Having suffered lugging all our rods, bank sticks, umbrellas and rod rests around all clumped clumsily together me and my dad decided on Friday night enough was enough and we purchased a rod holdall and after a quick browse of the tackle shop we decided to go with the Korum Total protection 3 rod holdall and after using it both days this weekend I am really impressed with it and made the walk to the river so much more comfortable and I'm sure it will become a priceless bit of kit when we travel in the coming weeks to the River Dane and hopefully to the Warrington Anglers stretch of the River Ribble which I read is a bit of a hike.
Anyway on to this weeks fishing as Saturday saw me and my dad back on the banks of the River Dee and we were greeted by an ice cold dense fog as we approached our chosen swim, down the banks to the river and she looked painfully low but running through nicely and with our chosen swim being around 5-6 foot deep I knew we would be in for a few fish.
I was busy setting up my trotting rod when my dad, due to now being able to leave his feeder rod set up in the new holdall was already into his first fish a fin perfect small dace. I was still trying to thread my line through the last few eyes on my rod in the early morning gloom when my dad hit a decent fish that like last week stayed deep until the last minute, briefly showing its self to be a nice chub before unfortunately, like last week, shedding the barbless hook.
We had been using barbless hooks all summer on the still waters on the Warrington card and had no problem at all but on the river last week we lost so many fish we decided this week to purchase some barbed hooks to combat this as again my dad had lost another nice fish due to the fish throwing the hook.
On with a new whisker barbed hook and back in and it wasn't long before he was again bringing in another nice dace and by this time I was also getting into some plump roach and for the next hour or so we both enjoyed catching roach, dace and salmon Parr.
Around half eight my dads puddle chucker was bent over and he was into another decent fish that went straight out into the main flow with lightning speed, ripping the line the 4lb line from the reel as it went. I instantly knew what he had hooked from the past few sessions on there but knowing my dad had never caught this species of fish before I didn't want to jinx him by informing him he was actually fighting a barbel. A few moments later and my dad was slipping the net under his first ever barbel which again illustrates the diversity of species you can catch on the Dee.
My dad posing with his first ever Barbel:
Not long after this I lost what looked like a barbel of around 2lb in a bank side snag as it made a last dart for freedom and with that the baking hot sun began to burn through the mist and my swim became stuffed with small dace greedily eating as many maggots as I could throw in and consequently no bait was getting down the swim to hold the bigger roach and for the next few hours we caught the odd better roach but mainly small dace and salmon par and we called it a day around noon happy we had done all we could and looking at the bag at the end we hadn't done too bad. One side note from Saturdays session was seeing a massive eel swimming on the surface down stream in the edge and was a real sight to behold.
Saturdays bag of fish:
Sunday 03rd July
Sunday saw both me and my unlce again visit the banks of the River Dee and I was set up to go all out for a barbel on a bigger bait while my uncles approach was to fish to a deep hole in the shadows of a bank side tree on the pole.
It very quickly became apparent I had a massive snag in my swim and after loosing two hook lengths on it you could say things were not going to plan for me, mean while my uncle was building up his swim nicely with some really mint condition roach being taken on a variety of baits.
I quickly set up another rig and cast on the same line but further down stream of the snag and it wasn't long before my rod rattled round and I struck and it all instantly went solid whatever it was had me well and truly in the snag and knew exactly where it had to go in times of danger. A quick change of angle and the fish kicked out of the snag and came in quite easily and it was no surprise it was a chub and a river Dee personal best at that, she turned the scales to 1lb 8oz but looking at the pictures she looked and felt alot bigger but i cant complain my first proper chub from the Dee.
Proper River Dee chub:
This for me was all I had to show on the feeder rod but my uncle was really building up his swim and catching big roach and some really big gudgeon. The slow action on the feeder had me soon trotting a glide close by using up the remaining maggots from yesterdays session and in the meantime catching some nice dace right at the bottom of the swim.
My uncles swim was going through some really long lulls with alot of fishing coming in a short time followed by nothing, like last week I said its either big fish or a pike and just as I said it my uncle hooked a fish and the line snapped, a clean break in the line. Instantly he was again into a better stamp on roach and dace and I continued to catch a few on the the trotting rod. As I was talking to him as I put a small dace in the net he was bringing in a small roach which as it was just about to be lifted in a massive swirl and the fish was gone, definitely a hungry pike.
This marked the end of the session as it was time to pack up and we quickly weighed the net of fish we had caught, the lions share definitely caught by my uncle with a total combined weight of 10lb 11oz.
Net of fish:
With the pike in mind I quickly set up a pike outfit an it wasn't long before the hungry pike came to out of its gloomy sunken tree lair to dine and with that I was in to a small jack pike of around 2 to 3lb that did its best to get back to where it had came but in reality was no match for my very stout barbel rod and was soon having its picture taken the unhooking mat, incidentally my first ever river pike and just goes to show how much these fish eat with this one eating at least three fish during the session and goes to show how just a small pike effects the fishing and you never really know what else is fishing in your swim!!
First ever river pike:
And with that we called it a day two very happy anglers and topped of a good weekend on the River Dee.
Till next week
tight lines
Danny
I've had my Korum holdall for at least five years now (maybe longer). The Korum gear really lasts.
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