Catch up part 4 - A 16th weekend

A few years ago I had the insanely genius idea to avoid the rivers on the opening day of the season. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made as I ended up practically having Napton to myself and having a red letter day to boot. Ever since that day I have continued this avoidance of the hordes of anglers desperate for river glory and destined for trickling disappointment; instead I have bagged up on loads of cracking fish by slowly sauntering down to a lake whilst everyone else is succumbing to bleary eyed boredom of the river.

Unusually this 16th turned out to be a rather cloudy and chilly occasion round these parts. Normally it is bright sunshine wall to wall to get those barbel and chub scurrying for cover. I actually had to get my old hoody from the car boot to keep warm on the breezy Napton banks as I angled after another vintage crucian. The one great thing about this overcast and cutting breeze was that if I got into a decent and fish-able position the fish should feed for as long as I could keep them in the swim.

After pitching up in a swim with the wind on my back I deployed the weed rake to confirm the swim was clear enough to fish and went about setting up stall to keep under the wind and fish tight to a nearby reed bed. The rake always clouds up the swim nicely and in the clear waters of Napton this is like ringing the dinner bell. The roach were first on the scene and after a few annoying plucks I finally got a decent bite which resulted in me hooking the first of several nice roach between ten ounces and a pound.

I knew if the roach were that quick to arrive that the tench would soon arrive and when they did things really went off. The first fish got off but after quickly re-baited and getting back on the spot I was straight away into another tench which couldn't resist my sweetcorn hook bait sitting temptingly amongst the scattering of pellets and dusting of pungent ground bait. This fish gave me a right run around and quickly informed me of all the weed beds in proximity of the swim. Being careful and gently pulling it out of all of these weed beds soon saw me netting a stunning first tench of the day.

The tench kept coming all afternoon with the crazy smaller males charging here, there and everywhere and the much bigger and powerful females really pushing my gear to the limits as I tried to weave them in and out of the maze of weed beds along my bank. Most of them ended up in my net but a few managed to dive so deep in the weeds that all my tugging only served to pull the hook and leave the embedded tench to find their own way out.

As per normal it turned out to be another of those sessions where I probably didn't get within half a lake of the precious old crucian and thus it was filed away with the hundreds of other sessions just like it. I did end the session on a high by landing a large stunning female tench that was a decent step up in size from most of the fish I had caught so far this year. Her capture adds credence to my theory that the tench in Napton, though reduced in numbers, are becoming bigger.

Sooner or later I had to get down the river and after a reccy lure session along the Barford AA stretch of the Avon with a lure rod, I concluded that although low and clear there did seem to be fish holding in the faster oxygenated water. So the night after the day before I returned armed with a barbel rod and a bucket full of fishy bait to hopefully garner myself a bite or two. With the conditions being sunny and the river very clear I guessed things were going to be hard and that any decent fish would more than likely being hanging out in any cover they could find. This in mind I pitched up in a swim with plenty of beds of streaming weed thinking this was my best chance of teasing out a few fish in such dire conditions.

After watching for a while through polarized eyes I started to see the occasional dark shape drift from one weed bed to another. With as little disturbance as possible I dropped my rig along with a golf ball sized PVA bag of freebies in between two weed beds where I thought I stood a chance of extracting a hooked fish. I was kind of thinking I would have to wait for a bite and I went about busying myself making a few more PVA bags of pellets. I'd barely got half way through the second one when the rod which was trapped between my legs pulled hard over and the butt was pivoted up in my nether regions. In the panic the bucket of pellets went flying, my tube of PVA stocking fell precariously close to the river and a small yet pungent pot of bait glug was spilled on my lap as I tried to get the rod butt out of my groin.

From the savagery of the initial bite I was under the impression I had by sheer luck hooked a early season barbel, but it turned out to be a chub who did an amazing impression of a barbel. It turned out to be quite a nice chub in reality...

My luck however was seemingly spent on that first chub as for a lot of interest from the first fishes shoal mates I suspect, I received no more savage bites on this first river outing. Though for the records purposes I will mark this single fish session as a total success as there's been plenty of early session sessions when I have had the dreaded blank. Thinking back now the capture of that single chub, after spotting several drifting around deep in the cover on a sunny day when not a lot was doing, seem aptly pure to me.

.

Return to the river.

It seems like forever since I've paid the Avon any attention. I have had an odd look here and there since the season opened up, but frankly I've been a bit preoccupied with trying to catch a crucian out of Napton Reservoir. Anyway whilst away on holiday the idea to get my arse in gear and head back to the river really came to the forefront of my mind. It just happened that a bit of rain the few days before I got back had the river in tip top conditions for my return.

I have a new membership for a bit of the Avon which some of my angling buddies have been recommending for years, which this year I decided to get on. So with a couple of rods set up ready to go I decided to head down the A46 for a morning session. Normally I would have tried to be on the bank for first light, but my early morning bumbling roused BB and he discovered some presents which had been stashed in his room that were to big too transport on holiday, so my leaving was delayed a little whilst they were opened.

In the end I found myself pulling up in the car park around 9am and shockingly there was only two other cars evident. Where was everyone? I asked myself, as I had suspected everyone would be on the river given the conditions. The first angler I came across was on the first peg through the gate and a quick chat turned up that he'd already had three chub and two barbel from out in the faster water. This was good news and got me quickly heading off looking for a swim up river. I soon found a great looking swim where the fast water is deflected by a big bed of reeds and with the extra colour on the water it looked great for the barbel I so much wanted.  

Trying to be as careful as I could I gently cast into the crease with a PVA bag full of goodies attached to my rig. Although I did receive several taps of interest I was soon recasting again and again, working my way down the crease in subsequent casts towards some cover where I suspected the barbel might be lying in wait. After a few hours I was getting concerned I may have missed or messed up my shot at a barbel from this swim, but rather than just move off I opted to make one final cast a bit further out, away from the crease I'd been targeting into the faster water.

I'd been sitting on the cast for a good fifteen minutes before another angler from upstream dropped by to see how I was doing. We'd been whacking on for ten minutes as I kept an eye on the white rod tip out the corner of my eye. I clocked a slow nod of the tip which grabbed my attention then a quick sharp pull got my hand hovering over the rod and then bang, as predicted, the rod bent over as the fish tuned onto the weight of the lead.

In the fast shallow water I lent hard on the fish to stop it finding any of the weed beds which I knew lay hidden by the coloured water.  A long pause with both of us refusing to give an inch ended when the fish was pushed down stream by the flow... then all hell broke loose in the deeper clearer water under my own bank. This powerful fish worked me hard to keep it from getting back over the river into the fast water but everything held true and the soft action of my rod soon subdued the fish and a gaping mouth lined with barbules appeared on the surface before what looked a big fish slipped into the net.

After letting the fish recover in the water I lifted the net out and put it onto he mat. I lifted back the folds of the net to reveal a perfect long lean summer fish. I can truly say I was beaming with the sight of this perfect first barbel off of a new stretch of river, and my companion who had stood silent the whole fight seemed very impressed too. We both agreed it looked to be a good one though on the scales my suspicion that it was in lean condition proved true and even given its long length the fish was only 7.14lb. 

Maybe in the winter this fish could have been at least nine pounds or more. The weight though hardly mattered at all to me as I was over the moon that I should catch such an amazing fish for my first barbel off a new stretch of river.

The rain came in quickly after that and I opted to make a tactical retreat, but I was back a few days later to fish another swim aways downstream. This time the river had cleared and with that in mind I had brought a second lighter rod along to fish the maggot feeder upstream of the barbel rod, with the hope that the maggots going downstream, combined with the activity from other fish might draw up any wary barbel to have a look see what was going on. The plan actually worked, but not quite exactly as I wanted it to. The maggot line was alive with fish chasing the freebies as I dropped the feeder again and again onto the same spot at the head of the swim. Roach, dace, gudgeon and perch were queuing up waiting for the feeder to release more free maggots into the flow.

As the session went on the interest in my downstream rod increased slowly but surely. It took a while but random jags on the rod tip indicated something was afoot. Soon enough the rod bent over hard as something took the bait. After those initial moments when you lean into a fish feeling something powerful abated, the fish power dwindled and I realised the chub had turned up, attracted by all the activity. The first fish was a greedy two pounder but the second was a much longer fish just under four pounds, which like that first barbel would be much larger come winter.

The bug had really bit and another evening session was penned into my diary for a week or so later, after seeing that the long range forecast predicted another deluge of rain to bring the river into peak condition.

I arrived as quick as I could get there after work to find only one car in the car park, and after rushing over the fields to the river I scouted the whole section, baiting up a few spots as I went. The other angler was nowhere near where I wanted to fish and after a quick chat and finding out that although he was really after the silvers he had been skinned out a couple of time by big fish. This was perfect, no other anglers and feeding fish, how could I fail..?

The scene of my first barbel capture seemed the logical starting point and I was soon set-up and watching the river, trying to figure out the water in front of me as the added water and flow had seemingly changed the whole dynamic of the swim. It didn't take long to figure I'd chosen the most complicated swim to start with. There must have been seven or more areas in front of me screaming for a bait to go on them. In the end I began close in targeting a small crease right under my own bank. This produced nothing at all so I went about casting into each area I thought might hold barbel one after another for the next three hours. In the end I spent far too much time trying to logically cover the whole swim, in which time Mick had turned up and headed off upstream to fish for predators.

Having kind of shot myself in the foot time-wise, I decided to move downstream to fish one of the swims I had pre baited. With only enough time to fish one last swim I missed out a couple I had dropped bait into and went for the one I thought most likely to produce in the conditions. It was quite a simple swim I went to, with a large bed of bulrushes at the head that was creating a crease right down the centre of the river between the fast and slow water.

My first cast sent a tasty bag of morsels quickly down to the river bed just in the fast water, attached to a two ounce lead. The reaction was instant as my pre baiting already had fish nosing around on the gravel. Convinced the rod was going to bang over I had to sit on my hands as the small fish attacked the hook bait. I waited patiently and as I did, the rod soon indicated the presence of a bigger fish. A couple of nods later and the rod was nearly ripped of the rest and I was into a barbel. The initial savagery subsided and an interesting battle ensued in the slow water. It was only about four pound but this solid and fresh barbel took no prisoners as it dived into every possible place it could get snagged. In the end though the fact I was fishing gear capable of landing even the biggest fish won the fight and I netted an immaculate barbel that saved my session. 

The next cast produced the same response but this time I thought I'd hooked a small chub or something until I went to lift it out and a tiny sub pound barbel managed to shake itself off the hook, vibrating mid-lift, and dived straight back into the river. They were only small but two barbel in two casts were good numbers for me. I really wanted to get my bait right onto the bait I had put down earlier so I tried my very best to land the rig and new bag of freebies on the very centre of the crease. In doing so though I tightened up and it was more than obvious my bait was on the inside of the crease in the slow water. I decided to give it a chance and wait, letting it sit there for fifteen minutes at least, but I didn't feel in was the best place for it at all. 

The bite came out of nowhere with no warning which made it all that more shocking. One moment the rod was stationary the next it was bending double, lifting the butt out of the rests. Straight away I could feel this was a fish in another league. It powered all over the swim through both the fast and slow water with me just holding on tight and trying my best to steer it away from any hazards. After covering every bit of water in front of me, the fish dived straight into some lillies in the slow water, but its power and my power linked by the line just cut straight though the stems leaving the pad floating away downstream. A few dives later and I had what I knew was a good barbel in the net. As it rested in the water I made the call to Mick to ask for a spot of help taking a photo or two which turned out to be a brilliant decision as my camera phone, although great in day light, was useless in the half light. Luckily Mick brought his camera and I was soon proudly holding up my first double from this new stretch and beaming from behind all ten pounds and seven ounces of it.

In three close sessions this new bit of river has proved exactly how honest it is. By that I mean; it looks like it should contain barbel and chub and it does, it looks healthy and it seems it is and in the right conditions the fish should feed and they do. Which for the Warwickshire Avon, isn't that common from what I've seen in the past. A lot of the time I fished sections of the Avon and thought, this has to be a good area for this or that, and been let down. This place though seems different and I hope my theories about other different sections come to fruition over the autumn and winter. If they do, well, a few more red letter days for other species could be on the horizon.

Canal carp - a crisis of confidence.

Everyone who fishes canals will have some kind of tale or tome of canal carp to tell. I suspect it's the linear nature of canals that helps information travel down them to be dribbled like honey into people's ears by passing travellers. Personally with all the time I've spent on canals I reckon I must have heard thousands of stories about monsters hiding on the far bank cover over the years. The truth of the matter is that all canals contain carp, be them born or bred, dumpers, stockies or escapes, they are there and beyond all the bluff and bluster you hear about how to catch them there is one single box to tick in order to attain success as far as I am concerned; location. Quite frankly you could fish in a carpy looking location for the rest of your life and not catch a single fish if it is simply not their chosen home.

With regards to location, I can think of six spots on three different sections of canal that I have either seen or caught carp from. I have spent a fair bit of time on these spots in years past and as much as I reckon the fish have probably grown, I'd like to find a few unknown fish to me, so I have started looking at few more likely spots with supposed form to target. The first is a very well known supposed carp haunt of the Grand union were fish of preposterous sizes are reported to swim and I gave it a look on an evening session recently when the weather was fine enough for carp.

I like to keep things simple when carp fishing and on the canal, rigs hidden in PVA bags are always the way to go. Firstly you can cast them into any tiny space you want with little fear of tangles, secondly they sink slowly without the lead burying in the deep silt that can line the bottom and thirdly they are great for fishing for one bite by presenting a concentrated pile of smelly bait. All that said it seemed on this occasion my simple tactics might not have been reliable, as I did not generate anything near a bite in five hours. I had a few liners but definitely no contact with the rigs, which was concerning. Without dwelling on a blank I moved on to the next session along with my new compact kit.

I feel I should mention the new set up I am using this season for carp. You know I've always felt taking twelve foot carp rods and big reels down the cut to a bit of overkill. Then a while ago I bought a 9ft Nash dwarf rod for stalking carp and after seeing how great this little rod was I invested in a second one and matched them up with a pair of Korum KXI reels. I then bought a specific rod bag for the Dwarf rods which is not much over three feet long and also carries my 36" carp net with handle that splits into two. All the rest of the stuff I might need packs into my Korum day sack which leaves me with a kit so compact that no spot is too far away.

My next canal session was a disaster and that was pretty much all my fault. I agreed to meet Mick on a very reliable section of canal where he was going to fish for zander and I for carp. Anyway to cut a long story short I decided to hang out with Mick and have a chat rather than head straight down to the banker spot. As nice as it was catching up with Mick, it allowed some else to get on my spot. Frankly I was shocked as I have never seen another carp angler there ever and here was one right where I wanted to be. When I arrived and after chatting to the other angler I set up shop a little way up the canal  in a spot of lesser quality which produced zip all once again.

Confidence in any sort of angling is key in my opinion and at this point I had none. Worst of all though I had opted to use a new bait for this canal carp caper and as good as it smelt to me I wasn't sure it was doing the business. I expected those starving canal bream to be on it like a tramp on chips and so far I was saving a fortune on bite alarm batteries. With this crisis of confidence in both bait and me I had no choice but to have a session on somewhere a little easier. So with a spare afternoon off work I went over to fish Jubilee pools, or specifically horseshoe pool.

These pools suffer a bit of an image problem if you ask me and some of that is down to their name I reckon. Though referred to as pools they are in fact pits where sand and gravel were extracted from along with Ryton pool and Meadow lands. Should they be referred to a jubilee pits then certainly in carp fishing circle they would command a bit more respect than a lowly old pool. That aside Horseshoe for one looks like a gravel pit if you look beyond the wooden stages that line the lip of the pool like teeth. And the fish do behave more like gravel pit fish as they swim around the clear weedy water. The only way this pool differs from most gravel pits is in stock density. Being the coffer fillers they are, the controlling club keeps them well overstocked with fish as to please the day ticket paying masses. Weirdly though the fish seem to exhibit different habits. The small carp are nearly always lingering in the upper layers of the water, where as a totally different size class patrol the margins like nervous submarines, and it was those nervous submarines that I wanted to test my confidence out on.

After walking round the lake a bit and finding most of it empty of anglers, I fed four swims on one bank where I had seen a few groups of bigger fish nosing around. These bigger fish love nothing more than coming into the margins in the evening and mopping up all the discarded bait, and that's exactly what I wanted my freebies to look like. After putting out a handful of corn in each swim along with a few broken boilies and whole boilies I waited and watched to see which of the four swims offered the batter chance. Random fish kept coming into all of them but one swim had a couple of groups of fish the others didn't repeatedly stopping by, so thats where I decided to set my trap. Once all the bait was gone I quickly nipped in and set up my rods and alarms on the path leading into the swim. There was a large clear area all around the platform so carefully placed one rig on the further edge of the clear spot and the second right under the platform. After making sure my line was pinned down tight to the bottom by a few blobs of tungsten putty and a small back weight I re-baited with more broken boilies and corn and retreated well away from the peg. 

The fish were soon back and I waited a good hour before the water finally erupted and the alarm screamed as a fish found my sneaky two halves of boilie bait and sucked it in. It took a while for the fish to fully get its head round its circumstance and when it did the rod really started to bend.

After an epic tussle which destroyed the swim and my other rod, I finally dragged the net out of the brambles and slipped it under a stunning little common which filled my confidence jar close to the brim.

After I released that low double a few swims away I returned to carnage. In the panic of the fight everything had gone everywhere. My second rod was lying on the floor with the line still over the buzzer. There were mats, selfie sticks and half the contents of my bags strewn all over the floor. As I walked towards the second rod on the floor the alarm beeped once and thinking it was about to go off I froze. From just at the edge of the swim I could see a real strange group of fish had drifted into swim and were picking up odd bit here and there. There was a golden tench, a tiny common carp and a huge mirror. I would have said they had all arrived separately until the golden tench moved off and its buddies followed it. Quickly I got both rods out a again this time with a PVA bag on each. Both were in same positions as before when I saw the golden tench reappear followed by its two carpy friends. None of them dipped onto the baits but they all paused a moment as they passed over them. I watched those three fish drift in and out again and again, each time the mirror seemed bigger.

Soon my time was running out and worst of all their confidence was building with the more time they spent in the swim. With little over thirty minutes till I had to be off the water I watched as the two carp homed in on my close in bait. I watched willing them to dip down towards it... then Bleeeeeeeeeep the moment was shattered by the bite alarm I watched confused as the two carp shot off to the left and my line on my right had rod surged out into the lake. Whilst watching the fish I wanted to catch near one line someone had snuck in and taken the other. It turned out to be a very boisterous common not to dissimilar to the other apart from this one was rushed in a bit which meant it was very lively on the mat hence the crap selfie with it.

This trip to Jubilee pits was well served to boost my confidence in both what I was doing and in the bait I have decided to use. Now all I need is the weather to warm up a bit and I should be able to start homing in on a few canal targets myself.

BOGOF

'You buy one, you get one free!  I say you buy one, you get one free' 

Those were the words that kept ringing through my head again and again as I stood on the tow path the other day. And why shouldn't they have been stuck on some torturous loop in my mind, because after all this was a bank holiday weekend, it wasn't raining and the boat wankers were out in force. At some points 'buy one, get one free' was an understatement to say the least. Seven boats in convoy was the record for the day. Honestly that lot coming down the cut was like an armada passing by, all churning up the bottom and blankly wishing good morning whilst inanely asking if I'd caught my supper. If it wasn't for the fact that I was actually having fun catching a few perch and some rather obliging strip zander I feel sure I would have been jumping up and down on the bank shaking my fist and ranting in ancient long forgotten language that they should keep their witty japes regarding my tea to themselves, before I am tempted to shove their barge pole in their rear hatch.

I had always known it was going to get a bit manic with boat traffic and to try and get some done before they started I had arrived just after first light. Weirdly the action prior to the boats beginning to rumble by had been in my opinion, a bit sporadic. All I had managed was a single chunky perch which I had winkled out by dancing a tikki monkey along the nearside shelf on a drop shot rig. 

The drop shot rig was partly why I was fishing in this area. You see I had a few new lures I wanted to try out and they all seemed more suited to the drop shot rather than a jigging rig. Given the past few weeks had been a little zander filled and that I have much more success with perch on the drop shot, I had come to a area stuffed full of the critters.

Convinced the margins were paved with the stripy Herbert's I stuck it out on the drop shot, working around any structure I could find. Although I wasn't finding them in numbers, when I did spark any into interest they were absolutely smashing into my lures.

The oddest part of the session came after a couple of boats really stirred up the canal. I have always thought that it actually takes a boat going through to stir the resident fish into moving, and off the back of that I have developed a theory that sometimes when the boats churn up the bottom, zander for one, actually go into the clouds of silt looking for anything that has been disturbed out of the mud, like worms, leeches and small fish. It proved exactly the case when the boats have moved on and I shot my rig right to the far side of the canal before pulling it back into the murk. Four or five small strip zander and a single nice perch fell for a black grub on a slow retrieve through the clouds of silt.

The boats I knew would all too soon begin to wear on my patience, and it was then that I sought a bit of respite and headed for the relative quiet of a small row of moored boats. Working the rig rhythmically as close to their hull as I could, I tempted one final nice perch that I can only say has real potential in the future. Although not much over a pound in weight I don't think I have ever seen a little fish that looked so much like a big fish before and that for me was the perfect point in which to leave the canal to the boaters.

Carbeling! No Zarbeling.

Last year whilst grubbing around on the river I got chatting to an old guy - well I was chatting, he was moaning. Amongst his various gripes he mumbled the word carbeling, by which he was referring to when carp anglers, who normally spend their time pitched up for days on end next to some lake awaiting a pig of a carp, instead ply their carpy scaled down tactics to fishing for big barbel on non native rivers.
Hearing this made me realise that I could possibly coin a new phrase of my own for a technique I have been using for a good many years now.

Zarbeling ; To fish for zander using using barbel techniques and tackle.

I started doing this after what can be considered one of the most frustrating sessions ever. Whilst fishing a particularly coloured Avon on a mild February day with some very heavy cloud cover, my two bite alarms sounded all day with multiple enquiries, from what I was convinced were zander. Even low resistance rigs fished into the slack water using light set drop off indicators could not convert the initial enquiries into actual runs. Late in the day my riparian companion Rob rolled up to my swim, after spending the session quiver tipping for small fish down stream. After watching my bank side disco for a while he tied on a trace, cast out a dead bait, and lo and behold, he got a tiny bit of a bite which he converted into a nice zander.

This got me thinking that tip rods were the way forward for river zander fishing. On a lake or canal that has little or no flow you can leave the bail arm open on your reel with whatever bite indicator you favour attached, and have no problems.
The problem with rivers is the flow. To fish at all in the flow there is always an element of resistance/pressure on your rigs, and we all know zander hate both. Barbel rods offered both a sensitive quiver tip plus enough power to deal with the biggest zander you are likely to come across, and even with pike right up to 20lb should you be lucky enough to hook one. Rig wise I straight away began using a free running big barbel set up, just with a wire trace and trebles attached instead of a mono or braid hook link.

For quite a long I was still waiting for that hoop around of the tip, of which I did get the odd one here or there. But still I was getting heaps of tiny knocks I was not converting. I can't remember when I figured this out exactly, but on one occasion after getting a single tap on the rod tip I picked up the rod and took the line in my other hand.
By holding the tension myself I could actually feel the fish move off, and I let it go on its merry way whilst keeping in touch with it. Once I had let it have what I thought was enough time to get the bait in its mouth, my sharp strike met with throbbing resistance.
This was a revelation! I now began converting probably 80% or more of  the slight taps into landed fish and I have never looked back.

With this unnerving warm weather we are currently experiencing and my need to get back on running water, I wondered if a dusk zarbeling session might be the right way to go. With a fining down river with a healthy bit of colour and near double figure temperatures to boot, the conditions looked about spot on.

I could of just played it safe and gone chubbing on the upper Avon where I knew the fish were on the feed, and given my state Sunday morning after the bloggers winter watering the night before, that was nearly the case. But as I ummed and ahhed, mooching around the house, I came to the conclusion that another window like this in the weather might not be so forthcoming over the next few months, so I got my act together and headed out.

Anyone who fishes any busy town waters will fully understand what I mean when I say that I soon found myself sitting in that still strip of almost silent land between the bustling path populated by Sunday walkers and the ever moving river. I kind of love being in this place half between humanity and nature. You walk along that path to get where you're going, then step out of society slightly and begin to dabble with nature instead whilst all the other people still on the path are oblivious to things going on right beside them.

After sitting in silence staring skyward for the best part of an hour, I was beginning to think my gamble was going to end badly, and pangs of regret crept into my mind. Given the conditions I had hoped even during the daylight hours some interest might have been garnered, but not so much as a nod had occurred. Sure the plethora of rubbish still suspended in the water kept me busy recasting every now and again, but the feeling I was working for nothing had begun to undermine my confidence badly.

Then twang!!! It always amazes me that even after watching rod tips for hours as they move back and forth that we anglers can spot the difference between an rotten old leaf catching your line and the tiniest pluck of a fish. This was no leaf, bag or any other shite for that matter. It was one hundred percent a fish. Rod in hand I could feel a few more tiny tremors travelling back along the just taught line. Then it moved off and I tracked the fish through ninety degrees with the rod flicked of the baitrunner  and as the line tightened  I struck hard into a solid fish.

My decision to gamble on a zarbeling session had paid of with the capture of my first zander of the year, and at seven pounds plus it was a great first fish. As is so often the case on this busy bit of water, once that first bite was out the way it all kicked off. Two more smaller zander fell one after another before it quietened off for a while.

Vilified, my thoughts were pushing me away from the river and homeward. My hunger had become apparent, and the idea of the beef and ale pie I would soon be eating was betraying me. That was until one of my rod tips began bouncing around.
I have found when using this method of bite indication for predators that the difference between a zander and a pike bite is never more evident  A zander nine times out of ten gives a single tap then unless line is given it will certainly drop the bait. A pike on the other hand nearly always indicates its presence in one of two ways: either the rod tip slowly bends over, then for some reason springs back before bouncing back and forth until you hit it; or it hammers off straight onto the bait runner just like a barbel. Either way the difference is obvious once you seen a few examples of each.

The first pike was tiny and no injustice was therefore felt when it got off. Only a short while after recasting onto the exact same spot, the next pike to pick up my bait really put a bend in my rod as it hung deep in the still powerful current.

Long and wide across the shoulders, this young lady has was well on her way to becoming a proper river pike. Like all the fish I caught on this short session she was solid. The fish, unlike us anglers, seem to have fared very well in the flooded conditions, and its nice to know that whilst we have been unable to fish, our quarry has been able to feed up in earnest for any cold weather ahead.

Monkey murder

Please do not take my title literally, for this is not about me going out to massacre Macaques or crucify some Capuchins. It is instead my intent to blow away or strangle the metaphorical monkey which represents a barbel, which and currently resides upon my back.

I may of been griping a little to an acquaintance on the subject, when out of the blue he offered me the opportunity to go and fish his private bit of the river Wye. One rule I have lived by and will live by until my dying day, is never turn down the opportunity to fish a water that is referred to as private. Undoubtedly these types of private waters are always going to be jewels hidden away, protected from the masses where fish do not grow wary from the constant pressure of entire seasons of anglers wearing the ground to bare mud.

When asked, I don't think Andy even let me finish asking him if he fancied it, before saying, just organise it. So what seems like weeks ago I scanned the calender for a suitable date convenient for all three parties. As per normal river levels were watched all week and with every down pour the Wye rose and fell. If flood conditions were to occur the agreement had been made to call off this adventure and wait for another more favourable window. But two days before the weather fell calm and the river abated to the point were it's owner predicted perfect conditions.

I would love to say something along the lines of the Wye valley looked resplendent on our arrival but as with the rest of the Midlands it was shrouded in a thick layer of fog, and on our first view of the river the opposite bank was only just visible. Though for what we could see the river although clear and falling, still made our native Avon look very tame.

Even after falling on a prime looking spot when we first arrived, we headed down stream to investigate as much of the stretch before deciding where to fish and lucky we did, as a mile or so down we came across a beautiful sweeping bend where the flow pushed off to the far bank. This spot gave us four different speeds of water to fish; from a flick into slack water, a lob into slow water, a cast into pacey water then last of all a chuck into the torrent. The genius of this area was that being newbies to the Wye it would enable us to fish hassle free with our lines under minimum pressure from the powerful flow.

Unsure of what fish swam in front of us I went for a two rod set up. One barbel rod baited with a generous cube of spicy garlic luncheon meat intended to entice a hungry beard. The second rod I wanted to use to feel out what was around. So set up a light outfit with a maggot feeder set up to try and induce some smaller fish and get a feel for the populations. 

Both rods out, I sat back peering into the fog and waited. As I expected small taps on the maggot line came first and a couple of quick casts into the same pacey area was producing regular rattles. Then I got one big tap before my rod was practically pulled off the rests. Although trying to catch smaller fish first I had luckily been realistic and fished a 5lb line straight through because unbelievably I was attached to a barbel after only being fishing for ten minutes. 

The rod and a light set clutch were doing their parts in helping me coerce a small but energetic fish towards the bank. Then on the third of three savages lunges away from the bank my line parted leaving me very disappointed  That light outfit was put away instantly and a second barbel rod came off the bench.

Flapping a bit I scrounged some new high hook link material from Andy as I felt that all my tackle box had to offer was either too light or too heavy  Calmed and cast out again I looked up the tips and noticed the tip ring of my rod seemed a little askew. Not wanting to disturb the swim again so soon, I dropped the rod tip a little to inspect the problem. I knew the tip rig would sooner or later need replacing but looking closely at it I found it was hanging on by a thread, and was snapped clean off when another barbel hit me as I held the rod in my arms. That newfangled high tech hook link snapped like baby hair as I disengaged the free spool on the reel.

Now I was in a total state. Two lost fish, two snapped hook links and a busted rod tip all in the first half an hour. Luckily I had brought a spare heavier tip and after setting up again with an identical rig plus a braided hook link. I took a moment to calm down.

Confident in my gear I again recast onto the same spot and sat back. Sure enough wham, another bite smashed my rod over and this one was not getting away under any circumstances. When a dark lean fish of around six pounds hit the net my demons were exercised and probably one of the best barbel sessions of my life began.

I had a shoal in front of me and it was time to make some serious hay. Every cast of the maggot feeder produced some sort of reaction. If it wasn't a twang of the rod tip it was a liner or just the bait runner going into overdrive. Though they were averaging between 4-6lb every fish was lean mean and fighting fit which used the powerful current beyond my catch zone to their full advantage.

I think there is a good chance some of these fish that were battering us had quite possibly never seen a hook in their lives, as every one had  perfect barbels and huge perfect rubber lips.

As the frantic feeding went on the fish seemed to increase in size. Whether it was a case of the regular casts  depositing  more and more feed thus building the confidence of the more wary older fish, or simply the shoal was thinning out leaving the bigger fish I will never know . But the biggest fish of the day landed came towards the end of this frantic feeding spell and weighed a little over seven pounds.

The next fish I hooked into was certainly a much bigger fish which knew exactly what to do. Two small twangs of the rod tip indicated an imminent bite, and my hand hovered over the rod for a moment before in the blink of an eye the carbon bent double and the reel sang loudly. This one ploughed off into the current at an unbelievably rate before I could get a handle on it. It took line and I gained line before it went on a second mental run diagonally down stream into the flow. Straight away I could feel the line grating up through the rod. What it had dived under god only knows but it was big and solid. Several different angles couldn't get this fish back under the snag and before long it went totally solid. After slackening off and setting the rod down I again tensioned up to the solid weight and reluctantly pulled for the break. I did free the hook hold to find a straightened hook and every bit of the last twenty feet of my line shredded by the hidden snag.

The action after this abated and this was seemed to coincide with the lifting fog. It was about this time when my feet began to itch and I took a wander to peruse possible other swims. That water I found though held little appeal. Shallow turbulent and powerful seemed the theme for a good mile down stream. On a hot day with a pair of waders I would of been half way out rolling meat along the deep run the opposite side. But this was late October and the chances of that were zero.

It was now early afternoon and after a chat with Andy we made the decision the hold fast, knowing there was certainly fish in front of us, and chill out for a few hours until the sun sank below the woods lining the other bank.

The sun grew warm and I for one grew lethargic warming myself after half a day spent in the damp dank valley air. The sun got so bright in fact that everything stopped feeding altogether. Even super light rigs failed to rise even a moment of entertainment from a minnow.

As beautiful as it was watching the wildlife enjoying the warm October sun I for one could not help but think of how much of a contrast there was between am and pm. We waited and waited for the fish to switch on again as night crept in. We even stuck it out into dark! But our chance was gone. The fish had melted away never to be seen again and even the witching hour failed to produce anything.

In retrospect we should of upped sticks and moved to another area upstream where the fish would of been unwise to our rouses. Looking back now I honestly think we may have put too much pressure on the ones in our swim. But hey what can you do, there was always a chance that those fish may of moved back in over the baited area at dusk and probably did during the night to mop up long after we left. As for the Wye, this was a magnificent first proper session on this amazing river and one I won't forget in a hurry. I for one can't wait to come back in the future.

Sniffing out new water.

This past week I managed to get in two sessions on a new water. For a few of my angling/blogging buddies it is a regular venue on their yearly schedule of lakes, with others recently joining them. It is however totally new to me.

I agreed to meet up with Keith on Thursday for my first foray into the unknown. I arrived quite a lot earlier than Keith after chipping off work early with the express intention of having a good look round and tapping up the locals for any inside info.

My first sight of the lake confirmed I had vastly overestimated the size of it, but the gin clear water and clean gravel that could been seen from the edge made it look rather nice. I did speak to a few natives and it seemed as I heard before that some accurate spodding was order of the day.

When Keith arrived I opted to fish  an adjacent peg to him as during the few hours I'd spent exploring, peeping and generally grubbing around the lake I hadn't seen a single sign of fish.

I started by banging out 15-20 large feeders of ground bait onto a deepish area with a nice clean bottom  then put a feeder rig baited with a few grains of corn on top. My second rod was rigged up with a method feeder rid and cast into the margins.

Over the next few hours my rods remained absolutely silent and I never even got the slightest indication of any fish moving over my carpet of bait. Eventually I spotted a couple of feeding patches that betrayed the subsurface location of at least two tench. It didn't take a few seconds for me to cast the method ball into the area. With still no reaction to my baits I was round in Keith's swim chatting away when the rod hoofed off like a it was attached to wild animal. By the time I had the rod in hand the fish had moved maybe thirty metres form the left to right and was not far off a nasty snag in the margins. Locking down the clutch I turned it back into open water and managed to get it into the side towards the waiting net manned by Keith. A large green side was all I saw as it rolled on the surface and snapped my hook link. Keith did the sensible thing and disappeared off to his own swim and left me cursing myself for not letting that clutch back off.

Later I had a second run which was dropped, and as evening closed in on my third screaming run off the night I made contact with a second,  allbeit smaller fish, which turned out to be another tench which also came off in the edge.

I never expect to do really well on a new lake especially one like this with clear water and a natural population of fish which probably have no reason to ever eat an anglers bait, but this session had given me a glimpse into how the fish feed. To be honest I reckon that all the disturbance I caused whacking in loads of bait was probably detrimental to the fishing and searching them out with small parcels of bait worked much better.

I know for sure that the rods I brought along were far to heavy for the job in hand at 2 1/4lb. But I had convinced myself that I would be throwing large feeders long distances all night and the lack of give in those rods were directly to blame for the lost fish.

Two days later I went back with Andy to have another go this time opting for a couple of swims in a wooded area of the lake. We had arrived very early and there seemed to be signs of life in front of us. This time two method feeders went in. My hope was to try and pick off a fish here and there using the softly softly approach. If you can call method feeders softly that is. 

My swim never sparked into life at all but Andy's on the other hand seemed to get regular visits from moving fish and in no time he had banked some very nice tench.

I was starting to wonder why my almost identical baits which were not that far off Andy's were receiving no attention at all. I decided to go off and have have a mooch up the bank in the area I had fished only a few nights before. Upon arriving I spotted Lee on the opposite bank and also two or three patches of tench fizz in the area id fished before. It was a no brainer and soon enough I found myself set up in the swim. For the next couple of hours I sat and watched the feeding fish move off round the corner ignoring my baits as they did.

I received news that Andy was still on the fish and made that difficult decision to move back to the swim which had produced nothing before, but I knew there were at least fish in the area.

It's not easy to stand watching as your mate mullers the lake whilst your rods sit idle close by, but as I did Lee turned up and reported nothing more than two liners/dropped runs as well as two other experienced anglers suffering the seeming same fate.

Finally whilst I stood nattering my right hand rod ripped off as a feisty male tench made it's bid for freedom.

The lighter rod I had brought this time performed admirably in subduing the savage diving runs and lee slipped the net under a perfect 4.4lb male tench.

Check the fins on that!

At last I had landed one! Not the biggest tench in the lake but a pretty damn perfect one as far as I am concerned. Whilst  we were fishing I began to suspect that the fish that Andy was encountering were either moving along a specific route that didn't come as far up the bank as I was fishing or that they were following a bar which may have been a little further out in my swim. Ether way I did eventually get a run and I know for sure this lake will get a few more visits over the summer from this tench addict.

God save the bream.

The first of our two bank holiday bonanza weekends I gave up to pull a real changing room job on our kitchen which has been top of my big job list since we moved into a our current home. Four days of initial  trashing and ripping followed by tender hammering and sawing and Jacky was over the moon with our sparkling new modern kitchen, which left me free the following weekend to get some fishing in.

My first trip was something I have had brewing away for a while: eels! I am sure they are present in the canal stretch we have been targeting for perch this year, so Thursday evening after work I charged home to grab my gear and headed down there to fish until morning.

Andy joined me in search of bream, and after a while another couple of lads he knows turned up out of the blue with an idea to target the local bream population themselves. This was something I wanted to keep away from so I set up a little down the canal within sight of them.

Determined to avoid both perch and bream I was cautious to try and keep off  known feeding areas of both species. I cast out one rod baited with bunch of lob worms and second baited with a small dead roach.

Intermittently through the evening my worm rod received unwelcome attentions as a shoal of bream passed near the area and finally the bobbin slowly and erratically rose as a decent but spawning battered bream of 4.4lb made off with the worms.

As the night  wore on I did get some very interesting touches here and there and around 10.30pm I got what I am sure was my only run from an eel. With no warning at all the indicator on my roach line sounded with a slow and constant run which went on for a good while as I waited to confirm a run and not a liner. Sadly my strike pulled the bait clean out of the mouth of the culprit. After this the temp dropped badly along with my confidence and I could stand it no longer it was time for home.

Friday I could have gone fishing but I felt it important to actually watch the royal wedding as it ain't that often our future king gets married. So rather than head off into the country side I spent the morning like the few billion people around the world sitting on the sofa watching TV. 

My next session was to investigate the canal Sunday morning with Jeff for the illusive silver bream which inhabit one particular area at this time of year. The wind by Sunday had really begun to blow and as a result the only fish that seemed present in the area we fished were the ever hungry hoards of mini perch. No matter where I cast my baits one of the little buggers would root it out. I only encountered one fish that was not a little perch and my hopes of a silver bream were dashed when the small silver fish turned out to be a roach bream hybrid.

We ended up moving to a more sedate area were the fishing was a little more comfortable and sat chatting about one of our favourite subjects, sea fishing; Jeff being an old hand hand and myself a novice due to go for a week long session in a few weeks time.

The final trip of the weekend was one I had in mind for a few weeks: back to Snitterfield. My original plan was to do some surface fishing for grass carp but on the way there in the afternoon I began to question my sanity as I pulled on the elevated road that leads to snitters and the true force of the wind hit me.

Being located on a orchard clad hill side this open lake can be the worst place in Warwickshire on the wrong day and this was one of them. Before fishing I took a walk around the lake to chat with some of the anglers already fishing. By all accounts it didn't seem to be fishing that well at all and the carp had not shown so much as a scale all day. So I opted for a change of plan and sought a quite sheltered corner to do some simple float fishing out of the wind.

My decision to change tack and use up my left over bait leftover from the weekend was the best decision I have made in a long time...

Fishing a 14ft waggler rod with my vintage centre pin and a light float rig only a foot off the rod tip the bites were instant. Most of the lakes resident roach seemed to be tight against the bank under the howling wind and after no less than twenty roach all between 10oz and a pound I was really chuffed. 

 An average roach.

I even switched to bread to try and root out some bigger roach but this resulted in me landing three bream on the trot of about 2-3lb. 

Three hours of constantly feeding maggots and my bait was seriously diminished so I began throwing a few pellets in for good measure which prompted the best surprise of the day as far as I am concerned. A timid sliding bite resulted in what at first looked like a small perch, but in hand I was confronted with the first of five micro tench which could not resist the soft pellets.

They don't get any cuter than this!

The sport continued right up until the sun set and on all but my last cast I hooked into what I thought was a big roach until it began surging up and down in the water. My first snit crucian of 2011 was soon in the net at 1.6lb.

I really enjoyed just fishing for whatever came along and not targeting anything specific on this occasion and have found a renewed joy for the singing sound that the centre pin's racket makes as a fish powers off on light tackle. All too often I fish using heavy gear to target bigger fish, so much so I have forgotten how much fun it is to use really light gear and classical methods.

Time to give them a rest.

Again the last minute opportunity arose for me to grab a few hours fishing on Thursday evening back at the canal. Like Andy my intention towards the local population of 2lb perch has waned. For me my attention now turns toward the ever present zander population.

Determined to try avoid the perch I opted for a dead bait bait approach with the idea that if a perch was big enough to consume a four inch roach it would be worth catching. Saying that I did bait my second rod with a mass of lobs on a rig so crude no self respecting perch would surely bother with it, and cast just off the ledge sans any loose bait; the idea being that a patrolling eel may chance upon it and it may fall under the radar of the percidae hoard.

To cut a long story short the lobs did not go completely unnoticed, but the crudity of the rig certainly put most of them off, bar two particularly stupid examples under a pound which took six lob worm half's on a size two hook attached to 18lb braid. But beyond that anguilla anguilla is still to make it's presence known.

On the other hand when the Zander did turn up to the party I landed two in quick succession. The better of the two being the rather paunchy female of 3.8lb. In the water she looked no bigger than the average canal Zander but in the net she really looked if she'd let herself go! As I suspected most of her girth was due to her being rather spawn filled but, whilst unhooking her I caught sight of a pretty decent size perch tail sticking out of her stomach which combined with her few thousand eggs gave her a rather unflattering profile.

I have fished enough times on this stretch now to have started formulating an idea of the fish feeding routines.

Bucking all the theories on when Zander feed, the fish here feed predominately during the day and in short bursts, which I actually suspect is them moving on mass up and down the stretch. Once dark it's time to go home, as every time I have fished in dark I have failed to catch and only had one run; whereas every time I have fished in the light I had multiple runs and never failed to catch a Zander once. 

After the capture of this heavily pregnant fish I feel it is time to give them a rest for a few weeks whilst they take care of some impending spawning. When I return after a brief break they should be a lot more streamlined and aggressive due to temp increases.