A warm welcome to this week’s angling blog update and a
start with an apology for last weeks update not being up to the normal
standard, I really have had no time recently for writing the blog at all and I
thought it was better to put out something rather than nothing to keep things
ticking over. The events of this past
week being so busy has really got me thinking about my angling routine once the
baby is here and it quickly dawned on me that I may not be able to get out for
my weekly fix all the time once she is here, especially around the birth and it
really got me thinking, I don’t want the blog to really loose the momentum it
has got at the moment and really want to keep up with a weekly post going up so
I am opening the floor up to you, the blog followers, if you have had a red
letter session recently and would like to have a go at writing a piece about
your adventures feel free to send it into the blogs email.
This week marked the start of the London Olympics 2012 and
unlike a lot of people I spoke to about the opening ceremony, I was really
impressed with it, I thought it was imaginative and the choreography was
something else to keep the show rolling for a full 3 hours was a feat in
itself!! Should Danny Boyle be knighted?? Well that really is down to opinion
but in my opinion he does deserve some recognition for the effort that went
into the event. A highlight for me, like
most, was the Mr Bean sketch, pure class!! Lets hope the athletes live up to
their expectations now.
This week also saw me visiting the doctors about my angling
addiction and I was quickly diagnosed by the doctor and put on the relevant
medication of fishing at every opportunity possible as the saying goes Feed a
Cold and starve a fever well this addiction is definitely dealt with by the
cold remedy so on Saturday I took the doctors advice and hit the bank.
On to this weeks adventure:
The week leading up to Saturday had been very unlike the so
called summer that had gone before in the fact it was warm and sunny, go figure
a warm sunny summer who would have thought it eh? This welcome break in the
relentless rain we have been seeing of late meant the river was bob on come
Friday afternoon and was at a very agreeable 4.84m, perfect for running a float
through.
We arrived as normal under the cover of darkness with only
the rustling of the resident rats and the distant cooing of an owl breaking the
eerie silence that you find at such an insane hour on the bank side. Quietly we walked the bank checking out our
swims for the day and getting our gear in position ready to make a start at
first light, its amazing how quickly your eyes adjust to the low light levels
and you begin to see more and more of the world around you and take in a big
deep breath of the countryside and the realisation that for just one day you
are away from the hustle and bustle of the fast paced towns we spend the whole
week in and I was determined to make the most of it, it had been a very long
hard week indeed, time to relax.
Chewing the fat on my uncles peg about the day ahead as the
very first signs of a new day glowed on the horizon we were both full on
anticipation for the day ahead, surely we were in for a few fish today. The river, even in the darkness, looked to be
in fine fettle and there was no shortage of fish topping all around us from
small fry dimpling in the margins to the loud crash of a mighty salmon rising
clean out of the water in the main flow, the river looked to be back to her
normal self again.
The plan for me for the day was to spend the early part of
the day trying for a decent chub on pellet while feeding the swim with hemp and
castor in preparation of trotting it later on in the day. My uncle chose to fish two tactics one on the
float trotting and the other on the pole I was really interested to see how he
fared using a tactic I have long wondered what results it would produce. My dad shared my peg with me and decided to
fish on the feeder close to a bank side feature, a tactic he has used before to
good effect.
With my heavy gear already set up at home the previous
evening along with my dads feeder rod it took longer to set up our baskets,
keep net and bank sticks than it did our fishing rods and with the sun rising
above the horizon we made our first casts of the day, I really love fishing
with my dad it takes me back to the canal fishing as a kid and is them moments
that live with you forever, even if we didn’t catch it would great to share a
swim with him for a day.
My dad on the maggot feeder was straight into small dace and
the odd nice roach where I was sat motionless waiting for the tip to wrap round
as it does when a chub or even a barbell takes the bait but apart from a few
knocks and rattles that could have been big dace or chub there was very little
activity on the heavy gear and it was getting on for around 9am before I gave
in and set up my trotting rod, the culmination of my dad catching regular and
me visiting my uncle and seeing him pulling out nice roach broke my resolve.
The quality of fish being caught was good to see with both
my dad and uncle picking up the odd roach of the stamp shown below.
My trotting rod set up I was just about to cast in when my
dad struck into a fish that was solid on the strike and went straight out into
the flow, my dad instantly thought it was a decent chub or barbell but I had my
reservations the fish looked like it had taken it on the drop as the feeder was
falling through the water so I thought it unlikely to be a barbell but a chub
was a fair guess as any. The battle
continued with my dads drag set just right to cushion this fishes hard runs and
with only a 1.5lb hook length he had to be careful.
The fish eventually topped and flipped and revealed its self
to be a jack pike of around 3lb bracket but it was using every bit of force it
could from the flow of the river to make things hard for him, I was amazed it
hadn’t bit through the line but to our amazement the fish came to the net and I
quickly scooped it up and a quick look at the pikes jaw revealed why we had got
it in the hook had transferred into the pikes mouth from the fish, very lucky
indeed if only he had been so luck the previous nights lottery.
Some gnashers of this young jack pike, impressive dentistry
with the hook firmly in a gap in its jaw.
The pike returned I got to my trotting and my pre baiting
all morning paid off instantly with me catching a few top quality roach and
dace with the best of the bunch of roach shown below a pleasure to catch and
proves the bonus of using castor and waiting for the bigger fish it brings.
After a while I decided to stretch my legs and visited my
uncle who had settled in on the pole and was pulling out quality roach and the
odd chub. He was having a real good day
and I must admit I spent a good hour just sat there watching him catch it was
great to see how he held the bait back and then let it go again and watch the
bits come at the exact moment it dropped down again, one a chuck!!.
A typical roach and chub my uncle was picking up:
On my way back to my swim I noticed just how clear of a day
it was you could see quite clearly the welsh mountains in the distance and what
looked like a decent amount of cloud rolling in off them, it wouldn’t be long
till there was a dramatic change in the weather, from experience of fishing our
peg before I knew it being a quite open peg it would effect our fishing.
The clouds and more importantly the wind, did arrive, and
caused havoc with my trotting line blowing the float literally sideways in the
flow and into the bank; no fish was ever going to fall for that type of
presentation. In the gaps in the wind I
did pick up some more nice dace and roach and my dad also continued to steadily
pick up fish close in through out the remainder of the day.
One major highlight of the day was to admire the energy of
the local kingfishers who kept going back and two all day across the river and
up the small tributary to their burrow no doubt feeding their young on a diet
of minnows and small fry that seemed to turn parts of the margins black with
their tight shoals. I will one day get a picture of these most beautiful of
birds but for now I will just have to settle for admiring them as they shoot past
my swim with a flash of blue and orange as they turn downstream.
Me and my dad ended the day with a nice net of roach, dace,
perch and a solitary small chub in a day that we thoroughly enjoyed spending
together on the bank.
My uncle fared a lot better with this net below the picture
does it little justice but we estimated it to be between 13-15lb going on what
we catch in winter a proper net of silvers showing the fish were back and in a
big way.
That is it for this week don’t forget you can follow the
blog on twitter by following @Satonmyperch and you can also keep up with the
blog on its own facebook page by clicking like on this link:
Till next time
I wish you all tight lines
danny
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