The weekends where overtime has been on i have managed to sneak in some short evening trips for carp and the weekends in between i have been taking full advantage of the full days fishing and hitting the local canal or commercial. This weeks blog is the first of those longer days where i decided to visit Cheshire fisheries, my heart set on having fun.
The introduction this weeks covers a bit of info on a question i get asked a lot around what gear i use for taking my blog pictures and a change i have recently made. The introduction also includes a huge offer sent to me by GCELL for blog readers and followers on social media to receive 20% off when they purchase the GCELL backpack!! Worth every penny in my opinion, i am constantly being impressed by this product every time i use it.
On to the update:
What Camera To Use For Blogging?
This is a question i get asked all the time by people wanting to start out writing their own blog. The answer in most cases comes down to how much quality you are looking for in your blog pictures. If you are looking for a blog that contains amazing photography then you would of course be looking for a a high end camera.
Myself, i feel there is more to writing a blog than just a camera and to successfully write and maintain your blog i really feel that a smart phone is the way to go. With a smart phone you have all your pictures in one place and when you download the right aps you can easily update these pictures from your camera roll directly to your blog.
In this day and age Social Media plays a huge part in any blog and getting your work out their and noticed by as many people interested in your content as possible. I find the smart phone here shows its worth big time as you can quickly update followers on facebook and twitter from the bank with the press of a few buttons and when sharing blog posts you can easily upload the relevant pictures for that blog post.
There is of course also no messing around with SD cards and transferring files onto your laptop then uploading them from there. A smart phone really takes alot of the time out of the blogging process. There has also been a huge update recently to the Blogspot App and you can now literally write you blog on your phone now, upload the pictures and publish the blog post meaning if you wanted you could literally produce and manage all aspects of your blog from your smart phone.
The huge downside i have found though with just using a smart phone is when wanting to capture wildlife. On the bank i often see beautiful sights such a kingfishers in the tree opposite or a barn own hunting the the field next to me but with only a smart phone and no zoom it is impossible to capture these sights in any detail that is worth sharing, for me, this is the only downside of not using a dedicated camera for your blogging.
Iphone or Android???
Since i started writing this angling blog i have always done so using an iphone for my pictures and general day to day managing of the blog on social media and email. Over them years the phone has done me really proud. This year i decided on making the huge change over from Iphone to android, picking up a Samsung S7 Edge, it was for a number of reasons:
- Quality - The camera on the android phones at the moment is drastically better than the current iphone and although content on the blog is more important i did feel i was falling behind quality wise with the pictures. Straight away the extra quality was noticeable.
- Durability - Lets face it iphones are a fragile breed of phone. They do not like wind when recording video, they quickly break if any rain gets into the phone jack and if any dirt gets in the charging socket it quickly reduces the ability of the phone to charge correctly. In short they do not like the outdoors at all.
- My new Phone is water resistant to the point i can literally wash my phone after i have used it and even this yerar so far i have picked it up covering in ground bait and literally washed my phone.
- Storage - It was getting to the stage with my iphone where i was constantly deleting data to keep it below the 32gb limit and it was reducing my ability to record video and take photos. This new phone has up to 200gb expandable memory insert so hopefully running low on storage is thing of past.
So if you are thinking of starting to write a blog the smart phone in your hand is by far the best item to be using in my opinion.
G-CellDiscount Code FOr BLog followers
So in last weeks blog update we covevered the review of the GCELL solar back pack. The review has been really well recieved and as such the company got in touch to inform me they had opened up a discount code for followers of this blog. Simply enter DannyBellfield on checkout to get the discount. This product is worth every penny in my opinion and a fantastic product for anyone looking to travel lightweight with electrical devices they will want to charge, i can really see this being popular with lure anglers.
link to update: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/g-cell-solar-review-and-method-feeder.html
On to the Fishing...
Last Trip For a While To Cheshire Fisheries...
So the rumour was that this was the last weekend that keep nets where allowed on Cheshire Fisheries till the weather cooled back down again. Seeing the catch at the end of the session is one of the areas of fishing that i love. Whether that's a net of roach and bream on the can, a net of dace from a river or a net of carp and silvers from a commercial all give me that buzz when you see the result of your days fishing. I honestly would visit commercials a lot more if more allowed nets and there is no way im entering matches just for this privilege.
So the car loaded and i was again a man with a plan visiting this destination. I had two keep nets one for carp and one for silvers and the plan from the outset was to fish for silvers till 2pm and then move over to carp as the light faded. Armed with corn, a few pint of maggots and ground bait i was all set for a days fishing.
Arriving at the pools i had a walk round all the lakes and i was amazed to see how clear the pools where, they where so murky on the last trip, i noticed immediately that the carp seemed to be all at one end of the pool in a tight group. I knew this area attracted a few rowdy visitors during the day so i decided to give it a miss and setup on the other side of lake 5. A nice margin to my left and i knew i have a drop off around top four out in front or me.
I started out on double maggot and was getting a bite a chuck from silvers to the point when i chucked some bait in it was a like a frenzy of fish taking the3 maggots, whole hand fulls where being taken with none getting to the bottom. I spent a good two hours catching silvers and i forced myself to stop, had i continued i was sure a 100lb of silvers would have been the outcome there was so many fish in front of me.
The day was a really warm one and it felt wrong to continue on the silvers line, huge nets of silvers would be nice but that amount of fish in a keep net all day was certainly not a good thing and then there was the task at the end of weighing and photographing them on my own, it just was not worth it. At this point i weighted my net of silvers and my when you see a net of 42lb of fish in just over 2.5 hours you can see my point, silly fishing.
I decided on having a little bit of fun and with that i set up my 1.75lb shimano barbel rod, a centre pin loaded with 6lb line. The rig was simplicity itself a pole float down to a size 14 hook with a BB weight 3 inches from the hook. No need for a depth plummet here if the float sunk you where too shallow it made moving from swim to swim easy so off i went with a tin of corn, a net and an unhooking mat. A good spray of Stinky Stuff over the Corn in the bait tub and i was off on my way.
Walking the pools the fish where up in the water but moving around and i targeted a little gap that joined two waters on one of the pools. The carp moved through here regular and being only a narrow gap it was hard for them to miss the jewels of yellow corn on the bottom. I fed the swim for a bit and peeping over i could see tails up in the causing the small vortexes on the surface. I slowly lowered my smelly corn into the feeding fish and it was not long before the float zoomed under and the carbon in the rod had a healthy bend.
On relatively light gear and a centre pin it was great fun and with the warm sun on my back it was great fun playing the carp. The net slipped under the first i don't know whether it was the carp who had bit or me biting into a branch of angling i have done so little of.
During the next few hours or so i caught a few carp on the centrepin and corn combo and i also lost a few and was also left frustrated as carp moved in and ate everything but my hook bait!! I was exciting stuff and so visual to see the carp coming from a distance and then the excitement of seeing them stop as they picked up the scent and go down on the bait. Then the will they wont they scenario where all the time you can see the fish in the swim and your float is moving from side to side a sudden jolt under and your into another hard fishing carp, it was great fun and here is a few of the carp i caught, there where more but in the end you just don't take pictures.
Two hours before packing up time i decided to feed the margins of my peg to the left of me and in went a huge amount of ground bait, maggot and corn. I made up a rig and kept my eyes on the margins and all was quiet?? Strange i thought i was expecting instant action. For the next hour i fed the swim by bit but the carp where strangely absent.
I decided to again put a big pot of bait in and this time put it in form a height. It worked a treat and all of a sudden the swim was like carp soup with carp feeding hard in literally 6-10 inches of water! Was amazing to see. The action was fast and furious and in the next last hour the fishing went mad with carp bites coming thick and fast. Foul hooking was an issue but with so many in such shallow water i don't know that else i could do it was carnage.
The final net of car was 7 bars of gold and i must admit i was shattered.
What a days sport on the commercial, a place i will be back to for certain when they allow keep nets again and of course next year in the closed season. It wet my appetite for the carp fishing to come and doing the carp fishing i love to do, up close and personal travelling light and seeing the fish in the swim. Carp fishing my way and it was a great way to start the closed season campaign.
Till next time i wish you all
tight lines
Danny
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