Rixton Clay Pit........

  In typical fashion for us anglers i spent all week in the office looking out of the window, day dreaming of being sat by a lake tench fishing only for Saturday morning to arrive and the temperatures plummet dramatically.  Loading the car up you could feel a real nip in the air and once in the car and on our way to Warrington the temperature was below 5 degrees.

  We arrived at Rixton nice and early hoping to have a decent amount of time fishing and get back in time for the England v Wales match.  The car park when we arrived was really empty and had a maximum of 3 cars in it so my hopes of getting one of the bigger pegs where high as its so much better when you can fish close to each other.  The mist was just rising on the water when we arrived and it look almost pre-historic and is one of the things i love so much about early morning spring still water fishing.

Video of our swim for the day:

  I decided to set up a waggler float rod to fish of the tip of the dead Lillie's and also a feeder rod as a sleeper rod with corn on it off behind the island to the right of my swim while my dads chosen attack was a his trusty puddle Chucker feeder rod on maggot.

  The fishing was very slow indeed with only 4 skimmer bream between us in the first few hours fishing all coming on maggot with not even a twitch on the sleeper sweetcorn rig,

One of the Skimmer bream:

As the morning progressed a really cold wind was blowing straight down the middle of the pit and had a real nip to it which unfortunately had an effect on the fishing for the worse and by this time the place had really filled up with around 3 pegs around us being occupied but all seemed to having the same results as us with the odd skimmer coming out to play.

It wasn't till around 1pm that my dad decided to have a do in the margin to his left, right next to a sunken tree and the results where instant with perch being the first to turn up, only small but very welcome indeed, this was followed by the odd skimmer and more small perch.

 The swim was kept going with a mixture of groudbait, maggots and sweetcorn mix and it seemed to to the trick and almost certainly was the reason we were getting so many skimmers interested.

  The fishing was such a relief after a quiet morning that we lost track of time and was only the fact we had a perfectly marked roach that i got my phone out and realised what time of day it was.

Nice Roach:

  Both me and my dad have had days fishing where we have caught more fish and days where we have caught larger fish but that last hour and a half's fishing under the rod tip for roach, perch and skimmers took me back to when we used to go fishing as a kid on the Bridgewater all those years ago and reminded me that you don't always have to catch the biggest fish in the lake for it to be a memorable day by the water.

  Hopefully this week will see the temperatures hold above 10 degrees into next weekend and we might see some of these lovely tench come out.

tight lines

Danny

Woodshaw Reservoir and Signs of Spring..........

  This weekend we decided to visit Woodshaw Reservoir in Wigan,  having had alot of success here last year when we visited with the tench and the crusian carp we decided to give it a go.  It felt from the outset that it was going to be a long shot with the tench as the temperature was below 10 degrees but if it was anything like last year we knew there would always be the Roach and Rudd to fall back on.

Woodshaw Reservoir

  We arrived at woodshaw at around 09.30 to find a few anglers already there and made our way to the swims we above we had both fished last year, passing the water bailiff on the way who informed us there had been some problems over winter with cormorants,  in my head i was thinking is there anywhere that hasn't had this problem lately,  i know there has been a problem on Cicily mill for a few years and this year on the River Dee i have noticed them more than any other year.
  I set up my float rod and ledger rod and my plan of attack was to try close in with maggot and corn and later on try for a bream or nice roach out in the middle on the feeder.   The fishing was very slow but we both managed to winkle out a few Roach and Rudd but nothing at all on corn,  with the reeds being so low you could see all the other anglers where struggling and speaking to them on the way out it seemed everyone had had the same stamp of fish.

Typical fish on the day:

  Around 3pm we decided to call it a day and I suggested we take a look at the other wigan waters on the card in the area, after a short trip in the car we were at the mowpin pool, looks a lovely water and can see it being a belter in summer although a few pegs will be un-fishable as there is weed in front of them already, we spent the next hour catching Rudd after Rudd on maggot, when we go next time i think we will fish the first pond as we were advised as i was packing up that's the deeper side.

Picture of Mowpin Pool

  As we were travelling through Wigan the signs of spring arriving were everywhere with daffodils lining all the main roads and there was an even bigger sign in the margins on the Mowpin pool, frogspawn.

Next weekend will see us either fishing Rixton or weather depending may see our first visit of the year to Cicily mill pool.

tight lines

Danny

ATTENTION ALL

Hi everyone,
Will you please take a look at the following link,http://www.ourrivers.org.uk/
Please complete the letter to Richard Benyon, the minister in charge of Defra and tell him what you think. It takes less than 5 minutes to complete.
If you have a blog, would you also copy and paste this and post in on you blog.
Thanks


Danny

River Dee and Ackers Pit.

The last weekend for course fishing has really creeped up on us this year with most of the winter being a complete wash out what with all the rain the big freeze and the subsequent snow melt leading to the river Dee and Dane being unfishable for a few weeks with that in mind i was determined to get among a few fish.


Saturday 12 March


  Both me and my dad set off around 4am and made our way down the M56 towards Wales hoping to fish the River Dee at Farndon, we arrived at the free pegs at farndon to find only two empty and being the ones furthest from the bridge we decided to make the short trip to  fish the River Alyn confluence at Almere ferry, after arriving we started to unload the stuff and were very lucky to get a peg as within the next ten minutes two more anglers parked up and throughout the next 2 hours i lost count the number of people i spoke to looking to fish here.  Any way back to the fishing,  we both enjoyed one of the best catches of grayling with some real quality fish to boot mixed with alot around the size of the one below:

  The sport was none stop with a bite a cast till around 11am when the swim just died, maybe a pike moved in or the shoal had moved on, around 2pm the sport picked up again and both me and my dad gave the river a proper send off, all grayling.

Sunday 13th March


  Fishing all day the day before and a late night i woke up at 4am and decided i would have a lie in and go for a few hours in the afternoon to Ackers Pit to use up the remaining maggots from the day before.  I arrived around 12 noon to bright skies but a really cold wind blowing right across the lake, with only one angler fishing i decided to park up and have a chat on the way to the pegs,  upon speaking to the fella he had been there all morning with a total of 2 bites my heart started to think i should have dragged myself up this morning and gone the Dane, but hey i was here now and there seemed to be one of two carp rolling on the opposite side to the overflow so thought that's where i will start.

  My plan was to travel light and fish as many pegs as i could till i located the fish, i set up the waggler and started to try and get the carp moving in but after a fish-less first hour and half it was time for a move, still nothing and i was starting to feel just one fish would be good today and that's when my float shot under and i was into one of the carp, what a great sport they are and put up a real scrap and so nice to catch carp on maggots on the float.
  This turned out to be the only carp of the day but what a lovely marked fish and i can only imagine what these fish will look like if they reach around 8-10lb in the coming years.

Like a freshly minted coin:

Today saw me having some work to do so didn't manage to get out unfortunately,  as for next week its obviously going to have to be a still water at the moment I'm thinking ackers or rixton.

tight lines

Danny






 

Coming to a close and targets for the coming year

  With this weekend being the last weekend before the river season comes to an end i have hastily booked Monday off work to make the most of the rivers this weekend.  This weekend will see me taking in my three favourite river locations, the River Dee at Farndon (if i get up early enough lol) and the River Dane at Holmes Chapel with a afternoon trip to the small River Alyn if i can squeeze it in, this trip will depend how well i do on the Dane as if i get into the chub I'm sure my car will be back there on Monday for more.
 
Looking forward to the year ahead, my target is going to be a Barbel from the river Dee, i have already caught one of these but at just over a pound it doesn't feel like it really counts to be honest.  The trouble i face with this is my methods for fishing rivers and still waters is either on the float of a feeder so moving over to setting up rigs and using PVA bags etc is all going to be new to me so to get it right i will be targeting mainly the still waters where i can use two rods, my Shimano Barbel purist rod will be used as a sleeper rod on a buzzer while i float fish as i normally would. 

The venues i will be targeting in the coming three months will be Rixton Clay Pits and Grey Mist (for method shown above as you can use two rods),  Cicily mill, Ackers pit and no doubt there will be a few trips to Woodshaw Reservior now the road is fixed.

Photo of a nice swim at Rixton Clay Pits

  Hopefully by the time the river season opens again i will have my rigs to the point where i have confidence in them and will get comfortable with using PVA bags and casting with them and will get on with trying to catch one of these elusive barbel from the Dee.

 If i get some time this week i will get together some of the better catches I have had this last year on WAA waters and post them up on here as well.

Tight Lines

Danny

River Dee Farndon

Saturday saw me waking up at 3am to the sound of rain on the rooftops, a quick look on accuweather.com showed that this would be the tone for the day a few showers but clear spells in between.  So at 5am we set off for farndon on the river dee, we arrived around 5.30 and waited for first light.
  The river was down from last weekend and was up to the second step and looked to be rising slowly, i set up a feeder rod straight away and got to it, first cast and an instant bite, a dace,  this was a promising start and promptly decided to set up my 17ft trotting rod.

The swim:

  I started to get the swim going with red maggots and after getting the depth right started to get a few fish,  being new to trotting a big river like the dee it was hit and miss but i am determined to get it down to a fine art.
  At around 1pm i had noticed the river had risen a fair bit and was approaching the 4th step and with the wind getting up decided to stay on the feeder.  both me and my dad continued to pick up the odd dace but the bites became few and fcar between, at 2pm we decided to call it a day happy with our efforts.

Sunday


  On sunday i decided to get up early and had a small outing to Ackers Pit,  the weather was really cold and after 3 hours without a bite i decided to call it a day, i will defifnatly be back as ive had a few good days on there with the new carp, can see it being a belter come summer.