Doubles Keep Coming and Bream Delight On River

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and you nets wet.  In life it surely is true that it is impossible to find balance in all aspects of life and boy is that a stage i am going through right now.  I normally split my life into three areas, homes life, fishing and work and you find that at no time or should i say for such a very short time are all three all going well at the same time.  Right now? i would say we are hitting the mark with two of them, in short work is as about as depressing as a job can get, new desk facing the beige wall i talked about in last weeks blog is lets just say not inspirational one bit.  It does serve one purpose though in making you really appreciate the other two aspects, walking out of work and home to the family it really increases that sense of excitement knowing your going home to a happy home and of course when fishing comes along at the end of the week, well lets just say i could not wait to feel that fresh air against my face on Saturday.

Situations like this do also focus the mind and as always i find solace and a sense of escapism from writing these weekly musings, however ironic it might be that most of them are wrote at beige HQ.  Speaking of the blog it really is going from strength to strength under its own steam and on social media it really is being well received with the blogs Twitter account now passing 2k followers and Facebook quickly closing in on 750 likes.  Where this long road of blogging will end god only knows but all i can say is thank you to all those who come back each week to read it and in a world where we have celebrity anglers pushing their sponsors products at anglers in the weekly repetitive mags maybe amateur bloggers portraying their fishing adventures will be where its at in the coming years.

On to this weeks blog update and its just the two trips in this update but when one of the sessions contains over 10 carp then there is going to plenty of pictures for those who just like to flick though the pictures on the blog. The second trip is a trip to a new part of the river searching out unfinished swims along over grown banks.

On to the fishing

A morning of doubles....

Travelling to the lake i had began to get a feel for where the carp would be and more importantly where to present my baits.  The shocking thing i was finding was how quiet the banks where.  Arriving at first light i never really had to worry about getting in a swim or the bread drifting and ruining someone else fishing.

On this session it was a period of warm weather and i knew, like most of my sessions for carp, it was going to be a short session but i hoped a for a fish or two.  The warmer weather i knew would see the fish come up into the layers a lot quicker than previous sessions where the mornings had been quite cool.

Arriving i was glad to see the ducks had moved on and i fed quite a bit of bread under my feet, in the snags and off them as well.  The thinking here was to quickly get the carp up in top and confidently feeding and then pick out the ones taking the bread confidently.  What i got truly shocked me as the carp where straight up on top and in good numbers. In went a piece of crust sprayed with Bubble Cream Stinky Stuff and I quickly picked up a nice double to kick off the session.

As i have said regular on these carp sessions it was all about fun for me on these sessions now hence the floating crust.  I also on this session decided to use my 1.75lb test curve barbel rod and as i said on the video the carp where taking off the top and it was not long till the carbon was bent again.

The second carp again falling to the bread sprayed with stinky stuff was another double at just under 14lb.

After this double a six other carp in single figures slipped up on the floating crust and it was clear the carp where up for it as all the carp where slurping down the crust.  The best of the carp a lovely marked fish below.

These carp i have never come across before in the sessions but i was grateful to have found them and what lovely markings.  You can imagine my excitement when i slid the net under my third double and 9th carp of the morning when it had similar markings, a lovely 11lb common.

Casting the bread right over the far side i got a take from a fish and it did not fight at all, it came in like a wet lettuce if i am honest.  It was a carp and a double figure one at that and it looked to have a lovely dark colour.  The fish on the bank was very calm and if i am honest weird for carp.  All the other carp had been a real battle on the mat but this one just lied there.  I gave the fish a quick look over but could see no obvious reason for it.

A quick pic and back she went.

This double was followed by three more smaller carp and it looked like the doubles had spooked off the area altogether.  I have noticed once the sun gets to a certain point in the sky the carp turn off.  I knew my time on the lake was almost coming to an end.  One more cast i thought and i knew to get a take it would be down to getting a carp that was sitting just under some overhanging trees to come out.

A peach of a cast, well a lucky cast, saw the bread land just on the edges of the leaves.  It was one of those takes where you don't see the bread get taken as all you see is line stripping along the surface of the water a quick lift of the rod and i was connected to another good carp that decided she wanted to go back to her home under the trees.

The rod was bent right over and with my hand on the reel giving no inch i managed to stop the initial run.  As soon as you stop that initial run the carp do seem to slowly move out into the lake and this is when you can really just enjoy the battle.  Taking line and making long surges with the reel ticking over it was a good fight and i was mad up to slip the net under the biggest carp of the session in a 15lb 10oz common.

All in all a great mornings fishing with 5 doubles on the bank and like the previous sessions i left to the sound of people arriving in their cars and the sight of carp all over the top basking.

Bream On The Stick...

It feels great again to be scouring Google Earth looking for new virgin waters to fish.  We have dedicated so much time to one area of river that we hit the same areas time and time again trying to work the river out, most of the time in the same swims just different conditions.  So this week it felt good to be zoomed in on the river and following her every twist and turn to find the deeper runs and then of course the dreaded task of finding a place "close" to park the fish mobile.

A bit of likely looking river found it was a case of parking the car and making the walk to the river.  Down the first field and into the second we where greeted with livestock, never my favourite sight i can tell you, but these where horses, a new animal to share a field with for me, they seemed ok.

In hindsight my green ground bait bucket did me no favours at all and i guess the smell of sweet ground bait that lingered around it also added to the attention i was getting.  Across the fields and along the river they followed till eventually we left our "friends" behind.  The river looked deep and had a gentle pace across its width with trees lining the far bank it screamed fish.  A nice gap between us both we set up full of expectation and this was heightened when a big carp jump clear of the water just down stream, i had no chance of landing such a prize but proved this area held fish.

Early trots down i clipped the bottom a few times and i guessed this was down to streamer weed on the bottom, this would be a problem all day.  Knowing we had caught bream on other bits of this river i decided to mix up a good amount of ground bait.  The first few trots down and eventually i started catching the odd small roach.

Once the line i was going to fish was established i made my move and in went 3 big balls of ground bait laced with maggot and hemp seed.  This is entirely new to me in i never normally feed ground bait on the river but it is a branch of the sport i am trying to learn.  The feeding of the bait is easy its getting the "mix" right and also how much to feed i need to master and i have to be honest when i fed the three balls i knew nothing as to if it would kill of make the swim.

The swim continued to produce the roach and the odd chublet till it died completely and i mean it was like a light switch going off.  I trotted through the swim time and time again for around 15-20 minutes and then all of a sudden the float buried and my 14ft drennan acolyte hooped round.  It felt a huge fish in the flow and it just held there for a moment before moving over to the far tree line.  Turned it then came into the middle again and then up came a huge bream.

I don't quite know how to put in words the fight of a bream i guess if you have ever caught one you will know where i am coming from.  They kind of twist and turn in the flow in a horrible erratic way and i did struggle to get the fish upstream but eventually she came up and into the net,  buzzing the ground bait had certainly worked its magic.

The fish in the net i was straight back in and you can imagine what was going through my head when on the very next cast the float buried again and i was playing another nice bream.

Two bream in two casts and i was at a cross roads with the swim, do i feed more ground bait or do i fish it out? I decided with two of the bream there that size that there surely could be more so in went another two balls of ground bait.  If i was going to learn it was going to have to be a case of suck it and see.  If i hadn't of fed again and not caught then i would have walked away thinking what if i had fed again, did they clear me out and move on?

The second trot down after feeding the ground bait i again hit another bream and my excitement levels hit the roof and i am not going to lie here thought of a huge net of bream where flying through my head.  I think rightly so as well with 3 proper bream in 3 casts who could blame me?

The third bream in the net i settled back in and weirdly i started picking up roach again and some nice chublets

Around 9am i felt this burning on the back of my neck as the sun came up over the trees and slowly it rose till it was completely on the water.  This was the kiss of death as both mine and my uncles swims completely died.  The beauty of two of you fishing is you know if its a predator or not as if your mate is catching nicely and you are not then you know something is not right but as soon as that sun hit the water it killed both swims dead.

We called it a day around 11am after two hours with no bites but we both left having fished a new area of river.  We both took away how important ground bait was going to be on the river and again how much this river will be impacted by hot clear days.

I felt i learnt a lot in feeding the ground bait and getting the mix right.  On top of that i think i learnt that i need to get the bream out of the swim as soon as possible as i think on that last bream it certainly flapped about alot right in the swim which could have spooked the shoal prematurely.

All in all a nice quiet day on the bank and good to get amongst the fish.

Till next time

tight lines

Danny 

Canal Session Broken Down and Knowlsey trip..

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Well as of writing this we are only a few days before the opening of the river season and if i am honest i have never been so un-prepared for the start, this hit me on Sunday and i decided to do something about it, more on that later. 

This weeks introduction See's me visiting Stapley Angling centre to stock up on gear. There is also a piece on a trip recently to Knowsley Safari Park with a few pictures and videos and we finish the introduction with a few pictures of a family that visited my peg during this weeks session on the canal.  The fishing this week is a session on the canal but blogged with a difference as i break the session down a little on how it went from hour to hour.

On the the Update..

Disappointing Trip To Stapley Angling Centre....

With the river season right upon us the realisation that i was totally unprepared hit me on Saturday night.  The forecast for the Sunday was for warm weather and a nice sunny day so a nice family trip out was the order of the day.  The plan was to head to Stapley Angling Centre then a nice hour with the kids on the Farm adjacent and then a nice drive back home with a surprise stop at Snugburrys Ice cream farm.

I have been making the long trip to Stapley Angling Centre two or three times a tear since it was situated back on its old site that included the Garden Centre.  When the shop moved location it actually knocked a good number of miles of the trip for me so it was great news and with the move the amount and depth of the tackle seemed to have moved with it.  Stapley has always been a place i love going to just because you can walk round at your own leisure and look in depth at tackle before you buy.  It was always a place i could guarantee i would get what i wanted for my trips and also have a good look at all the latest tackle.

Around 3 months ago i had a trip down to stapley for some bits and pieces for the rivers and was a little threw then by the lack of items on the shelves for the coarse angling side of things and i left with a few items missing from my shopping list, i thought nothing of it though.  The trip this week was a different matter, i had a list that was quite short, bayer perlon line for my hook lengths, greys clip lock bait box, drennan float fish line for my main line and a few stick floats.

Walking in and to the coarse section i quickly picked up my box but i was genuinely shocked at the little amount of tackle on the shelves.  The Guru stock was brimming and could not be faulted but every thing else left a lot to be desired.  There was one spool of float fish in 2lb breaking strain, no bayer perlon and one solitary stick float in a really light 4 number 4 pattern.  I grabbed the bait box and left.  Second trip there now where i have not got anywhere near what i wanted so this will be my last unless they have the bank holiday sales on, just not worth the long trip and risk of not getting what you need.

Knowsely Safari Trip....

I like to include as much form my life away form angling as possible in the blog and our yearly trips to Chester Zoo and Knowsley Safari Park offer a great opportunity for this.  Wildlife is a huge part of the reason why i love getting out on the bank and going fishing.  I of course go fishing to catch fish and admire the beauty of the fish as you get to see them up close but along the path of these journeys i get to also enjoy the other love i have with the outdoors and that's the wildlife.

There is a special offer on at the moment with the park where you only pay £10.00 per car if you go during the week.  A sneaky day off was booked and we made our way to the park.  I Have to say it was one of the best times we have been as it was quite quiet which meant we could spend a bit of time pulled over without having cars behind you waiting for you to move.  These three male lions where really active on the day and amazing to see so close.

The pride in the enclosure where also equally as active and thought nothing of coming right closer to the car!! Although the older heads knew better and just took it easy.

It was a day enjoyed by all and held so many happy memories with close encounters with rhino's, giraffes, camels and of course the adorable sea lions.  A great trip that all the family enjoyed including our little girl.

Early Visitors On The Canal

One of the things i love about getting out nice and early in the morning to go fishing is how you get to see things the rest of the world that is still asleep just misses out on.  When fishing the river out in the sticks it can be the sight of a fox or a badger scurrying home after a nights feeding or if you are really lucky a barn own.  Walking the fields normally in the dark you can always guarantee a halo of bats swooping around your head.  All these are part and parcel of my angling life. 

Saturday and whilst sat on the quiet and tranquil banks of the Bridgewater Canal i glanced to my left to see a beautiful sight of a pair of swans slowly working their way along the canal with their family of cygnets.  There was only me around at this silly hour so the birds made a beeline over to myself and i took the opportunity to down tools and enjoy their company.  They stayed around for half an hour before moving on up the canal in search of their early morning breakfast.

After the story a couple of weeks ago about the eggs of another pair being smashed this sight held so much more power.  Almost as nature was showing its defiance at these sick beings and saying look at us.  The sad part for me about the rivers opening is i generally move away from these waterways and don't see the family growing up week on week but who knows we may cross paths again when the pike season starts.

On to this weeks Fishing...

In Focus Session on the Bridgewater Canal....

3am - Wake up call - The alarm buzzing away in my ear was met with the groggy reacting it gets in the week until the realization set in it was the weekend and time to get out fishing.  Amazing how quickly and easily you get out of bed, showered and get a breakfast down you when its time to go fishing compared to a days work.

4.20am - Ready for the Off - The local Canal was my chosen venue so there was no rush at all in getting the gear into the car,  These
trips to the canal involve minimal packing with just a seat box, rod holdall and a net bad to put into the car it was all soon in and ready for the off although in typical fashion i got to the end of the road and remembered i had left my bait in the fridge!!  I always forget something at least this time i remembered before i got to the bottom of a farmers field.

4.40am - All set!! - As i said it was a local trip for me so in no time at all i was pulled up and unloading the gear from the car.  The birds in full song in the bushes behind me and the canal like a plane of glass it was a peaceful and beautiful time to be on the bank.  

Many people i work with are amazed about my love for peace and quiet as i am quite vocal in work but i really do work and live for these few hours of tranquility on the bank, pure bliss.


4.45am - The Bait Plan - The plan of attack for the session was a simple but i was hoping effective attack fishing Hemp and Castor on two lines.  One line would be at the bottom of the inside shelf and the other was at the base of the far bank margin shelf.  These areas have been where i have found the better fish in past trips and i was hoping today would be similar.  Recent trips had shown the tench had possibly moved on after spawning and nice shoals of roach bream hybrids had shoaled up in their absence.  I fed two cad pots of hemp and castor on both lines before starting to fish on the inside shelf line.

5am - Understanding Caster - It normally does not take to long to get the fish biting on the canal and i knew had i fished pinkie or maggot on the lines i would have certainly been into fish a lot earlier than the 15 minutes it took on castor.  The size of fish was nothing to shout home about but i knew they would come.  Castor is a bait that will pick out the better fish but only when they arrive, you have to see past the early exchanges with these fish, then hope the better fish you expect move in.


5,30am Better fish come - It took a while but eventually the better stamp of bream hybrids moved in,  There is no denying though it was hard going and taking a short break i remember replying to a post on the blogs facebook page stating it was slow going.

5.35am visitors - Not long after returning this fish i had the visit from the swans and their family and as mentioned above i spent a good half hour just enjoying having this family so close to me and admiring the beauty of these birds.  I firmly believe wildlife knows who hey can trust and there was no spitting or raised feathers at all from the parents and after they left i got back to the fishing.



6.30am - Pike... - Returning to the swim i fed a pit of bait on each line and again settled in on the inside line.  The inside line is a weird line on this section of canal as it does seem to die really quickly.  Its not a line that sustains a great number of fish and for a long time i have thought that pike are to blame.  Again on this session the fish where coming steady and then nothing and then the presence of a pike was confirmed to me, not by a pike attack but a look down at my keep net.  All the fish right up in the neck of the net, a sure sign a pike is about.

06.40am - Amazing - Not a touch on the inside line and fish up in the keep net i shipped out over my far bank line and instantly i was back into fish again.  Bringing the fish in over the top i expected a swirl at any minute.  The attack never did come all session but the pike was there for sure.  The far bank line had been rested for some time and the bites where steady on this line.  Not a bite a chuck but steady bites.

 8am - switching lines - The sun coming onto the water made the bites go really finicky and i spent the next hour moving form line to line picking up fish before moving over to the next one.  This rinse and repeat saw me putting a few fish together and the odd better skimmer. At this point i was expecting a big bream or tench to show every time to float went under as the swims where building up a nice bed of bait.

8.30am - Wind Wind Wind - The wind had been steadily building from around 7am, the odd ripple at first and then it had slowly built to a right hoolie.  The far shelf line was producing the better stamp of fish  but it was getting almost impossible to fish this line as each gust made it impossible to hold the pole against the wind without risking it snapping.

9.15am - Tough - The ever increasing wind which was swirling in all directions made presentation on the far bank line a real battle.  when the wind dropped the bite was instant but during the gusts it was hard work.  It made the fishing a chore and not enjoyable and in fact had me looking at the clock to see how close to 10am and wrapping up time it was.

10am - Great little Chat - Around 10am i had two anglers arrive at my peg both getting ready to start fishing.  These anglers where regulars on this stretch and it was great to share experiences with two anglers who fish here on a regular basis.  Our results had been similar barring a few differences and it was great to learn and share some information with two like minded anglers.

10.30am - Packing up time - The time came to pack in and see how much i had caught.  The net went just under 13lb of mainly bream and hybrids.  I had planned to write this one blog like this before i fished the session and i must admit it was a session where i picked up bites here and bites there which left the session with little structure to work on.  A bit of me wishes i had done this with the previous sessions where i moved lines and stayed on the final far out line.  I guess that is fishing though.

This weekend marks the last session before the opening of the river season so i am hoping to get out on Sunday for one more crack on the canal or local pond.  One day will be spent though sorting my gear out and giving it all a good clean and sort out ready for the season ahead.

To all the anglers out there venturing onto the banks of the river in the coming week its a huge tight lines and stay safe out there.

Danny

Pole Fishing the Bridgewater Canal and Monster Pond Perch

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  I have to say from the outset these past few weeks getting back on the canals has really saw me having a great time on the bank.  I am not currently fishing the old haunts i fished as a kid but just being on the canal has brought back so many memories for me and at the moment the only thing that is missing is the sight of the bark black and bronze flanks of a big canal bream breaking the surface.  Hopefully i will experience this before the rivers open again.

This weeks blog update introduction See's me giving my thoughts on the lack of kids fishing on the canals and ponds and my thoughts behind what is to blame.  As a result of that i will be covering all aspects of my approach to fishing canals in the coming weeks and we finish the introduction with a little on the pike review going live.   The fishing this weeks See's me fishing on a private pond called Curlston mere where the swim dies and for once i find out why and the second trips sees a morning session on the Bridge water that i hope shows anyone reading who is fed up with the rat race that goes with commercials that the canals are a live and well and are great places to fish.

on to the update..

Bite A Chuck But The Banks Are Barren....

It is safe to say we are living in the Golden era of fishing, never before have fish grown to such large proportions, never before have our rivers and waterways been so clear and unpolluted and never before have we had such a wealth of places to fish with commercials dotted all over mixed with the lakes, canals and rivers we are literally spoilt for choice. 

That is the good news story of the times we live in but i also feel we are living and witnessing the demise of old school fishing as we know all remember it.  I first started to feel like this when i was fishing on the banks of the River Dee and noticed that i was by far the youngest angler on the bank.  Many excuses not to fish rivers are presented from rivers being muddy and dirty uncomfortable to people saying walking endless fields and lugging their gear was not up their street.  That may well have been the case but the river i was fishing was the River Dee at Farndon where you can park your car at the back of your peg and you fish off sturdy relatively clean EA pegs so this kind of blows that out of the water.  The simple fact is that the art of trotting a float and fishing rivers is dying, not all over the country but certainly in the areas i fish.

At the time i thought it was just rivers that where quiet but the past few weeks fishing on the canal and local ponds has genuinely shocked me.  I would say i have been fishing 5-6 times on canals and ponds the past few weeks and i think i have seen 4 anglers in that time, not counting the same ones on different visits.  The fishing on all the trips has been steady with regular bites and some nice fish to boot yet on most trips i have not seen a single angler wetting a line.  I drive along miles of the canal to get to where i fish and pass it every day on my commute to work and see the empty banks.

As a kid growing up i remember the sights of 100-200 pegged matches on the canal and the local ponds where always a rate race to get their before your mates to get a peg.  I now think the canal and the local ponds sit below rivers in the pecking order.  Are we slowly losing canals and ponds as a place where young anglers are born and skills are learnt? I don't fish commercials regular but have there fish filled commercial ponds now become the place to go because you are guaranteed to catch something?  or is it that kids growing up are no longer in love with angling as we where as kids and we are facing a gap in years to come of new anglers coming through?  I am a Strong believer that if you can fish a canal you can fish anywhere as the refined skills you learn fishing a canal and feeding truly wild fish that don't need our baits to survive are being lost for the generic 5lb line to 4lb hook length attached to a pole and a pellet on the end fishing for a carp a chuck?.

It is also possible that with the rise in popularity of carp fishing that we are facing a scenario where dads have only ever carp fished so then their children are naturally shown carp fishing so you are left with anglers that may only know one way to fish.  Either way i hope the tables turn and the canals and ponds are discovered by youths its such a crying shame that the banks are so empty and i will be trying to include as much as i can about canal fishing in my blogs in the coming weeks to try and help as much as i can for people wanting to try it but now knowing how.

Where To Fish On A Canal...

Canals are very similar to rivers in the way that they can be quite long in length and location plays such an important key in catching fish.  When i am looking for places to fish on both rivers and canals i always start off at my computer screen with a A4 pad of paper and slowly work along the length of canal to find certain features and areas that require further investigation.

Initially i am looking for any type of features that provide cover for the fish such as reed beds, bridges supports that come across the canal and wides in the canal where the canal is naturally wider.  On google maps you can sometimes even see the stretch before you visit as you can view it from the street view where roads go over the canal or along side so Google Maps is the place where i start and pin point a few key areas.

While on the Internet its also worth doing some searches on the canal you are going to fish as you can guarantee someone will have posted some kind of report from a session on the Internet somewhere.  Don't always read these as gospel as they may be a few years old but use them as a pointer to what the canal can hold.  Another good avenue is to look for where the club that owns your canal fishing has matches and the type of weights that are winning them, chances are these people have fished matches for years and invariably hold matches in the good spots on the canal.

All said and done though there is no substitute for getting out there on the canal yourself and looking at the canal first hand.  Summer is a great time to get on the canal as in the blistering heat you can count on the fish to be up on top showing themselves and this is where you find out where on the canal your better fish like bream and carp are holding up as in the blistering heat you are bound to come across this sight.

Once you have a fair idea where the fish are make a note of the amount of boat traffic your canal has, blistering hot days are great for this as you see how many boats use the canal at peak time.  Most canals will have some form of boat traffic and you should never as an angler see these as totally bad as although the canals do pollute the waterways they also impart movement and colour into the water that the fish need to feed and also get used too.  The canal i fish on the Bridge water does have a bit of boat traffic so if this is the case you need to take this into account when picking a swim.

So you are stood there on the canal and it all looks the same and picking where to fish can be a hard task.  The boats on the canal will all normally follow a same line so what i look for in a swim is an area where i can feed away from this main boat line where i know my bait will not be disturbed.  I walked the local canal after work today and these are the features i would fish on one section of canal.

Up the side of the bridge will no doubt be shallow as no boats will have been able to go though there and as such the silt will have built up.  This area is a great area for fishing as you know any feed going over there will not be disturbed by the boats.  The stone work also offers a feature that species like roach and perch love. 

Reeds are fantastic areas of canal and the places i always head too as they offer you so many options.  Up the front of the reeds will be deep for you early line and up the ride of the reeds offers a line again where you can feed and not be disturbed by boats.  Reeds are naturally areas where fish come to spawn in the warmer months and the very nature of the reeds attracts all manner of insects and invertebrates which in turn attract the fish that feed on them a great natural area to find fish on a canal.

On this picture you can see the canal widens slightly, no boat is ever going to go over there naturally as it moves along the canal and any fish following the far bank wall will also be pushed into your swim as they move along.  Great places for bream but be careful as areas like this are also prime areas for boats to turn round and believe me some will think nothing of turning round in front of you.

As a rule i generally avoid turning circles, marinas, boat yards and ends of canals for this very reason as although boats generally do not effect the fishing a barge turning round pumping its engine turning really does ruin the fishing and can do for a good hour or so.

So that is location covered in the next blog we i will look at where at baits i use on the canal and preparing your ground bait.

Pike Season Review Goes Live

Finally before we get into the meat and potatoes of this update this week the content of the "First Pike Season" went live.  This page documents the whole pike season through all the months of autumn and Winter.  I have tried to explain the journey as i saw it and the lessons i learnt along the way.  It was a season where there was certainly more highs than lows and in reflection it will be a season i will never forget. What an adventure it was as fish from 2lb to nearly 22lb made an appearance.  A link to the page is at the top of the blog or can be found on the following link.

My First Pike Season

Please take a second the read the blog as it did take me some time to put it together and feel free to share it on your pages.

on with the Fishing..

Morning Session on Curlston Mere...

With a day booked off work and no commitments till the afternoon i decided to give the canal a rest and head off to a little slice of fishing heaven called Curlston mere.  Its a old pond situated on farmers land that we have been aloud to fish for a number of years after my uncle did some work on his farm.  The pond is proper old school pond fishing and it contains a decent number of silvers as well as some really old looking wild carp that when you get on the bank are like bars of buttery gold.

On a recent trip in early Jan i think it was myself and my uncle has a surprise capture of a very nice perch, we should not have been so surprised as the amount of roach fry in this venue is more than enough for such a predator to grown to a nice size.  My plan for the session was simply to fish maggot in the margin while feeding up a 11 metre line hoping to latch onto some of the big roach i knew can show on this venue.

Feeding pinkie on my inside line i was soon getting regular bites and plenty of activity to suggest a few fish in the swim.  The main of the fish where only small roach like the one below.

The swim was ticking over nicely with the odd small perch also starting to show and then like a light switch going off the swim died.  I moved over to the far line and picked up the odd fish on the drop but holding out 11 metres of pole is never fun when your not getting a bite so it was back onto the near line.  Not a knock for a good half hour not even a knock and i was on the verge of calling it a day and heading home to get ready for the jobs i had planned when the float shot under and instantly blue hydro elastic was oozing from the top of the pole.

The fish bolted for the safety of the snags but with carp being around i had been prepared and had my extra sections to hand.  Quickly adding sections i obviously thought carp as i dipped the tip under the water to increase the drag on the fish.  At this point i was convinced carp and then the fish stopped and turned and it was not the normal actions of the carp that keep going till you get over them.  Getting the fish in the edge i saw it was a big perch and not a fish i wanted to lose.  Straight away i was praying don't come off and thankfully i slid the net under the green flanks of an immaculate perch that went 2lb 5oz on the scales and the scary part was it was spawned out.

The fish turned the session around for me and i headed off home with the songs in the car playing loud i was buzzing.

Bridgewater Canal Fishing on the Pole..

Saturday saw me back on the banks of the Bridgewater canal looking for some steady action on the pole.  Knowing from previous sessions the amount of fish in the area there was no rush setting up i took my time getting my gear sorted and peg comfortable.  I knew where in the peg i would be feeding so before i set up my gear i fed two balls of ground bait and pinkie on my middle line and fired over some maggot on the far bank line.

With the peg fed and already accumulating fish on them i plumed up the swims.  I will go more into different tactics in coming blogs but on this session i set the float so the my number 10 dropper was just touching bottom.  The swims plumed up and each top kit to hand i began to fish over my middle line on a single pinkie.  The time 6am and straight away soon as i put in the float slid away as the fish moved onto the ground bait and pinkie.

When canal fishing you have to be realistic about the fish you are going to catch, 85% of your bites if you are fishing like i do for everything that swims of any size are going to be canal sized fish like this up to around 5-6oz although if the session goes to plan they will not make up that percentage of the final weight as the better fish on the sesison should be between 6oz to 2lb. 

The middle line i always feed with the pole pot mixing the pinkie in with the ground bait.  The canal being so deep this ensures all the bait gets to the bottom and reduces the risk of the fish moving up in the water as this can lead to problems with the swim.  The far bank line was still being fed by the catapult with loose offerings and no ground bait.

As the middle swim develops and you catch a few of the early fish that have moved in on the bait it does eventually attract other fish in and that species is normally the perch and it was not long till the first billy of the sesison made an appearance.

At 8am the bites on the middle line dried up, this often happens on the canal but in my experience it happens a lot quicker on this canal and i think it can be attributed to a number of things, either i am not getting my feeding right and I'm underestimating the head of fish down the middle and feeding too much, bigger fish are moving in and i am not giving them long enough to fall for my bait or finally and i think this is the real reason the swim is dying, Mr pike moving in.   The pike on the canal often sit down the marginal shelves and this activity of fish feeding surely would not be going ignored.

Waiting 1`0 minutes without a bite down the middle i knew the time to go over the far side was coming so i fed a large pouch of maggots and concentrated on trying to get a bite down the middle.  Eventually one came but it was a tiny tiny gudgeon and i knew there and then it was time to move and the skimmers or perch where not around.

Fishing every week of the year i have learnt the hard way that its always best to have a pike rod with you whether it be summer winter or fall as although we associate these fish with winter these fish can be very active all year round.  I had a feeling Mr pike was about so before i went over the far side i had a little try for a pike.  Knowing if one was in ambush it would not take long i only gave the bait 2-3 minutes over my middle line before i pulled out my far bank top kit, obviously Mr pike was not about.

Straight over the far bank on maggot the first bite was instant as the float fished over depth slid away and the elastic was showing that erratic action of the fight of a roach.  In my head i thought "well if my pike is about this might be it for this roach"  Thankfully no such brutality happened and my palm was graced with a silver anglers delight of a nice canal roach, i am sure there are better to be had but it was nice to see these around.

My confidence was up after this as i knew from experience that fish of a similar size on canals seem to shoal together.  It is very noticeable when you fish a swim from scratch, first of all the small fish are there and then once the better fish move in they all seem to be of a similar size.  This hunch was proven correct as a few plump roach followed this fish into the onion sack.

The early morning fishing down the middle is as much to keep myself occupied while this far bank line attracts fish as the far bank is where the better fish feel comfortable to feed with plenty of cover and away from any noise on the tow path so i knew this part of the session would be where my main weight would come from and after a hour or so fishing catching roach and the odd better skimmer i knew i was putting a few pound together.

I don't really feed in a tight pattern on my far bank line as i find with bigger fish like bream and roach its best to keep them spread over an area and set your float so its over depth at the back of the swim and dead depth closer in.  This way you can move all over the swim picking up bites and i don't think you spook the fish as much.  The skimmer above was picked up doing this as was a few of his brothers and sisters who were showing signs of getting ready for spawning.   These fish for me on the canal are certainly the bonus fish along with the big dark bronze bream but these can be very very hard to track down/

The session coming to a close a few better bream moved in amongst the fish and it literally was a bite a chuck.  The over cast conditions kept the fish feeding all morning and it was great fishing on the canal.

The time to call it a day came and i was literally gutted to pack in.  The final net went just under 12.5lb.

Well that it is for this weeks blog i hope you enjoyed reading it and if you have any questions around fishing canals or fishing in general or you want to share your canal fishing pictures feel free to contact me.

till next time

Tight lines

Danny

Maybe Maggots Was Not the Best Idea........

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update.  This week my mind has been switching on to the upcoming start to the traditional pike season which runs from 01st October through to march next year.  In all honesty my relationship with the pike started as a very young boy on the Bridgewater canal where i used to whittle away my afternoons after school whipping the water into a foam with a wide selection of shallow diving plugs, admittedly in those early days I spent more time casting around than catching but the successes I did have live on with me to this day.

I am not going to lie here, although it would be easier to and wax lyrical about my undying love for this species that has lay dormant for years, but the truth of the matter is that these early days taught me the basics of pike fishing like how to handle and work around the dentistry of a pike but it was not till a few years ago when I started river fishing and i began to brush shoulders with the big wild crocodiles that inhabit the river that i began to not only enjoy catching the fish but started to fall in love with their enigmatic personality and their fantastic colourings they have to be one of the most beautiful fish the live in our waters.

This year esox-lucious has crossed my path a few times that has allowed me an insight as to where there are good numbers of pike to be had and none more so than on the Bridgewater canal so apart from my river outings targeting this species i am also going to try and spend some time on the local canals and my aim is to target them with dead baits which again will be a whole new world of discovery or me and as some of you may have guessed over the years i am always trying to improve my angling knowledge and skill in all areas of this fantastic sport we all love.

This week there has been a few things that have taken me away form actually writing this weeks blog well one thing in fact GTA5 cough cough which has meant I am now writing my blog late on a Friday evening whilst now being distracted by Matt Hayes's new 24 hour rod race on Discovery Shed.  I had planned to talk about my plans for this upcoming weekends fishing but after just watching this programme i have got to say how impressed i was by the fact this programme was aired it must have taken a lot of guts for Matt Hayes to go ahead with allowing this programme to be aired given the fact the hour long show see's him struggling in freezing cold conditions with only a few small grayling to show for his efforts.

In these times where angling shows are full of fish after fish being landed making our sport look incredibly easy I think it is truly inspirational for one of the greats of our sport to show that along with all us normal everyday anglers the professionals still have days where they struggle, hats off to you Mr Hayes.  I do understand that this concept does not work week in week out but its great that this series shows a true representation of what the angling year is truly like for an all seasons all weather angler.

I am often asked for hints and tips for people wanting to start up writing a blog and for me personally writing a blog that is successful you have to have a love for the sport and be willing to put a lot of your own time into it as it really does take up a lot more time than you first think when you start writing one.  The blogs that capture me are always the ones that are updated regular whether the catch or blank as i feel more connected with the writer and the fact that when they do succeed me as a reader can fully appreciate the effort that has gone into catching that fish and this is something i always aim to achieve with my blog.

Finally before we get into this weeks fishing i visited Stapley Water gardens today (Sunday) to purchase some supplies for the upcoming season ahead, why not support your local tackle shop? well i do shop at the local tackle shop each week for my bait and bits and bobs but believe it or not one of my local tackle shops no longer supply size 20 hooks as there is no demand for them! So i decided rather than risking being caught short i went to stapley today where i can walk round and try things out, well needless to say i spent more than i intended but the basics where covered!

2 spools of 5lb Drennan Float fish line
1 spool of Bayer Perlon 2lb line
2 paternoster pike rigs
2 x Animal size 18 eyed hooks
4 x Animal size 20 eyed hooks
1 x number 8 weights
1 x number 10 weights
4 floats covering 8 no 4 to `10 no 4
3m landing net pole
and the purchase i did not go for a new Shakespeare reduced form 45.99 to 29.99 :-)

The above should see me through a few months fishing all that remains now is to sort out another bulk buy of hemp seed to see us through the winter and a few more wire traces for the piking and we are all set for the winter season to come.

on to this weeks fishing:

Maybe Maggots Was not the Best Idea...

With our usual haunt the River Dee very much out of sorts we where a bit stuck this week as to where to wet a line it was a real battle between our heads and hearts in a choice of two venues the River we night fished a few weeks ago or the sankey canal in Widnes.  In our heads we knew the sankey canal would see us catching a steady net of fish and no doubt consistently through out the day to boot but our in our hearts we both wanted to fish the river the only down side being the river we where thinking of fishing can be very hit or miss and could see us completely blanking all together. 

We decided to go with our hearts and two pints of maggot and a hemp was purchased but i also popped into my bag a few frozen sprats as last time we had seen a few jack pike patrolling the inside margin so the plan was if one of these turned up we would try and tempt them with a sprat using the sink and draw method.  

We set up in the deeper sections of the river that just screamed out chub and dace and had a good 40-50 yards between our pegs.  We settled down in our swims and i decided to go with my 17ft float rod over my smaller 13ft rod and this was just down the the fact i wanted as much control as possible and to be able to hold that float back hard over my bed of hemp seed this 17ft rod would cover at least half the river but would give me this much needed extra control over the line and float.  With the chance of a barbel and chub and not wanting to loose any fish i hooked i went with my main line all the way through instead of my usually 1lb 7oz hook length i normally use on the river. 

I kicked off the swim with a few good bait droppers full of hemp seed and maggot to make sure i had a decent amount of food on the bottom of the river and began trotting away fishing slightly over depth so the bait trickled along the river bed at a slower speed than the river, this was a method that has worked on this river before so i was confident it would catch me few fish.

The method worked all right and caught me endless amounts of fish the only problem being they were all small "barry minnalows" time and time again the float buried and on the end was one of these small fish.  When you look closely at a minnow its amazing to see just how colourful these fish are i have never really taken the time to take a close look at these smaller species of fish in our rivers they really are a nice looking fish and if they went to a couple of ounces i am sure you would struggle to find a more colourful species of fish swimming in our lakes and rivers. 

I was not too bothered by the minnows as i have fished the River Dane for a few years now and on there you can catch minnows for quite some time and then you will trot through a few times with nothing and you know that a group of chub have moved on so i was working on that principle on this river.  Three hours in and there was no let up on the constant stream of minnows and i was more shocked at not even getting a dace or a perch like i had last time the only consolation i had was if i was getting the minnows i knew i was going down on the same line as my bait and surely it was only a matter of time and with that same thought in my head i thought maybe giving the swim a rest might do the trick so i fed two more droppers of hemp and went to see how my uncle was faring. 

Settling down into my uncles peg with my flask of hot vimto in hand we discussed our predicament as he had experienced the same session as me apart from the fact he had caught a few dace.  It was during our chat we both saw a pike lying towards the bottom of my uncles keep net and then it literally rolled on top of his keep net, never seen a pike literally lying on top of a keep net before, i have seen the attacking the net trying to get at the fish but not just lying on the net, a quick movement from one of us saw the pike shoot off into the river even a jack like this could be the reason the fishing was so slow especially on such a narrow river.  We both decided to give it another hour in the swim before we would consider changing swims. 

Returning back along the path to my swim i glanced through the trees at my box and low and behold sat on my bait waiter as bold as brass was a young robin just helping himself to my box of maggots.  As i approached he nicked one last maggot and made a fast exit from the swim.  As i settled back into my swim this cheeky chap kept on nipping back to my side tray but could i get a picture could i hell as like!  I did manage though over the next hour to get this video of the cheeky chap.

The hour passed with little change so i quickly packed away my gear and got out my pike kit and one of the deadbaits and headed off to my uncles swim.  He had also not had any joy but did say the pike had been about again, he let his fish go and i had a quick 10 minutes trying for the pike, it took two casts to trick the little jack into taking and boy did he fight above his weight! finally on the bank he was a beautifully marked little jack and as you can see from the bottom picture even at this age he is more than equipped for the job of eating other fish.

We moved onto another swim and in this swim we could literally see each other fishing as we where only around 20 yards  apart.  My uncle got the ball rolling with a few grayling and dace and of course more minnows while i had around 10 minutes of catching minnows before i struck into something solid and like an electric shock up my arm i felt the fish kick and go hard for the roots of a tree it did not half wake me up as all morning i had been striking into no resistance so to be smacked round the face with something so solid really took me by surprise.  

i kept the rod low and dipped the tip under the water to reduce the chance of the fish snagging me on any roots and held firm putting my faith in my knots and the size 18 hook on the other end in these situations you have to give no quarter at all and only give line if you really don't feel your gear is going to hold.  The line and hook held and the fish moved slowly into the middle flow and i got a glimpse of a golden flank but not enough to show whether it was a barbel or a chub and with that the fish made another break for the tree roots which luckily i managed to halt and that run seemed to take the fight from the fish and a big pair of white rubber lips surfaced as the chub took a big breath of air and slip over the landing net! on a poor days fishing this was a result and i was made up. 

At a smidgen under 4lb it was not the biggest fish but more than welcome on a day like we had experienced and goes to show a few minutes in the right swim is work more than hours in the wrong one and with that i decided next time we fish this river i am going to be a lot more mobile and fish as many swims as i can during the day as the one swim approach just does not seem the way to go on this river.

Sunday: Rixton clay pits 7am till 12

This weekend i managed to get out on the bank on both Saturday and Sunday which has been unusual for me since the birth of out little girl because i always like to spend the Sunday with the family but this week was different as there was a short window on the Sunday for me to wet a line.

With only a few hours available in the morning i chose to fish rixton clay pits on the pole i fed a line straight out in front on maggot and a swim to the tree line margin to my right where i pinged over the odd few casters.  To be honest the action was slow and it was not till the last hour and a half the bream moved in and i caught the majority of the fish.  I think it was down to using maggot as i have experienced a few times on this water that pinkie can be what they want and they just don't settle on taking maggot and on reflection i am almost certain this was the case on this session as well.

The session was an enjoyable one none the less and it was great to get a few fish on the pole but the session really did fly by and it was time to pack up in no time what so ever.

till next week 

tight lines 

Danny

"Breaming" Smiles on the Sankey Canal

A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and I am proud to announce that myself and my uncle are now the proud new members of St Helens Angling Club.  This licence acquisition will see us gain access to some still waters but more importantly for us the association waters they have on the River Wyre, River Ribble and the River Severn.  We hope to at least visit all these waters during the next six months to get an idea of what potential these waters have and I cannot wait to make a start.  The purchase of this card will hopefully put me on waters where I can confidently target bigger species like barbel and chub with a realistic chance of picking up a decent fish either way, good or bad, I hope you continue to enjoy following us on this new part of our angling adventure.

In-keeping with the subject of rivers just where have those three months gone? It only seems like yesterday me and my uncle pulled out of the car park on the river Dee after catching a bumper net of dace, people say time flies bye but I have never known a closed season go by so fast, not that I am complaining of course.

The past week I have spent my time sorting my gear out ready for the river season ahead and there are going to be some distinct changes to my river setup this year.  Almere ferry was a popular haunt for me in the past few years it was good fishing and it didn’t involve much of a walk to the bank so in essence it was quite comfortable fishing on my seat box but this will change this year so I am planning to travel light and trot the river stood up so this week I have been separating my gear ready for our first session out to the river on Monday. Another big change is in the strength of line I am using, upgrading in strength from 3lb to 4lb 4oz and this is solely down to use venturing onto the River Ribble where we expect to make contact with chub as well as dace.

This week my mind has been occupied with the thought of that first trip out to the river and I must say in this age where the closed season validity is question I have to say I love the feeling that comes with that first trip to the river it truly is a magical feeling as you stand on the top of the bank and look down to the river it really is like bumping into an old friend.  I do hope this year is a lot kinder to the river man than last year when the constant rain saw the majority of our rivers in flood for most of the year and they never really settled to allow the colour to drop out of the river and allow us to put a decent net together with any regularity.  Ironically I say this as the patter of rain taps against my living room window, fingers and toes crossed the forecast heavy downpours don’t materialise.

Writing this blog not only allows me to share my fishing adventures with many people but allows me to have a detailed record of all my trips over the past 3 years and I have spent a bit of time this past week looking over a trips from the start of the river season, the venues we fished and the results from those trips to try and give me an idea where to start out.  When the season gets in full flow you easily forget some of the sessions you have had and looking back over the trips has gave me some great joy reminiscing about some of the special trips form the past few years, all happy times and I have picked out a few special trips to share on this update I hope you enjoy reading them.

Last year’s opening weekend: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/dad-glows-with-pb-river-mersey-bream.html

Pike session to remember:  http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/first-river-pike-session-one-to.html

One other thing I have been looking at this week that has really got my river juices flowing is this following Youtube video which shows Dave Harrell fishing for dace n the River Wye and I have to admit to watching this video more than once this week and no doubt I will probably be watching it again come Sunday evening.

 link to video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GPHPpENZmQ

On to this week’s trip to the bank,

Saturday 08^th June – “Bream”ing Smiles on the Sankey Canal

Getting the carp quest out of the way has given me the freedom to fall back into my favourite type of fishing and that is fishing ponds and canals for silver fish and one venue in particular has grabbed both mine and my uncles attention and that is the Sankey Canal in Widnes. 

I was brought up fishing my local Bridgewater Canal with my dad and was lucky enough to fish the Bridgewater canal in its hey-day when it held large shoals silver fish and a number of large shoals of bronze bream.  Back then it wasn’t unusual for matches to be held on the canal that were fished by a large number of anglers, a sight you just don’t seem to see anymore.  My uncle also living local to the canal fished it a lot and although I never fished with him back then just listening to the stories he tells of his experiences back then you know the canal was a special place on his heart.

As a kid I always remember fishing the “snatcher”, a small pole with no elastic that was fished really close in, for roach, perch and if you were lucky a big bronze bream.  The smell of Van Der Eynde Ground bait, mixed sloppy of course, stuck in your nostrils and it was always bronze maggot for bait and while my mum was busy shopping of a Saturday me and my dad would be on the canal fishing and I think the similarity of the Sankey Canal to the Bridgewater canal back then when we fished it is what has got me and my uncle hooked on this venue.

We have done three trips now to this venue in the past three weeks and each time we have tried a different area with varying depths, widths of canal and features to try and build a picture of what the different areas of this canal fishes like and this week we kept to that plan and headed to an area we had looked at the previous week but we knew it was a fair walk so again our trusty trolleys were put into action.

The walk along the canal was a joy as we crossed paths with a very protective but lovely family of swans and also shared the tow path with a few of this year’s young rabbits grabbing a last minute meal before the busy crowds arrive and it was already clear from the temperature and clear skies we were in for a scorching hot day. 

The pegs on the canal are numbered but many of the pegs are completely overgrown now so unless you cut in a new peg you are limited to the gaps in the near side marginal reeds, we found two gaps close together and began to set up of course it was the keep net that went in first, always optimistic.

The canal itself is at a guess around 16 metres wide so with a 13 metre pole fishing the far bank is never an option but I had a plan and it was to fish under my feet for the rudd and fish a line around 10 metres out straight down the middle of the canal hoping to pick up roach and skimmers with a secret hope of one of those big bronze bream that call this place home.

Bait for the session was bronze maggot fished over Dynamite Baits Silver x ground bait laced with pinkie with the odd bit of jolly green giant mixed in for good measure.   The rig was quite simple and like my river fishing I tend to stick to one float preferring to learn how one float fishes so you can read bites rather than having a separate float for each situation.  This is probably the wrong way to go about it but it is what works for me.

I started off on my 10 metre line and full of expectation I fed and shipped out and to be honest not a lot happened at all, the place was alive with fish topping all over but the float remained static in the swim, its tip dry as the grass along the banks of the canal.  My uncle also started off on the pole but was having the same luck as me and was first to make a change and set up a waggler on his splice tip rod.

He was instantly into a steady stream of rudd and roach from small ounce fish to the odd bonus fish around 8-10oz.   I was unsure what to do but decided to fish just off the reeds to my left for the shoals of rudd I could see passing bye in front of peg taking small flies off the surface.   The fish were not of any size but I did connect with one really nice rudd that made the effort of ploughing through the smaller rudd worthwhile.

My uncle was finding the bites drying up the further he came off the reeds but instead of recasting and catching the predictable small rudd he left the line to fish and in bared fruit in the first bronze bream of the session and what am impressive fish these bream are, a joy to witness on the bank.

It hit the scales at just under 5lb, not bad for a canal.

The session plodded along nicely with both myself and my uncle picking up fish regular and building up a nice net of fish.  Moving into the last hour or so of the session my uncle moved over onto his pole line and began picking up some really nice roach so I decided to go back in on my pole line and picked up the odd roach but the swim was really quiet and it turned out with good reason as the float lifted slightly and I struck into a decent bream.  The bream in this canal are not like your normal wet lettuce fish you catch elsewhere they do put up a fair scrap and it felt great playing the bream on my blue hydro elastic.

I was over the moon with this capture as it topped off what had been a hard session to that point it is amazing how a bonus fish like that can change your perspective on a session so you can imagine my reaction when next put in the float again sailed away and I was into another bream that felt in the same league as the previous one. 

After this bream the roach and rudd moved back in a claimed the area as their own and I picked up a few smaller fish to round of the session for myself and I was just on the phone to home when my uncle placed a bit far cherry on top of the cake for this session as he landed the biggest bream of the session and what a beauty of a bream it was as well.

This bream marked the end of the session for us and we began to take the pictures of the nets and give them a good half hour to thoroughly dry out, as we all know the smell of a canal keep net is hard to remove! Covered in bream slime we had a slow pack away and made the long walk back to the car.

My net

 Uncle net

The canal has been really nice to us and I am sure on the right day it could produce a really big net of fish.  On the day the skimmer bream did not show up at all in our nets which was a surprise but given the temperature they might have been taking this opportunity to spawn.

The loss of Almere Ferry on the Warrington card will leave a big void in our fishing as it was a good place to go when the river was flooded so I can see us looking to this canal this year for those sessions when we find the rivers unfishable and I am sure it will be getting a few visits in the winter for the pike that must inhabit this fish filled canal.  It is great to see a “natural” waterway so close to a river that is home to many cormorants doing well as we hear so many stories of the damage being done by the avian predators but it looks like there are pockets of water in the North West still thriving and it great to see.

Till next time I leave you with this picture of me and my daughter spending some father and daughter time watching catching the impossible, her apprenticeship continues J

Tight lines

Danny