Chores and commercials

Between a busy period at work and the on and off weather i have had few opportunities to get out fishing. When i have the sessions have left me little to blog about if i am honest. But Wednesday last week was the first time i had ventured out in a few weeks and i did so with a job to do! Now i have never felt anything to do with fishing is a chore, but on this occasion i had to do something i have been putting of all winter. It's something i should have done before now. But with the obvious signs of spring beginning to show every where, I really needed to do some depth/feature finding work at Ryton to try and establish the under water features of this lake before the proper fishing starts. This is a job i should have done last year when i first started fishing the lake, but every time i turned up last summer there were feeding signs showing every where i looked, so i would be unable to resist and just ended up fishing.

I arrived at Ryton in the morning determined not to deviate from my plan, rod set up with a marker float and lead in one hand, another rod ready to go in the other, just in case i did see anything moving.

I am not going sit here and write paragraphs about doing this but needless to say i did a lot of casting, reeling in and paying off of line. All in all it was time well spent as the previously mysterious depths are now a little less of a mystery to me and i now have better idea of where i should be fishing later in the year.

Towards the end of the afternoon with a couple of hours to spare before i had to go and pick up Jacky from work, I dropped onto a swim i had left well alone with the marker float; partly because i already knew this area well and also because i just can't go out and cast rod all day without actually fishing! It didn't take long before i started getting some interest on my stick rod and the lack of diving ducks in the area confirmed the presence of some fish. But even though there were definatley fish near the baits my bobbins remained relatively still until about an twenty minutes before i had to leave, when my roaming pop up rod shot off only to fall silent as i got within inches of it.

Even though i didn't get into any fish this is the most positive action i have had at Ryton this year, and with my new knowledge of the lake gained on this trip I am looking forward to the warmer months.

Part two.

Sunday i decided it was high time i put a little effort into the challenge i am taking part in with some fellow members of the blogging community. During the cold dark winter, in a quiet moment i sat down with a print out of the species list and wrote next to each of the species what i thought would be the best time of year, and the venues that i thought would afford me the best chance of getting near the record weight of that species.

The one that stuck out to me about now was perch and the venue scribbled next to it was Lanny's lagoon. This little woodland fishery has in the past provided me with some exceptional perch fishing around this time of year. The perch in the big lake come in two sizes, mini and xxxl! If you can get the tiddlers going they come thick and fast, and i have personally caught a giant at well over 3lb and also seen a friend catch one at close to four, though they are rare.

So with this in mind i headed out early only to arrive at Lanny's to find one lake drained and the other one with a large sign saying there was a match booked for today. Oh yes and i forgot a good layer of ice left by the freezing nighttime temperatures.

I really wanted to have a few casts this morning so i headed off to another lake near by i knew held a good head of gonks but this also was very frozen. Two more lakes later i found myself peering out over a frosty makins fishery. Now, it's been along time since i fished a commercial fishery such as this and frankly the reason for this is it aint exactly my cup of tea, but please understand i was desperate...

After three hours of fishing two rods (one for carp and a float rod) all i had two show for my efforts was five small roach. Now if my maths is correct, a day ticket at makins costs £5 i caught five roach thats a £1 each. In my freezer at home i have a pack of five roach that i bought from lanes for £2.90 thats 58p each. So as i see it i should have just gone to the tackle shop and bought myself another pack of roach (which i would own) and sat in my front room looking at them and saved myself £2.10.

What i found amazing was the vast numbers of anglers here fishing on this venue. It was quite a shock as most of the places i have fished over the last few years never have this many anglers crammed on them. I almost felt like telling them all as i passed on my way to the car that we do have other places to fish in the UK other than commercial carp pools.

If only all those anglers realized what good value club fishing is, the hey day of the fishing club might get back to what it was in the past.