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.

The Ryton Tench Troll.

It's strange how us anglers take some bits of tackle for granted. You know, the things that are always with you and work every time you need them to. So much so that they linger in our kit for years not causing one single problem. Then out of nowhere they go a bollock and you inevitably find yourself having real problems at the wrong time.

I knew we were in for a spot of the wet stuff Saturday and I also had begun to suspect my faithful 50'' fishing umbrella of seven years had some health issues. But as I was in denial over this fact and was convinced it still had a few more trips in it so I never bothered replacing it....

Ryton looked in fine fettle as I stood looking at the random patches of Tench fizz within a few rod lengths of the bank. As I watched the patches of bubbles they began to get joined up by spots of rain dimpling the water. First things first I'd get old reliable up for some shelter.

Ripping was the first sound that hit my ears as one of the arms pierced the top of the brolly, this was followed by a second one poking me about two inches under my left ear. Closer inspection revealed that the small bit of wire that held all the supports into the collar at the top of the brolly had somehow corroded over seven years of being stuffed back into my rod bag damp. 

Initially I was set up close to the waters edge only feet from my rods but as the rain got heavier my unsupported brolly began to sag lower and lower leaving me practically curled in a ball around the pole.

The situation got ultimately worse when a gust of wind reversed the flapping umbrella in a rather comical style. I really would have laughed but as it went I made a grab for it and two of my fingers got trapped in the mass of wire; with the gusting wind pressuring the mess I was at serious risk of losing a digit.

I some how saved the shelter and moved the kit and caboodle to the top of the high bank into the lea of bush. This is where it got really Heath Robinson. The shelter could just about support itself albeit at a rather peculiar angle but the slightest breeze nearly flipped it so I began ramming spare bank sticks into the ground and tying them on with the only cord I had which turned out to be hook link material. Expensive hook link material!

The only thing that was now needed was tension and my weighty back pack slung under the arm supports pulled that on a treat.

From the front it looked ok but from behind it looked for all the world like just the top part of the umbrella lying flush the ground. All day passing kids called out "is there someone under there " and then my head would pop out like some kind of Troll from its hidey hole and bellow "yeeeeees"

All that aside this fishing was great and intermittently through the day pods of tench moved over my bait and after intitial indications a screaming run would smack the bobbin into the buzzer as a unsuspecting fish fled panicked by the prick of my hook.

The First fish was a solid 5.6lb

The next good fish was 5lb on the nose. And the third five of the Day was 5.3lb

I did land two others that looked between 2-4lb which I didn't bother to photo or weigh. Add to those the three free which came adrift during the fight and the multitude of pick ups and bleeps and it turned out to be a testing but very productive day for this Ryton tench troll.

The worst was still to come when I packed up. All the rest of the kit was packed away as quickly as it come out apart from, yes you guessed it, the brolly! Upon taking it down arms went in every conceivable direction just as the wind again picked up. Frankly I was in no mood to trifle with this unwieldy beast and soon enough I was on the verge of a proper mantrum. Just as I was about to get to that point we all know we can get to where we just destroy the offending article and lob it bush wards I stopped walked away took a minute then like some kind of puzzle it just folded neatly, with several arms sticking through the material at the top.

Note to self : Buy a new Umbrella you stingy bugger!

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.

A tale of two new lakes.

I have been a member of LAA for a few years now and most of the waters on our club book have had at one time or another felt the tender touch of my feet, bar one. I have heard much from my fishing companions of this lake, which is often ignored by anglers who get distracted by its bigger sibling the island pool at Jubilee lakes outside my home city of Coventry. 

So for the first time ever on Sunday morning I stepped through the wooded hollow that hides horseshoe pool from the thronging masses that frequent its neighbour and for a moment as I stood looking out over its still mist shrouded water I may have fallen in love, for a short while.

Any ideas of fishing were quickly thrown aside with my fishing gear and the camera was pulled from my bag as I had to share my first sight of this pool.

Eventually I did put down the camera and get on with some fishing but soon found that the area I had opted to fish was rather deep which didn't really suit the way I intended to fish today. This was no matter as I had forgone my normally back breaking pile of tackle in favour of a light stalking outfit so I could have a little explore around the pool to get to know her if you will.

From the moment the sun illuminated the sky the resident carp population were up in the surface layers and the bream and tench which also reside in this lake seemed rather uninclined to venture over my free particles towards my lift float rig.

As the morning wore on I moved around the lake casting close to any likely looking features giving each spot enough time to reveal any fish, alas to no avail.

Eventually I found myself on the spit of land which cuts into the centre of the lake. The sun was now high in the sky and had revealed to my polaroid clad eyes that the bottom of the lake seemed to be covered in a layer of silk weed. The clear feeding patches where fish had been feeding were evident and opted for one a rod length out.

After a further hour my float had little more than a pluck and the temptation to strip the weight from my simple rig became too great. I had packed a small bag of floaters just in case, but soon found what I had actually packed was a bag of sinking pellets with a layer of dog biscuits on top.

I didn't take long for the carp to investigate the plops the few freebies made and the ducks soon followed. One shoal of fish seemed more determined than the others and stuck around but seemed to have a good understanding of how to sort out the freebies from the hook bait.

Whilst trying to build their confidence into a frenzy I caught sight of a dark shape hanging round off the shoal a few metres. So I wondered whether this was my chance and cast a free lined pinch of bread close to it.

Sometimes it just looks right! The fish moves in a different way towards the bait and you know it's going to take it. Text book style it drifted in, sank down then as slow as you like, a pair of lips broke the surface and then all hell broke loose.

I just happened to be trying out a newly acquired Avon rod and this fish was fish was absolutely hammering it. Another chap called Mark who was floater fishing behind me and heard the screaming clutch appeared and offered to do the honours with the net. After a hardcore fight it finally appeared on the surface and it looked massive. On the bank it seemed even bigger and I still think it looks huge when I look at this photo.

20.12lb would do me fine and the decision was made. I wasn't going to get a better fish so I headed home.

The following day I decided to head down to another new lake at weston lawns fishery outside my old home town of Bedworth to hook up with Pete and Keith who had spent a night on the specimen lake chasing catfish.

I spent my entire youth scrabbling round the ponds and canals of Bedworth but oddly I haven't cast a line in this area for years. So driving back with Jeff in tow it felt like a real home coming for me. You know you're getting older when you can remember when the lake you are heading to was just fields. In fact as I navigated the drive I began to remember some of the times I spent in the very fields from whence this fishery sprung.

Weston Lawns is one of the new wave of commercial fisheries which cater for the ever growing appetite of the UK anglers and big carp fishing. Heavily stocked and heavily pressured the fish are certainly not as stupid as you would expect them to be. I joined Keith and Pete on one bank while Jeff headed straight for a reed lined area near the road that was alive with carp when we arrived.

The carp at first held little interest and my sole target was cats. I know to try and bag one in day light is virtually impossible but I have got to start somewhere. The cats never showed and chatting to one of the fishery lads he told me they don't come out regularly and mostly at night but we were in the right area.

Through the day I did get some interest from the local bream who were covered in spawning tubercles and very hungry.

Pete who was just down the bank bagged a massive perch which had just spawned at 2.12lb that only a few days ago would have been well over three. 

Mid afternoon both mine and Pete's rods that were cast to the island seemingly woke up and both of us got run after run but failed to land a single fish. A frustrating hour of constant runs where both of us thought we hooked a fish which came off and the mystery was explained when an angler to Petes left hooked a good fish. On the bank it turned out this was the fish which had been winding us up into a frenzy. The poor fish was trailing a rig and lead which had been snagging our lines as it moved up and down the island margins. The guy who landed it had not actually hooked the fish but caught the trailing rig and I am sure he will claim that one to his mates.

It was interesting to fish again in my home town but I don't think I am going to put to much time into this venue as a couple of others have popped up which look very inviting and have a good track record of daytime cat captures.   

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.

Bungled intentions.

Curse you red wine, curse you!


Those were my exact words as I stood in the kitchen at seven o'clock on Sunday morning with my head feeling like it was stuffed full of cotton wool. Although I had only over slept by and hour and a half this had screwed up my Sunday morning jaunt to my top secret canal carp fishing spot. I suppose I could have raced there but by the time I'd driven to the canal and tabbed miles of tow path I would have all of an hours peace and quiet before the boats started, so a change of plan was needed.


There was something I have meaning to do for a while and with my limited time it seemed perfectly convenient change of tack. 
I have heard along the grapevine that Jubilee pools big lake contains some rather large bream. I myself have never witnessed any of these rumoured leviathons, but the depth of this lake combined with the hoards of smaller fish and the masses of bait deposited into the venue by the dedicated band of carp anglers which surround this lake, lead me to believe that there could be some very large bream swimming in its waters. So this mornings trip was as much about finding out possible feeding areas as it was fishing.


Upon arriving I headed straight to the area where most of the carp fishing gets done. Chatting with those already fishing anglers confirmed that the bream here have taken a real shining to bolies/spod mix, and why shouldn't they when its getting throw in by the bucket load daily. So I set up down the bank in a position which would enable me to fish a couple of feeders whilst watching where got baited by others.

It all went pretty much to plan and as I made notes for future sessions my buzzers sounded intermittently as a shoal of bream passed time and again over my baited area. I took about five or six proper bream up to 3.6lb and a few immature skimmer bream. One had foul hooked itself whilst mooching over the bait causing the most unbelievable one toner and made me think I'd hooked a much bigger fish as it came in sideways.

Just about every fish like this three pound example were sporting spawning tubercles and fought pretty hard on the way in.

Later in the morning I decided to have a walk down the bank and investigate what I suspected was a group of carp milling round on the top. My suspicions were correct, and in an area called (ironically) 'no carp corner' by the regulars five or six decent carp were basking on the top. It was too much to resist! Even though I had no floaters I thought casting a pop up or two at them may give me a chance to a slurp or two. As always a few casts turned into many but sadly every time one of the carp went to take the white pop up it tuned off at the last minute. As I sat in the shade dappled corner I got chatting to a chap called Alan who is a regular fishing companion of  someone I know from another venue, so we sat discussing Zander fishing as I time and again flicked my single bait in front of these wary carp.

I never did contact any of those carp but still I spent an enjoyable day in the sun whilst bagging some bream and learning some very useful information for future trips to a venue I have ignored over the last few years.

Out for the night.

I just could not resist sneaking back to the canal for an impromptu session Thursday night. It may sound rather mental but I was intending to try and avoid the hoards of perch and try and find maybe a bigger Zander or even try for a hint of eel.

Just before leaving I dropped Andy a text informing him of my intentions. On the way my phone repeatedly rang and although I never answered it as that would be against the law (I wasn't ignoring you Andy) I knew perfectly well it was him. Back at the swim I had fished four days previously I was hurriedly setting up when I saw a figure coming towards me. It seemed Andy had the same thing on his mind and my text had only convinced him to pack the car.

First shot in both our floats went. Me with my first bream from the area and Andy with a nice perch. From the off we were getting bites on all lines. It took a while for my dead bait rod to join the fray but soon enough it went and the first Zander - all be it a tiddler - was mine, shortly followed by another lost unseen predator which felt much larger.

We made a strange discovery as the time ticked on. The perch, of which by now we had landed a couple of very nice examples, actually stopped feeding well before dark and everything went rather quiet. A little while later my now illuminated float began to stir in the dark; something was perusing the half pint of dead maggots and chopped prawn I had throw in to attract the attention of any passing eels.

It took a couple of tentative dips before the float totally disappeared. I could tell straight away this was no perch or Zander and definitely not an eel. When I caught sight of a big silver flank through the murk I really got nervous. It looked like a huge roach had scoffed my three lobs on a size 2 hook. 

When I finally turned on my head lamp well away from the waters edge saw at least half a big roach in the net, it was just a pity the other half of the fish was bream. Still it made for a nice brace shot with a perch just under two and roach/bream hybrid of just over two.

I made two discoveries on this session; firstly there seems to be two distinctive shifts of fish that feed at totally different times on this stretch, and second that taking pictures in the pitch black is really effin hard!