed using groundbait, maggots and chopped worm. The inside loose fed with maggots and chopped worm. After launching half a dozen tennis ball size balls of ground bait out to the far line I set about the inside line. Bleak were the first out followed by some micro dace. After an hour of beak and micro dace I went out to the far line. Things weren't much better there as there only seemed to be tiny gudgeon yank the three swan waggler under. The occasional small perch would turn up out of the blue. I did manage to catch a ball of mono full of split shot and a couple of bullet weights for a bit of variation. 

I alternated between the two lines, but the same species kept coming. A few decent roach showed up on the far line after I'd topped it up with more ground bait, but the gudgeon soon returned along with the small perch. I was surprised not to take perch on the inside line as it looked an ideal spot right along a weed bed.

I've no idea how many fish I caught as I thought a keepnet wouldn't be a good idea so didn't bring it. I know I caught 35 in the first hour. One problem I did have when packing up was the joints on the fourteen footer were stuck. What to do, as it wouldn't fit in the car like that. Eventually I managed to remove the top section and with a bit of wiggling and seat manoeuvring I just got the lower two stuck sections in the car. A bit of a dilemma could have ensued if I hadn't been able to split  one section of. I have had this happen before but there were other anglers about who could help. I suppose I could have asked one of the golfers or wandered the village for assistance.

Alarming Failure

The threat of a heat wave type thing suggested an early start might be a good option. For an early start you have to be up early. This normally involves and alarm which you have to set the night before. Which I didn't, so ended up waking a lot later than intended. I changed my plans to fish match hours instead. As it was it didn't get quite as hot as expected, partially due to a nice breeze. I was fishing further downstream then my last couple of visits as I'd been reminded that there was access available to the middle of this long stretch.

 

Tactics were to be much the same, though I intended to use a slider this time. I'd been through my float collection and picked a few appropriate ones out, but I'd failed to put them in the bag. As I've mentioned before I always seem to forget something. I'm trying to keep things to a minimum but this means taking things in and out of the bag and invariably something goes missing. A slider would have been wonderful today. While there was a twelve foot deep shelf a rod length out it was full of debris. Nearly every trot down I snagged some weed or reeled in a twig. Two rod lengths out it was sixteen and half foot deep. With a fifteen foot rod this was going to be fun.

 

I also set up a waggler rod at about twelve foot initially in case the fish were higher up in the water. I could shallow this up if needed. Out went the groundbait laced with maggots well downstream. I then loose fed maggots for the waggler rod hopping they would land near the ground bait. An hour with the waggler rod produced two minnows, a small roach, and a tiny dace. A change to the bolo set up got me a couple of perch and a couple of chewed maggots. Despite trying all sorts of depths  and things I then failed to get so much as a chewed maggot of a couple of hours. Then in the last hour I managed half a dozen decent dace and six roach. It was hard work for an average of one fish every fifteen minutes. There clearly wasn't many fish in the swim.

 

You can tell how much I was concentrating on getting bites, I only took three photos.

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.