River Thames - lure fishing - 6/8/12

I was going to take my barbel rods for this weeks after work session, but decided instead to grab my lure bag and take wander along a stretch I hadnt fished before.
Lure fishing the stretch offers me a few benefits, one of which is I can obviously target pike and perch with lures. However is also offers me the chance to map out the water fairly quickly, by regular casting from each swim with lures you will very quickly establish snags, weed and depth of water. Once I have found areas I think I would fish for carp or barbel, I will clip on a lead and map the area out in my head then later on a note pad or a google earth print out.

So I chose a favourite Thames lure of mine, the spinnerbait.



These spinnerbaits are brilliant on the thames for working close in around the cabbage weeds.



The design of them means they rarely snag, and the blades really throb on the retrieve, creating alot of vibration through the water, and the pike that sit in and around the cabbage weed, attack these lure with massive ferocity sometimes clearing the water as they grab out at them over their heads.

I spent the first hour along a stretch I have fished in the past before jumping in the car and driving a short distance to an area I have not fished before. This area is very shallow close in, if I had wellies or waders on I could have waded out quite away before the water shelved off.
I was casting lures out over the drop off and working them back over , expecting the pike to be laying on the bottom over the drop off and attack the lure as it came over its head.
The first 3 swims didnt produce anything.
The 4th was downstream of a large fallen tree, which created a big slack area close in as the flow pushed past the end of the tree, maybe 20yards out. Within this slack area there were plenty of small fish dimpling the surface, probably eating the many flys and bugs that were everywhere. First cast in this swim was right through the middle of them, and bang the lure was hit!!
The fish was very small and came in very quickly, I chucked the unhooking mat down in the margin and drew the pike over the top of it.





I wandered along the remaining stretch (probably half a mile) but had nothing else.
The whole of the stretch aside from the last 200yards is very shallow close in, before shelving off into the main gravelly channel, as well as 2 marinas and some moored abandoned boats, so definately an area im going to have a few sessions with my barbel / carp rods.

posted from Bloggeroid

Maggotdrowning - River Thames - 30/07/12

Summer holidays are here and with came the promise to take my nephews and son fishing again.

I chose somewhere different from the last trip out. The spot needed 2 things,
1, be flat and comfortable to minimse the kids falling!
2, have a decent depth close in to target smaller fish on the whip.

I arrived at my chosen area shortly after 11am to find most of the area taken. The guys to the left had rods out on buzzers, and the guy to the right was float fishing. I dropped in between them having more than enough water out in from of me.
Plumbing the depth I had about 7ft at my feet, and about 8ft further out.

I set up a 3 and 4mtr whip, the 4mtr fished with a 4no4 stick float set just off the bottom in 8ft of water, with the bulk shot a foot from the hook to get the bait down quickly.
The 3mtr whip was fished with the same float but this rig was set about 4foot deep and the shotting spread equally down the line to create a slower fall and to target fish up in the water.
A tin of hemp and 2 pints on maggots were all that was needed bait wise and off we went to catch some fish.



My nephew started to catch first, with bleak being the dominant speices he was catching with maggot up in the water



A pinch of maggots followed by the rig was all that was needed to be getting a bite every put in by him



Next up was my son, who isnt quite as keen as my nephew, but is still happy to have a go as long as hes catching, but gets bored exremely quick if hes not. (I remember being exactly the same when I was younger!!)




A rare moment when he was actually watching the float :)




I was fishing the 4mtr whip with a slightly different approach.
Feeding hemp slightly upstream and fishing maggot or caster (the maggots were quite old and turned quite quickly) a few inches off the bottom. I was also catching bleak, but also a couple of nice dace, and the fattest perch I have ever seen, he was as wide as he was long pretty much!!!



We fished for several hours catching fish on a fairly regular basis, before bites dried up. I had a pike rod set up with a bleak deadbait lobbed in the margins in the hope of a pike, but nothing came, much to callums disappointment!

We ended the day with a small bag of fish, caught mostly by callum and myself with jake and ray adding fish to the net through the day too.







And finally, photo of the day


Such a happy smile after an enjoyable afternoons fishing.



To end on a bad note the only other action I saw from either side of my was the guys up to my left who caught a pike. I took the boys up so they could see it, and to be honest, I wished I hadnt.
There were 3 guys fishing, each with 2 rods. One was carp/barbel fishing the other 2 were pike fishing.
They had a keepnet out, which I had seen them regularly pulling in and.throwing back out. I wasnt sure why from where I was fishing but when we wandered into thier swim I could see why!!
They had just landed a pike, which was laying in the net on the concrete floor (no unhooking mat), once unhooked, the guy then stood up and held the pike (about 5lb) about 4foot from the floor and at arms reach whilst his mate fannyed about trying to take pictures on his phone, the pike then flipped and this guy dropped the fish to the floor, crashing onto the concrete!!!
He then left it where it landed and walked off to his bivvy and produced a thick gardening glove for "a better grip". He then held the pike in the same way again and managed a couple of photos, before putting the fish into the keepnet. He then produced a slightly smaller fish from the net before throwing the keepnet out into the water, pike and all!!!
I saw him bring the net in several more times for random photos before throwing the net and fish back into the river.
Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of pike will know that they dont stand for this type of treatment, and chances are that once they were finally released they will probably have died shortly after.
I really should have said something, but with all the kids there and there being 3 of them, I didnt fancy confrontation with them.

Idiots like this are not needed in our sport, and give it a bad name.

posted from Bloggeroid

River Thames - Barbel - 05/07/12

I went into this weeks session quite confident, the river was still carrying extra from all the rain we have been getting in the south (3 months of rain and still a hose pipe ban, whats that all about!?!?)
I decided to concentrate my efforts on an area just downstream of a weir. The main flow was pushing through nicely, and I finally settled on an area of slack water and fished 2 rods in the crease.



I was fishing just my side of the white water in the above photo.

Fishing this way you are fishing right on the edge of the main flow, so you dont need as much lead to hold bottom, 3oz leads were being bounced along in the main flow and coming to rest just on the edge, this is the area that any food will gather that is being washed downstream.

I fished both rods in this spot, one with 2 x 11mm pellets, the other with a glugged boilie.

Around an hour late the boilie rod (fished slight downstream) absolutely ripped off, as is always the case, I had my back to rod at the time answering the call of nature!!

I picked up the rod and didnt flick the baitrunner off at first as the fish was still taking line, instead I cupped the spool to slow it down. I then flicked the baitrunner off and almost immediately the fish was off again, yanking the 2.25lb tc rod down again and the clutch on the reel screaming before the hook pulled!!
I stood there for a moment trying to think about what had just happened. First barbel session of the year, first take and first loss!

I wound in and found that infact the hook had straightened out!!!



The hook is a new one I was trying out, the kamasan b583. The hook certainly looked the part before casting out, just not on the retrieve!
I have no doubt the hooks would be up to the job under normal thames conditions, but when its carrying extra water, a stronger hook is definately needed.

After losing that fish, I tied up 2 new rigs with stronger hooks and recast both rods.
I stayed until 23:00 and aside from a few knocks later in the night, I ended the evening fishless!

I was gutted about losing that fish, and kicking myself for changing.the hooks instead of sticking with my usual hooks, thing is, I was using korda wide gapes, but have found them difficult to stay sharp.



So after some searching around online and asking a few thames regulars, I decided to upgrade my hooks to the Drennan Barbel specialist range, these look a very strong yet not overly thick hook.

I also found some Pallatrax hooks aptly named "The hook",



Their belief is that this one hook will cover all fishing situations, from carp to catfish to barbel using a variety of methods.
So with this in mind, I purchased the drennan barbel hooks in size 10 and the pallatrax in size 8.
I'll be using them on my next trip out so will report on my findings

posted from Bloggeroid

Thames maggot drowning

My first session of the new season wasnt how I expected it to be.
I had planned on it being an evening with barbel rods, but for the first week or so the river thames was really pushing through with all the rain we have had.
Opening weekend I booked the 16th off work, having promised my nephew a day out fishing, but the weather had the river pushing through way too quick to be able to set up most of the way down the lower.
I made excuses not to get out before now, the football was on (england v ukraine, euro2012) The next session I had been suffering from a head ache for about 3 days, so decided to sleep instead!!!

So anyway, back to today. The sun was out and the river had lost quite a bit of its pace and colour, so a quick call had my nephew all excited about fishing for the first time this year.

A quick trip to the tackle shop, and nearly a fiver later for a pint and half of staines' finest maggots, we arrived at the river and were greeted by a much slower moving river that much of the chocolatey brown colour had gone from.

Two 3mtr whips were set up, with 4xno4 stick floats, 3lb mainline, 2.6lb hooklengths and size 20 drennan spade hooks.



We started feeding maggots regularly, and it wasnt long before we started getting bites at about 2ft deep over the top of the cabbage weeds.



It wasnt long until we were getting regular bites and we started to catch some small perch and dace



We had a light spinning rod set up too as this particular area holds alot of perch and pike, so whenever the swim went a bit quiet, i would have a few casts with a small mepps spinner. The first few casts resulted in a couple of small perch, plus follows from loads of smaller ones trying their hardest to take the lure but not actually being big enough to get it in!!!.

Back to the whip fishing and we started to get bites again. My nephew managing to slap a perch around aunty claires face when swinging it in, resulting in lots of laughs and a scream from aunty claire!!






Getting a few more bites and landing some more small dace and perch, it wasnt long before the swim died again. So out went the mepps spinner amd 3rd cast i hooked a pike of around 6lb right where we had been fishing, it gave a spirited fight and managed to just make it into the large cabbage weed bed at my feet, transferring the hook into the weed and making its way off to sulk no doubt!
After the pike the swim never picked up again and we packed up shortly after having spent a couple of fun hours catching some little uns on maggots.
Upon packing up, I was met with the question of "when can we go again" so im hoping for no rain this week.

Thursday evening afterwork all be out for barbel rods somewhere, then maybe a few hours at the weekend maggot drowning again.

posted from Bloggeroid

2012 season prep part 2

I have several targets this year, the first one being to catch a known carp from a local club water. The water in question is a group of 3 lakes set within national trust woodland. All 3 lakes are connected, but its the bottom lake that contains the fish im after.
This fish is known as a Leney carp, an extract taken from carp wiki - The Leney Strain of carp is named after early Carp stocking pioneer Donald Leney who originally stocked the correctly titled 'Galician' strain into many waters. These waters such as Redmire and Savay went on to contain some of the most sought after and sizeable fish to swim in British Waters.Famous Leney record carp include the mighty Clarissa, Dick Walker's early record, and later on the Bishop, Chris Yate's famous record smashing UK fifty.




The fish im after is pictured above. It is a fish thats caught in the high 20s to low 30s. The lake does not look at all easy, the fish are regularly seen up in the water and right in the edge. There are other mirror carp in the lake too abit smaller than the biggie above and some smaller common carp in the lake too that look around double figure sized, some are very dark, almost black in colour. It looks like stalking fish is going to be the way to target this water, its quite small, less than an acre. So I plan to bait up spots regularly and fish them in short couple of hour sessions and see how I go. For this reason I have got myself together a stalking set up with a 9ft 2lb tc stalking rod coupled with 12lb line. The lake has a closed season so no fishing it until june 16th, but I have been walking it throughout the closed season and trying to keep in touch with it to try and figure out a plan of attack.

My second target this year is to catch a River Thames Zander. I have never targeted zander before, but they are quite a common occurance now in the River Thames. I have been reading up on rigs, baits and tackle and it seems the same approach for zander is used by perch fisherman so that will be an added bonus too to maybe catch a large perch or 2





Zander are actually an invasive species that were introduced into the norfolk broads - below is an extract taken from [Wikipedia/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zander]

Zander are not indigenous to the UK, but were introduced into the East Anglian (large, partly artificial waterways) in the 20th century and spread rapidly. British waterways included zander among a "dirty dozen" non-native species most likely to harm native wildlife along rivers in Great Britain.Their success in establishing themselves is owed to a number of factors, one of which is that they are particularly well adapted to life in the slow-flowing, sparsely vegetated, rather murky waters that comprise so many of the British lowland rivers. Zander thrive in water with rather low visibility, unlike pike, which often dominate the predator fish niche in clear water.

Being fish eaters, ill be targetting them with fresh coarse fish baits fished on my barbel rods with 10lb line. The record zander stands at over 20lb, I cant imagine I'm even going to catch one of more than 10lb (if I do Ill be over the moon) so my barbel gear will be more than up to the job.

Lastly, Im going to spend more time fishing with my float and feeder rods this year. I have neglected this side of my fishing gear for the past couple of seasons as I have been concentrating on catching barbel (Havent caught one for a couple of years though!!!) All my coarse gear has been sorted, replaced and reels respooled, so im all set for the coming season.

I also have several other items I have bought or replaced during the close season that I will offer a running review of as I use them.

These are -
Guru catapult
maver and preston pellet wagglers Nash retainer sling
Trakker Armo Protekta xl unhooking mat
Fox Rapide PVA bag system
Fox Black label 2 rod buzz bars
Ron Thompson 4.5lbtc spod rod Mitchell AvoSpod 70 reel
Linaeffe 3 and 4mtr whips

So with 5 days to go until the start of the season, I'm itching to get out and catch some fish. Lets hope all this rain stops before saturday thought!!!!

posted from Bloggeroid

Barons pond session

Barons ponds are 2 small lakes set in Liss, Hampshire. They are run by MBK fisheries both lakes are well stocked with carp to over 20lb, crucians and some big roach and rudd, aswell as some large perch.







My first session here was a late afternoon session from 1530 until 2100. I decided that as it had been so long since I had used a float rod I would stick with the pellet waggler for today.
I chose to fish one of the swims against the island because when I had arrived there were a few fish topping in the area, and I could see a few carp cruising slowing about the island.



Setting up my proton 12ft float rod (this is a rod made by sundridge) its about 15+yrs old and perfect for this style of fishing. The rod was couple with my ever reliable shimano stradic 3000 and 4lb line.

The rig was simple, a 6gr pellet float locked in place by 4ssg and a couple of bb's either side.
Hooklength is a daiwa tdr rig line in 4lb tied with a knotless knot to a barbless drennan size 14. On the hair rig i looped a guru bait band to attacth my pellet to.

Hook bait and feed is Sonubaits halibut pellets. In 4, 6 and 8mm. Ill feed 4 and 6mm pellets a pinch at a time, and fish with 6 and 8mm on the hair band. I also have some 11mm pellets and some 10mm boilies as change baits.

As it had been so long since I fished the waggler, it took a little while to get into a stride of casting and feeding.
I started at about 4ft deep in 6ft of water, spraying about 6-10 pellets every 30-40seconds.

Around about 30minutes in I started getting bites, when my catapult elastic snapped, or so I thought. It turned out the small plastic peg holding the pouch to the elastic had snapped. A bit unfortunate I thought, good job I had bought a couple of spares kits for them when I was in the local tackle shop



I replaced the peg and continued regular feeding.
I started getting regular bites again and eventually landed my first fish of 2012!!



A nice plump roach had taken an 8mm pellet. A few more similar sized roach followed before the peg on the catapult snapped on the otherside!!

Surely that cant be right!! Another replacement peg put in and I was back fishing.
I started to the swim going now with.fish taking the pellet within a few seconds of it hitting the water.
It was at this point that the rod tip whipped round and I hooked into a carp. A dogged fight ensued pretty much beating me up and doing as it pleased, eventually coming off as it tried to make a sunken bush just to the left of the island I was fishing to.

I rebaited and continued regular feeding again. There were plenty of fish in from of me now, with some big swirls right close to the island.

With this style of fishing you are supposed to wait for the tip to pull round, that way you know the fish is hooked, BUT its hard not to strike when the float goes under, which in turn is frustrating because I was then missing 9 out of 10 bites!!

I was starting to get into tangles too as I was using alot of shot around the base of the float, and the hooklength was tangling and knotting, meaning I had to retie my rig a couple of times!!

Next cast I hooked another carp which I managed to land this time, a small common about 4lb.

Again regular feeding of pellets kept the fish in front of me, I was just struggling to catch them. I knew the session would be a bit like this as it had been so long since I had done this type of fishing.

I had one more carp of about 7-8lb, which put up a good scrap. I slipped the fish back straight away and very next cast the elastic on the catapult snapped!! You could make out it had been worn through from the top of the peg!



As you can see from the above picture, the peg pushes through the hole on the side of the pouch and then the elastic pushes over the end of the peg.

So, catapult repaired again, I hooked another carp, one of about 6lb this time, hook firmly in the tail. He put up a hell of a fight, but my hooklength and hook stayed firm.

Next cast I landed a crucian carp that must have weighed in at about 1lb8oz



Just after this Chris Fox from Grayshott Angling arrived amd came over for a chat. He offered me a few pointers, which certainly helped me. He also showed me a neat little weighted float adaptor that eliminated the tangles I was experiencing. So I need to pick up some of them next time Im in there.
Anyway Chris had a rod in the van, and after a few minutes of feeding pellets, he was asking to nick a boilie for the hook! 5 minutes later he was walking back towards me, rod bent round leading a carp into my swim as he didnt have a landing net!! A nice mid double was netted and released then he said good bye, jumped in the van and off he went!!!

I had a few more roach and a nice rudd which rounded the evening off and I packed up about 9pm.

Looking back, I knew it would be a difficult session, so Im not surprised I had some teething problems!

The problem with the catapult seems to be down to the pegs. They are too sharp which means in repeated use (as a catapult should be used) it wears to elastic causing it to split. I emailed Guru and received an email back confirming that they knew there was an issue with the pegs and they were working on a fix. In the mean time I have been sent a couple of extra spare kits by them by way of compensation, and they advised an updated version was being released.

The concept is a very good one, its fully adjustable meaning you can always hit the same spot, and it is very accurate, i was getting a good grouping of pellets aroubd my float everytime, so I hope they solve this problem soon.

Til next time...

posted from Bloggeroid

2012 season preparations

My preparations this year have seen me conpletely sort out all my coarse fishing gear.
Having not fished with a float or feeder rod for about 2 years I decided this year I would do more of it.
First up was putting all my gear into my new korum all rounder holdall.
This really is a brilliant bag for the general coarse fisherman, it has a massive main compartment, big enough to hold reels, bait, large fox box, feeder bag plus more. 2 end pockets for catapults, rod rest heads etc, a long zipped pocket big enough to take my boss bait table, and finally a net pocket which hold my keepnet and 2 landing nets.
For £30 you really are getting alot of bag for the money and the quality of it is brilliant.

Once I had sorted all my gear into a pile I decided to go through it before putting it in its new home and sort out the stuff that needed replacing or stuff I didnt need anymore.
I managed to sort out my feeders and I had a surplus of about 30!! So these were sold off.
Next up was new line on my reels. Ultima power plus is the line I choose, its very thin for its breaking strain, and I have alot of faith in it. I use it on my carp and barbel rods too in heavier breaking strains. I filled 3 spools with 3, 4 and 6lb breaking strains.
Next was to replace some bits that I needed, a new catapult, some pellet floats, pellet bands, and some method feeders.
I chose the guru adjustable catapult, it was slightly cheaper than the drennan alternative, and much better looking.

Its very unique because you can alter the elastic to give you different ranges.



The idea is a very good one, but it does have some slight problems, but more on that on my next blog at barons pond.

As I have intended to have a few sessions targetting a small commercial fishery near me call Barons Pond, I decided that I would need some pellet wagglers and some small method feeders.
For the pellet wagglers I chose the preston innovations unloaded and maver foam ones.



These take between 3 and 6ssg shot so should cater for all occasions.

I looked at several different method feeders including the Guru x safe ones, but in the end settled for the Drennan feeders.



The reason behind this is because they come in 15gm size which would mean I could use it with my existing rod and reel set up. Any heavier and I would probably have struggled to cast them and would have needed a stronger rod.



The kit comes with a mould so you can make perfect sized feeders everytime, which will aid with accuracy as they will all be identical in weight and shape. They also some with a small stonfo connector making hooklength to mainline attatchment very easy. All in all, a very good simple system.

I also needed some bait bands to hold the pellet on the hair rig so a pack on guru bands were purchased




I also bought some Drennan quick change beads, I had seen these in use before and they solve the age old problem of tangles when using a groundbait or maggot feeder. They just pop apart, you tie your mainline on and clip the hooklength on the sliding feeder sits against the bead, so simple yet really effective.

All that was need next was some bait and I was ready to fish




Sonubaits make some of the best pellet around in my opinion and I use it for all my fishing.
I bought it in various sizes to cover every eventuality.
Bait-tech envy method mix for the method feeder fishing and that was my shopping list finished.

I was now ready for my first commercial fishing trip for many years.
Some of the items I have bought and mentioned above I have not used before, so I will offer in session reviews of these items. I, like many others, have to pay for my gear and always look to get a good balance of decent stuff at an affordable price. Sometimes ill pay more if i think its worth it, but if something cheaper does the same job, ill use that. So my views on these items will be unbiased.

posted from Bloggeroid

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posted from Bloggeroid

2012 season start

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