Friday 31 May 2013

Sankey Canal Widnes

A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and as a change to the normal blogs of late I think this week I will begin the blog with talking about where I am with my fishing at the moment.  The past three months the quest for a 10lb carp has pretty much taken over my fishing and really occupied my thoughts on a daily basis and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed every single minute chasing this goal from baiting up curlston mere full of anticipation only to blank to the never ending precession of tench I seemed to catch.

I started the quest not knowing a thing about carp fishing and distinctly remember sitting in the break out room in work reading up on my iphone how to tie a hair rig and then going home that evening to attempt to tie one up (with minimal success) and at that time I felt about as far away from catching a double figure carp than at any other time on the quest.  At times during the quest I did question why I set myself this challenge and it seemed all around me was pictures of nice carp being caught so much so I visited High legh for some silver fishing only to bump into a fella who had just caught a 14lb carp fishing a pellet 3 ft under a dibber float, so easy yet I was nowhere near my goal and I could feel the pressure mounting on my shoulders, little did I know I was only days from achieving my goal.

The quest to catch the carp is a challenge I am so glad I set myself it has taught me so much about the world of carp fishing and also discovered I have quite a good knack of catching tench which I never really knew I had.  The quest has also improved my angling skills there are knots that i have never tied before that I can now tie in my sleep but apart from the fact I now am confident going to the bank knowing my rigs are working I think the biggest thing the quest has taught me is patience.

To read my quest for a 10lb carp follow this link: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/p/10lb-carp-mini-blog.html

Looking to the next few weeks I have a few jobs to do before the river season opens I have to load my new feeder rod up with 8lb maxima and also need to replace my trotting line with a new spool of Drennan float fish line and also need to take stock on how much hemp we still have left to gauge when we may need to bulk buy some more.  The rest of the work to be done before the rivers open is all about preparation in doing my homework on the new stretches we intend to visit on this subject I do get a fair few emails asking me about locations on the rivers I fish and my reply is always the same, get yourself online and searching on Google Earth to pick a few locations that look like they hold fish and then do the ground work in getting yourself on the bank and if you can fish the place fish it and if not sometimes just spending time looking at the water can give the fish that inhabit a certain stretch away especially if you visit on first light or at dusk. 

This river season I intend to mix my fishing up a bit between trotting and feeder fishing for bigger species like barbel, chub and bream and the new river we intend to fish will give me much better access to these better specimen fish and the lessons learnt from my few months carp fishing can only help me in this different angle on my fishing.   The river Dee this year will really be make or break for me with the Warrington Anglers Card and how good it is during the summer months will be the deciding factor as I already know from experience the stretches Warrington now have will not fish in the winter due to how far upstream they are.



Away from angling i have been busy watching Springwatch this week which is on BBC2 at 8pm every night and was even more pleased to see that the star if their show is none other than Monty the Osprey from the Dyfi project I featured a few weeks ago on my blog.  It was great to see the BBc taking an interest in this project and also great to see monty on the TV for all to see.  If anyone is interested in keeping up with Monty on the Dyfi Project I have added some information below as to where you can keep up with the rest of his exploits before he migrates back to Africa later this year.

Dyfi Project website: http://www.dyfiospreyproject.com/

On to this week’s fishing

The first outing this week actually put the blog back one day as I decided to take advantage of a warm evening on Friday and hit the banks of the venue I have been targeting for the 10lb carp, of course this time the pressure was off and I was able to sit back and enjoy the session.  I fished Friday evening from 6pm till 9.35pm but it wasn’t till after 9pm I started to feel confident as a few fish started showing in my area but barring one dropped run around 9.25pm nothing much happened but I did vow to return the following morning.



Arriving at the venue just before sunrise I was quickly into the swim I have targeted extensively on this lake and again decided I would just give it a few hours till around 9am.  I was full of expectation but the place was strangely quiet with only one fish showing all morning and that fish was right out in the middle.  This goes against all the stuff I have seen on this venue in my past weeks watching it and it was my thinking that the fish get in the shallow area I am fishing in the late evening and early mornings, I guess that’s fishing for you if it was easy it would be boring and this carp fishing has really got my mind ticking over about what I could do better.

This more relaxed for of fishing has given me a chance to indulge my love for British wildlife and my trusty binoculars above below have become my new best friend and I must say are great for watching wildlife from afar especially now most of the birds have young and can be quite hard to get close too.



As is the same on most angling trips 9am and the end of the session came around all to quickly but before I left I decided to have a bit of a lead around to gauge the depth I am fishing in and the bottom, I found the bottom to be very clear but quite shallow in the bay I am fishing which concurred with my feeling that this shallow bay is a place they only get to in the evening and early morning when light levels are low.   I also had a quite scout round the rest of the venue and found a lovely looking swim with a sunken tree that I certainly will be trying in the coming weeks and finally I did notice that the water was quite clear on Saturday which I think was down to the wind not blowing into this corner last  week but what it did do was allow me to test my bait in the margin and it surprised me how much silt was on the bottom, so much so I couldn’t see my bait.





Saturday afternoon I travelled down to Stapley Angling centre on the Lakemore Complex to stock up on a few bits and bobs, some of the purchases were a must like the new hook length material to replace my line that has been snapping on late and others where a bit more of a tactical gamble such as the pink pop ups which I am hoping will score me well on this venue when I am fishing the shallow swim as I am hoping this in your face bait will stand out more in the silt and hopefully score me a few more bites.  I have also put a few “additives” I purchased a few months ago to good use for glugging up some bottom baits for future short sessions.

The Sankey Canal Widnes - Warrington Anglers Card



For some time now both me and my uncle have had a real urge to fish a canal but with our past forays onto the bridgewater canal and the Trent and Mersey canal bearing little fruit we have really lacked the enthusiasm to get out on these two waters that all changed when a conversation in a local tackle shop put us into the Sankey Canal in Widnes.  The Sankey Canal is a water I have only fished one time before and apart from a few eels I cannot remember connecting with much else but that was a few years ago now and reports where it was fishing well for silvers.  We arrived on the venue and was instantly met with a few fish topping along the stretch which really did get us excited for the session ahead and with the odd fish moving in the far reeds we just couldn’t wait to find out what lay beneath its liquid gold surface I can honestly say it has been a long time since I was so excited at the start of a fishing session and as you can see from the picture below the place looked beautiful.



Setting up in swims close to each other we both decided to fish the middle as both our poles where nowhere near the length needed to reach the far reed line.  The session started well for us both with us both getting into roach and rudd from the off although we had to wait a bit between bites the fish came steadily to the net for us both during the early parts of the session and we both commented an hour or so in that we had caught more already than any session on the trent and Mersey canal.
 




As the session moved on the roach and rudd where replaced with the odd skimmer bream and perch but the tow on the canal was beginning to make fishing quite difficult and bites became harder to come by for us both.  My uncle moved over to the rod and continued to catch regularly against the far reeds while I stuck it out on the pole line.



During the session both me and my uncle had bumped fish that felt very good but we both failed to connect proper with these fish but just as the tow was becoming a real problem I connected with a fish that immediately felt solid and kept deep for the beginning of the fight before giving in and coming to the top, of course only a bream fight so poorly but little did we know till it was in the net just how big this bream was.  The bream was deep and had really dark brown flanks that reminded me of the bream I used to catch as a kid fishing with my dad on the bridgewater canal.  Topping the scales at just under 5lb I was more than made up with this capture.





Of course we both knew where there were one of these fish there was bound to be more but from the capture of this bream marked a point in the session where the tow became unbearable and the canal resembled a river then a calm canal.  We got speaking to a local angler who advised us it was the face the Fiddler Ferry where drawing water from the canal for cooling purposes and we had been really unlucky as it was a really rare occurrence.  WE continued on with the session and eventually called it a day around 2pm when the bites completely died.

My uncle net

                                                                           My net
                                                                                  


We both left feeling happy with the session and vowed to return again soon with a view to targeting those bream and silver shoals and both agreed it was one of the best still water sessions we have been on in a long time.

Till next week I leave you with the best visitor I had to my peg on Sunday, my little baby girl who paid us a visit on the canal and what a joy it was to see her as we are normally further afield and not in walking distance for her to visit me on the bank.



Tight lines


danny

Saturday 25 May 2013

Carp Quest Blog Completed and Rixon Clay Pits tenching

A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and what a week as the blog’s mini quest to catch a 10lb+ carp reached its climax on Wednesday night and what a relief it was to finally complete this chapter in my angling life.  To whole quest is now complete and you can access it from the main tool bar at the top of the blog or on the following link.


Thank you to all the anglers who have contacted me via email, on twitter and the blogs facebook page with their tips and support it has been really appreciated and has helped me in a bog way to keep going on this quest and keep my focus.

The blog last week was set in stone as it was always going to be the week the Calor Grill to go review was to go live but there was a major incident that happened last week I was wanting to cover and that was the disgusting robbery at gun point if an angler on Grey Mist Mere.  The lad just pursuing his hobby was robbed at gun point and his all his tackle and mobile phone stolen, just what is this world coming too when someone fishing a venue in the middle of a housing estate with a secure car park is not safe. 

As readers of the blog will know I was on Grey Mist Mere on the Monday evening when I had a nice tench and I loved the place it was a venue I felt quite safe on and with a good number of passers bye I felt quite happy.  I was looking forward to many more visits to this lovely venue but I have to say this incident has put me off big time in my opinion gun crime pooping its head up in our industry marks a whole new low in our sport and I hope the people who committed this atrocious crime are caught and the lad involved isn’t put off enjoying his hobby.

On to this weeks update

This week’s update will be short compared to normal as I only managed to get out on the bank for a short 4 hour session on Saturday when I took advantage of a short window to try and get a fish on the bank.

The missus making sure I don’t go thirsty with my very own coke for the fishing trip J.



The venue I chose was Rixton Clay Pits as I was fairly confident I could connect with a tench on Rixton given the amount of time had at my disposal.  The seat box, holdall and keep net bag where all left back at home as I decided to take the bare minimum of kit with me as I fully expected to have to walk a fair distance to get a peg with me arriving in the afternoon.

I arrived at the secure car park to be met with only a handful of cars and was really pleased to bump into a long term follower of my blog for the first time on the bank and was pleased to hear he was having a steady day catching some nice bream. After chewing the fat for a while I began my hunt for a free peg and my hunt did not take long as I spotted a peg free not too far down the track.  Setting up took a matter of seconds as my rod was already set up and baited so it was only a case of putting the two halves of the rod together and placing them down on the bite alarm , a scattering of bait and I sat back to enjoy my few hours on the bank. 



This is a swim I have fished before so I knew where to cast to but just as a back up I placed a small hand full of bait in a margin swim.  One of the beauties of this place is how the fish let you know they are on your bait by sending up plumes of tiny bubbles up to the surface as they feed and may times I have seen a line of bubbles go all over the swim and the rod rip off as soon as they reach where I have cast, it does however mean this place can have you tearing your hair out it the bite doesn’t come.

The rod had not been in more than 30 minutes when it screamed off and I lifter into a fish that made a steady run to the right before the line went slack and the hook pulled.  I inspected the line to see that like last week the line was cut clean half way down the hook link material, not another pike surely, what was the chances of catching a pike on a boilie in two separate swims a good 200 yards apart?  I could offer no other explanation so I tied up another rig and cast it out.

Rixton clay pits is one of these venues where if you get the bait right and the feeding you can almost guarantee some bites and again the tench in this venue could not resist as in no time at all I was playing another fish.  The fish came right in under the rod tip and fought link stink but did come up to the surface during the fight to reveal it to be a nice tench around the 4 or 5lb mark.  The fish was nearly beat when it turned suddenly and the line snapped and flew back at me and upon inspecting the line again it cut half way down the hook length so after all the wracking my brain it turned out the 10lb shimano Antares line I bought last yeah has failed and for some reason has become really brittle, luckily I have some ESP striptease so I tied up another rig using this material.

The ESP braid line is a line I use mainly for my river barbell and chub fishing and I was really apprehensive about using it as it is in a weed green colour which I didn’t think would be concealed well on a clay bottom.  The next hour of so trundled by and I say back and just relaxed and took in the peace and tranquillity that comes with this venue and let me not forget my new friend I made on the session in this feisty little fellow, i know robins are really territorial but this guy was seeing off everything!!.



It was during watching Mr robin see off another foe the bite alarm went off again and this time I played the fish really light as I was desperate to get this fish in but like all tench it was not playing by the book at all and put my 1.75lb test curve rod to the test.



Eventually the fish tired and like with most fish as soon as they are up on the top taking big gulps of air they are as good as yours.



The fish went an impressive 6lb 7oz on the scales and is a seasons best for me so far.





This sole fish was as the last of the action for the session and after an interesting chat with Ade about his river Wye exploits I made the short journey home.  My number one job for thi week is to sort out some fluorocarbon line to replace the line that has failed on me this week as I really do have more confidence in it as opposed to the braid for my carp and tench fishing.

This session wasn’t the only time I got out over the weekend as I hit the bank once over that weekend in pursuit of my first double figure carp, please take some time to check it out.

Till next week its

Tight lines

Danny



Friday 17 May 2013

Calor Grill to Go Review And Rixton Clay Pits Tench


A warm welcome to this week’s blog update, a few weeks back I was approached by Calor Gas to review a product from their summer collection called the Calor Grill to go.  After contacting the company and realising how good they were to deal with I agreed and a few weeks ago I received the product.  I would like to state now I receive no affiliation money for any grills purchased through any links in this review.


Calor Gas Grill to Go Review



Product Information:

“3 in 1 Sear, grill, boil… The reversible cast iron cooking surface provides a stable and versatile cooking platform ideal for Picnics, festivals, camping and those summer months on the beach.”

Technical Data:

Overall Height: 130mm (without cylinder) 
Burner Type: Pressed Steel/Venturi
Overall width: 340mm                            
Gas Category: Direct pressure propane
Heat input: 2.02kW                                      
Gas Flow: 188g/h
Approx 30hrs use per cylinder                      
Run’s on 5kg cylinder             
Regulator supplied                                        
Weight: 6.5kg (grill to go only)

Price: £39.98 (Grill only) or £95.22 (Grill and 5kg Calor Gas Cylinder)

Link To Product Page: Calor Grill to Go Information Page



My Review:


In this day and age where the internet dominates and more and more products are purchased online a company’s customer service is becoming a vital part of a successful online retailer’s armoury and as I have mentioned before on this blog I have been on the wrong end of bad customer service so the way a company deal with their customers is really important to me and I have got to say Calor Gas where a joy to deal with both via email and over the telephone and the speed of their reply’s left me feeling confident of their high customer service levels.

The product arrived and was well packaged and my first impressions when I got my hands on the grill were it was well made and felt solid in your hands and was stylish to look at.  The weight of the product is advertised as 6.5kg and I would say the majority of that weight is taken up by the reversible hot plate.  Within the package along with the Grill to Go was the gas valve for the canister, a burner and a heat shield. The product comes with large easy to follow instructions that show you in 4 easy steps how to attach the gas valve to the canister and also how to install the Grill to Go on top of the 5kg Gas cylinder.







 I have been taking my new companion with me on my past few trips to the bank and over that time have used all the different functions that come with the grill which include with flat hot plate, with grill hotplate and with open burner.  I first used the grill without the hotplate on and took a pan and frying pan with me to both cook some dinner and boil water for a warm drink.  The burner plate has 4 metal prongs to sit the pan on and I didn’t have any problems with the pans sliding whist on top of the grill and was really impressed with how solid the grill to go felt once housed on top of the cylinder.  I did do some timing’s whilst on the bank to see just how good it was a heating stuff up and I timed the grill at 2.37 minutes to boil a pint of water on a medium heat. The second and third trip out with the grill I used it with the grill plate on top and again was impressed with how fast it heated up and cooked the food we had taken with us again I did some timings and from placing the stone cold plate on top of a medium flame it began cooking the food which in the test case was bacon in 32.6 seconds.  After using the grill plate I found it very easy to clean when I got home and even a few hours after finishing cooking it cleaned easily in warm soapy water.






To summarise, the Grill to Go is a fantastic piece of kit that I can see being really useful for both anglers looking to spend a few days on the bank and the sole angler out for a full day pursuing their sport.  For me personally I will be using it throughout the summer but I have my eye on this piece of kit for our winter campaign on the River Dee and River Ribble where having a warm meal inside you in the middle of the day is essential we also got great use out of this grill from a family point of view over the warm bank holiday weekend.   I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed both using and reviewing this product on the bank and am really looking forward to using it in the future and it gets a big thumbs up from me.

on to this week’s fishing:-

Saturday 11th May 2013 – Tench on The beautiful Rixton Clay Pits



After catching that sole tench last week on Rixton I was eager to get back and get amongst some more of those teddy bear eyed tinca’s and with even more field testing of the Grill to go to be done I decided to get their nice and early to get one of the readymade pegs.  My dad joined me on the session and before we even set up we decided to take in the atmosphere of this atmospheric of places, there really is no place like it on the Warrington anglers Card and is probably the only water on the card that I would fish in the summer months if it contained a few more carp for me to target.

There is something about this place that conjures up everything I love about angling from a fishing pint of view it has the vast shoals of silver fish and those hard fighting tench but aside from that the place is set up in such a way that nearly every peg gives you your own piece of water away from other anglers that means you can just bask in this places beauty.



The tactic for the short session was as always with my fishing simple with me fishing a poly ball on the pole for the silvers and a boilie on my sleeper rod for the tench and unlike last week I decided to be a bit more tighter with my baiting up for the tench and concentrated on an overhanging tree to the island which just screamed fish to me.





Almost instantly after baiting up with the boilies the tell-tale bubbling of a feeding fish could be seen over my baited area and full of expectation I set about feeding up my pole swim with groundbait and maggot, fully expecting the sleeper rod to wake for its dormant vigil.   Unfortunately it took a good hour for the first run on the sleeper rod despite the constant bubbling in the area and the result was a fish of 4lb 8oz, an average fish for this venue.



The fishing was patchy on the silvers front with the better fish coming after long spells of tiny perch and roach and none of the decent bream from last week showed up at all but I think that there was a very good reason for all this as all morning there where fish crashing all across the surface almost as if they were being chased, now I put this down to perch but I guess it could have been pike and further evidence of pike being around showed its face later on in the session when my sleeper rod screamed off and I struck into a fish that after a few seconds came off leaving me with a clean cut half way down my hook length.

I continued to persevere on the pole and noticed that changing depth saw me connect with the better fish before they got spooked and moved on and to be honest this game of cat and mouse continued all day long and it was a joy to have to work for my net of silvers.  The better roach form the session are shown below.



A quick glance at my watch shown it to be around 9am and I could feel the bacon in my cooler bag calling me in a big way so it was time to fire up the grill and get a warm breakfast inside us but in true fashion as I was just about to rise form my seatbox to reel in the sleeper rod it sprung into life and boy did this tench fight under the rod tip as it kept deep and made runs for the lillies and the tree line to my right and had my 1.75lb test curve shimano rod bent right over.



The fish finally tamed and on the unhooking mat it was time for a quick picture and for it to be returned safely in the shallow margins to my right.



The fish sulked into the reed clearly not happy with being disturbed on such a lovely morning.  My stomach was rumbling but I wasn’t about to let this stop me getting the rod re-baited and back out there the tench where having it and I wasn’t about to miss out so out went the rod with another good handful of boilies, now for that breakfast.



Spurned of by a nice breakie it was back to the fishing and I continued to catch some more silvers on the pole but unfortunately went on to miss two runs on the sleeper rod one of which was down to the fish coming towards me and me not reeling in fast enough to connect with the fish and the other was the mysterious cut in my hook length which I put down to a pike.

The session moved into the last two hours and I decided to pack the pole away and give the keep net a well needed air dry and spent the last two hours just fishing the single sleeper rod on the spot. The final net of silvers came to just over 8lb but was you can see contained a fair amount of fish showing just how many smaller silvers where about.



I took two more tench in the last two hours of the session and was more than made up with the amount of tench I caught on the day and served as a great confidence boost that again my rigs are working and it’s the fish not me why I am not catching on curlston mere.





The last two hours were also spent admiring the fantastic array of birdlife this place has to offer and as I was armed with my camera for the grill to go photos for the blog I took the opportunity to capture a few of them on film and what a vast array of speciescall this place home with coots, Canadian geese, ducks, ducklings and I think ring necked ducks all calling this place home and that’s without even mentioning the buzzards calling overhead and the woodpeckers echoing through the trees.



























As we packed away the family of older ducklings moved in and I have never ever before witnessed baby ducks diving under the water for so long, one of them was more like a submarine than a duck, so I end this part of the blog by introducing you to the Mughty Diving Ducks!



Grey mist mere – Monday 13th May 2013

Full of confidence from the tench session on the Saturday and with a free evening I decided to venture onto a proper carp venue in Grey Mist mere.  This is the first time I have ever fished a proper carp venue and was taken aback by the sight of large carp honking themselves clear of the surface, a sight I have never seen before and certainly got me going.   With only an hour or so to spend and knowing little about the venue I quickly had a scout round the venue and settled on a swim I thought would produce for a number of reasons.  As always I kept things really simple and was rewarded with a really nice female tench of 5lb 10oz, not the carp I came for but a fish is a fish on a first trip on the venue and more than I could have hoped for.



Till next week I wish you all tight lines

Danny

Saturday 11 May 2013

The Good And Bad of Rixton Clay Pits


A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and this week my mind has been drawn to the fact we are just over a month away from the start of the river season and with that I have been on the internet purchasing some bits and bobs for the forthcoming campaign.  The first purchase was the bait runner reel below.



This reel was on offer on http://www.harrissportsmail.com/ I was attracted to it for a few reasons, first of all was of course the price which was 29.99 and also the fact it comes with two spools which will allow me to use one spool with 8lb line for my upcoming river campaign and also use the other spool with some 10lb plus line for my carp fishing thus giving me the option of using two rods on trips.



The other major purchase was line for the upcoming season and it is all change with that as well.  The past few years I have always used 3lb line for my river trotting with a lighter hook length and that has served me well for my dace fishing but this coming season we are looking to spend more time on the very powerful River Ribble so I feel the line strength needed to be bumped up a bit so I decided to go with the 4lb 4oz breaking strain in the ever reliable Drennan Floatfish line.  The rest of my order was made up with a bulk buy of small hooks, some cheap leads and some bits and bobs for my carp fishing.

With that covered I would like to move onto the meat and bones of this week’s blog introduction.  I normally try and make my blog introductions really positive and around subjects that either promote angling or help to highlight companies or individual plights within angling that are doing their best to promote this great pastime we all love but this week I find I find myself really frustrated and downright annoyed with a problem I found on my visit to Rixton Clay Pits on Sunday. 

Rixton Clay Pits is a water on the Warrington Anglers Card and is a venue on the card that for me keeps me purchasing the card because of this venues beautiful location and abundance of wildlife that call this pit home, it’s a place I always look forward to visiting once spring arrives and is one of those places that every angler has in the arsenal, a place they connect with.  I arrived at my peg on Sunday and was again taken back by the beauty of this location, the video below shows just how atmospheric and beautiful this venue is.



As you can see the place it a picture, that is until your eyes begin to look towards the ground to unpack your gear and you spot the odd crisp packet floating in the margin, then you spot another bit off rubbish in a groundbait bag then an empty packet of hooks, empty sweet corn tins thrown in the bank side shrubs.  Lazy anglers leaving litter is unfortunately something it seems we all have to live with when signing up for this club but what I found next made me feel physically sick, a whole spool of line just thrown on the peg in a clump.



As I have mentioned earlier this place is a heaven for wildlife and during my session on Sunday I was treated to countless avian families passing my swim with their new chicks and I have no doubt that come the anglers leaving of an evening all these ducks, swans and geese move onto the pegs and had I not moved this line form my peg on Sunday what would the consequences have been? I can accept people making the odd mistake and leaving the odd bit off rubbish by accident but the scale of what I saw on Sunday is inexcusable and leaves me to think it is not just one angler but a whole mentality of a number of anglers that this is OK!! 

The thing with Rixton clay pits is it’s a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Importance) and this is clearly mentioned in the Clubs Licence which leads me to believe the people who are leaving all this rubbish on the pegs just don’t care what damage they do the environment around them and I personally think enough is enough now and the club need to take action on this by spending time finding out who these culprits are and handing them out a ban.  I regularly read Franks Column and he mentions the litter problem a lot and that bans will be handed out to offenders, well I think it is time bailiffs spent some more time on this water before rights to fish it are lost.

It was upon leaving for the day I was left in complete shock as when I walked through the car park I decided to take a wander along the top path behind my peg and what I found I have to say didn’t surprise me, anglers who take the time to put all their rubbish in a carrier bag on their peg to only take it all the way to the car park to then dump it in a pile behind the crush and run silo, just how lazy can you get! It is easier to put it in your car boot than walk along the path to dump it! 



I am sorry this seems like I am ranting but it’s a subject that’s really winds me up in a big way it’s a problem that in my eyes should never be a problem at all and I really think something needs to be done on this subject, its unacceptable.  I personally was always brought up by my dad to abide by the rule that the only thing you should leave after your session, that wasn’t there before, are your footprints

That off my chest it is on to this week’s fishing trips.

Rixton Clay Pits – Sunday 05th May 2013

After all these weeks of relentlessly chasing this 10lb carp I decided to spend the bank holiday weekend having a big of relaxing fun and with two morning sessions free I started by visiting the picturesque Rixton Clay Pits with a view of targeting the silver fish shoals whilst also putting a sleeper rod out in hope of my first tench of the season.



I arrived on the banks nice and early and managed to secure one of the bigger pegs which allowed me enough space to set up my seat box and also have plenty of room to put out the sleeper rod to my right.  My tactic for the day was the fish on the pole just over the marginal shelf where I knew from previous sessions there was a plateau and bait for the day was to alternate between maggot and corn over my special mix of ground baits and additives.

In went a few Jaffa balls and I left the swim to rest while I set up the pole and sleeper rod.  I fished the sleeper rod on a popped up boilie with a scattering of freebies and put it to one side to fish itself using a bite alarm for indication.  I started out on the pole fishing with a pole and the highlight of the early exchanges was this nice skimmer bream.



The bites where coming thick and fast on the pole line but hitting such shy bites was really difficult even with the float set to its maximum shot capacity with the merest suggestion of a ripple causing it to dip under the water’s surface.  The bites where coming so fast and frequent I decided to bring the sleeper rod in and concentrate solely on the silver fishing and set about changing my whole rig for my ever reliable polystyrene ball set up and bites that where being missed so easily before where starting to be connected with and what astonished me was just how nice the fish where I was missing.



How often is it we miss lightning fast bites and automatically think it is from smaller fish I know I have subscribed to this was of thinking over the years but Saturday’s session really made me question my thinking and that’s what I love about fishing how nothing is ever set in stone and how each session can make or break even the strictest of rules.

As the morning went on the bites came and went in spurts and I decided to put out the sleeper rod again and topped the area up with a good handful of boilies and almost instantaneously the tell-tale cauldron of fizzing bubbles started to appear in the area and I knew a tench had homed in on my baited area.  The fizzing crisscrossed the whole area before the bite alarm eventually came to life and line began oozing from the spool, lifting into the fish it didn’t feel too big and the fight left me thinking how on earth a bream had managed to get two boilies in its mouth this was until the fish got under the rod tip and came to life and made long hard determined runs for the dormant Lillie beds to my right leaving me in no doubt that I was connected with my first tench of the season.

Armed with my 1.75lb test curve barbel rod and 10lb line it wasn’t too long before the tench began to see my way of thinking and thankfully began to tire giving me a chance to slip the net under her olive green flanks.  




The tench weighed and returned to her watery home I took a moment to sit and chill out a little and was rewarded with my first family of ducklings passing me bye, a tench and a whole family of ducklings it felt like spring had well and truly arrived in style.



That’s was it from a tech point of view but I continued to pick up some nice roach and skimmers on the pole in the final hour or so of the session and was more than made up with my final net and a lovely brace of roach.





Short session Stalkin’ Carp – Monday Bank holiday

On Monday me and my uncle decided to visit a local fishery and decided to ignore all the silver fish and go all out for the carp on big baits, my uncle managed a few carp early on in the session but was rewarded mid-morning with this nice carp below



I lost two nice carp through the morning and it wasn’t until an hour before packing up an opportunity presented itself for me to connect with a carp.  I was all out for a bit of fun with my 13ft float rod and 3lb line and it was a group of carp basking in the dappled light of a overhanging tree that presented themselves, in went a few pieces of bread and the bigger of the two carp greedily slurped down the soggy offering.  In I went with my offering laced with a size 16 hook and in true carp fashion the bait floated straight over their heads without even a twitch of movement form the dark shadows below, typical.

I re-baited the hook and again free lined a crust of bread and this time the carp did make a mistake and sucked the bread in first time I waited for the carp to turn and set the hook all I can say it was great fun it was playing this carp on light gear and well worth waiting for.




The carp did make a lot of disturbance which caused the other carp to disappear but I knew they would not be far away so free lined a piece of luncheon meat under the tree and sure enough it wasn’t long before I was into another carp.  Two carp in the space of 20 minutes I was more than made up with my few hour’s work.



Till next week I wish you all

Tight lines

Danny