Down the hill round the corner and back up again.

I fear my finale at Napton may have been over dramatized in my mind. You see the way I kind of saw it was like the ending of some cheesy nineties movie, where upon beating all odds I had succeeded and was now walking away into the sunset having won the heart of the beautiful love interest with my dry wit and steely good looks. It was in reality me having caught the crucian after spending an inordinately large amount of time sitting next to a lake where I had over many months chucked in more sweet corn and ground bait than I feel comfortable admitting to. All that aside I had to walk away down the hill back into the valley of normality as I had practically given zero attention to the river and quite frankly risked missing an entire season on the Avon.

Honestly I don't think I had missed much by the general whining I had seen on social media about the lack of water. One thing I had read far too often, much to my chagrin, was how many top level barbel chappies were condemning other anglers for barbel fishing in the heat wave and making it very clear that barbel were unable to deal with the stresses of being caught in such conditions. Now I know these people only had fish safety in mind and good on them for sticking with their conviction, but the question that came to my mind re this was, what makes barbel special? Surely any species be it barbel, gudgeon or chub that is used to existing in highly oxygenated water is not going to appreciate getting caught in the heat. I suppose the answer to that is simple now I am reading it back and that is that they only care about barbel and all other species are merely pests to them.

Anyway on the subject of barbel I did find myself back on the river. ONCE THE HEATWAVE HAD ABATED, fishing for barbel. With the temperature down and a bit of extra water in the river I headed up to Barford to see if those hard fighting berties had come onto the feed. Joyfully they had and not long after settling into a favourite spot I got exactly the sort of bite I was after. Straight away I knew I was into a barbel but during the fight it steadily grew smaller and smaller until I landed a perfect miniature barbel of not even two pounds...

I couldn't quite believe it at first as I have rarely seen these youngsters before and the average of this area of river is generally 4-10lb in weight. Would you believe that on my second cast the PVA bag must have barely melted before bang, I was into another and then another straight after that! Things actually seem to looking good for this stretch of river with a few young healthy fish coming through the ranks for the future.

I returned to the river a few days later to search for the rumoured big preds that hide in the slack shady water on one of the sections I fish. Again and again I hear of this area producing big zander but after searching round all last winter I am none the wiser of the location of these phantom fish. Hence I wondered if I might be able to pin some locations down by mooching round with a lure rod in the summer. The cut and thrust of this endeavor was that none of the water I expected contained seemingly any predators. By chance I gave some of the faster swims a go and instantly was rewarded by a super charged little pike nearly ripping the rod out of my hand as it tore into my savage jerk bait that wobbled across the current.

I was really starting to feel the river now and I took the opportunity to search out a new section of the Upper Avon I had been tipped off about. Not wanting to go into specifics I have been told something very rare indeed swims in this secluded area high up the Avon. It's a rumour I have heard a few times from different sources, but all these rumours share a similar location and this was where I headed for a few hours one night a while ago. It turned out to be a cracking little secret gem where no one seems to fish; given its difficult access and it's that lack of attention, it could be the sanctuary of a real treasure. On this first foray though all I could catch were chub. The smallest being mere ounces and the largest maybe three-four pounds in weight.

That little bit of river has captured my attention and the possibility of what it holds make certain I will return to try again and again on its deserted banks. The weather though tells me the rivers are still way off their best and the conditions are more conducive to tench fishing, and the thought of what seemed to be big tench rolling at Napton drew me back. Really I didn't want to go back quite so soon but what I had seen was too good of an opportunity to turn down. Over my many hours lingering on the banks staring at floats bobbing in the edge I have watched some of the carp lads baiting their little hearts out. I have witnessed this so much in fact that I can now distinguish between brands of spods/spobs just from the sound they make flying through the air. But one spot that two or three of the syndicate members are baiting has become very obvious to me and time and time again I have watched big tench rolling over this spot. So armed with a couple of one and three quarter pound Avon style rods, as it is quite a chuck, and a marker rod, I went to have a lookie loo at what was attracting all this attention.

All it took was a bit of walking out on the banks and few casts and I found a large clear spot in about ten feet of water. This was obviously what the carp lads were aiming for and it was more than likely that all the bait was not just attracting carp. For me though I didn't have time on this occasion to spend two hours filling it in with bait, so I instead went for a more opportunist approach and clipped up two method feeders at the distance and cast them onto the spot laden with fishy ground bait full of chopped 10mm boilies. Casting every fifteen minutes soon rang the dinner bell whilst tainting the swim with enough bait to interest fish whilst not pre occupying them with large amounts of food. I'd only made three casts before one of the buzzers sprang to life as a small tench made off with the bait.

A few casts later I got a big drop back which brought the left hand alarm stuttering to life. This wasn't a tench given by the lack of fight and I kind of hoped it was a huge roach. When it eventually surfaced I saw much to my suprise my first ever Napton bream. Literally in ten years plus I have never caught a single bream and here I was with very young looking four pounder.

Where there's one bream there's others and few casts later I second received a big drop back which saw me hooked into a much larger fish, and the dull heavy fight told me another bigger bream was on its way in. As per, the fight was nothing to write home about but once in the net this fish was special for a whole other reason. Literally this fish looked a hundred years old with nobbles front to back. It was lumpy and bumpy and very calm, like an OAP fish. In its hey day this must have been some fish and it certainly had to have been a double figure fish. Now though it had gone past its prime maybe ten years ago and was probably lingering on undisturbed in the depths waiting out its life munching softened boilies moaning to the skimmers about the war.

Although extremely happy to have firstly located some big bream in Napton for future reference I now find myself thinking are those big fish I have seen rolling on this spot the big tench I thought or a shoal of bream that I think is massive tench. I suppose it's just a case of fish and find out, mind that might have to wait as I broke one of my rod tips putting it back in the car after this session and replacing these rods is not a high priority right now so it will have to wait until funds dictate.

I nearly kissed it.

I don't think many people currently living in the UK would disagree if I said we were having at bit of an odd winter this time round and frankly it's a bit confusing. Nature to seems a bit off balance due to this cockamamie weather. Outside my work shop there is a filbert nut tree which dropped its last catkin way before Christmas and all around its base there are wild garlic shoots three inches high. On my journey to work there is a cherry tree sheltered in a corner of a building which I am sure has blossomed twice already, and in the churchyard down the road from my house there is a pair of daffodils in full bloom. With it being sunny one day, wet the next, then freezing and snowy in random turns, I don't think we or nature knows if it's autumn or winter or possibly even spring.

With the snow having melted what seemed a lifetime ago, the weather had gone full circle and the temperature was now back in double figures. It's because of this I really thought the fish would be in the mood for a good old feed, so I wasn't at all concerned about only having a very short window of opportunity to get out. Really I thought I'd just rock up a few hours before night fell and start smashing them out.

Wrong! After two hours of walking casting and changing lures, I literally had not had a sniff and it seemed like I would have had just as much chance of catching a fish casting into one of the many puddles that lined the tow path as I would casting in the canal itself.

Even with the heavy cloud cover I was well aware that the sun was setting quickly and my chances of putting a bend in my rod were dwindling. But somewhere in the half light I finally scratched myself a very tepid hit on a curly tail grub and swung in a small perch. Normally I don't get too excited by small perch, but this, this one I nearly kissed. Literally after thanking the chilly little fella I nearly kissed it, I was that grateful for it taking my lure. 

If it wasn't for that little perch that I came so near to snogging I would have never had bothered to carry on casting. But I got the strange feeling that there was certainly fish around and that even though they had spent the afternoon fasting, now the light was going they might just come on the feed. Casting right into dark using a very white cannibal shad I finally connected with something better which after smashing the lure, battered around the canal like a demon, and when it came to the net through the murk it looked a bit odd. The thing must have been four or more inches thick and looked like it had swallowed a ball. 

The picture barely shows how thick it was, but as far as feeding was concerned this fish wasn't going without. This fish certainly had been gorging on something to keep itself in this sort of condition at this time of year. Maybe these unseasonal conditions are keeping prey active and the perch well fed, which might give some answer to why on this occasion they only seemed to feed at that optimum hunting time around dusk. Whatever the reason for its great condition I am glad I never kissed that first one as this one was a much more attractive prospect at the end of the session.

Nearly enjoyable.

People call football the beautiful game, in my opinion though fishing is the beautiful pastime. I suppose that's because as anglers we so often find ourselves looking out over wonderful scenes of water framed by the resplendent countryside through ever changing seasons. Even the most horrendous urban or industrialized vista has it's moment when the sun rises, mist clings to the water and you can see past the scars of man to feel like you're in the most wondrous place on earth.

I have always tried to see the beauty in what I am doing or where I am fishing, and in most cases even if I am not enjoying my surroundings I will glimpse a moment in nature that satisfies my need for visual romance, even if that's something so small as watching a wren busying about its business along the bank or a rash of seasonal blooms it still makes being out worth it for me. My last session though... well I didn't really feel it.

Not wanting to fall into that age old English tradition of whinging about the weather, I am feeling a little hard done by with this damned incessant avenue of Atlantic weather fronts that seem to endlessly pile in. I know it might seem churlish given that some people have been flooded out for Christmas, but every time I seem to get the opportunity to get out, the weather has either been, or is, crappy and this last session took the biscuit.

To cut a long story short it was cold and raining when I left the house and was so the entire time I was out. Now given my recent proclivity to mobile angling and the fact that the canal was in perfect condition to wang a few lures around, really I should have chucked caution to the wind, manned up and got wet. But I didn't and with still more worms left over from a session a week go I naively came to the conclusion that I could ply them on the canal and catch hopefully a few more zander to get me closer to my target for the year.

I didn't take me long to get pinned down by the rain. Having a chair, umbrella, rod bag, and all the extra tat I seem to take when having a sit down session only served to stop me from moving, even though I was sure other spots would produce. As a result I ended up spending four wasted hours hunkered under my umbrella targeting a patch of bait off the marginal shelf.

Worst of all was the knowledge that my presence under fifty inches of skyline changing of nylon was not helping my cause in the clear water. The result of which was me catching very little from an area full of fish. Literally in the entire time I sat shivering on the tow path I reaped no more than a few mediocre perch which were confident enough to drift onto the bait. To catch those I had to do something that for me is unheard of nowadays and scale down. Anyone who as ever fished with me on the canals knows I am all about the attack and as a result my gear can be described as robust. So dropping from 3.2lb line straight through to a size six hook to 2lb hook links with size 16 hooks is like pulling teeth for me, and it didn't do any real good anyway.

That was until I rolled the dice and chanced one last attack to try and vilify my efforts. After depositing the last of my worm onto the spot just as the first barge of the day passed by, I decided to give it forty-five minutes more. By fishing a lob tail dead depth I suddenly started to get some very subtle dips on the float. It might sound insane but sometimes when fishing worms, especially lob worm, on a light rig I reckon that the worm writhing around or into something has pulled my float under slightly. Not wanting to disturb any would be biters striking at a worm bite I waited until I was sure this was a fish. Turns out it was and after a sprightly scrap large and rather perfect roach was on the bank.

After that I'd had enough of the cold wet weather and packed up and went home. The End

A success or not?

Really I am struggling on whether to label my most recent sessions a success or not. Time and weather conspired to limit my bank time, and with only a fleeting amount of hours fishing in what should have been ideal conditions I can't decide whether what I did was perfectly pure or just a total failure.

I had it in my mind that the river with a deluge of rain would be in good condition to try and target zander on the lure in the slacks around Warwick. In truth upon seeing the water lapping at the wooden platforms when I arrived I felt I might have got this a bit wrong. Still though I persisted and endeavoured to chuck a few dark heavily vibrating soft lures in the eddies behind several fallen trees.

Maybe I might have stood a chance if I hadn't underestimated how heavy a jig head I needed to pull a six inch shad down in a turbulent river. Even the slightest of flow would catch the under weighted rubber lure and send it five feet left or right for every foot it dropped. As an experiment I punched the lure over the flow and literally in twelve feet of water it made it back to my own bank before hitting the bottom.

Luckily the rain and wind saved me from persisting any longer than an hour and a half, because I know if it hadn't I would have stuck it out probably to no avail till God only knows when. Though I still reckon fishing lures for zander on coloured rivers on warm days has some mileage, I do now realise that waiting for the river to start dropping might be the course to take in the future.

Now that outing alone would have easily marked these sessions as a flop, but the night before I snatched an impromptu few hours back on the Oxford canal. This session too returned little by the way of fish, and after losing a small zander not long after hooking it, it too looked to be a pretty shitty out come. That was until dusk fell! Like all anglers I probably stay a bit too long and make far too many last casts when really I should have been driving home.

Somewhere in the falling light, around that point when you lose sight of the orange of a float I was retrieving my ever faithful clown cannibal shad slowly across the trench of the canal using a short lifts followed by long pauses. Not far from my own bank I lowered the lure on a tight line to the bottom and felt a hard thump. Next thing I know I've struck and the rod is bent double.

The fight on my light lure outfit was sporting, with the unseen culprit stripping line from the spool and me retrieving it. The fish made powerful runs, but declined to come thrashing open mouthed to the surface which confirmed this was no zander. Even with hardly any light I spotted a big spiky fin piercing a bit of reflection on the canals surface beyond my net, just before a big perch was engulfed in the nets folds.

This fish was immaculate from nose to tail, and it's with a hint of confidence that I say it is very unlikely that it has ever been caught before, as the stretch of canal I was fishing is really out there, overgrown and the one resident that lives there says he has never seen another angler bar myself fishing thereabouts for many years.

And this is what brings me to my quandary! For whatever effort you might apply, is one possibly never before caught, picture perfect perch around two pounds, enough to make your time a success. Because weirdly I feel right now that this was one of the purest captures I have made in a long time. Saying that, it may have felt different if I hadn't have walked away immediately after the capture due to the lack of light. I dare say I would have greedily thrashed the water to foam to probably catch one a quarter of its size if had had only another half an hour of light.

Putting time to good use.

I don't know if anyone's noticed but just about every bit of water in the UK right now is, how can I put it, a little off colour. We live in a pretty much permanently damp country but this is one of those times that gets everyone mumbling 'It could be 2007 all over again', with even the tiniest of trickle now doing its best to impersonate mighty rivers like the Volga or Amazon. Still water would be the only sensible options. That's if you have the time, and right now and I don't.

You see my only free time that I had allotted to try and squeeze in a cast or two this last week or so, coincided with the next heavy band of weather to strafe middle England  It was hard decision to make as I'm normally a 'go anywhere in any conditions' kind of angler, but a few hours fishing in torrential rain and gusting winds, fishing into dark seemed, well, not quite worth it, so I decided to give this one a miss.

Though lacking in fishing I was not about to just sit around griping, and instead opted to use the allotted time to instead get some necessary prep work done for when I can get out. Working full time and trying to fish as much as I can whilst maintain a healthy relationship with my better half,  I often find myself burning the midnight oil to get necessary jobs like these done. But with time on my hands it was time to make some traces for the Zander fishing of which I intend to do soon.

Years ago when when I first began predator fishing I bought traces from the local tackle shops but it did not take me long to realise that although reliable, they were expensive and also generic. I suppose it's like anything, but when you spend any time doing a lot a certain type of fishing you begin to see that the tackle you are using could be refined more to your own purpose and needs.

Nowadays the idea of buying a trace from the tackle shop would just seem like insanity to me, as the ones I make cost only a quarter of the price but have been honed to suit species, venues and method. Not only this but even just repeatedly casting traces they get damaged and kinked, hence many changes are often in order; making your own after an initial larger investment reduces the overall costs vastly.

A few weeks ago I was picking up some new floats from Merv of Wilkie's Weights. Whilst we were going through some of the products he makes, he showed me some zander hooks he has, and the moment I saw them I had to have some, especially at the price which he sells them.

I am a single hook believer as far as zander are concerned. Very early on when I began fishing for them I sidelined trebles in favour of a single large hook. As far as patterns go I have tried just about everything available on the market, from large carp hooks right through sea fishing hooks and the one I have found  that are by far my favourite is the o'shaughnessy pattern hook.

Though the only thing that lets this pattern down for me is the length of the shank! I have and still am searching for the holy grail of the sacred short shank version which supposedly exists, but which I am yet to locate. Although these new hooks supplied by Merv look the part and I can't wait to give them a go!

I know everyone has their own ways of doing things and that some might read this and totally disagree with how I make my traces, but I had some new ideas that in conjunction with how I normally make traces, may help me and others whilst zander fishing. Hence I thought whilst I am knocking up a batch of shiny new traces I would show you an easy way to make them, and what I use. 

A few things you will need to knock up a batch of traces

Step 1 =  Pull some wire off the spool but don't cut it. Form a tiny loop in the end of the wire using the spinning method.

Step 2 = Thread the loop through the eye of the hook, making sure it exits at the back of the hook

Step 3 = Pass the loop over the point of the hook

Step 4 = Pull the wire back through the eye bedding the loop over the shank of the hook.

Step 5 = Pull off the required length of wire for the trace plus a little bit extra from the spool and cut the wire using nail clippers. Once this is done thread a crimp along the wire and over the twisted section of wire and crimp in place. 

Using both the twist method and a crimp results in a very stiff section at the end of the trace. I have found this helps reduce tangles and is more than secure enough attachment for the hook.

Step 5 =  Thread a second crimp onto the wire then form a larger loop in the other end again using the spinning method. Once this is done pull the loose crimp over the twist and crimp it into place then trim any excess wire off.

Most people would usually attach a swivel to the end of the trace. Forming a loop it gives me the option of using a long bait needle to thread the trace through a dead bait, have the hook protruding backwards from the mouth of the dead bait and the trace exiting at the tail end. This means you can strike the run very early with full confidence that the hook is in the zanders mouth.

The finished trace is simple, inconspicuous, cost effective and can be removed very quickly for unhooking or to exchange it for a fresh one should it become kinked. 

Step 6 = To attach the trace to my mainline I use a Fox quick change swivel and one of the rubber sleeves to secure it. These tiny and tangle free little swivels systems are designed for fighting big carp and are more than strong enough to deal with the biggest zander likely to be encountered.

Whenever I go zander or pike fishing for that matter I always make sure I take plenty of traces as quite often a lot of action can come along in a short and specific amount of time. So having many quick changes of traces to hand gives you a much better chance of bagging up when the fish are on the feed rather than having to fiddle with making traces on the bank.

The best storage solution I have found for my traces is these trace bins. They are cheap and can store a large amount of traces in a tangle free manner which does not take up much room in the tackle bag.

I hope this has been a help to anyone who reads it and was considering making their own traces or even to anyone who already does and finds even the slightest bit of information that helps in their fishing. If it enables one reader to get even one more bite or land one more fish it will be more than worth my effort writing it. Tight lines!

What the hell am I doing wrong

I revelled with glee when the rains came down the start of  last week. This was followed by a constant monitoring of the EA graphs which gave hour by hour information of the water level of the River Avon.

I watched carefully mulling over when to strike.

It took a day or so for the water to filter into the river, but when it did the levels rose quickly spilling over bank into field. By Wednesday I knew the would be returning back towards normal levels, leaving the Avon looking like willy wonkers chocolate river minus the oompa-loompas.

The day off sorted and Jacky dropped off at work, I arrived to find the river looking perfect and deserted. With no worries for getting a swim I settled in front of the huge swirling eddy aside the weir pool. Even with flotsam spinning around on top of it I knew my lines wouldn't get hung up on any of it as the cut down towards the edge of the flow.

I knew my decision to come here was a risk but it could be worth it. The barbel here seem to average on the large size, even though there doesn't seem to be a huge population. My knowledge of the unseen topography of the area should of helped, but things had changed! New snags had been deposited by the high water as I soon found out.

After sitting on my first casts patiently I reeled in only to snag up in the centre of the eddy, losing everything pulling for the break. I tried to avoid it as the second rig was retrieved found the other side of this large object, and straightened my hook.

I fought it out for a few hours losing a hideous amount of gear in the process, but in the back of my mind I knew hooking a decent fish with that monstrous snag in front would probably end only one way. So I moved on to another likely spot in these conditions.

Here my baits received loads of the wrong sort of attention. Eels tore my meat to bits constantly nibbling away as it lay on the gravel bottom. Pellets fared better but the paste wraps also suffered from the eels and small fish to.

Not one proper bite did I receive all day for my efforts. Two greedy albino skimmers which looked rather embarrassed to be caught scoffing a 20mm pellet, plus a foul hooked boot lace eel was all I could muster.This was very disappointing as the river was in perfect condition, maybe the best its in been all year.

A few days later I joined Martin on a trip further down river to an area with a good reputation for barbel fishing. A large population of mixed sized fish, still above average river conditions combined with getting into one of the best pegs on the stretch made me wonder how could it go wrong.... Not one fish was landed in the entire area all day between a large few anglers.

Bites were received. Chub, I suspected were responsible for cheekily stealing meat baits this time. Only one of those suspected chub bites bent the rod round enough for me to strike, and that went into thin air as suspected the long hair rig prevented the hook from even being in the fishes mouth.

Again this barbel thing is fast becoming a farce. The worst of it is that I have other things I want to do coming up soon, which will start to put pressure on the short amount of time I have to fish for them. So now I am beginning to wonder whether it is actually my methods that is the problem or am I just in one of those streaks of bad luck again!

Bogey barbel or burbot.

Anyone who reads my merry little blog will probably already know this, but for those who don't I will repeat it again to fill you in: of all the species of fish that swim in British waters and of all those which I angle after, my big time bogey fish is the barbel. I don't know what it is about them and me that doesn't go well together, but the fact is that we do not seem to mesh well at all. The list of incidents is far too long and torrid to go into, needless to say I often get the feeling it would be easier for me to try and catch burbot rather than a barbel.

This year I even took a membership for a club who have the rights to quite a large amount of the river Avon local to me which has a decent reputation for barbel, in order to maximise the time I could spend on the bank. I have intermittently been visiting the water here and there since the season began in order to try and get to know it in earnest for an autumn barbel campaign. This itself has not been without tribulations.

When I first ventured there early in the season for a probing session the conditions were perfect for fishing, but I was fishing blind in unknown water. My next foray saw me land two small chub before having a confusing run in with a barbel on a clearing river. Next time I went, I crept into a prime spot and began baiting the swim to try and pull them out of a snag and feeding. As I waited, I saw another angler approaching looking a bit peeved. Turned out there was a match on and I was in his swim. Even though the club match planner stated the match was on a different stretch of river it turned out they had claimed the full hundred and twenty pegs so as sixteen blokes could have a match. I was promptly shooed away before the lynch mob got hold of me. Things had not started well, but undeterred I was ready to go back for a session even though the Avon, like many rivers, is currently clear as glass and two feet down.

My previous visit saw me baiting a swim recommended to me by others as a barbel banker. The flow compresses into a run which emanates at the head of the swim to my right. Starting right under my feet and continuing down stream was a deep slack. The combination of these two totally different bits of water formed a crease which runs directly under a deep sanctuary of a willow where the barbel and chub supposedly hide out.

Knowing full and well I was going to have to tread very carefully here with the river being so low, I decided to a gentle approach would be the best option. No big leads here! A simple running rig with a 18" combi rig hook link. Few few inches of camo braid and the rest made up of 12lb camo soft steel. I wanted to be able to flick the rig in alongside the willow and for the flow to pull it under the snag. So I used the very smallest lead which would allow the flow to move it into the crease, where it should stop with the dissipating flow and leave my 10mm pellet amongst the loose bed of bait.

The other thing I had decided prior to even going, was to keep well off the pallets which the club have installed for comfort of their members. So I sat right back tight against and patch of stinging nettles to keep my presence well hidden.  I was so far back in fact that my rod tip was probably where most anglers fishing this swim would normally sit.

I dared not crash a bait dropper into the swim, and not wanting to make any disturbance with any big items like PVA bags, I fed the swim gently, one small pouch of hemp and pellets at a time, into the crease well above where I was fishing.  This I hoped would stir the chub into movement and hopefully spur any barbel along too.

It had all gone well and I got that distinct feeling you get that sooner of later that tip would bend round. Regularly the bait went in and the small fish I could see were enjoying the bounty. After carefully loading the catapult to again I took aim and launched another helping of  freebies into the head of the swim. Instantly the tip hooped round and somehow I got my hand on the rod to strike into thin air. It must have been a fish ether moving through the water intercepting falling bait or something spooked by the sound. Ether way I got the feeling that it may of been detrimental to my cause.

I carried on for a further three hours, but the day had grown much lighter and my tip had remained motionless. Though before moving off I had a quick cast with a worm. As the slack water under the willow screamed perch. Even using a barbel rig minus its lead, my free lined worm attracted the attentions of a one pound perch first cast. This was something well worth remembering when I return with my lighter chub outfit later in the year.

I walked the entire stretch making mental notes of any depressions, gravel runs and deep holes for when the water is coloured. One thing that struck me was the distinct lack of fish. Not one chub was sighted slinking away and no minnows or roach held in the edges, nothing!

Heading down the stretch I made my way to a  swim where I had spotted a shoal of chub on my last visit. Now I say swim in the loosest possible reference. As this was little more than a hole on the bank side vegetation. I do not know what anyone else calls it, but I call it the jungle.

You can barely poke a rod in and can certainly only lift it enough to strike, but the swim contained fish and I was getting a little desperate. And although chub were not what I hoped for, a tussle in the undergrowth would no doubt satisfy me today.

I watched between twenty and thirty chub drifting in and out of the dense snag for half an hour before I crept in with a baited rod. After waiting for a gap in the fish I swung a worm out into a clearing on their patrol route before slipping back away from the bank. The first pod of chub swung round in front of me and the head fish dipped towards the bait, then shot off like a bullet scattering the rest. The next two lots ignored my bait totally. Thinking they were not seeing it, I next tried flicking the free lined worm in front of them. This proved exactly how twitchy they were. When fish flew in all directions when the worm sank before them.

After letting them settle again, I redeposited the worm tight to my own bank just within sight and sat back a to wait. I remember thinking at the time how could chub be so wary at this time of year, when in the winter they are, lets be honest mugs for any free food that lands in front of them.

Ages passed before they reappeared and shoal after shoal passed over my bait. Then as a shoal of six or more fair sized chub came into sight. A fish broke rank sank down and my bait was gone in one quick gulp.

My deft strike was met with sheer hell. Fish went in every possible direction and the hooked fish powered towards the snag as I pulled back. Then it did something I have never seen a chub do ever, and came flying out the water shaking its head. This was no chub! it was jack pike pretending to be a chub.

I can't for the life of me figure out why a little pike was hanging out with the chub or why they would feel comfortable in its company. But as green is green it was swimming amongst them and ate my worm fair and square.

After releasing that stunning fish I left feeling half dazed and perplexed. Why were all those chub so wary. The best I can come up with is fishing pressure combined with predators and clear water has resulted in them  spending any day light time deep in the snags where it is safe. Needless to say I will be thinking twice about going back before it rains a bit and colours up the water. Or maybe I might even consider going burbot fishing instead.

The lake #9 Short sessions. Am I getting it

The matter of short sessions on the lake has for me been a pragmatic one, with my initial angles being not particularly productive, and I can now in hindsight see how poorly aimed they may of been. Big quantities of noisily deposited bait needed long periods of time for the fish that know it's there to come back in on it. Paradoxically smaller more precise deposits seemed too little to attract any interest. Or so I thought! Whilst on my last visit lift float fishing amongst the weeds in the edge of the lake, I watched a shoal of five tench both small and large, move around my swim through the clear water. The first thing that struck me was how five fish could actively move around my line which cut diagonally through the water and not register there presence on my float at all; and secondly - and far more interesting - was their behaviour. Not at one point did they actually get their heads down hard on the bait, even though they were obviously aware of it being there as it seemed to hold some attraction for them.

I watched in sheer wonder as they picked up odd offering here and there.  I racked my brain to fathom this feeding out. Now before I throw out any bait I always first plop either a ball or a handful into the edge of any water I am fishing just to see what how it goes down, how it looks on the bottom and what happens to it over time. Referring back to my earlier deposit only a foot from the edge I noticed something I had not clocked before. The tomato sized ball I had dropped in had, after a few hours, broken down fully into a small carpet as I expected, but in doing so had left a three inch deep crater lined with bait in the silk weed that covers the bed of the lake.

This was a epiphany, and after trying my rig in the same area I realised that the six inches from my hook to the heavy pinning down weight was in fact nowhere near long enough, and when the weight landed in the weed the bait was pulled into the silk weed or to within a very short distance of my mainline. On this occasion two modifications to my rig helped me wheedle out a fish. The the length from hook to weight was lengthened to ten inches and I also changed my normal shot to a blob of tungsten putty which I flattened to help it stay on top of the weed. Both worked well in the edge.

Away from the lake I applied this theory, plus the way those tench fed, to my method rigs and concluded that unless my rigs landed in a clear patch it was highly unlikely, given the trajectory of my entering rig, that my bait would end up visible at all, and given the browsing nature of the tench at least maybe if they weren't rooting around hard they were never going to find my hook bait.

So I made up two new rigs which employed longer eight inch green mono hook links with a highly buoyant bait on the hook, which should be able to find its way above any silk weed and float above the attractive ball of free bait just above.

I couldn't wait to try this new theory out and short evening session seemed the perfect scenario to do so. Being out on summer nights is one of the true pleasures of fishing. The mosquitoes that swarm around the lake are not. Just setting up I could feel their beady little eyes staring at me as they pondered which part of me to stab with their proboscis.

Eventually after casting both rods out I sat back nestled between two reed beds to settle down with fresh bottle of insect replant. Upon spraying onto my face the smell hit me like a blast from the past, evoking the memory of my folks going out for the night and the smell of mum's perfume as she kissed me good bye at the door. As nice of a memory as that was, smelling like the perfume my mother wore in the late eighties is not that nice for a thirty five year old man who has a bank side reputation to uphold. To make it worse I still got bitten anyway!

The floral sent emanating from the reed bed did not deter the fish either, and soon enough a run bleeped into life as a respectable old looking bream picked up my bait.

As I was not putting any amount of bait out I regularly recast the rods into different areas in the hope of trying to land on or at least close to some fish to maximise my chances of capture. Only moments after repositioning both rods, another one was away; this fish dithered not and the bobbin slammed into the alarm ferociously. Not only do tench and bream bite differently, but they fight in very different ways. The bream just try to resist being pulled in by turning sideways, whereas the tench make massive kiting runs, keeping low right until they are under the rod tip. This was certainly a tench. Sure enough the round dorsal fin broke the surface just before the net was slipped under it.

Sadly after this fish the skies turned very black and the summer rain hammered onto the surface of the lake, seemingly ending the session instantly. I have seen little evidence that the tench feed that well once the light has gone, and considering their proclivity towards just browsing I wonder if they favour sight feeding over sniffing out food.

Though two fish a theory does not confirm, it does seem to have made a marked difference to the fortunes of my short sessions so far and is something I will stick with until my now lake obsessed brain thinks of something else as I continue trying to fathom those murky depths.

The Lake #5 Into the woods I go.

The lake in three places is flanked by three very different woods that certainly effect the areas of water they line. The old rhododendron wood is, as it's name implies, festooned with this rampant alien. Although all of the trees that form the canopy of this wood are truly English; so many are ancient old oaks that Autumn pike fishing under it's cover on a windy day is a dangerous affair, with acorns falling from height like bullets, clonking any unaware anglers out of there essox related day dreams. When dusk comes this is a noisy place to be. The dense foliage crated by the rhododendrons harbours masses of pheasants whose eerie vibrating calls ring out echoing through the silent air. The trees too hide unseen avians that awaken at night. A large amount of little owls seem to roost eyes closed up in those three tops, only to wake at night and begin shrieking back and forth to each other with the regularity of metronome testing faculty. All in all by day it is a quiet spot, bar falling nuts. But by night it is not the place for those afraid of screeches in the night.

On the opposite bank exists the second of the three woodlands which is in a way different from the other two. Where the lake laps at the land a front line of old English trees hang out over the water, slowing reclaiming the wood at their own pace. The hand of man still dots this place with a host of trees which have little to right to exist here. Browns wood is dense and over grown, a dark place with crumbling old buildings hidden under moss deep in its depths. Once in my youth myself and some friends ventured into it's depths and found an old path lined with massive stones that looked like it wouldn't look out of place with fairies buzzing over it. We followed it as far as we could until natures growth cut us off, and retreat from the stifling air and dank was our only option. This wood hangs so far and densely over the lake you can't see out of it, never mind cast from it even in the dead of winter when the trees fall bare.

The brook wood is the final of the three and of all of them this one looks probably as England did thousands of years ago. In the winter it is open and the cold wind courses through it onto your back, chilling you to the bone. Come spring, passage through it becomes difficult, the myriad of brambles that offer cover to all the usual characters serve to keep out humans. It faces Browns wood, only separated from each other by the lake. On the right day the wind deflects off either wood leaving the shallow water still and warm. If the sight of ancient aloof carp cruising through lily pads stimulates, you then an hour spent up a tree in this wood would have you salivating and possibly being tricked into commitment to a fruitless cause. 

The latter of the three was where I fancied might be good for a cast. The pad lined base of Browns wood on the other bank is both secure and safe for fish. The shadows of anglers have not been cast over this water in a hundred years. A hefty chuck it is to that far bank, and it is only normally the dedicated carpers who fish this water.

At four in the morning the water was still shrouded in mist and barley visible. The banks were quiet and deserted. I could hear the sudden calls of moorhens along the reed beds as I slipped unseen around the edge of the lake. Not one angler was under the cover of the trees, which was very surprising. Normally hard worn carpers doze in this area with bags under their eyes and nets caked thick in bream slime. To them one proper bite in five days is good, and double figure bream moping up their carefully placed boilies is bad. They are always a font of up to date information; Dave who's on the other bank got done over by the bream last night, or Kev over in the wood is getting plagued by tench. They always hand over that stuff freely. But ask about carp and they close up quicker than a bivalve at a clam bake. If ever I see a jumping carp or cruising zeppelin I always pass on the info to the first interactive carper I see at the lake, as frankly they need any help they can get as one fish per season is considered good by the lake's standards.

My normal casual lead around confirmed the shallow bay in front was peppered with random patches of differing types of weed. The last third of the cast to the far bank seemed clear enough so a few balls of left over ground bait was sent around the marker, followed by a single feeder on this spot. The second was put tight into a weed bed just beginning to break the surface and the third was nailed full tilt onto the far bank lily line at the edge of the wood.

I saw my first fish roll after only half an hour and it was definitely the brown back of a bream. All along the far bank they rolled for a good hour. Then a big common breached full out of the water before making two less spectacular jumps amongst the pads. As the day grew lighter and the mist cleared the lake looked different somehow. It was the water! It was heavily coloured. Like many old lakes this one is feed by an inlet stream and according to other resident anglers it had been spewing dirty sediment laden water in for the latter half of last week. This though had seemingly pushed the majority of the fish population down into the end of the lake I was actually fishing.

A while after the rolling fish disappeared and the liners started. Even with my line pinned down as best I could the active fish seemed to catch them as they passed. As far as I could figure there was weed bed half way between my spots and me and as the lines slumped down over it that was where they kept contacting them.

As I was embroiled in a conversation with another angler heading deep into another wood when the rod I had tight to the far bank first bleeped once then moved off steadily. Much to mine and my companions delight. Immediately I knew this was no bream as my three pound test rod did a very good impression of a hula hoop. Keeping slow and deep it kited left then back right before surging towards me. Desperately trying to keep up I wound down as quick as possible only to feel the numb thump a fish makes when it's head is deep in a weed bed.

After applying as much I thought safe, my only option was to hand the rod around a tree and wade through the chest high foliage into the next swim to try and change the angle. And it worked! the fish was free and the clutch sang one long note as it dived deeper into the weed bed. Tracing back to my swim I again changed angle but this time the thumping was gone and line again was spooled onto to my reel. The pile of weed I landed was massive; an estimate of five pounds of bloodworm riddled weed may be a conservative.

It has been a long time since I felt the loss of a fish so badly and also a long time since I have felt the raw force of something truly massive and uncontrollable. Bream or tench it was not. A carp or cat was definitely responsible for that overpowering fight. Even if I knew it was a massive cat I know I would not feel the pain of loss so badly as what I honestly suspect it was. For those carp are just so special that even when you hook one by pure luck it feels like you have wasted your only chance ever...

By mid morning I had calmed somewhat and the mist was gone. Now the unseasonal sun baked down on the water. The liners had slowed and water grew calmer. A single bleep drew my attention to my bobbins in the hope one might just rise against all odds. Just beyond the bank a sight no angler could ignore suddenly appeared. With no doubt in my mind I knew exactly what it was. Then again tiny fizzing bubbles rose all at once.

One or more tench browsed right under my rods and I could not resist. My spare rod was blindly grabbed . Float, rubber, weight and hook where all attached by feel alone as my eyes would not move away. They were feeding exactly where I tossed any old bait or hookers. I do not think I have ever so gently lowered a bait into place. For the next two hours I watched that float like a hawk willing it to first rise a little before sliding away

It never did slide away attached to a lovely summer tench, but eventually I did slide away to watch someone else on TV waste the wonderful chance he probably won't ever get again.

The Lake #4 Is that done.

I have always been prone to a niggling feeling or two and I already have a niggling feeling that I have may have been over cooking my fishing on the lake a bit. By this I mean that I am wondering that my Dresden style bombardment of ground bait may be effecting the dynamic of my time on the lake.

Sure when I have a prolonged amount of time on the bank as I did on my last visit, a mass ground baiting is perfectly logical. Given time the new feature on the lakes desolate bottom will always attract fish. But there is no doubt in my mind that the initial disturbance sends any fish resident within quite a large area scampering.
So for the shorter evening sessions putting in any amount of bait seems a foolhardy waste. Yes they will more than likely get on it, but more than likely when I am at home supping a cup of tea ruing the blank.
Thinking this has caused an early change of tack, though this experimental idea I will only apply to short sessions where I do not wish to clear the decks for the entire time I fish.

My love of the method ball is undoubted. Having that small concentrated patch of bait with my hook bait nestled right on the top like a tempting cherry to me is the pinnacle of accuracy. Even fishing over a large bed of bait as I have been, the method ball is a must. I always imagine a shoal of fish confidently moving from one pile of free bait to another filling there boots on free grub, when Bang! one of them pick the wrong one and my bite alarm shrieks shrilly before I strike.
This in mind, instead of wasting bait again, I thought I would have a go at softly softly catchy fishy. Though only intending to use a small amount of bait I did opt to super charge it with fishy attractiveness by adding unimaginable amounts of fish meal, fish oil and other potent ingredients.

So the other night I put this into practise for a few hours and snuck back to the lake in the sheeting rain to try this experiment out and see what reaction I got.

The bank was deserted and quiet. Even the local wildfowl were absent on this warm wet evening. Upon opening my bait bucket the tangy fishy stench jumped right down my throat. There was no doubting the pungency of this stuff and hopefully the fish would think so too.

Although simple, my application of it was to be organised. One bait just off the marginal shelf where days before I had spotted the tell tale fizz of feeding tench last time. The second around mid range on the marker still clipped on my rod from the previous session and the third punched out as far as my rod would allow. Should any one rod get more attention than the others, then one by one the others would be carefully redistributed into that area.

Again the night passed quietly and through the low visibitly I did spot what I suspect were rolling bream on line for my middle rod but none of them found my bait, as stinky as it was.
It was the long range rod than finally sparked into life, but the bite never truly developed. It just beeped a few times dropped, then rose, then beeped. Even bream sooner or later make a bite indicator sing when they feel the searing sting of hook.
After hoovering over the rod for an age and checking the area for tufties I finally made the decision to lift into it and was rewarded with absolutely nothing. But once the rig hit my hand the problem was evident and very unlucky. When setting up I split a boilie in two and casually tossed into the bait bucket. Low and behold I had one boilie on the hook and half a boilie impaled on the hook masking the point from whatever picked it up.

That was my only action over the short session and by dark, hunger had become the new psychological battle. Gutted to miss the only action of the night due to an avoidable mistake I made my way back through the damp woods.

Though I feel that this was no gauge of how successful this tactic can be, and it certainly won't be the last chance I give it. I am beginning to wonder if the shorter evening sessions are going to be worth it especially having to fish at range. Maybe if the damn sun ever makes an appearance I might target one of the few lily beds in the shallow bay for a spot of classical lift float fishing on a sultry summer night.

The Lake #3 Patiently waiting.

The water that makes the lake is clear, very clear. Add to that the fish are wise to our tricks and it can make a rather unsavoury daytime outlook for the dedicated few who sit sentry on it's banks. Certain inhabitants can be incited on cloudy days, but most seem dormant till night fall. This is why evening and night becomes   the focus of my attentions.

Upon arrival the sky was blue and as always, when hiking some distance, the sun beat down upon me as I laboured to the lakes edge. However just as I arrived, foreboding black clouds drifted towards me. Shelter became my only concern, with casting a distant intention; spending the entire night damp in the humid mozzie filled air that shrouds the lake does not appeal. Camp struck, the time had come for me to prepare traps and execute plans, as after all I was here not to camp but to fish.

I have grown to quite enjoy using a marker set up the last few years. Unlike some fastidious anglers I have watched diligently making detailed maps of the water in pencil, noting down the topography of the bed, I prefer to just feel around whilst trying to imagine what the underwater scene looks like. Major features and their locations are committed to memory and once I find something I fancy, a few repeat casts just confirms its suitability to my cause.

Certain areas of the lake are at the moment patchy with dense carpets of silk weed covering large areas. The clearer bits in between the swaths of dark green weed are made up of silt covered gravel and sand. The weed in the area where I had just made camp is apparently sparser. Between thirty and fifty yards out there was a band of pretty constant weed which faded out up to the sixty yard mark. Beyond that was totally clear as if a road had been cut through the weed. This was the perfect place for my traps to be set.

It has become evident to me already that fishing on the lake is a waiting game. Depositing liberal amounts of free food seems to always attract attention but inevitably you have to wait. On my first session over a week ago I offered up a large amount of bait which took four hours to mature on a cloudy day. Today a much larger deposit was going to be made as the whole night was mine, and I didn't want a poultry few balls to be ignored.

It takes a fair amount of time to ball up what I was about to chuck out into tennis ball sized globes. It also looks pretty funny sitting there all piled up like apples on a fruit stall - not that you would ever consider eating one - and when it goes in it makes a hell of commotion.
I think all men love playing with catapults. It is a throwback to childhood and I am no different. When I get my whoppa dropper catapult in hand I cannot help but start to form a wry boyish smile as if I am going to do something naughty. I had no intention of trying to be accurate. Instead I purposely loosely fired the balls out around the bright pink float bobbing on the surface, spreading the bait as best I could over a tennis court sized area, which would give a big target zone for blind casting later.

An hour and a half after arriving the traps were set and the waiting began. I had brought a copy of John Steinbeck's 'The Pearl' to pass the time, but the allure of the lake pulled my eyes away constantly, so reading was sidelined in favour of watching. If Jacky saw me doing this I know she would accuse me of just mooning. But I could assure her that my seemingly trance like state would have easily been broken by the slightest disturbance to the water. I had no idea how long I stared transfixed by the lake but eventually I got that strange sensation that everything other than the water was bending slightly too the right.
I knew this was to be a serious waiting game and day faded to dusk, then dark soon followed whilst I patiently waited. Soon enough I crawled into the warmth of my sleeping bag, with only the slightest hint of human left peeping out so as to avoid the mozzies.

Not until seven hours had passed and the lake was shrouded in total black did anything happen. Then a shrill electronic sound cut through the night and woke me from my slumber. It was as if someone had just yanked one of my lines then let go. Half out of bed I stopped still watching the red light a few feet away. Was it just a liner? Then it went off again as something moved slowly off with my bait. Striking into a fish a long way out into the lake in the middle of the night is always exciting. The initial solid resistance yielded quickly and turned into an odd sensation that something was swimming backwards! Straight away I knew it was an eel and this excited me even more as I do love a good eel. It felt a powerful fish and the rod bent in that healthy but not worrying way. When my head light caught a flash of white in the edge I was confused. That was until a pair of whiskers and a massive gob broke the surface.

I had heard rumours that the lake contained a few cats but to bag one on my first night on the lake was amazing. I have wasted plenty of time trying to land my first cat on heavily stocked waters not one hundredth this ones size, and here I was with my first one in hand on a lake I would never have thought would ever produce one for me.

Having never caught one before left me feeling like a kid again. They are essentially just a mouth and stomach attached to a massive tail, and this little moggy had been using that massive mouth to good effect scooping up my bait wholesale. Through its soft skin I could feel my hard packed freebies, boillies and all.

I hadn't even got back into the my sleeping bag when another bobbin dithered up. Another 8lb bream was dragged in from half way across the lake and in under fifteen minutes I had gone from dry and warm to cold and covered in slime. 

My sleep for the night was over now because a shoal of bream had moved in and they had their heads down in a big way. Both rods cast on the baited area were constantly going off as the shoal noised around the swim, grubbing up my lines even though they were pinned hard too the bottom. The disco tech going on at the front of my rod pod at first was amusing, but all too soon I got the distinct impression that I was beginning to disturb others over the lake. Even with the volume right down the sound cut through the still night air like a gun shot. I had to turn them to silent and rely on the flashing led lights and the bait runners for indication before I was lynched. A slew of seemingly ever more slimy smaller bream slipped over my net for the next two hours before they just carried on through the swim and the bites stopped as quickly as they started.

Even with a good few hours sleep prior to the fish arriving I was knackered. I made what I now know to be two poor casts towards the spot, turned the alarms back on and crawled back into the warmth of my bed. I awoke naturally just as the sun hinted at it's arrival and the mist began to steam up of the surface of the lake.

Refreshed I got up and recast the rods more accurately onto the spot and it was a good job I did!

At first I thought the line was just settling as the bobbin slacked right off, but then it jerked up before hitting the floor. The strike met a seeming powerful fish that hugged the bottom all the way to the edge before trying to bore into a nearby bed of rushes. This fish felt like a tench until a huge humped back broke the surface.

Lying in the net it didn't look as big as the previous two eights I had landed but when I lifted the net up I got  that 'this feels a bit heavier' feeling, and sure enough it's weight laid across it's width. Laid on it's side it looked like a pig of a fish and was easy six inches thick. With a hefty weight of 9.7lb made it the best of the session.

Two more six somethings followed it before the swim died off again. These few fish must have been from a different shoal which arrived late to the party. Even half asleep I had noticed that over the night at least half the bream I landed were two tone. Phil from http://barbelblogger.blogspot.co.uk commented on my previous write up that the two tone colouration is believed to be caused by stress, and I wondered if the presence of cats in the water has anything to do with it.

When it quieted down, I again slipped off into the land of nod only to be woken again. This time however it was the warming and more importantly drying sun which filled up my shelter.

I felt how a cat must when it bathes in the sun contented by whatever mischief it has just perpetrated, satisfied at a good nights work.