Cranking Good Fun

Bit late with this report from mid-week.

On previous sessions I'd been wondering what had happened to various small crank baits, as the box seemed a bit less full then it should be. A root round the fishing shack produced a box of lures all requiring replacement hooks and/or split rings for one reason or another. My drawer of spare trebles soon showed why they had been abandoned, none of the appropriate size. A trip to the tackle shop saw me parting with a small fortune for the appropriate hooks, split rings and other essentials. Soon the lure box suitably full.

 










Down at the navigation my intention was to give each of them a run to see if they were all still functional. The first out was a small green and yellow beastie of unknown origin. This produced a perch first cast, so obviously fully functional despite not producing another fish. Next out was a Salmo Executor 7. This bait is a wonderful bait if laziness is your thing, it seems to work best on a simple straight retrieve. This proved to be the case when a large pike hit it with the trace inches from the tip. To see it hit the lure and turn before hitting the steel piling that lines the bank here, before steaming off along the bank clutch screaming, nearly had me falling in with shock. I was glad I'd put a wire trace on the light perch set up I was using. I followed the fish along the bank as it was heading towards some overhanging plant life. Thankfully it moved out to the middle before it got the line snagged and started heading back towards my landing-net that I'd forgot to pick up. It was nearly ten minutes before it finally gave up and came to the net. The problem with light perch set ups and feisty pike is that there are times when you don't really feel in control and the fish just seems to do what ever it wants. I was quite surprised at the weight of the fish when I lifted the net as it hadn't looked that big as it shot about. It turned out to be rather a chunky fish of 10lb 8oz and 90cm.

 One of the problems when you're three foot above the water is releasing tired pike. They never seem to want to sit upright in a landing-net that isn't quite big enough, this one was no exception. Eventual, though, it righted itself and tried to swim away then the next bit of silliness started. Every time I tried to tip it out of the net it tried to swim deeper into it. It's next trick was to get it's teeth snagged  in the mesh. At this point I started pondering pike fillets for supper, as it clearly didn't want to leave. A final shake of the landing net and it was out.

I gave the lure a gentle lob back out to see if the braid had embedded itself, all was OK. A couple of turns and I was into my intended quarry. A nice perch soon graced my net, quickly followed by a couple more. I forgot about testing the other lures as the Salmo was obviously working well. Several more perch followed as I wandered along the bank along with another pike of 6lb 10oz that came in like a wet blanket, but put up quite a fight once on land. Another pike hit not long after, but came adrift after a short blistering run. By this time the light was fading rapidly and lacking any suitable source of illumination besides the moon I had one more cast which produced another perch. Trying to illuminate a perch's mouth with a phone while unhooking it is not something I'd recommend.

 









 









 










It looks like I'll have to have another visit to check the other four crank baits out. Lets hope they all work as well as the Salmo.

 

The Under a Bridge Edition

Another short session, on the navigation, drop shotting started off with a sight I've not seen often. While taking with another angler a rabbit came bounding past, hotly pursued by a stoat. The stoat then seemed to notice the presence of humans and quickly veered off into the brambles while the rabbit stopped looked at us as if to say thanks and disappeared into under growth further down. This was then spoilt by the drizzle starting.

This was another straight and rather featureless length that produced only a couple of fish as I made my way towards the bridge. At the bridge things changed dramatically. Although small, it was a fish a chuck initially. When bites died off it was simply a matter of fish further in, out, up, down to find them again. I took the opportunity to try various lures out. I don't think it proved much though, as I suspect they would take nearly anything regardless of colour or shape. Size seemed to matter though, anything over 3" produced very few bites and I failed to hook anything that did rattle the rod tip. This size this was abit puzzling as one fish reguritated a small fish about that size as I unhooked it.

Not sure how many of the wee fellas I had in the end as I lost count at around 40 which I didn't think was too bad for a couple of hours work. Also the bridge was out of the wind and rain which made things slightly more pleasant.

Good Sign For The Future

With Sunday's original plans thwarted by the rapidly rising rivers, those that get their water from the dales, I headed to one that gets it's water from the moors, in search of grayling. It looked in fine fettle as I drove over he bridge and parked up. There was little sign of life  as I wandered down to the downstream end, so opted for a small gold head GRHE with a pink collar. This produced quite an array of twigs and leafs dredged up from the bottom.

After a half hour or so I found a few fish rising in a short glide. After the nymph was ignored I decided a dry fly was called for. A change to a small emerger type pattern produced a few splashy rises. Suspecting small dace I changed to a size 20 IOBO, which produced the tiniest little grayling I've ever caught. In fact I thought I'd snagged another leaf at first. The next few casts produced a series of missed takes. I reckon I was hitting 1 in 6 takes. After taking 3 fish every thing went quiet, so I moved on.

A root through the fly boxes produced a size 18 plume fly. The hit rate to this was a bit higher at 1 in 3. As I moved upstream I was able to take 3 or 4 fish from each glide before putting the down. All of them were about the same size, absolutely tiny, but this has got to be a good sign for the future proved the don't move upstream to the more exclusive stretches.

Walk Trolling

Another quick Session on the navigation this time pike were the target. Now I must admit I've only had the one pike here and really haven't seen much pike activity at all. My intention was to chuck lure from the permanent pegs using the normal five cast fan system. nine o'clock, twelve o'clock, three o'clock and a couple somewhere in between. A variety of lures were used to cover top to bottom.

 After an hour and a bit with nothing to show and not much time left I decided to head back to the car. So as to maximise fishing time I decided to try a bit of walk trolling as headed back. This was I tactic I'd used quite a lot on featureless stretches for years and was christened thus by a late friend many years ago. I've seen it used loads of times to great effect.

Basically, in case you haven't guessed, it simply involves trolling a lure close to the bank as you wander along.I chose a garish spinner bait as I'd found theses seemed to work rather well at walking pace. It wasn't long before I was into a very acrobatic four pounder, it lept out of the net a couple of times before been brought under control. Next up was a fish of 8lb 10oz, which fought well above it's weight both in the water and on the bank. the last fish to show up was a half decent perch, demonstrating once again what greedy little buggers they are.

All these fish came from water I'd fish earlier, so what was the difference this time.

Drop Shotting Match Style

Out of interest, I decided to fish a short drop shot session and measure all the fish just to see how I was doing. I set the alarm on the phone for 2.5 hrs and set off. Starting under a bridge I was straight into fish and quickly had seven out before it went quiet.I then wandered along the bank dropping the little chartreuse  lure into any feature I could find. These provided the occasional fish, all of a similar size. It has to be said the features looked a lot better on Google Earth than they did in reality.
















































Fortunately I came across a decent sized patch of weed  which, by dropping the lure in and around, produced two dozen fish before my 2.5 hrs was up.

A quick tot up of my, not entirely accurate, measurements showed 37 fish for 4.14m. As I've not seen any match results for the Navigation I've no idea if this would good, bad or indifferent. It's was a fun, but rather intense 2.5 hrs though and some thing I may try again.

Chartreuse is the New Pink

Having misread the times of Sunday's road closures, my intended start time was delayed some what, as I now had to wait for hundreds of sweaty panting people to pass the end of the street. Quite way anyone would want to spend Sunday morning running 26 miles 385 yards,and end up back where they started, I don't know. So by the time the roads had reopened and I'd had a spot of luncheon, it was a rather sunny afternoon when I arrived at the pond. Not the best conditions for a spot of drop shotting for perch.




 














I'd been reliably informed that anything in pink was eagerly grabbed by the greedy little beasts and so it seemed when I was straight into a fish first drop.  After that one, though, I couldn't buy a bite until I change to chartreuse, which resulted in a steady procession of little perch for the next couple of hours to the point were I'd lost count of the number of fish caught. All the expected places produced. By the dieing lilies, under over hanging trees and by fallen trees. As bites started to dry up I tried various other colours and shapes of lure, but was only catching very occasionally as I wandered round. As the sun had now dropped behind the trees and I only had a t-shirt on it seemed like a good idea to head home as the temperature was starting to drop.

Taking to my informant in the pub that evening, he was surprised at pink not working as he'd never really had much success with any other colour. I was also informed that when dropping shotting, one should measure the fish and report the resulting catch in metres. I may try that one day, if I can be bothered. In the mean time I need get a bit better at it as my results have been somewhat erratic.

Hopefully I'' have time for a pre-work session on a canal later in the week.