Pike, Dace and the closed season chase.....

This week the end of the river season has played heavy on my mind and also what targets I want to set myself for the three months the rivers are closed.  I wanted my targets to be achievable and not too taxing as for the fishing to remain enjoying and also I wanted to set myself targets that I see as achievable based on the waters we will be visiting.

It would have been very easy for me to write on here dream targets like catching 250lb of fish in one session or a 30lb plus carp but in reality, given the type of fishing I will be doing these targets are not going to be realistically achievable. 

The targets I have set myself for the closed season are as follows:

1)      A 10lb+ carp:  Venues I will be targeting this fish include cicily mill and rixton as I know both hold a fair amount of these fish over that weight, hopefully luck will be on my side when I visit and I will manage to get one if not I am sure going to have a good time trying.

2)      100lb of carp from Flushing meadows: the venue speaks for itself and I had many good days on here last year but I feel a lot of them lacked direction and I hope this target will help me have more of a purpose when I visit there. No keep nets allowed so I will have to weigh each fish individually and I think this one may be the hardest challenge to achieve.

3)      To try at least one new commercial venue this summer, after breaking my commercial duck last year I want to see what others hold and if they differ much from flushing meadows.

All of the targets above are going to be thought of a side quests to my summer fishing like the 10lb+ pike was on my winter river campaign and at times throughout the summer I will be actively trying to achieve them and if I achieve either of 1 or 2 I will be a happy man indeed.  Until then we have 2 more weeks on the river to look forward too and this week there was only one place you were going to find me and that was on the banks of the River Dee and I would also like to take this opportunity to say again what great reception this blog has received on the bank again this week with two more people approaching me who follow the blog and I hope both did well in their pending river match and their quest for a bin lid bream respectively.

On to this week’s update:

The river this week had an air of change about it and I think the above picture shows it perfectly as the trees bear all the signs of winter being devoid of leaves and bare while the sky behind them is bright blue with a few wisps of white cloud and the changes where all around me on Saturday from the warm breeze to the rough scales of the dace preparing to begin spawning all the changes where all there and the feeling we are slowly moving out of winter was very apparent.

I set up in the same swim as I had last week hoping that the big pike I had been dreaming about all week was waiting for me to catch her and I hastily began to prepare my peg in preparation for mornings trotting and an afternoon hoping for another beautifully marked pike to find my bait. 

When the first rays of light became strong enough for me to see my 6no4 float as I plumed the swim I knew it was nearly time to make that magical first cast of a new session and in the early morning dim light of a new dawn I strained my eyes as my float trundled its way down the swim and I connected with my first dace of the day on my first trot down, always a good sign.

One thing that became very apparent with the increased light was just how much the river had dropped since our last visit a week ago with the level being at least a metre down.  The low conditions meant a trot that last week was medium paced and relatively deep was now quite shallow but amazingly had held the same medium pace it and I wasn’t surprised at all to see the dace where still around. 

I had caught around five or six dace when, as I was lifting a dace out, a big swirl appeared below the fish and I knew in that instance there was a pike around and it was feeding so I quickly grabbed for my pike rod and introduced a bait that just had to entice the pike back as it bobbed and dipped around the swim.  After around five minutes the bait shot into the crystal clear margins at my feet and just behind it a saw a big dark shadow corralling the bait in the edge before in the blink of an eye shooting in and engulfing the bait and showing its true size as it roared off into the middle of the river.

The fight went on for around 5 minutes and the fish was beat and ready to be netted and looked bigger than the 13lb fish from last week but in one final flip it threw the hooks and was gone and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed at such a fish getting away but you have to remember back to the previous week when none of the four escaped capture so I suppose I was due one of them throwing the hooks.

I returned back to my trotting and continued to pick fish up all day sometimes the fishing was one a chuck and others I had to work hard for the bites feathering the bait down the swim almost trying to drop the bait in the dace’s mouth and what again was amazing to see was the diversity in the size of the dace with all year sizes being caught.

By 2pm I had put together a decent bag of dace and I was more than happy with my efforts and decided to weigh my bag of fish and I was again surprised that I had amounted over 10lb of fish again and although it is becoming a regular occurrence now on my days on the river I have to take a moment sometimes and think just how happy I would have been with this bag a year or so ago, it would have been a bag of fish I could only have dreamed of catching and now I had amassed  it with two and a half hours to spare.

After weighing the fish I decided to turn my attention to the part of the day I had been looking forward to all week and that was chasing the impeccably marked pike that reside in the river Dee.  The instant action I had experienced earlier on in the day in the swim was not matched in the afternoon and I spent a barren hour and a half trying to entice a pike from my trotting swim.

I decided to join my dad and uncle in there swim where my dad was picking up some nice dace on the tip and my uncle was, as it’s the norm now, bagging up and making it all look very easy!!

While I was there I thought it would be wrong of me not to drop a bait in next to a sunken tree and I sat back and had a great time fishing with my dad and uncle and I must say the past few weeks my dad hasn’t been coming with us I have missed him being there and it was great to have him back on the bank.

Just when It was approaching the time where you think its not going to happen the float disappeared under and I struck into a pike that although wasn’t in the same league as the morning fish still put up a stink of a fight and had me feathering the clutch as to not let the fish make it to the tree to my right.  Thankfully unlike the morning pike there was no such hook pull and my dad assisted in landing the pike and it was time for its picture to be taken, weighing in at 8lb 4oz it was a decent pike with exquisite markings.

All that was left to do after returning this fish was to try a few swims vacated by the other anglers which didn’t produce and more takes and weigh and picture my uncles net of fish which again was an impressive net of fish weighing in 14lb 14oz and a net to be proud of.

We all thoroughly enjoyed out day on the bank and with only weekend to go now till the close I am determined to get on the river Dane for one last session and the Dee so fingers crossed for a good week weather wise and hopefully next week will see us giving the river a proper send off.

Till next time

I wish you all tight lines

danny 

Severn Blues Blown Away on the Dee

 Last weekend we all endured at very disheartening day on the River Severn, the river was in perfect nick and the swim a trotting dream and just screamed fish. The big chub aside we caught around 7 small dace and gudgeon between us which in my eyes says that something was not right at all with the River.  This week the inquest began into the reasons behind this and amongst the numerous reports of the river fishing really bad at the moment was a reoccurring comment about otters being active in that area of the Severn system and how much they have devastated the small fish population and in some cases wiped out fish stocks on once prolific stretches, no wonder the big fish only came onto the feed under the cover of darkness.

There have been numerous reports of otters on the river Dee system and I myself have witnessed what looked like an otter on one of the River Dee’s tributaries a year or so ago and at the time I was honoured to have seen such a beautiful animal but with the amount of pressure our fish are already under on the Dee from cormorants, mink and illegal netting of fish, could these already pressured fish take yet another predator in the food chain? Only time will tell. A recent survey that was done found that otters now populate every county in the country so it would seem this animal are here to stay if us anglers like it or not but I will reserve my judgement till I experience there level of predation and effects on a fish population for myself.

  I have recently moved desks in work and have been fortunate enough to now have a window seat, good for me to wish my days away till my next fishing trip but bad for my work output levels!!.  Last week I watched as clear blue skies and ice cold mornings passed us by, wishing only to be on the banks wetting a line on such a perfect morning but alas it was not meant to be and I would have to wait till the weekend for my turn to be on the bank.  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all came and went and the view out of my window hadn’t changed at all, still perfect and calm and I couldn’t wait for Saturday morning to come, all that was left was Friday to get through and I would be there re-enacting the fishing I had done all week in my head as I day dreamed out of the window.

  Friday morning came with a bang as I walked out of the front door to be met with a howling ice cold wind and heavy rain.  The rain and cold presented no problem to myself as you can always layer yourself up against the cold and it was going to take rain of biblical proportions to flood the river to a point where it was not fishable in one day but it was the wind that I knew would present the biggest problem as the next day we were due to go the River Dee trotting, my heart sank a bit as the weatherman confirmed my biggest fears as on the radio he uttered the words “windy today but gale force winds of up to 50mph are due to sweep the north west all weekend” Disaster for our fishing trip to the Dee but being far from a fair weather fishermen we wasn’t going to let it stop us trying to winkle out a few fish!!!

  Friday night and the air in my house was heavy with the pungent smell of hemp seed cooking on the stove and how weird that although I have only started to prepare my own hemp for a few months it has become a smell that already conjures up an excitement inside that you know tomorrow you are going fishing, with me its almost as if it kicks me into a fishing mindset and no matter how tired I am from my week in work I find the energy from somewhere to get those little jobs like re spooling my reel and making some hook lengths that save me so much time the next day on the bank done.

  One good thing with winter fishing is it doesn’t get light till gone 7am now so you can actually get a decent nights sleep before having to get up to go fishing as in summer a lot of the time it seems to be pointless actually going to bed as our fishing meet up time in summer is usually 3am so most times I just stay awake but now those extra few hours in bed really are not only welcome but essential to making sure you are keeping you concentration levels high during the whole day o the bank.

  Saturday morning and my slumber was interrupted by the dull monotonous thudding sound of my alarm clock going off, a quick rise of my head revealed to time to be a insane 4am, my toes retracting back under the warmth of the blanket told me the over night temperature had dropped considerably, had this been a work day it would have been a struggle to be enthusiastic about getting out of bed but today was far from a work day, today was Saturday morning and isn’t it amazing how easy it is to get out of bed on a weekend or maybe I need a new job lol.

  The hard work had all been done last night with regards bait and rig preparation and all I had left to do with regards preparation was to make the essential flask of coffee and make sure I had enough layers on to keep out the icy cold wind that was now howling through the ally way at the back of my house almost like it was telling me not to be so stupid and get back to bed, my dad of course has no intentions of making such a silly decision as to go fishing on such an appalling day and shook his head as I loaded up the car and set off on my way to my uncles who was also joining me for a day on the bank, who ever said anglers are mad was well and truly having their point proven by us two today, if only they knew what they where missing eh.

  Arriving at my uncles we discussed where we should head and we settled on the idea of fishing a large ox-bow in the river Dee hoping that at least one of the stretches would be sheltered from the wind and if not there was a multitude of stretches we could fall back on if this wasn’t the case and after chewing the fat on all things fishing we set off into the night.  We arrived at our destination and decided to walk the stretch first before we unloaded the car and what a wise decision this was as although where the car was parked was really calm the second field where we was due to fish was taking a real battering from the wind blowing off the welsh mountains and after checking all the swims we decided to take the short drive to Farndon to see if the cliffs there where offering any shelter to the wind but we knew no matter where we fished today we where in for a tough day on the float.

 Arriving at Farndon at 7.30am to an empty car park on a weekend in the middle of November is practically unheard of and I was totally shocked as I turned into the carp park, maybe the weather had seen a few of them off but still dint expect an empty car park.  The stretch here was a hundred times calmer than our previous destination when we arrived and we wasted no time in choosing our swims and getting set up as it was already light when we had arrived.  As we were setting up the wind began to build a bit and I began to question my decision to fish such an open swim but I knew from experience if the fish where here I wouldn’t have to trot far down to get them.

  

  The clock within the church across the river in Holt chimed to signal it was 8oclock just as I was making my first cast and for the first hour of the day it wasn’t too bad the float was going down nicely but already we were getting the odd big gust of wind that would see you turning round to make sure everything was still where you left it and not floating in the river.  The best fish early on was this nice roach shown below.

                                    

   The morning was a real blustery affair and one of the toughest on the Dee so far with really prolonged spells of strong wind blowing upstream so much so at some points my rod tip was bent round and facing upstream while my float trotted down steam which made striking very difficult.  The other major problem I faced was getting my bait out and accurate bait placement could only be achieved in the gaps in the wind.  Below is a picture and a video of the swim I fished if you look closely through the arches on the bridge you can see how bad the weather was below the bridge.

                 

  The morning continued to be on and off with bite coming and going and the fish never really got going on the bait heads.  My uncle was fishing the peg above me and around noon the scheduled high spring tide hit and the water began to rise and rise and rise so much so my uncle had to move up the steps, on the picture below you can see the extent of the rise in level as the water was well below the bottom peg when the session started and on this picture it was fully submerged.

  From a fishing point of view the rise really changed the session as it got the roach really feeding and for the whole of the afternoon we bagged up on dace and roach and as the match finished on the other bank at 3pm we continued to fish on through and the last hour and a quarter saw some really top quality roach move into the swim, the best of the bunch is shown below.

  At the end of the session and in the early evening sunlight we got together to compare bags of fish, my uncle had done a lot better than he had anticipated as the rising water took all of the movement out of the peg and made it hard work, whereas the extra water in my peg really got the trot going and the roach on the feed and I ended with a total bag on 12lb 2oz a cracking result on the bank and I can only imagine what weight it would have been had I been able to present a bait well all day.

Uncles net:

My net of fish:

Video of my bag:

  Special thanks again go to my uncle as without his help this year I would not have got anywhere near two pound of fish from the dee never mind 12lb of roach and would just like to say a public thank you to him.  I am on strike this week on Wednesday so there may be a midweek session but that depends on if anything comes up but next weekend we are looking to get on the stretch we had earmarked for this weekends trip.

till next week

tight lines

Danny

Winds of change blow hard on the Dee......

  Driving along the dark country road towards the river Dee my head clogged with the memories of last week and the delights that lay in front of me, talk along the way from my dad and uncle of past trips to the Dee in years gone bye in the pursuit of monster of the deep only fueled my imagination as in my mind the day would pay out like I had dreamed in the week.  The swim would be the same as last week and the fish where as ravenous as ever, crawling up the line and into the keep net, today just had to be another dream session on the Dee.

  The headlights cut through the dark country lane illuminating my path to the river bank and before I knew it we where pulling into the car park and the lights slowly lit up the pegs only for the pegs from last week to be taken and a pike angler bivvy'd up on the peg I was on last week!! my midweek dreams up in smoke in split second but not to be dismayed we knew that the whole stretch was fishing well and we set up on some of the more less fancied pegs.

  With the days getting shorter every day travelling to our destinations during the hours of darkness is essential and will become even more so the deeper we get into winter.  With that in mind I decided to purchase a decent torch for setting up in our chosen pegs as soon as we arrive and as others waited it out in their cars for the first rays of dawn to break through we where busy setting up our pegs and the torch was even enough for us to thread up out rods in its glow, by day break we where all set to cast in.

  The forecast for the day ahead was for some small showers and moderate winds and for once the weatherman was correct.  The swim I chose was the same one as two weeks ago and I knew from that trip their was a bad snag further down the swim so today I would have to try and get the fish where I wanted them and I knew from past experience this can be a all or nothing tactic and I set myself a target of twenty fish.  Sometimes you have to be realistic about the swim your fishing and accept you can only catch what is there in front of you on that day and with that in mind I began to lay my trap of hemp.

  The swim I chose shown above has a tree upstream and a overhanging tree downstream and the flow can be reached quite easily around two rod lengths out but that line was out of the question today due to the snag downstream and the wind which was blowing into my face.  The church in the distance not only beautiful to look at also serves as a reminder of the time and really doesn't help you judge if you are overfeeding or not putting enough bait in.  As you can see on the far bank the cold weather of the past week has already began to claim its first victims of the year with a lot of the bank vegetation turning a dead brown, roll on the first frost which will open up the swims further and make viewing your float a lot easier as it travels downstream.

Vegetation dying back:

  As I said earlier the wind can be a real problem on the river when trotting and can really be the kiss of death and the only way you know how each stretch will be in certain conditions is to get out there on the bank for example I knew from experience that the "bull stretch" would be a no go on Saturday due to how open and exposed it is to the elements and although the river level was spot on for that particular stretch the wind there would be really blowing downstream and would make trotting impossible.  The other side of the coin is we knew the stretch we had chose to travel too would be calm in comparison due to the high rock formations behind the pegs which shelter it from the worst of the wind and although not ideal at least here the wind was manageable.

Protection from the wind:

  After the success of last week on castor's I decided this week to go with an all out castor approach and purchased a pint of castor instead of my usual half pint and only took along a pint of maggot in case they were not having it on castor.  The swim was slow to begin with and it took a while for the fish to start coming with any regularity but what I was catching was a lot of very fat gudgeon, one after another and being an all round angler as long as that floats going under I am a happy man.

Plump Gudgeon 

The gudgeon seemed to be holding a line closer to the bank in the slacker water and every now and again the wind would subside and the trot would hold a better line, when this happened I started to get dace of all sizes and with great regularity until the wind returned and it was back to the ravenous gudgeon.  During the day I always like to take in the wildlife around me and sometimes get caught up in the moment and forget to grab the camera but when two swans strutted upstream wings puffed out with aggression looking to dominate a younger swan which still carried a great deal of brown down I quickly grabbed the camera.  The two groups of swans where swimming head on till the smaller swan got the message and then swiftly turned on its heels and made a break for it.

  The session again flew bye and before we knew it it was time to get together and see how we all had done, my dad had said he had caught a few decent dace but had missed countless bites on the feeder, both me and my uncle trotting knew why as we were catching a lot of this years dace fry which would be nearly impossible to hit on the feeder where they give lightning bites but with our floats dotted right down we were managing to get them on the float, my uncle had also been catching some nice dace and gudgeon but also mixed in he had caught a few perch on the pole while myself had a mixed net of gudgeon, dace and a nice roach.

uncles stripeys:

My uncles net:

My net of fish:

One picture that for me sums up a good days fishing is the scene of your keep nets drying out after you have finished fishing and today was no different.

  Next week we have already decided that we are visiting a new venue, after weeks of fishing the river Dee a change is definitely overdue, of course this decision will depend on the levels of the river we have our eye on but fingers crossed.

till next time

tight lines 

danny

Dace Dee-light on the river.......

  A week on from posting that you can now follow the blog on twitter by adding @satonmyperch I can report that so far it has 12 followers which for a first week is not bad at all and well surpassed my expectations and I must admit I am really enjoying exploring this new community of anglers that exist on twitter.  Such a vast array of fishing all come together on this great tool from carp anglers to maggot danglers there all part of this network of anglers and also what a great avenue to contact and follow the more well known anglers in our sport like Martin Bowler and Steve Ringer who regularly give out some great hints and tips.

On to this weeks fishing.....

Saturday22nd October.

  The cold weather last week tried its best to grab a firm hold on our country and for the first few days of the week it looked like we where certain to experience the first frost of the year by the weekend.  The mornings where ice cold and the early morning wind had a real chill to it, great I thought and long may it continue as this would see my target silver species shoal up and become easier to pin down to where I want them and also it would see some of the big pike start moving into the deeper areas of the river as they follow their prey, the shoals of dace.

  The cold weather though was only a brief visitor and by Friday morning the barometer had certainly risen a few degrees as I made my way into work, my head full of excitement for the weekend to come and as ever optimistic for the challenge ahead.  As always decisions had to be made about which venue we where due to visit the next day and after great deliberation we decided against the River Dane and chose to again visit the River Dee and what a great decision that proved to be.................

  The River Dee at Farndon was the chosen venue and with the river carrying a bit of water and having a tinge of colour to it I knew we where in for a good day.  I set up in a new swim to last week for a change of scenery and just before I started to fish I took a picture of my bait tray and my method of attack, some things never change.

Bait Waiter:

  The peg I chose to fish was in essence a silly peg to have chose given the high winds that where forecast due to how open and exposed it was but I just had a feeling about the swim and decided to bite the bullet.  My uncle set up a few pegs upstream which meant I was on my own tactics wise and it was up to me to put into practice all I had been taught by him over the last few months on the river.

the swim

  As you can see the swim was really exposed and to be honest was a peg I should have walked past as when we arrived we had a choice of all the swims on the beat.  All set and ready for the first cast of the day I got speaking to a few regulars and they explained there was a match due on the other bank later on in the morning, Great!! I though as this usually meant for me a day of sitting without a bite while the match length caught an endless amount of fish, but that was then and I thought to myself how far I have come as an angler since then and it was time to put it all into practice. 

  To be honest there is not a lot I can say about the fishing other than it was a dream session I caught fish from the off and for the first hour I was catching quality dace every cast and boy did it feel good.  The fishing was how you dream it to be with the fish coming at the same spot down the run every trot down as my bait reached to point when my free offerings where hitting the bottom.  The fishing for the whole session was first class with fish coming steadily for the whole time I was there.  

  The wind obviously had a say on the proceedings and made bite detection really difficult at times but even after three hours I knew I had already had my best day ever on the Dee and could not complain one bit.  My uncle visited my peg and was also having a good day on the stick float but was also having some real trouble with the resident pike with him having two fish taken on the strike and even hooking one pike for a few minutes before it bit through the line, good signs for my pike quest and from this week I will be putting out a sleeper rod if the swim I am fishing allows it.

  The session like all good things came to and end far to quickly and it was time to see what was in the nets, we started with mine and I knew it was something special, for me at least.  Lifting the net out it felt like it weighed a tonne and as I saw what was in the bottom I was over the moon.

My net of fish:

My uncles net:

  To put into perspective how much this net of fish means to me I take you back to last winter on the Dee on the same stretch I set out to try my hand at trotting, not really knowing how to do it and having only basic knowledge of what I was doing picked up from watching what I thought the people who where catching around me where using.  I sat there while everyone around me pulled out fish after fish from the peg above me and below, not to mention the anglers on the far bank match also getting a bite a cast.  Its times like that when you realise you are doing something seriously wrong and I can say without any apprehension that this was the lowest ever point of my angling life.  Saturday I was catching fish after fish after fish while people in the match across from me struggled for bites and after being in that situation I did feel for then but deep down I could not help feeling a great sense of satisfaction and really felt for the first time ever on the river like I had cracked it and what a great feeling it was from where I was only last December.

Sunday 23rd October 

  My dad had stayed at home the previous day due to recovering from a bad flu bug the previous two weeks but we decided that a fishing trip was long overdue and we made our way to the Dee for a short session.  My dad started off on the feeder and I started by trotting the few maggots I had left from the session the previous day.  

  The fishing gods really where shining down on us this weekend as me and my dad proceeded over the next 5 hours to take no fewer than 8 grayling over the pound mark with the specimen below being the best of the bunch going 2lb 4oz on the scales.

  The session did have one bad point though when a flock of 18 cormorants flew over head, this bird was a problem last year on the river with then landing on farndon in great numbers and talking vast numbers of fish.  The birds, i thought where now under control due to the lack of sightings of them recently but this flock has got me worried as a flock of birds in that number could devastate a stretch of river if they land on it daily.

  Both me and my dad enjoyed our session on the Dee on Sunday and looking at the net at the end we had no room to complain and we left two very happy anglers.

the net:

 ONE WORD OF WARNING TO ANY NEW ANGLERS TO GRAYLING FISHING IF YOU ARE GOING TO KEEP THESE FISH IN YOUR KEEP NET TIME MUST BE TAKEN TO HOLD THE FISH IN THE LANDING NET IN YOUR KEEP NET WHILE THEY RECOVER FULLY WHICH WILL NORMALLY TAKE UPWARDS OF 5 MINUTES I NORMALLY LET THEM GO AS I CATCH THEM BUT KEPT THEM ON SUNDAY FOR A FINAL PICTURE OF THE BAG AT THE END.

That is all for this week and I done forget you can follow me on twitter by adding @satonmyperch 

till next week

tight lines 

danny

Short carping session and trotting the dee plus blog update...

  This week I made the decision to set up a twitter account for the blog, you can follow me by adding @satonmyperch to your list of people you follow on twitter.  I will be using the twitter account to provide weekly updates as soon as the blog is updated as well as updates from the bank and will also be posting throughout the week about all things to do with fishing.  You can easily follow me by clicking on the link situated on the right hand side of the blog. I have also added a widget to the side bar as well showing my latest activity on the twitter account and I do hope if you are on twitter you decide to follow me on there as well as the blog.

  The past few months have been hectic and although I have been updating the blog on a weekly basis I feel I have been neglecting some of the other pages I have set up, mainly due to spending all my free time during the weekend fishing, but I have been toying with a few ideas of late that I hope to put into fruition in the coming weeks that I hope some of you new and old to fishing may find helpful.

On to this weeks fishing....

Saturday 15th October

  After a week of thinking about nothing but the coming weekends fishing my plans changed form day to day but eventually my schedule for the weekend was firmly set in stone late on Thursday evening when the weather forecast predicted some late autumn sun.  The plan was simple to get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and try and winkle out a final few carp from flushing meadows before returning home before 1pm to catch the derby match between Man United and Liverpool whilst Sunday would see my on the banks of the River Dee again.

  The alarm clock echoed in my ear with its pulsating unforgiving monotonous tone but unlike in the week where this noise would be greeted with a groan and a moan as I strived for the compulsory "five more minutes" this was a Saturday morning and the noise was met with me shooting out of bed as the electric buzz that only comes with the excitement of a days fishing shot through my veins and after a quick breakfast and my flask of coffee made it was off into the darkness on my way to the fishery.

  My arrival at the car park at flushing meadows was greeted with an icy cold blast as I began unloading the gear from the car, my breath clearly visibly showing me that we were not far off our first frost of the year.  The icy cold air was obviously down to the lack of cloud cover through the night and from experience I also knew this lack of cloud cover would see us basked in sunshine once the sun rose from its overnight slumber.

  My method of attack for the day was my 13 metre pole and would see a final outing for of the year for my black hydro top two kits as after Saturday I will only be using my pole for silver fishing on the river and local canals as we move deeper towards winter.  Saturday also saw the first outing for my new pole sock and I have to say what an ingenious piece of kit it is as up to this point I had been using my bank stick and I have to say it made the fishing so much easier, highly recommended.

  I set my target for the morning at two carp and with the cold weather I expected to find the fish on the bottom of the nearside shelf so I started out on a top 5 rig and lightly fed a mixture of corn and meat although my feeding was not as heavy as on previous visits due to the conditions and my short time schedule, I wanted to attract the fish in and catch them quickly and was in essence fishing for one fish at a time.

The swim:

  The early morning came and went in a flash and before I knew it the sun was creeping through the gaps in the tree to my right its glow warming my face and lighting up the far margin which was showing signs of activity with carp cruising up in the water and the unmistakable sound of a carp sucking against the far bank giving them away.

The Far margin:

  After a little reorganisation of my pole roller I was ready to to fish at my poles maximum length of 13 metres right up tight against the far bank, you almost have to imagine the far bank has a really undercut bank like cave and you are trying to get your bait right inside their where the carp feel safe.  My bait had not been in position more than 20 seconds when the float slid away and eventually sunk into the carps underwater labyrinth, a sharp lift of the pole and I was connected with my first carp of the session.  Having now lost count at the amount of carp I have caught on the pole all the apprehension of breaking my pole has gone and I am now at a stage where I just enjoy the fight and boy did this pint sized carp fight, half way to the target...

First carp of the day

Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth it was straight back over to the far side again to see if I could winkle out another fish as although the last fish put up a valiant fight it did so down the marginal shelf towards the middle of the pool so I hoped its initial run had not spooked any of the other residents of the far bank shelf.  When I fist started pole fishing at distance the pole felt really heavy and clumsy but you quickly learn there is an art to holding the pole and I think I have got my stance well tuned as while waiting for my next bite I had a chance to admire the wealth of wildlife on show at this fishery in total I remember counting two birds of prey in the resident buzzard and a really hungry kestrel which working a nearby field as well as countless species of birds from the local heron to my first robin of the year, no doubt encouraged by my overflowing pot of maggots as I have said before British wildlife is a big part of a days fishing for me.

  Caught in the bliss of the moment surrounded by all the songs of the wild I failed to notice my float going under and the only thing I knew about having a fish on was the feeling of my pole moving in my hard as the carp erupted from the swim causing bow waves across the whole pool the fish like all the fish put up a spirited fight but at around two to three pound was soon worn out and in the net and a quick glance at my watch revealed the time to be 10.45am and it was mission accomplished.

  With the mornings target in the bag anything now would be a bonus and with all the commotion of the previous fish I knew the far margin would be quiet for around half an hour so I tried the nearside margin but it was unusually quiet.  During a session on the fishery you can almost guarantee a fish from under your feet but today was different as the normal signs of carp stirring up the bottom as they gorge on the bait that has fell in as you are baiting up was non existent which reflected in me spending the next half an hour hunched like an expectant heron in vein.

  A quick look over to the far margin showed the fish had moved back in over my bait and it was back over to the far margin and it wasn't long before my piece of luncheon meat coated in my special spice mix attracted the attention of a carp and what a lovely marked carp it was with a full set of scales across its back and I couldn't help thinking what a cracking carp it will be once it gets around 10 to 12 pound in the next few years.

  Midday came and went and it was a case of one last cast syndrome as one last cast turned to five as the the race against the clock to bag a last gasp bonus fish got out of hand and just as I was about to call it a day I connected with another carp which thankfully didn't put up too much of a fuss and was soon in the net and having its picture taken.

  With the fish returned to the water all that was left was the unenviable task of packing away all the gear which is never the best part of the day as we all know but after all was done I was home just before the match kicked off, my only comment on it is I wish I had stayed fishing such a boring game.

Sunday 16th October 

  In past weeks my fishing on the river Dee has taken up the bulk of my blog report for that week so this week I decided to devote the bulk of the blog to the carp fishing which would allow me to put my full concentration into trying to get to grips with trotting the deep stretches of the river.

  Farndon was our chosen destination again and we set up in the same swims as last week hoping for similar results, from the off the fishing was a lot slower than last week for both of us and for some reason the "flow" of the swim changed dramatically throughout the session  which made fishing the same line very difficult as no sooner had I got a line going than the flow changed and I found myself putting my hemp in another location.

  I always say with river fishing that when the fishing is hard make sure you learn at least one lesson from the trip and on Sunday I learned a massive lesson in that no matter how slow the trot you can still catch some really large fish and it was after again watching my uncle trotting that I returned to my peg and stuck to my guns on a slower trot and the after a few smaller fish my perseverance was rewarded with some nice roach and dace. 

  My final net did not contain as many fish as last week but what it did contain was a better stamp of fish than the the previous week:

  My uncle in the next swim also caught a decent stamp of fish with one real stand out roach showing the potential of the river and also had another of a similar size taken by a pike on last knockings which engulfed the fish whole so also shows the potential of this stretch to produce a large pike of which I have witnessed a 23lb pike banked last year.

nice roach:

My uncles final net of fish:

  The weather this week is due to change dramatically with rain and sleet due to be coupled with a drop in temperature, if this is the case next weekend may see me visit the intimate river Dane for its chub which would be a good change of scenery.  If the weather doesn't materialise I am hopefully going to travel light on a tributary of the river Dee for grayling or try the main river for a barbel.

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till next week

tight lines

Danny