A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and I am really
proud to announce that the blog has made it into the Angling Gazette’s Top 10
blogs for June 2013. This is the second
time the blog has made the shortlist with the last time being when the blog had
around 60,000 views. The Angling Gazette
where very generous with their praise and had the following to say on the blog:
Danny’s Angling Blog - Sat on My Perch
Danny’s
blog made our list way back in March. We love his sense of humour and we
love the way he writes. However, what makes Danny’s blog stand out is not
just the fact that he talks about his ups and downs of fishing, but that he
talks about other things going on in the angling world too (even us !).
He’s
a genuine guy and that comes across in his writing and he represents 80% of
anglers out there in the UK right now. If you like to fish, don’t mind
admitting when you blank, get excited about hooking a big one and are in
angling for pleasure, you will love Danny’s blog.
A link to the full list can be found here: http://www.anglinggazette.co.uk/the-best-10-angling-blogs-weve-read-this-month-june-2013/
There is a big iron in the fire at the moment regarding
the expansion of the blog and discussions are on-going but it is looking good
at the moment that this will go ahead and mean the blog will be featured on
another format but there will be more on that in the coming weeks should the agreement
come together.
This week I have to admit I have had little time for all
things angling related as work has been so busy and when I have come home it
has been so warm I have wanted to do little else than just chill out and spend
time with my missus and little girl. The
system I have been working on goes live on Monday so after that point I should
have some more time on my hands to get out in the week and wet a line. I have been meaning to make the most of this
bright sunshine and get down the local canal with a floating setup and see if I
can nab the odd carp or too, maybe I will do that one night next week or over
the weekend.
Away from my fishing there has been little that has
caught my attention this week and you may think that to be a strange comment
given the fact it was the weekend on the Fish-o-Mania final but the reality is
this first year in what I can remember that I have not had Sky Sports to watch
the final on. It is, being honest,
purely down to a cost issue with it as it has become so expensive now to add
these extra three channels to your existing package that I just cannot justify
the extra money to buy them although when I was sat there on Sunday thinking
about what I was missing (we all know the International Event on the Sunday is
where it is at lol) I was very nearly tempted into a rash decision but alas it
will no doubt be left up to the new footie season to start to see me totally
crumble.
I did think about easing my pain on Sunday with a trip to
the river after those barbel and chub
but given how hot it has been and the lack of rain I just knew the river would
be dreadfully low and clear and given I had planned an afternoon session I must
admit to getting a bit lazy in my old age and decided against it, but who knows
what this weekend may hold, so far so good.
On to this wee’s blog update.
“Waking the Neighbours and Bread
Slurping Carp.”
You may have noticed the past week or so we have been avoiding our
favourite river the river Dee and this has been with good reason as it really
has not been fishing well. Myself and my
uncle spend have spent a fair amount of time on her over the past two years and
over that time have built up some really good friendships with fellow anglers
who also love fishing this river and all the reports I have been getting in
have been confirming what we have been finding that the river is just not
fishing at the moment so with that we drew up a shortlist of ideas from the
crazy of night fishing to the sensible of having a lie in and fishing a commercial.
We ended up doing a mixture of the two as we came up with a great plan
of fishing the tiny River Gowy in the morning and moving onto a local carp pool
around 7am to try for a few carp off the top.
This plan would give us an idea of how the river Gowy was fishing by
fishing the best part of the day when you would expect any big fish to show up
if they were about and also meant that by spending only a few hours on there
you were in fact gathering information for free as the water we was visiting didn’t
open till 7am any way so we got the best of both worlds.
Arriving at the car park at the nags head we unloaded a single rod and
a few essential bits and pieces and made our way down the very overgrown path
down the river. I had decided not to
fish and to watch my uncle fish the swim we had chosen this was a decision that
was made just because of the little amount of time we had before moving on and
also it is always great to see how my uncle would tackle a brand new river for
example the line he fished was completely different to where I would have
fished, lesson learnt.
We were as quiet as possible setting up and getting into position but
still managed to wake the locals up, never a great start on a relatively new
venue but thankfully they settled back down.
The fishing was as we thought it would be very slow and for what
seemed an eternity the delicate 6 number 4 stickfloat trundled down the swim
without any interest. The one thing I
learned from this session bears no reference to the fishing but to our noisy
neighbours across the river, I never in my life knew just how much these
animals coughed and I mean it sounded like they were right behind us each time
they did it. In between these bouts of
bovine throat clearing my uncle did put a few fish on the bank in the form of
small perch and a single gudgen.
The end net would have not done the session justice and I suppose we
packed in having caught around 12 perch and a single gudgeon for hour short
session but we left with the though “where there are small perch, there are big
perch”
As we pulled out of the Car park we were greeted by this lovely summer
scene of fields upon fields of bails of straw waiting to be collected by the
farmer.
We left the river behind and made our way to a local carp pool where
given the forecast of a scorching hot day we were odds on to encounter a carp
or two. I committed the cardinal sin of
any angler though and had already decided how I was going to fish before I had
even arrived at my peg the plan was to fish luncheon meat and hemp seed on the
inside shelf and feed it on the heavy side hence the fact I travelled with two
whole tins of luncheon meat ready cut into centre metre cubes.
Pulling into the car park at 7.30am it we already warming up and it
was obvious from the crystal clear blue skies we were in for a really warm day
so I knew I only had an hour or so if my plan was going to work before all the
carp where up on top. I fed the swim
with two big pots of bait and then left it while I set up the rig for the
session ahead.
The first put in over this line resulted in plenty of knocks on the
float which I instantly knew where skimmer bream and eventually the float
buried and my initial thoughts where proved right as a 5oz skimmer graced my
palm. That is pretty much how the swim
continued to go for the majority of the morning with a continuous line of small
skimmers making a trip to the bank I suppose they would have made up a cracking
looking net had keepnet’s been allowed.
I persevered with this line until the bites dried up but I was over the
moon to have connected with one of the better skimmers in this bream below
which at this point of the day I was more than made up with as the carp had
failed to turn up to the party.
As the session moved on and the sun began to rise further in the sky
its rays of warmth drew the carp up in the water and I began to see the jet
black ghostly shadows of carp cruising just under the surface. Its times like this in the past I have cursed
my luck and thought if only I had some bread with me now but I have certainly
been there and done that and I suppose it is only time on the bank and
experience of these situations that’s make you think more about the session
ahead and with that out came the good old Warbutons Super Toastie crusts.
There are many rigs out there which will swear to you they are the
must have item for surface fishing and make you feel like you will not catch
without them which I suppose may be true in some situations but in most the
good old methods work just fine and you cannot go wrong with a simple hook tied
to a good long piece of line attached to the end of the pole, simple and as
cheap as it comes and boy does it work.
I took 9 carp in total with the best of the initial group shown above
and all put up a really good scrap on the white hydro elastic. It is always the case with any type of
surface or shallow fishing that the fish do wise up, well the better fish at
least and and the more the session goes on the harder it gets I find and I
guess that’s what separates casual anglers from the greats as they know how to
keep the fishing coming.
The best fish on the day was saved till last for me and it was through
pure skill I managed to hook the fish as I delicately placed a crust that had
been out for some time and was completely saturated with water right on top of
a passing carps mouth and she slurped it down like it porridge oats down a
sink. The fish in this place a rumoured
to go over 20lb but I have found the vast majority to be in the 3-5lb bracket
with a really good fish pushing 9lb and this was certainly the latter as I
could not for the life of me get it off the bottom and try as I may the fish
just lazily but purposefully swam around the swim at its leisure. The fist one of these carp you hook your heart
is in your mouth but now after catching I few I knew it was time to let the
elastic do the work.
The fish must have taken a good 5-10 minutes to get in but I was in no
rush to bully the fish, I do use a pulla-kit but believe it is there to give
you more control when the fish is in close and not too exert maximum pressure
on the fish to get it in quicker, I let the elastic do the work and enjoyed the
chess like battle that goes with a better fish on the pole as you guess and
counter guess the fish’s next move. It
was soon checkmate and a stunning 8lb 5oz carp was in the net.
This fish topped of a very enjoyable surface fishing session for
myself and I called it a day around 2pm as the fish where not playing ball and
also I was beginning to flag after over 24 hours without a sleep.
Till next time I wish you all
Tight lines
Danny
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