This past week has got to go down as one of the worst weeks I can remember in work with us all being informed we would have to re-apply for our jobs as the company looks to reduce the numbers by around
thirty staff. The upside of this is that the ones not selected will be relocated to other offices in the local area which is not ideal but its still better than being unemployed.
When I was asked about what I thought about it all and what I was going to do I just said to them my best advise was to put the following song on full belt in the car on the way home and get themselves to the local tackle shop and get themselves out on the river bank as there is no better way to forget your troubles than a day on the bank.
And now we are all chilled out and a brighter look on things its onto this weeks fishing........
Wednesday 17th August
With the bad news on Wednesday afternoon came the good as an opportunity to get away from it all for a few hours as I received a text from my uncle confirming his mate was still going fishing that evening to a local pond. I had initially intended on dropping in on him to see how he was getting on but that soon changed to me stopping off on the way home for a tin of the jolly green giant. A quick run in the house to pick up my holdall and I was on my way.
The venue was a small pond that backed onto the one mentioned in this previous blog update http://satonmyperch.blogspot.com/2011/07/rudd-barbel-and-really-ugly.html and although the two ponds basically touch the back pond was still a mystery to us as it lacked any of the signs of life the adjacent pond did although two really big carp had been sighted in this back pond and passing dog walkers and fishermen had also commented that it held a lot of tench, tonight's trip would give an answer if rumours where true....
I arrived at the pond around 5pm and passed two anglers on the first pond catching a fish a chuck and I was tempted to set up shop on the one free peg that was left but resisted the urge and continued on to the other pond where I found Curly already set up and introducing some freebies into his swim. I set up along side him and with the pond not looking to hold a great deal of fish I baited up with just a few grains of corn and was basically fishing for one bite.
For the next hour and a half we both sat there full of optimism but it was becoming quite clear what little head of fish in this pond there was where feeding after dark as the water was so clear and with not a single sign of fish movement we moved onto the first pond.
The time wasted on the other pond meant it was getting on for 7.30pm when we finally got set up on the first pool and again it was a few grains of corn fished tight to the reeds in the hope for a tench or a nice roach. The pool, to look at, looks like nothing more than a deep puddle but its looks are deceiving as it has depths of up to 7ft just off the reeds in the picture shown above. With depths like that its no wonder it holds so many large roach and rudd and I would not be surprised if it also holds some crewies as well as the small tench.
For the next hour Curly caught roach and rudd steadily on maggot while I only had the small tench shown above to show for my time but what a great laugh we had in the process and really took my mind of the day events. The one other thing this night highlighted to me was how the nights are drawing in it was dark by 8.45pm.
Saturday 20th August
With work finished for the week and a crucial demolition victory in my pool game after work I headed off to the bait shop and this week decided to purchase a decent amount of bait.
1 Tin of hemp seed
2 pints of maggot
1/2 pint of casters.
With the bait bought we were all set for a days trotting on the River Dee and having spent a lot of time in the week on Google earth scouting out new areas to target the venue was also set in stone and what was even better was the new venue was completely free fishing.
We arrived under the cover of darkness as normal but the venue was a fair walk from where we parked the car up and as you can see from the picture above it was already light when we arrived at our chosen swims. Our first glance at the river was one I wont forget in a while with so many colours in the sky a vivid mixture of purples, pinks and lilac's reflected on the rivers silky surface it was a real privilege to have experienced such a gracious morning and to think with the rivers being so empty a scene not many people get to see.
We quickly set up and from the off the fishing was first class with dace coming thick and fast on caster and maggot trotted down the swim. The swims we chose where both of an even depth and the flow was just a bit quicker than walking pace.
The only noise you could hear all morning apart from the resident buzzards calling to each other was the unmistakable noise of anglers striking as the float shot under on each trot down the swim. All the practising over the previous weeks was all coming together and I was getting bite after bite just by holding the float back over my bed of hemp and swapping and changing between caster and maggot kept the bites coming all morning.
The thing I liked about this stretch is you could all easily see each other and all three of us where on top form with the banter being right up there with previous trips. Around 9am I decided to take a few minutes out as I had just been snapped on a snag at the bottom of the swim and made my way up to my uncles swim for a cup of coffee, on the way I managed to capture this brightly coloured butterfly fluttering from thistle to thistle.
I got a quick snap of the butterfly and left him to get on his way and made my way to my uncles peg and he was full of good things to say about the new stretch we had found and was for want of a better word "wonging" the fish out one after another.
I arrived back in my peg just in the nick of time as no sooner had I started trotting down again I heard something rather large approaching the top of the bank I just prayed it wasn't the bull we had passed earlier on in the morning as he didn't look to inviting!!.
A slow glance over my shoulder revealed it to be the Bull!!
Thankfully my greatest fears of the bull coming down the bank where not made into reality and the big fella carried on along the bank and joined the herd.
The fishing by now was going from strength to strength and as more bait went in the better fished started to show up and like always the first fish to come to the net was a greedy trout.
The trout, although I did not weigh it was looking back a new personal best for the blog and just to show how greedy they are, looking down its throat I could see no less than 30-40 crushed up maggots. The nature of my swim meant that there was always going to be more chance of me getting a mixed bag of fish and with fast water not to far below me it was not long before the lady of the stream made an appearance.
The lady of the stream, the grayling:
As grayling give their all in the fight its never just a cast of dropping this lovely fish into the keep net as you would a dace, time must be taken to hold the fish in the margin in the landing net to make sure the fish has fully recovered before placing it in your keep net.
The fishing did have a brief barren spell when the sun came out for around half an hour but that gave us all time to get our rigs sorted and some bait down ready for when the action picked up and almost as soon as the cloud cover closed back in the action picked up and the first fish to signal the start of this action was another greedy trout.
For a brief second I thought the fish was a sea trout due to how silver the fish looked in the light but I'm sure now looking at the picture its a normal brown trout, the markings around the head giving it away. The fishing from then on in was solid wall to wall dace and we both enjoyed the best day on the River Dee so far this season and like all good days it was over all to soon!!!
First to take their net out was my uncle and I knew he had a decent weight in there going on the amount I had seen him catch alone and what a bag of fish just under 14lb, that bag along would have done us both proud.
video of my uncles bag of fish:
Next up was me and although I thought I had done well I was shocked by just how well I had done:
Video of my bag of fish:
A combined weight of over 25lb of fish and we fished from around 5.45 till 2pm and where both still catching as the time come to pack in, I can only imagine what the net would have looked like had we stayed and had enough bait to fish all day.
On the way back to the car we came across a rather gruesome sight on the field and certainly goes to prove the old farmers saying of where there's livestock there's dead stock.
No wonder the buzzards where calling all morning.
This place is certainly a venue we will be visiting again and I should think in the not to distant future, it is a bit of a hike to the pegs but its worth it for a days fishing like that and goes to show if you put the time in before you go sometimes you strike lucky as we did on Saturday.
Sunday 21st August
Sunday saw me visiting Flushing Meadows fishery and from a blog point a view turned out to be a disaster as after recording me playing a fish in the pole I put my phone down and left it running and in the end recorded a full 30 minutes of the sky lol, this completely killed my battery on my phone.
I ended up with a total of 4 carp of which I got pictures of three of them. I took the remainder of the maggots I had left from Saturday and if silver fishing if your thing get yourself down there as the place is stuffed with roach, rudd and skimmers, you could literally catch them all day long if you wanted too.
Below are the pictures of the carp I managed to capture on my camera:
All the fish where taken on 5-6 maggots on the hook fished over a large pot of maggots each put in and a heavy bulk shot to get my bait through the ravenous rudd. Flushing meadows I can see not being every one's cup of tea with there being so many silver fish present but I love the place and come winter when the rivers are in flood I will be making a visit here to sample to winter silvers fishing.
Till next week one very happy angler wishing you all,
tight lines
Danny
