The Start Of A New Adventure

Last Thursday saw us visiting the hospital for our babies 21 week scan and I am pleased to announce we are expecting a baby girl towards the end of August and needless to say our house is now full of all things cute and pink!!. It really is looking like 2012 is going to be a big year of change for me and today saw me taking the final step in making a move away from my current job in that I submitted my application form for the job I mentioned in last weeks blog update.  The thought of doing this job day in and day out fills me with excitement just thinking about it so fingers crossed I hear something back in the next week or so about an interview and until then I am going to do my best to try and put it to the back of my mind.

A few weeks back I set myself a target of catching my first ever 10lb plus carp and this week the details of that campaign and how I plan to approach it all came together. As you will see later on in this blog update we visited Rixton Clay Pits on Saturday and had an excellent day for both silvers and tench and that got me thinking about targeting this venue for my 10lb carp.  There are a few venues close to my home that I may also visit as part of this challenge but I will need to visit these before committing to fishing them.

After investigating this venue in more detail both on the internet and from speaking to people on the bank it seems there is a healthy population of carp in this venue as well as a good head of tench.  I am by no means a carp angler and have neither the intention nor funds to kit myself out with a bivvy etc so my sessions on here targeting the tench and carp will be done with my single rod and bite alarm.

Being new to any type of bite alarm fishing I will be using my trusted tactic of keeping things simple and only complicating things if I am not getting the results I am hoping for.  The bait is one thing I don’t have a problem with as I know it works and catches fish on this venue and am confident that if I get my presentation and baiting right I will get a few fish on the bank.

As a result of this new campaign there may be more than one blog update a week as I am planning to write smaller updates within a day of my visit to there which may feature on this front page of the blog or under a newly created page I am undecided as to which way I will go with this one as of yet.

I have already made my first trip of this new adventure last night and that will make up my first post solely dedicated to this challenge so watch this space in the next few days for further information and I hope you all enjoy following me through the highs and lows as I chase this prize.

On to this weeks update:

Monday 16^th April:- Evening Session Flushing Meadow Fishery

As was mentioned in last weeks update this fishing session was the reason behind last weeks update on the blog not going live till Tuesday night and for good reason.  I had a few things on my mind and I really don’t like writing the blog if my mind is not fully on the task, I find it difficult to write and the end result is never the best it could be, so with a head full of problems to iron out and a one bait tub of sweet corn and cubed luncheon meat I made my way to my regular haunt of late, flushing meadows fishery.

I arrived to every car park on each pool being empty and I took the opportunity to spend an afternoon on the pool I had caught my first barbell on last week.  The wind was blowing in the opposite direction from last week when it was blowing into the corner I was fishing but I set up on the same peg I fished last week and in my head I knew I was making a big mistake the fish would surely be on the end of this wind picking up and food blown into the far bay.

It was around 2.45-3pm when I set up on the fishery and by 4pm I had not had as much as a knock on the float fishing the same place I did so well in last week but I did have a long fishing conversation with another angler looking to try this venue the next day and it was this angler, who after walking round the pool, pointed out to me that there was a lot of carp on the back of the wind at the other end of the pool.  A quick trot down the pool and there they all where on the top sunning themselves and the margins were alive with signs of carp moving, there was only one thing for it, time to move along there.

Within 10 minutes I was sat in the peg at the other end of the pool and in went one small cad pot of bait and a small piece of meat on the hook and the swim literally erupted with feeding activity and no sooner had the float settled than it buried and after spending over an hour without a bite in the last swim I was into a fish within 20 seconds of fishing the new one and boy did it feel good.

The skies cleared and the wind dropped to a point where it just caused the gentlest of ripples on the waters surface and I was sat in the perfect position to make the most of the warmth provided by the early spring sun. The fishing went from strength to strength although I was getting plenty of bites and I was loosing all the fish due to hook pulls and foul hooking before I noticed my float had actually slipped down the line a few inches and it all became clear why I had not been connecting properly with these fish.  The line altered I was quickly into a fish that was on the other side of the pool before I knew it and straight away I knew this could only be one thing, a barbell.

The bites continued top come thick and fast and I stayed on the venue till around 7.20pm when it became difficult to see the float in the mottled sunlight through the trees but boy did I enjoy myself.  Anyone who wants to introduce a family member or get their children into fishing take them one of these commercials with a pint of maggots and they will catch fish all day long, I know as soon as my child is born and is old enough I will be taking them a venue like this, great fishing.

Here are some picturess of the carp I picked up throughout the evening:

Saturday 21^st April 2012 – Rixton Clay Pits Warrington AA card

It is hard to believe over a year has passed since we first visited this venue, back then the sun was shining and the whole country was basking in some early season sun.  Upon stepping back onto the pit this year it was instantly noticeable little had changed in the year we had been away, there has been no further improvement to the pegs around the water and the litter problem we witnessed last year was slightly better on the pegs but still far too many anglers see the car park as a place to dump their waste from their fishing trip please if this is anyone who is reading this blog place the rubbish in the back of your car and take it home it does nothing for the image of the club and  nothing for the image of angling in general especially on a site that is a Site of Special Scientific Importance.  

With that out of the way we can get onto the fishing and it was an early rise for us in Saturday morning arriving at my uncles before 5am to ensure we were on the banks at first light as our chosen quarry has a real reputation for being caught as the early morning dew is rising from the water, this fish is of course the tench and after catching a few on here last year I had high hopes of catching my first teddy bear eyed tinca of the year.

With only four pegs completed on this venue it is very hard getting on a peg that is comfortable as these are understandably normally taken already by overnight carp anglers and let’s face it who can blame them if it where me I would have settled on one of them myself as I can see a night on the other “natural” pegs to be less than enjoyable.  With three of us fishing we were left with two choices either all three of us crammed on the last available completed peg or we fished in swims next to each other further around the pit and we settled on the latter as the first peg was far too cramped for three of us to fish comfortably but as you can see above we were going to struggle to go home clean.

My tactics where to pole fish at around 7m while my dad chose to fish the float rod, the fact my dad was here also allowed me to put out a sleeper rod on a bait runner and bite alarm and knowing what had done so well for me last year on here for both tench and bream I knew exactly what bait was going on the end of that rig, if the tench where feeding I was confident I would get one on it.

Not long after setting up the heavens opened in what at the time felt like a rain cover that was in for the day, dark skies and rumbles of thunder instantly saw me placing the 7 metre electricity conducting pole to one side and we both patiently waited under our brollies hoping for it to pass us by.  During this prolonged spell of bad weather the sleeper rod bite alarm roared into life and line began dripping of the spool as the fish bolted out of the peg.  Having not done this method of fishing for so long I must admit I froze for a second and I am sure I jumped a little as it sprang into life but I quickly came to my senses and lifted into what felt like a decent fish.  I always keep my fishing simple and keep to tried and trusted terminal tackle if it is not broke why fix it.  All the old favourites where present and working as well as ever, 10lb maxima reel line down to a ESP adjustable lead clip that connects the main line to a 10lb Shimano Antares Silkshock hook length is how I set out and it has done me well so  far and it did again this time as I landed the nice tench above that went 4lb 2oz on the scales and was a great way to get my tench account up and running and I was well chuffed if not a little wet.

The pole line was dreadfully slow, seeing me catch only a handful of really small roach and certainly where not of a standard I expected from this venue.  My dad was next to get in some big fish action as his float slowly slipped away and he struck into another tench which came in really quickly into the margins and fought a dogged dirty fight around the submerged tree roots.  This commotion attracted the attention of my uncle who had seen all the splashing caused by this fish and came over to investigate, I slid the landing net under the water ready to net my dad’s fish and low and behold his fish made one final run which coincided with my sleeper rod roaring off.

Knowing the angle my sleeper rod was fishing at I knew it couldn’t have been the fish my dad was connected to catching on the line so I quickly passed my uncle the landing net and struck into what was certainly another tench by the way it was fighting.  Club rules don’t allow tench to be kept in your keep net so the first tench was unhooked while I played out mine and then my dad carefully scooped up mine with his already in the net.

My fish was ever so lightly hooked I was amazed it stayed on to be honest and we quickly weighed the fish and took some pictures for the blog.  The picture below shows just how bad the pegs are when it rains a change of clothes or overalls are a must here as are a good pair of wellingtons, luckily I was armed with both and the missus is still speaking to me as we still have a clean car!!!

My dad’s fish had some red markings to its belly which were really unusual but one I would remember should I catch it again, this may well be common in tench I have not looked up the subject but a really unusually coloured fish.  With both fish being caught at the same time I thought I would record the fish going back to prove they went back fine.

The day continued and barring a few screaming dropped runs the sleeper rod remained dormant the rest of the day whilst the pole fishing for both me and my uncle really improved and it felt so good building a swim, first came the smaller roach and after a while the skimmers and then the bigger roach made an appearance  and eventually the inevitable zoo creature was connected with and on blue hydro elastic I never really stood a chance it had my elastic stretching across the pit like a washing line before it all came flying back at me. 

The final bags contained nowhere near the weights of silvers we have been catching at flushing meadows but the fact we had both worked so hard for these nets made it feel such an achievement and I was more than happy with my days efforts of two tench and a 10lb 9oz net of silvers and my uncle must have had around the same in his net as well.

My net:

Uncles net

 

We put the nets to dry while we completed the arduous task of packing the gear away and it seemed everything was covered in dry orange clay!! Luckily I had lined the car with a tarp and all was well.  All in all, a beautiful water that holds a good head of silvers and some lovely looking tench and believe me the wildlife is second to none, finches, robins, woodpeckers, herons, Canada geese, ducks and the ever present it seems on our trips lately the native pair of buzzards.

This is my unlces first full year on the Warrington Card so I don’t know whether we will be back on this water together again this year as there are a whole host of other waters I want to show him before the rivers open again but I will be back so you will be seeing plenty of this venue in my quest for that 10lb carp.

If you like reading my weekly angling blog why not follow the blog on twitter and Facebook by clicking the “like” and “follow” buttons in the right hand side of the blog.  I regularly post pictures that don’t make it into the blog and post my adventures as they happen should the location’s proximity to an internet signal allow.

Till next time I wish you all

Tight lines

Danny