Piking in the fog

The mid day sun through the fog

Today's plan of attack was to head to a local club water with my friend Steve with the piking gear and see if we could net ourselves a toothy old esox. The conditions looked good, being quite mild for the last day of November, and very foggy. We arrived at about 8am and quickly got set up in the thick fog. We were each fishing 2 deadbait rods for the pike and zander, and a maggot feeder in case we wanted to catch some live baits. Steve had a take within the first 20 minutes, but got a bit excited and snatched the bait from the fishes mouth. I suggested to let them run for a couple of seconds just to make sure they have a good hold of the bait before striking, and it wasn't long before his rod was off again and he got the chance to put my advice into practise. This time the hooks were set and the fish was on, and it looked to be a good sized fish. It was at this point Steve informed me that the reel he had chosen for today's predator session was loaded with 6lb line... Muppet! Thankfully the water is deep and the only real snags are on the far bank, which we couldn't see due to the fog, so were fishing about half way across, and he had plenty of room to let the fish run. After a few minutes we got our first glimpse of the fish, and it looked to be a good sized zander. As soon as it saw us it made a dash back down into the depths, but it was soon beaten and with an expert swish of the net by me, Steve had smashed his zander PB with a chunky 7lb fish!

Steve's new PB zander at 7

The business end of a zander

After a few photos the fish was returned and the rod re-cast. I had decided to break the feeder rod out and try and catch some bait fish, but it wasn't really happening. Steve offered me some of his bright red groundbait he'd brought (which is why we have red hands in all the pictures) which I accepted and put 3 balls in the area where I was fishing. It seemed to do the trick and it wasn't long before the tip was twitching giving away the presence of some feeding fish. A few casts later and the twitches finally turned into a bite, but it wasn't the small prey fish I was expecting, having a much heavier "breamy" feeling to it as I reeled it in. A few moments later and my suspicions were confirmed as a bream of around 4lb was slipped into the net. It was a bit of an old warrior and looked as though it had been grabbed a couple of times during its life by some form of toothy predator. It was far too big to become bait, but it meant I wasn't blanking so I was happy!

A battered old bream covered with old puncture wounds and scars

I had a few more skimmers, still too big to be used as bait, and was starting to get the swim going pretty good, when the high pitched beep of my right hand alarm alerted me to some interest in my popped up roach deadbait. I watched the rod tip intently for 10-15 seconds as it twitched ever so slightly as something mouthed my bait. Thankfully it decided it was good to eat, and tried to make off with the roach causing the line to peel off the spool. I wound down and set the hooks and a short battle ensued. At first I thought it was going to be a good zander as although quite heavy it seemed to come in pretty easy. As always with this water though, once I got it up near the surface it woke up and went on a screaming run back down to the depths and I was sure it was actually a pike. A couple of minutes later I managed to regain the line that it had taken, and sure enough a big mottled green shadow appeared from the depths. I could see it was only lightly hooked in the scissors, and thought I'd lost it as it viciously shook its head as I guided it towards the net. Thankfully the hook hold held just long enough to get it in the net, and I had myself a new PB pike of 13lb, and as a bonus it shed the hooks so I didn't have to unhook it either!

My new PB pike at 13lb

The business end of a pike

After a few photos and resting the fish up for a few minutes in the net to recover its strength I released it and watched it slowly drift of into the depths like a green submarine. The rig was a bit battered but it was good enough for another fish, so I re-baited with another roach and cast back to the same spot. It usually takes about 15 seconds for the lead to hit the deck in the deep water and a few turns of the reel handle to take up the slack line. I felt the knock of the lead hitting the bottom after only around 12 seconds this time, and after 5 or 6 turns of the handle the line still wasn't even remotely tight. I was just saying to Steve that something wasn't quite right when the line did go tight, even though I'd stopped reeling! Turns out the donk I felt wasn't the lead hitting the bottom, but was actually a take on the drop, and the fish had swam towards me which is why I had so much slack line! Sadly it must have felt the resistance and dropped the bait when the line pulled on the rod tip, but it was still only mid morning and it was looking like we could be in for a good day.

It wasn't long before Steve's rod was off again, but he somehow managed to miss the bite. It didn't matter though as almost as soon as the fish dropped that bait, his other rod was screaming off! He wound down and the rod hooped over as he felt the weight of the fish. Obviously it had to be the rod with the 6lb line again, and this fish seemed to be going a LOT better than the first, giving him a right merry run around for a good 7 minutes or so. Eventually he managed to get it up to the surface, and a big toothy grin appeared a few feet from the bank. It was a good fish, and I only just managed to fit it in my fox specimen pan net! I helped Steve with the unhooking which was pretty straight forward and took a few photos and weighed the fish. It weighed in at 17lb 4oz, smashing Steve's pike PB! We made sure it was well rested by holding it in the waters edge before it lurked off back into the deep with a slow kick of the tail.

Steve's new PB pike at 17lb 4oz

My swim had been quiet for a couple of hours, and I'd managed to lose the interest from the shoal of bream while helping Steve with his pike, so I decided to up sticks and leapfrog Steve into the next peg. No sooner had I moved all my gear and Steve was in again! This time it was a smaller zander of around 3 or 4lb that came in with little fuss. A couple of passers by stopped to let their children have a look, but decided not to let them stroke it when they saw its teeth! I finally managed to get my rods back in the water in my new spot, and it only took 10 to 15 minutes before I had a take on a popped up mackerel on my right hand rod. It felt a fairly decent fish, possibly another double, but sadly it managed to shake the hooks free about a minute into the fight. Shortly after, as if by magic all the fog just vanished to reveal a bright blue sky with the sun blazing down right in my face. I put up with it for about 15 minutes while I hoped the lost fish would come back for some dessert, but alas it didn't, so I decided to move back to my original peg which offered some refuge from the bright sun. 

Everything stayed pretty dead while the sun was out, bream had been topping across the water for most of the day but even they stopped showing in the bright day light. There was only about an hour left until sunset though, so we decided to stick it out and give it until it got dark hoping the fish would be back on the feed when the bright day light faded into night time. Sure enough, as the sun was setting Steve's rod was off again, and going by the bend it looked to be another good fish. Again it came in fairly easy at first, and then took off as soon as it got remotely close to the surface, showing all the signs of being another double figure pike. A few minutes later and it was under control and it was just a matter of reeling it up from the depths and into the net. As it broke the surface it became clear it was in fact another big zander, possibly even bigger than the first one! It was pretty much beaten so there wasn't any drama on the way to the net, and Steve had smashed his PB again, with a 9lb 6oz fish!

Steve's even newer PB zander at 9lb 6oz!

We gave it another half an hour as it got dark without any more action, and decided to call it a day. As usual I packed everything up leaving my rods till last, and as I was almost done packing away everything else, I heard the buzz of a spinning spool. It was dark by now and by the time I'd located my reels in the light from my head torch it had stopped, and I had no idea which one it was. It clicked a few more turns about 30 seconds later, and the rod tip started to bounce, but not with enough force to take any more line, despite the bait runners being set so light that a gust of wind is enough to take line. I decided to wind down and strike anyway, and it felt like I bumped something off. Feeling rather annoyed with myself I reeled in, but it didn't feel quite right. Turns out the culprit was a small eel of no more than half a pound that had somehow managed to devour the whole roach deadbait and then tie itself up in the wire trace. I felt quite sorry for the poor little fella as he'd gotten himself into a right mess and I didn't hold out much hope of being able to remove a set of trebles from such a small fish. By some miracle though while I was trying to calm him down, he managed to shed the hooks himself, untangle himself from the trace and "swim" across the soft damp grass into my landing net ready to be put back into his watery home!

The sun sets after a good days fishing

All in all it was a brilliant days fishing, breaking 4 PB's between us, and to top it off Steve was so happy he even offered to pay for the kebabs from Dave's kebab van on the way home, amazing! Oh and just in case anyone was wondering, the reason why I have I ridiculous moustache is because I take part in movember, where men grow awesome moustaches for the month of November to help raise money and awareness for male cancers. This year I decided to model my effort on the "Zyg Gregorek" look. If you'd like to donate something you can do so HERE.

River Frome Winter Chub Challenge... Part 2

With the temperatures set to hit double figures and almost no chance of any rain, I thought it'd be rude not to get out on the bank, so I decided to go have another crack at the mythical Frome chub. I had a little look at the river yesterday and it was running much clearer than last time, and with less pace, so this time I opted to go with float gear and try a bit of long trotting with a big bunch of maggots.

I arrived about an hour before mid day to a somewhat foggy river, and quickly hobbled together a stick float rig with a size 12 hook set at around 3 to 3.5 feet depth with a shirt button shotting pattern and began my wander down the river bank for a likely looking spot. I hadn't gone far when I noticed an overhanging tree on the near bank about 20 yards down stream, with the tips of its lower branches just about touching the surface almost half way across the river. There's not a massive amount of cover on this stretch of the river, so I figured a spot like this must be home to a fish or 2. I loaded the hook with about 5 or 6 maggots, and set the float on its journey down stream about 4 feet from the bank. With the river still being fairly pacey, it didn't take long to reach the "danger zone" under the tree, but alas the float stayed in plain sight the whole time. I increased the depth a few inches as the first run through didn't show any signs of catching the bottom, and had another cast.

This time it looked like I had the depth spot on as the float occasionally twitched on its voyage down the river as my ball of maggots bounced its way down the river bed. I was just about to slow the float a little as it approached the tree, when it vanished from sight. A quick flick of the rod to set the hook and the tip hooped over as the fish darted across the river before leaping into the air. I'd hooked a trout, not as big as the one on the previous visit, but it still looked a half decent fish. After a few more acrobatics the fish decided to go deep and managed to find a snag to hide in and everything locked up. I tried pulling from various angles and letting it have some slack, but I couldn't budge it and I had no option other than to pull for a break. It would seem however that I was in favour with the fishing gods, and as I pulled expecting the line to break, the snag gave way instead, and the fish was still on! It took what seemed like an age to reel it in in the strong current but eventually I had it beat and in the net. A nice wild brownie I'd guess at being just over the 1 pound mark, a quick photo and it was back in the river none the worse for its little outing.

I carried on downstream, having a few casts in all the likely looking spots but didn't have any more joy. As the day wore on a mist began to rise from the fields, creating a silky white carpet that seemed to cling to the ground. I'd managed to cover the whole stretch of river with an hour or so spare before sunset, so decided to change over to a ledger set up like I used on the previous trip, and try a few of the deeper pools on my way back up stream. The first pool I tried was the same one that I'd caught the trout from on my first trip. In an effort to try and avoid any more trout, but still remain chub friendly, I used a slightly bigger hook and loaded it with as many maggots as I could. I gave the pool about 15 to 20 minutes, feeding a few maggots every couple of minutes but it didn't look like anyone was home, so decided to move on upstream.

By the time I got to the next pool the sun was getting low in the sky, lighting up the far bank with a fiery glow. I opted to fish in the shadows of the nearside bank about 10 yards down stream, not far from some debris that would offer some shelter to any fishy residents. After a minute or two the rod tip began to twitch ever so slightly possibly indicating some interest from a fish. It continued to twitch for about another minute and I began to wonder if I'd managed to hook a mini species like a bullhead, but on reeling in discovered all I'd managed to do was hook a leaf! I put some fresh maggots on the hook and cast it back to the same spot in a last ditch effort to find the illusive chub. Again the tip started to twitch, but this time it was followed by some more violent tugs. I lifted into the fish hoping for a mighty pull from a big chub, but it wasn't to be and a short while later another brownie was in the net, around 6-8 oz, a pretty typical size for most of the river. I slipped him back and decided to call it a day as the sun set across the fields behind me.

Making wire traces

I'm hopefully going predator fishing at the weekend and needed to make some new traces, so thought I may as well post the process up on here for all to see. Its pretty easy to do, and as well as giving you the freedom to make them the size you want them, it can save you a bunch of money over ready made traces, working out at under £1 a trace, even less if you re-use the hooks and swivels after the wire gets trashed by a fish!

Items needed to make a trace

You will need:

• Trace wire 
• Treble hooks
• Swivels
• Heat shrink tubing
• Wire cutters
• Rig puller

I use a coated trace wire as I feel its a bit friendlier on the fish. I also use semi-barbless trebles for the same reason, and to make unhooking that much simpler. I'm an electronics engineer by trade, so I use the same heat shrink tubing that I use at work for covering solder joints on wires, but I'd imagine the stuff you can buy in tackle shops is just the same thing (but with a higher price tag). For wire cutters I just use my hook cutters that I use to chop the hooks up in the event of a tricky hook hold (be it in a fish or in my hand!). You could use scissors, but I'd imagine you'll ruin them fairly quickly.

Making a trace:

• Cut off a length of trace wire, around 2 ft should be about right.
• Thread the wire through the eye of a hook, running parallel to the shank, leaving a tag end of about half an inch.

Attaching the bottom hook

• Fold the wire over back down the shank, then pass around the outside bend of one of the hooks. Make sure everything is tight and in place, and then whip the wire around the shank back up to the eye of the hook at least 5 times, and than place back through the eye (much like tying a knotless knot).

Attaching the bottom hook

• Cut a short piece of heat shrink tubing big enough to cover the hook shank, and slide it down the wire and onto the shank. Shrink the tubing down with a heat source (I hold it about an inch or 2 above the flame of a lighter, though a heat gun would probably serve better). Pull the rig tight and straight while the tubing cools to keep everything in a straight line.

Tidying things up

• Thread the second treble down the trace to the desired position (this will depend on the size of baits you use, in this case it was for a small roach for zander fishing, so the hooks were fairly close at around 2.5 inches apart), and repeat the same process as for the first hook.

Both hooks securely attached

• Thread a swivel onto the wire to about 15-18 inches from the bottom hook, and then pass the wire back through the eye of the swivel (as you would if tying a grinner knot). Twist the tag end around the trace at least 7 times. This can be done quickly by clamping a set of forceps onto the tag end and spinning them around the trace while holding the trace tight, though you can probably get it neater if you do it by hand. Snip the remainder of the tag end off close to the trace.

Attaching the swivel

• Cut a length of heat shrink tubing long enough to cover all the twists and half of the swivel, and thread onto the trace until only half of the swivel is showing before shrinking down (it just occurred to me you'll want to thread the tubing on before attaching the swivel if it isn't big enough to pass over the swivel easily!). Again pull the trace tight and straight while the tubing cools to help keep everything in a straight line.
• Trim the tag end at the bottom hook, and your trace is finished!

The finished trace

If you plan on popping your baits up off the bottom, you can add a micro swivel to what would normally be the tag end (though attach the swivel first before the hooks) which you can then use to "hair rig" a poly ball to the trace using some bait floss and passing a long baiting needle through the flank of the bait by the bottom hook, and out through the mouth. 

Pop-up trace with micro swivel for "hair rigging" poly balls

I apologise for the poor image quality, now that it gets dark early I had to shoot under artificial lighting which requires a slower shutter speed, and I obviously didn't hold the camera steady enough to get a sharp image. Hopefully they're still good enough for you to see what's going on...

River Frome Winter Chub Challenge... Part 1

River Frome in the Stroud valley

Today I kicked off my new quest, the river Frome winter chub challenge (RFWCC). It might not sound much of a challenge, catching a chub from a river, people do that all the time... But I'm trying to catch one from my local river Frome, and I'm not even sure there are any in there! The last time I saw a chub in this river with my own eyes was back in the mid 90's, so somewhere around 20 years ago. I've heard rumours from various people that they are still in there, but most of these stories involve the infamous "one that got away" and none of them came with any photographic evidence, which in the age of smart phones and digital cameras leaves me feeling somewhat sceptical about these claims. So I've set myself the challenge to try and catch one of these mythical beasts, which are rumoured to go to over 4lb, not bad for a little river you could almost jump across.

I wasn't expecting to catch anything on today's session, writing the day off as more of a recon day before I'd even got there, as it'd been about 6 months since I last visited this stretch at the start of the trout season, and after the recent rain I didn't even know if it'd be fishable. I arrived just before mid day, with a minimal amount of kit in a small backpack so I could stay mobile. The river was pushing through pretty hard, and it had a little colour to it but it looked like it would be fishable in a few slacker areas.
I set up my trusty feeder rod with a simple fixed paternoster rig on a 6lb mainline, with a 4.9lb hooklink of about 2ft. For weight I had a pot of old AA and SSG shot to add as needed, and a size 14 wide gape korum hook at the business end. For bait I'd brought a ball of cheese paste, and a few worms from out my garden. I found a nice little spot with a small area of slacker water on the far bank that looked like it might be the refuge of a fish or 2, and made my first cast with a pinch of cheese paste on the hook.

My trusty old Abu feeder rod waiting for a tug from Chevin

It didn't take long (about 2 seconds) before I realised the water was pushing through a lot harder than I first thought as my rig was washed down stream. After adding a few more shot (7 more AA's to be precise!) I finally managed to just about hold bottom. Sadly my problems didn't end there. The water was flowing through with such force it was washing my cheese paste off the hook within seconds. I decided to give up on the spot and head down stream where there were a few bends in the river which I knew created a back eddy that I'd be able to fish in.
On my way downstream I noticed another fishy little spot by a floating raft of dying reeds on the far bank. I swapped to a worm hookbait as I knew the cheese paste didn't have a chance in the flow and cast just upstream of the reeds. The rod tip was bouncing all over the place as my bait trundled slowly down the river bed, the extra water in the river had me outgunned, and I had no idea if I'd even be able to detect a bite if I got one. That is until I got one! The tip tapped gently, then straightened out as the line slackened before hooping round as something tried to make off with my worm. It wasn't to be, however, as my strike was only met with the resistance of the flow of water. Upon inspecting my now half a worm for tooth marks, it was obvious that the culprit was more than likely a trout that had torn the poor little fella clean in half. As the trout are out of season, I decided to leave him be and carry on down stream to the bend.

2 of a family of swans on the river

Upon reaching the bend there were a family of swans swimming up the river, the young now the same size as the adults but still sporting their fluffy brown-grey feathers. I sat down and had a spot of lunch while I watched them slowly make their way up the river, making sure they were long gone before I cast out as the last thing I wanted was a family of swans diving on my bait. I rigged up another worm, and flicked it into the back eddy to my left and set the rod on the rest. It wasn't long before the tip bounced round violently 2 or 3 times in quick succession as something had become enraged after making the mistake of eating my worm. I wound down and struck into it, and almost instantly it was peeling line off the spool as it dived down stream and made its way across the river. It felt far too big to be one of the little wild brownies that inhabit the river. Had I managed to snag myself one of the legendary chub on my first outing? I managed to turn the fish before it got into the far side vegetation, and now it made its way up stream, still stripping line from the spool. I was just thinking to myself that it had to be a chub to take line the way it was, when it leapt a good 2 feet clean out of the water to my right, confirming that it was, in fact, a good sized brown trout. Slightly miffed by the discovery I almost let it get into some overhanging debris during a lapse of concentration, which wakened me up to the fact that it was a good sized brownie, and despite being out of season I wanted to get it in the net as I hadn't had any brownies much over a pound out of the river probably since I last saw a chub in there! A few bum clenching moments later as it made one last bid for freedom by leaping over some overhanging dead cow parsley I managed to scoop it into the net. It was indeed a nice fish for the river, and I wondered if it'd even beat my long standing PB of 2lb 8oz that I'd caught when I was still in school. I quickly weighed it in at 2lb 3oz and took a photo before holding it in the flow for a few minutes making sure it returned to its watery home fit and strong.

2lb 3oz Brownie. Not the chub I was after but nice to see good sized fish making a re-appearance in the Frome

I decided to move on down to the next bend after all the commotion the trout had caused. The flow wasn't as strong there so I decided to give the paste another go to try and avoid any more brownies. I hooked a small bit of a twig to mold the paste around and it seemed to do the trick of keeping it on the hook. The spot looked good for a fish, but sadly nothing was there, or if there was it wasn't hungry, and after about 15 to 20 minutes as the light started to fade I decided to call it a day.

New quest...

Hopefully I'll be starting a new quest in the near future. It's something I've been meaning to try for a few years now but have been unable to due to flooding, and a bad case of fair weather angling! It looks like it might stop raining for the weekend so I may get chance to kick it off then! I don't expect the first session to go according to plan (mainly because I don't have a plan yet). Think of it more as a reconnaissance mission...

Bring on the RFWCC!

Fishy Fingerz Match

My peg at the final whistle.

Well, I did my first match in over 20 years with the Fishy Fingerz boys at Fishponds in Colwall. I didn't have the best luck in the world for various reasons, but can't grumble about my result. It was a good day out though which is all that matters at the end of the day.

My run of bad luck started with me smashing, and possibly breaking my little toe while getting my kit ready the night before, rendering me barely able to walk and worried I wouldn't be able to get a shoe on in the morning and would have to drop out. Thankfully that wasn't the case...

We arrived at 8am to be greeted by the owner with a cup of tea and a bacon butty for the bargain price of £2. I didn't catch his name but he seemed like a decent down to earth guy and offered some advice for those of us that had never been there before. Once everyone had arrived and been fed, the pegs were drawn. Naturally my name was picked last, so I was only left with 1 peg to "pick at random" from the bag, which was peg 21. We all hauled our gear around the lake to our pegs and got set up ready for the start at 10am.

As promised, I took my feeder rod that I'd won over 20 years earlier in the only other match I've ever entered, but I also took a float rod just in case I needed to get a bait higher up in the water. For baits, my main approach was going to be maggot to try and target the chub and ide which hopefully would build me up a good bag of fish, with a tin of hemp and a few pellets to maybe entice some of the lakes carp into my area. I guessed most people would go the maggot approach, so I decided to gamble on flavouring mine with some sonubaits tiger fish just to be a little different from everyone else.

The "secret sauce" for my maggots

When the clock struck 10, the "all in" call was made, and the match was underway! I'd decided to fish in a shady area under some trees on an island to my left, and on my 3rd or 4th cast about 15 minutes in my rod tip whacked round without any warning and I was into my first fish. After a short fight it was ready for the net, a nice chub of around 2lb. My run of bad luck had other thoughts though, so obviously as I was shipping the net out, the hook pulled. I rather comically threw my rod to the side and used 2 hands to try and scoop it with my net, but it was just a couple of inches too far and with a little "F**k you!" flick of its tail, it returned to the murky depths. Still, from what I could tell no-one else had even had a bite yet let alone a fish, so I wasn't too disheartened, if anything I was feeling more confident.

I kept recasting every 4 or 5 minutes for the first half hour to get some bait down on the deck, filling my small feeder with a 50/50 mix of maggots and hemp each time. Then my bad luck decided to strike again, and I managed to catch my finger on my tin of hemp while loading the feeder, which resulted in my hemp now becoming blood flavoured as a small stream of the red stuff trickled down my finger and into the tin from a rather deep cut. I had no choice but to reel in and go clean it up in the toilets and fashion a makeshift bandage out of toilet paper. I managed to get back to the lake just as the clock struck 11, at which point we all reeled in for a minutes silence for Remembrance Sunday to pay our respects to those that lost their lives to enable us to live ours the way we do.

The match resumed and it'd be fair to say everyone was struggling. By dinner time I'd managed to net 2 ide of about 12 oz, and I hadn't seen or heard anyone else catch anything! Early afternoon my spot seemed to dry up, I hadn't had even the slightest knock on the tip for 2 or 3 casts, and my neighbours had both had a couple of fish out each, so I switched to my second spot in the middle of the channel to my left, which I'd baited with some hemp and pellet at the start of the match. It didn't take long before the tip whacked round again, and I had a nice ide probably pushing 2lb to add to my tally. That was all the spot had to offer though, and by 1pm I decided to switch back to my first spot.

I was instantly getting indications, but just tiny taps on the tip, where as every bite I'd had so far had been a rod wrenching whack, so I figured that a shoal of small fish had moved in over the bait while the spot had rested. As things were slow going I decided to target them, after all a small fish is better than no fish. I set the feeder rod to one side and broke out the float rod, which I'd set up with the tiniest float I could get away with for targeting the ide if they came up in the water, but as luck would have it it'd be ideal for the small silvers too. First cast and the float didn't even settle before it was dragged under by a small roach of maybe 2oz tops, it looked like my thoughts about a shoal of small silvers moving in were correct...

They weren't! I gave it another 10 minutes, but didn't get even the slightest of twitches on the float. I gave it a further 10 minutes or so after, trickle feeding maggots 2 or 3 at a time, in the hope I could find some ide fishing on the drop like I did when I caught my first one during my quest for a big roach. It wasn't happening however, and time was running out. The guys closest to me had had a few more fish out each, and I knew I was lagging and needed to get a couple more in the net if I was to have a chance of winning. I spent the last hour and half back on the feeder and frustratingly missed a couple of big bites. They were so few and far between that it was impossible to keep up the concentration needed to hit the lightning fast takes. I did manage another fish about 15 minutes from the end, another ide of about half a pound, but as the end of the match was called I knew I hadn't done enough to win, but had I done enough to place in the top 6 and win a prize?

I was going to walk round and watch the weighing, as I knew roughly what I had in my net, but then bad luck #4 struck, and the heavens opened with a freak downpour of a mixture of rain and hail, so instead I tried (and failed) to get my kit packed up and out of the rain so it didn't all get soaked through. My bag was weighed last, and came in at 4lb, which was enough to land me 4th place! The winner was Steve with a whopping 8lb, who'd arranged the match (fix!) and had been one of my neighbours I was battling during the match, with my other neighbour coming 2nd with 7lb. My prize for 4th place was a free 48h on a local(ish) carp water kindly donated by one of the groups members, which really does look quite nice... But I don't drive, and thus can't get there unless I can blag a friend into paying full whack to come and join me, so I guess you could call my prize bad luck #5!

All in all it was a fun day despite breaking my foot and almost cutting my finger off, and would like to thank Steve for arranging it and the rest of the fishy fingerz boys who joined in. Hopefully I'll get the chance to have a rematch next year when the fish are a little more hungry and the gods aren't out to get me! I may have lost my 22 year old 100% match win record, but I do still have a 100% match placing record to maintain...

I've entered a match!

My winning bag from 1992

I'll be competing in a friendly match tomorrow with a few guys from the facebook group Fishy Fingerz. It's not the sort of fishing I've ever really done, having only ever entered 1 before at Stratford Park when I was 13 back in 1992! I did however win that match, with a weight of around 3lb from what I remember, so I do have a 100% record to try and maintain! My prize for winning back in 1992 was an Abu feeder rod kindly donated by one of the club members, which was a fair few years old even back then. I still have it, and I think I shall use it for tomorrows match, and hopefully some of the luck I had in 92 will come my way again!

An evening after pike

After my somewhat disastrous bike and pike trip last week, I decided to have another go at targeting the toothier species on a local club water with my friend Steve. We stocked up on dead baits and wire traces at Lobby's (our local tackle shop) and set off for a few hours bait fishing after work.

The sun sets over our local club water

We each took 3 pike rods and a quiver tip to try and catch some live bait. My plan was to fish a small ledgered roach dead bait to the sunken trees on the far bank, a ledgered mackerel at my feet in the deep water (around 30ft) against the dam wall, and then attempt to catch some live bait on the feeder rod to use under a pike float and let it drift around the open water. This proved trickier than I expected as it turns out feeder fishing in deep water has its problems that I wont go into here. Anyway, after a few skimmers that were too big, I managed to bag a little roach that promptly got lip hooked on a double hook, set at about 20 foot depth under a small pike float and gently cast into the water. The weather conditions were looking pretty good, we'd had a fair bit of rain earlier in the day brought in on a south westerly wind, and it was meant to stay overcast for the remainder of the day, so we were pretty confident of getting a fish out between us.

The first run came about an hour in, from one of Steve's rods fishing the trees on the far bank. Sadly all he had to show for it was an old rotten stick as whatever had picked up his rig had made off with his roach and deposited the hooks in one of the sunken trees. It was about another hour before we saw any more action, this time it was my rod with the roach dead bait. I saw the rod tip bounce, before a few beeps of the alarm and a slow rotation of my freespool indicated something had picked up my bait. I hit the run almost instantly to avoid deep hooking, as piking legend Mick Brown had pointed out in a recent facebook post that the water temperature was unseasonably high and as such pike are much more likely to wolf down their food straight away. It turns out I may have hit it too early, as I managed to pull the bait straight out of the fishes mouth. Upon inspecting my dead bait however, there were clear marks on the fishes flanks between my sets of trebles that looked more like it had been attacked by one of those staple removing tools than a pike, which led me to believe I was dealing with another toothy resident of the water...

I re-baited the hooks with a fresh bait, this time placing the bottom hook right in the area where the tooth marks had been, and recast to the same spot. About 20 minutes later the rod was off again, and this time I left it for 2 or 3 seconds before hitting the run. I was into what felt like a half decent fish, it didn't zoom off and seemed to use its weight to stay down deep in the water. It took a few minutes to get it to come up from the deep water, and it turned out it wasn't very big after all! But it wasn't a pike either. My suspicions had been confirmed, and I had myself my first ever zander. Not a monster by any means weighing in at just a smidging over 3lb, but it was another new PB so I was happy!

My first zander, caught on a small roach dead bait

I rigged up with another small roach and put the rod back on the spot, hoping it was just 1 of a small pack of hunting fish, and also re-cast the mackerel rod to the far bank as this seemed to be where the fish were. It only took about 5 minutes before something had picked up the mackerel, though sadly it dropped it again almost instantly. After that we didn't have any more interest, despite staying an hour into darkness which is when the water usually comes alive, so we decided to call it a day and reeled in.

Catfish rigs

I've had a few people ask me about what rigs I use for wels catfish, so figured I'd put the details on here for all to see. I use two main rigs for most of my cat fishing (where it's not possible to use live or dead baits), I've tried others but these are the two that seem to work the best for me. The first is a simple bottom bait pellet rig, and the second is a popped up meat rig. But before we get onto the rigs, there are a few things you should consider when making any rig for catfish which will make the rigs differ from those used for carp.

The cavernous mouth of a 27lb catfish, they go a lot bigger!

The first thing is, a catfishes mouth is big! This means you can use big baits, which in turn will mean you need to use a big hook (and as catfish do tend to pull back a bit, a strong hook!). Also, this means when Mr catfish comes along to gobble up your bait, it's going to get sucked into that big cavernous mouth right to those circular pads at the back, but that's not going to happen if you're using a 5" long carp rig, so you need to use longer rigs, much longer. I tend to go with anything between 18" and 24". The next thing is, its mouth is full of crushing pads which it uses to mush up its food. These are very abrasive (imagine the hooked side of Velcro, only harder and sharper and you'll have a rough idea what they are like) While they wont cause you any real damage, they will shred your hook link material if it's not up to the job, so you need something strong and abrasion resistant. I prefer to use Kryston quicksilver in 35lb, but ONLY where I'm very unlikely to hook a carp, as it's quite abrasive and could damage the soft mouth of a carp. Where there are carp present, or if I'm using smaller baits that other fish could pick up, I use fox coretex in 35lb, which is much softer and coated, making it much more carp friendly. The downside is it's usually only good for one or two fish before it gets too damaged to risk using again. Lastly you'll notice the catfish has tiny eyes, and a face full of whiskers. This means you don't need to worry about what your rigs look like, as the catfish won't see them anyway, so don't let the bright colours of catfish specific hook link materials put you off, in fact they're designed to stand out to deter other species with good eyesight like carp from picking up your baits. You do need to keep things tidy though, as those whiskers probe around when searching for food, and you don't want them touching line looping up off the bottom and spooking the fish.

Anyway, I've rambled on too long already, so onto the rigs. Prepare to be amazed at how devastatingly simple they are!

My bottom bait pellet rig, the pound coin is for scale

This is my pellet rig. It's just a simple knotless knot hair rig, using 35lb quicksilver and a size 1 wide gape hook from korda (tbh I'm not a fan of the korda wide gapes, but it can be hard to find anything better that's big enough from a tackle shop at short notice, and a crap hook is better than no hook!). It's much the same as a simple carp rig, just bigger! You need to make the hair long enough to fit the required number of pellets (in this case 3 21mm halibut pellets) and still allow the hook to lie flat on the bottom out of the way of probing whiskers. It's a good idea to make a large loop at the end too, as you may find you need to use large bait stops due to the size of the hole in pre-drilled pellets (personally I just use a piece of fake corn as a sort of buffer and a normal extender stop, as I find the big pellet stops can cause the pellet to split in half). Also, note the float stop on the hair, as this serves a purpose! When you have threaded your pellets onto the hair and fitted the bait stop, snug the float stop down against the bottom pellet to keep them all in place, it helps keep things tidy and will stop any potential tangles occurring from line getting caught between two pellets on the cast. That's pretty much it, put a few small blobs of putty up the hook link to keep it on the bottom out of the way and you're done, simples!

My popped up meat rig (minus the meat!)

This is my other favourite rig, the popped up meat rig. Again its just a simple knotless knot hair rig, but this time with the hair coming out from much closer to the eye of the hook so that the hook hangs with the shank horizontal as I find this better for getting a hook hold. This one uses the 35lb coretex, as the meat can get whittled down by small fish to the point that other species of fish can pick it up. It also utilises a size 4 fox Kuro S2 hook, a fox pop-up weight, a float stop, a foam disc and a fox anti tangle sleeve. I prefer to use the fox pop-up weights as split shot can damage the braid and I don't like to use huge blobs of putty. Again there is a float stop on the hair, but this time it's to stop the big lump of meat from sliding down the hair to the hook when it's popped up. After the float stop is a foam disc. This is simply to provide a platform for the meat to sit on and to stop the float stop from pulling into the meat, half a boilie would perform a similar function. After the disc there is a fox anti tangle sleeve. This is to increase the diameter of the section of hair that the meat sits on which will stop it from slicing through your meat like a cheese wire. You can use anti tangle tubing or a piece of drinking straw for the same result, I just like to use these as they're about the right size and have a tapered edge which helps thread the meat onto it (that and I have loads floating around my tackle box!). At the end is obviously a pop-up, in this case a sticky baits krill "white one". Meat is fairly buoyant on its own due to the fat content, so you'll find you don't need a big pop-up to lift even a big lump off the bottom. Alternatively you can use about half of a pop-up, and fish the meat on the bottom snowman style. Don't be afraid to pop it up a long way either, if you look at a catfish's head you'll see it's lower jaw protrudes the top, which would indicate it's designed to feed on prey higher in the water than itself. I seem to have more luck at around the 6 to 8 inches mark than I do the 1 or 2 inches you would usually use for carp. Again use a bit of putty to keep the rig pinned down out of the way.

One last thing worth mentioning rig wise is to use a free running lead setup. Like most predators catfish don't like to feel any resistance, especially on more pressured venues, so carp style bolt rigs aren't generally a good idea. Sure people catch on them, but then some people have caught carp on spinners, doesn't make it an effective way to fish for them! Try and use large run rings where possible and bobbins/swingers as light as you can get away with that will still register a drop back, and keep baitrunners as loose as they'll go, or even fish open bail arm if they're really picky.

A 44lb 8oz catfish caught after just a single beep from the alarm proving that big cats can be very wary creatures

Epic bike and pike...

Well the plan was to get up early (ish) and cycle 12 or so miles to the end of the Gloucester canal, and then lure fish my way back with my friend Ben until it got dark... It didn't really go to plan. For one reason or another, leaving early (ish) turned into leaving at half 12! Then during the hour long journey straight into a gale force wind howling up the Severn valley, I managed to get 2 punctures which added the best part of an hour onto the journey. We did eventually get there though, at about half 2, only to find it almost impossible to fish due to the wind. We wandered back towards home for about a mile until we were more sheltered from the winds, and finally got a bit of proper fishing in. Ben managed 5 or so perch to about a pound, and I managed a couple of small perch and a small pike of about 3lb, all caught on small (size 3) mepps aglia spinners. Not too bad considering we only had a couple hours of fishing in the end. I didn't get any pictures as I had to travel light and couldn't get the DSLR to fit in my bag, so instead I've added one of a better fish I had from the same area last year, cheating I know but you can't have a blog post without pictures!

One I had last year, hopefully I'll find some of this size this year too!

36 hours on Gardners Pool

My friend Steve and I have been members of Gardners Pool (which I often refer to as "GP") in Saul for 5 years now, but we'd never managed to do a night session there, until now!

A photo I took of GP a few months back, during sunnier weather!

The lake itself is about 5 acres in size, with a relatively flat bottom at around 3.5 to 5ft deep. Its a mostly gravel bottom without too much weed, but boasts some HUGE sets of lily pads. It also has its fair share of resident ducks, coots, moorhens, seagulls and of course the inevitable dreaded swan, which can test ones patience at times! Over the years all of these creatures have been given names by the two of us, mostly out of boredom on the less eventful days. We have such characters as Trev and Dave the mallards (Trev being the female, don't ask me why!) Rambo the swan, McDuck and his arch enemy Colonel Gadaffy duck, Duxedo (a black duck with a white chest), Kung Po and Szechuan the mandarin ducks, Moorhen freeman, Coot features and of course Cheryl vole (who, incidentally, is a field mouse). I realise this has nothing to do with fishing, but I've become so used to calling these creatures by their names that I thought it best to explain in advance just in case they crop up in the rest of this blog, so that you the readers aren't so perplexed when I refer to Rambo as being a pain in the arse!

Rambo will swim the entire length of the lake just to hiss at you!

Anyway, lets get to the session at hand! We eventually arrived Saturday morning at about 8:30am in the pouring rain after having to return home because some idiot (me) forgot their boots. The peg we had booked for the night was still occupied by the previous overnighter, so we unloaded a minimal amount of kit from the car, and decided to fish a peg known as the disabled peg until we could get on peg 4. I hadn't unpacked my baits, so all I had was a rig with 3 pieces of fake corn, and a rig with a sticky baits krill pop-up. I cast the pop-up rig to the edge of a big set of pads about 40 yards out, and I flicked the fake corn rig down the right hand margin (which I call carp corner) next to a smaller set of pads. It wasn't long, maybe 15 minutes and the corn rod was off! A short battle ensued with a small excursion into the set of pads, but I was the victor and a small common of about 6 or 7lb was in the net. I hadn't unpacked my camera as the weather was terrible so unfortunately there are no photos of the fish, or the one that Steve had not long after, also on a margin rod and around the same size. The rods were put back out, but nothing much else happened, other than the rain got heavier, and we got wetter and colder!

The rain cleared around dinner time and the chap on peg 4 had left, so the next hour or so was spent walking all our gear around the lake, as we couldn't get the barrow to fit in the car. An hour or 2 later and base camp was built, clothes were drying on the bivvies, dinner had been demolished and the rods were in the water. The margins on this side of the lake are a fair bit shallower than the opposite bank (where we started) so we opted to fish both rods out to the pads in the middle where it was deep enough to avoid being cleaned out by Rambo and his friends. Steve opted for the scattering of boilies baiting approach, where as I opted for a thin band of particles just off the pads. Neither approach really worked, the lake never fishes that great during daytime, but you can usually wrangle out a few fish but today the lake was pretty dead, maybe all the rain had made the water temps plummet and the fish had turned a bit lethargic, who knows, but for whatever reason the fish just didn't want to feed.

Starry nights means cold nights this time of year!

Day soon started to turn to night and usually the dusk period is where most of the action happens, so the rods were recast over the thin bed of bait with a fresh CCMoore live system snowman with a small bag of nutty stick mix on the left rod, and a chunk of red pepperami with a small bag of equinox pellets (strange combo I know, but it seems to work!) on the right rod. Dusk soon turned to night however without even a beep, and the clear skies meant it was getting pretty cold so we decided to go hide in our sleeping bags until the morning, rather confused as to why the lake was so dead.

I was awoken in the early hours by a few beeps of the right alarm, but after watching my motionless swinger from the warmth of my sleeping bag I decided it was probably just a liner and went back to sleep. About half an hour later I was awoken again by the same thing, and again decided it was a liner and went back to sleep... For all of about 10 minutes when the same thing happened again. I reluctantly left my cosy sleeping bag to go and investigate. The swinger was still, but I could see my line twitching ever so slightly where it entered the water, so I figured I'd managed to prick a roach or something similar while it investigated my hook bait. After reeling in and a short battle in the margins, turns out that the "roach" was another 7lb or so carp! It must have just picked up my bait and stayed still. Usually the runs are pretty violent as the fish take off towards the big sets of pads once they realise they've been had. I pretty much reeled it all the way to within a rod length of the bank just like you would a bream before it finally woke up and fought back. After checking the fish over it was healthy enough and was in pretty mint condition being one of the smaller newer fish, which appeared to further confirm my feeling that the fish seemed to have gone a bit lethargic from the sudden drop in water temperature, as until this weekend we'd still been having 20ºC+ daytime temps and barely a drop of rain all summer. Anyway the rod went back out on the spot with a fresh chuck of pepperami, but that was all the "action" that was had during the night.

One of the smaller residents of the pool

The following morning things looked to be on the up however, with a short bout of feeding from about 8am for an hour and a half or so, resulting in both of us catching a few small carp each. We still hadn't managed to find any of the lakes numerous double figure fish, but after a rather disappointing night the smaller ones were more than welcome. As is pretty typical with GP though, the fish turned off as soon as the sun started to climb higher in the sky, so we did the only thing any self respecting angler would do, and made a heap of bacon sandwiches and a cup of coffee while we made our plans for the rest of the day!

Now I had a backup plan if the carp fishing wasn't going to plan, and as the bigger fish seemed reluctant to come out to play, I decided to put my plan into action during the slower mid day period. I'd also brought along my now ancient feeder rod and 3 pints of maggot to have a crack at the bream in the lake which can go into double figures.

5lb before relieving itself all over my mat!

 I fished just a simple maggot feeder rig over the same bed of bait I'd used for my carp fishing (and topped up after the morning feeding spell). I got bites almost instantly and caught plenty of skimmers and the odd rudd, but the bigger specimens were eluding me. I decided to try something a bit different, and added a healthy splash of tiger nut flavouring to my now half depleted tub of maggots to try and tempt one of the larger residents. Oddly this did actually seem to have a rather instantaneous effect, just not entirely the one I was looking for! After flavouring, I found I caught pretty much only Rudd, it looked like the bream didn't agree with my decision at all! The rudd weren't too bad a size though at around 8-12oz, and they were all in scale perfect condition so it was nice to see them doing so well as they seem to be slowly disappearing from lakes across the country. This lasted for about an hour or so, and I was starting to run low on maggots, when it appeared the bigger bream wanted to come and play after all! I caught a few in the 2-3lb mark in amongst the numerous rudd I was still catching, and then when I'd gotten to the point where I could see the bottom of my maggot tub and only had a few feeders worth left, I snagged this 5 pounder which was probably more like 4lb 12 after it had finished doing what can only be described as a torrent of wee during the photo taking! There may have been a whole shoal out there, maybe even containing some of the bigger ones, but the truth was I had no maggots left, so that was the end of my bream session and the carp rods went back out with big baits to avoid them (They just aren't any fun on carp gear).

The afternoon was now becoming early evening, and the task of packing everything down in time to be off the lake by 7pm when the gates are locked was at hand. Obviously this meant that the carp were going to wake up and have another feeding spell to hinder our progress, and Steve was the first to connect with a double of just under 13lb which was much more in the ballpark of what we'd been expecting to catch. I managed to lose another 7lb ish fish at the net, and then go on to lose another about 5 minutes later. I hadn't suffered a hook pull from a carp in ages, so I guess it had to catch up with me at some point, thankfully with smaller fish! With the gear almost all packed down my pepperami rod screamed off and I was into what felt like a better fish. I prayed to the fishing gods that I wouldn't suffer another hook pull, and what seemed like an age later I had the fish in the net. It had put up a good fight, and if I'm honest I thought it was going to be an upper double from the way it was plodding around the swim, but at just under 14lb it was still more than welcome, and a good finish to a tricky but enjoyable session...

A typical GP common at just under 14lb.  

Chasing Cyprinus carpio

Just booked a night on a local carp water for this weekend to have a bash at some wildy style doubles. Had a quick look round after work today and something is definitely on the feed, fizzing and clouded water everywhere, just hope they're still at it in a few days time!

Brownies on the Frome

As its only a couple of weeks until the end of the trout season, I thought I'd make the effort to get out for an hour or 2 after work and try catch a couple before the season ends.

Low water levels on the river Frome 

I headed down to the local river Frome, a small stream that meanders its way through the Stroud valleys before joining the river Severn. Due to the more sever weather of recent times and a lack of sensible river management, the water levels can get very low (to only a few inches) from where the various old mill gates along its length are opened up to help prevent flooding during severe wet weather, and are inevitably forgotten about and left open so the river level drops right down during prolonged dry spells. This has pretty much pushed out all of the coarse fish species, which means the trout now have free reign over the river.

Fallen trees litter the banks of the Frome

Despite running adjacent to a footpath, the stretch I decided to fish is a pretty quiet stretch, with only the occasional passing dog walker disturbing the peace. Its also a fairly neglected stretch, which is often overgrown with a few fallen trees crossing the path or in the river. The fish don't get very big in this stretch, but its not far from home and I like it for the peace and quiet it offers.

Most people would probably associate trout fishing with fly fishing, but it doesn't have to be that way! Despite the fact that the overgrown and intimate nature of the river makes fly fishing almost impossible, I like to use an old simple method that's been around for centuries, a free lined worm. Just you're standard light float rod, some 4lb line on a small fixed spool reel or a centrepin, tied to a size 12 hook with the barb crushed (I return all the fish I catch so don't like to use barbed hooks, but find a worm will stay on a crushed barbed hook better than a shop bought barbless one). That's it, that's all you need along with a small landing net and of course a tub of big juicy worms! Simply cast your worm into a suitable spot, and let the current take it down stream, while carefully mending the line on the surface. You'll know when you get a take as the line will tighten and zip across the surface, or if you're fishing deeper water, simply just feel for bites by letting the line run over one of your fingers.

It didn't take long before I had my first take, after maybe 3 or 4 casts the curves in the line on the surface straightened out as the trout made off with my worm. It was only a small fish of a few ounces, but there's something about wild brownies that makes them all feel special, including the small ones. I popped the hook out and put him straight back, holding him in the current for a few seconds to make sure he was recovered and ready to go. I quietly made my way down stream looking for another likely spot when I heard the tell tale splash of a trout snatching something from the surface. I peeked through the undergrowth to see the remains of the rings in the water a few yards down stream, and carefully dropped my worm in an area where the current should carry it straight to my target. Ten to fifteen seconds later the line zipped off and I had another fish on, leaping clean out of the water in a bid for freedom, but the hook held and I soon had him on the bank. Another small trout, this time hooked fairly deep, but as I was using barbless hooks it came out straight away with the aid of some forceps without causing any damage to the fish, and I returned him to the water.

The light was starting to fade under the cover of the trees, so I decided I'd try and find one more fish and call it a day. It didn't take long before I spotted a fish a few feet from the bank, illuminated by a ray of sunshine that had managed to penetrate through the tree cover. I cast my worm a few yards up stream so it had a bit of time to sink down to the depth of the fish, and this time watched the fish instead of my line. As the worm drifted down in the current, I saw the fish just casually swim over and gobble it up, so I struck straight away to avoid deep hooking. A short battle ensued before the fish was in the net, another small brownie of maybe 5 or 6oz neatly hooked in the scissors. The hook popped out easy and again I held the fish in the current to regain some strength before releasing it. They might not have been very big but 3 fish in a little over an hour of fishing wasn't a bad result, and on light tackle even the little ones put up a fight in the fast currents of the river. That's probably the last trout I'll see now until the new season starts in March next year, when hopefully they'll have grown to be a bit bigger!

A small wild brownie from the river Frome