River Dane Perch Saves Dire Sesison......

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  A running intro on this blog now is about the warm weather and this has continued into this weeks sessions as midday temps are still well into double figures but as i will go into in future updates the mercury is certainly on a down wards spiral....finally.  In this weeks blog i hope to cover the my session on the Dane and a grabbed few hours last Friday evening for pike.  Also included is some topics around the acquisition of a new licence, my thoughts on developing yourself as an angler and my an update on how i plan to blog this weeks fishing as its been a corker so far. 

Put Some Soul Into Ya Fishin' Man......

This week i decided to go back to my roots and become a member of Lymm Anglers.  I have not joined the full club but taken up their offer of a Bridgewater Canal Licence for £23.50.  I often travel along the canal where i grew up fishing and where it all began for me with an air of happiness of fond memories of me and my dad sat fishing away every Saturday while mum went shopping.  In those early days of my fishing life we would always fish bronze maggot, i think its banned now as the dye can kill you! and it was always Van Der Ende ground bait and it had to be mixed sloppy, this was always my job at the start of the sesSion while my dad set up.   My early years was spent fishing the canal on a small whip or as we called it "the snatcher" and even this close in you would catch some nice bream and roach but like many kids my first fish was a perch.

My first Christmas after going fishing with my dad i awoke to my first fishing box and my own rod, i forget the name but the bot was black with a sponge red lid and the rod was a Shakespeare.  I will always remember me saying i could not wait to get out fishing and from no where my dad brought out a box of maggots he had bought earlier and a promise to go fishing on Boxing day, i never slept a wink that night!  Boxing day come and with a frost on the ground we headed to the canal, a journey we made so many times but never in such conditions, it was freezing.  I think we lasted a hour before i shivering asked my dad "What time we going home dad? I'm cooold"  we packed in there and then but i always remember coming in the house to a bowl of hot soup form my mum and my dad complaining that he had been fishing for 20 years and never once come home to soup!!  As i said before happy memories and maybe i will share some more over time on here and they are the best memories of all as there are no pictures of any fish just all in my mind. 

So its safe to say this canal holds some good memories for me so it will be good to see how it is fishing all these years on and maybe not now but next spring and summer i will retrace old footsteps, for now i am hoping to sneak in the odd pike session as i always remember pike being a visitor on many of our trips.

Finding Time For Bloggin....

As i mentioned in last weeks blog i am going to be on the bank a lot over the coming week and even now as i write this blog on Thursday i have so many trips to blog about there is no way i am going to get them into one blog so there will be certainly smaller updates coming over the next week or so, well i would say certainly and even now there is a trip planned tomorrow, normal river fishing on Saturday and a pike session on Sunday so time for blogging is short but hey ho will fit it in somewhere along the line just bear with me at this point as there will be a few updates out in short succession if i dont get Fridays update live, hectic times but certainly fun.

Developing As An Angler...

I have said many a time on this blog that angling is so much more than catching fish, it is in my opinion a journey and through your life you develop as an angler and week on week, season on season, you add a little bit more to your fishing till in the end i guess you reach a stage in your life where you want to pass this knowledge onto someone else.  This thirst to progress with angling and develop my knowledge certainly drives me on and sometime it can mean taking a plunge  into the unknown and failing dramatically, just look at my spring/summer exploits for carp in the carp quest.   Some will see this as a failure but i learnt so much from them blanks that i will be using again next year in my fishing to hopefully crack it.

It also works the other way as shown with jumping in at the deep end with dead baiting for pike last January and with the help of some good friends and the dedication to get out there i am by no means the worlds best pike angler or anywhere near being half decent, but, what is different now is i am happily going to the bank with Confidence and that for me is a huge leap from January where i was going and waiting not knowing what i was doing to be honest.  In short i guess i am saying if you want to try and achieve something the forums, Youtube and Blogs for that matter will only take you so far you need to get out there and do the hours on the bank to really learn anything in angling in my opinion and the sense of achievement when doing it like this is something else indeed.

With that lets get onto this weeks fishing and we start with Pike....

Friday 26th September -  Only Got Eyes For My Pike Float....

Friday and as i recall it had been a stinker of a day in work where every case i had dealt with had been a labyrinth of errors and queries.  My head was battered and with the blog already wrote and pictures just needing to be added i decided to give my eyes a rest from the artificial glow of a computer screen and let them relax to the gentle motion of a pike float lying lazily at the side of a reed bed for a few hours, sometimes you just need to get out.

It was only going to be a short session but i knew what little time i had was being spent at the right time of the day as just as the suns going down and the shadows lengthen you can imagine those pike leaving their day time lairs to go on the feed..  I always go piking with the target of one fish, this is a comment you will hear a lot this year as it will be said a lot with my piking, so with one fish or even one chance/run in my sights i cast into the oily murky depths.  

A good hour went by before i noticed my right hand rod tremble slightly before the float laid flat on the top as the pike lifted the egg sinker off the bottom before moving off with the bait and cocking the float, my heart skipped a beat with the excitement,  quickly i come to my senses and reeled the other rod in and grabbed the rod and watched as the float slowly slid away under the water and with that i struck.......Disaster....I had set the rod up the previous evening and when doing so i had loosened the drag and not set it proper so when i struck there was no power to set the hook and line slid of the reed giving the fish loads of slack!  This slack line was soon put to good use by the pike as it threw the hooks, i was gutted.  

I don't mind losing fish to hook pulls or striking and the hooks not being in a position to hook the fish as this is part of piking but i knew i had made a school boy error and missed a chance, was that my chance gone?

I decided to work my way back along the stretch and thank fully on a known little hot spot the float began to dance its pikey dance although i have to say before even striking in knew it was a small jack as the jagged movement across the water without enough power to sink the float is normally a sure sign of a jack.  Heading on its merry way i gave it a few seconds before striking and i have to say on my 2.75tc rod it was more of a case of reeling it in that playing the fish but i was happy to have got the one fish i set out for.  Driving back home in the memory of the sesison was more of what could have been more than what i caught.

BIG Perch saves drab session on the River....

That evening i set about publishing the blog and getting my gear ready for a days trotting the next day and having my gear split is becoming a real head ache for me, more on that in the next update, eventually i was all set for a trip to the River Dane the next day.

Arriving on the banks we set up in swims we had fished once or twice before and had caught steady 10lb plus nets of fish from so we were confident of a few bites as we unloaded the car and walked to the river.   In the morning light the river was going through steadily and was painfully low but in these conditions it looked ideal for roach and possibly some big bream to make an appearance and we were full of excitement as we set up.

Rivers are some of the most fantastic places on earth but on others they can be an absolute killer as the first two hours of the session passed with a few small perch and a small roach and the bites where painfully spread apart, it was like the river was dead.  My uncle visited my peg a few time sin this time, always a sign of a hard session, he was in the same predicament going a hour without a knock.  It was during this time i had another visitor to my peg and it was great to put a face to name on a forum i post on and i thoroughly enjoyed a chin wag before he headed off for his breakfast, great to meet you, you little tinka tinka :-)

It was just before this visit i had struck into on of the nice perch that call this river their home and although i am sure its a recapture it was more than welcome on this session and at 2lb 8oz you can never ever complain and was a sight for sore eyes on the day. 

In these scenarios decision time is never too far always and as the days shorten it becomes even more important to be quick and decisive about moving and when you look at the net below you can see why by 11am we were on the road heading for the river weaver. 

There was match on most of the lengths but we found a few spots to sneak into and in hindsight we should have just kept on driving home as nothing came to my float fished dead baits or on the pole line, to either of us.   All in all we can not complain about these two sessions having experienced quite a fantastic run of fishing in the past months and if we where honest we were due a bad one.

till next time,

tight lines

DAnny

Water To Go Bottle Review and River Dane Stick Float Fishing

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update I hope i find you all well and your nets full.  A few weeks ago i was approached by a company who enquired if i was interested in writing a review of their product, the Water To Go Bottle, I do get quite a few product reviews and I base my decision on if i can relate this product back to my angling and it also has to be a product that excites myself and this product definitely was ticking box after box so below is my review of the Water To Go Bottle.

Water To Go Bottle Review

Info:

Company Name: Water to Go

Website: http://www.watertogo.eu/

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/WatertoGoEU?fref=ts

Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/WatertoGoUK

Retail Price: £24.95

The Water To Go offers healthy clean water on to go using Space Programme Technology to filter water by utilising tiny pores in its patented filter that are created using nano technology to remove 99.9% of all contaminates from any water source excluding salt water.   The company say the water bottle will eliminate Bacteria, Viruses, Chemicals, Protozoa, Fluoride, Chlorine, Pesticides, Waterborne Diseases, Heavy Metals and Bad tastes and Odours in water.  The bottles filter is suggested to be an advance from the usual treatment of a chlorine pill to try and remove bacteria from a water source where the chlorine pill would kill but not remove the bugs and bacteria that you would then still go on to consume.

Europe alone consumes 50 million bottles of water a year and of that only 12% are recycled with the remainder dumped in landfill or left to pollute our oceans, killing wildlife and entering the food chain with this filter being able to treat approx 200 litres of water the Water to Go bottle is an Eco Friendly choice. 

My Review

Being brutally honest here the very first thing i did upon hearing from the company was to search the Internet to make sure it was genuine and did what it said it was going to do before i even thought about agreeing to say i would run a product review that would involve me drinking water from a river.  A simple search on google revealed a magnitude of positive reviews from walking sites and even a review from someone who took their bottle with them for a trek through the Amazon, good enough for that trip then surely the Rivers and taps of the Northwest of England would be no problem, so i happily agreed to do the review.  

As with all my reviews on the blog my review of the product and the whole package the company offers starts straight away with how the company present themselves via our emails and how easy they are to deal with and i have to say that yet again this company was a joy to deal with, very helpful and understanding and i imagine that if i did have a problem with the product their customer service would be spot on. 

I agreed to do the product review on Thursday morning and the product was there waiting for me after work on the Friday so delivery time was exceptional.  My next port of call was the packaging and even thought this product was a mere water bottle that could have been sent lose in the post i imagine it came extremely well packaged in a spacious brown box.  Inside the box was the bottle of course and also included were two letters the first containing important information on how to use the product and steps to prepare the filter before use and the next i nice glossy flier explaining in detail just what the bottle did, the flier looked stylish and very modern its appearance and was easy to understand. and again re-enforced the steps to take before use.

The bottle itself was packaged in a simple but cool looking cardboard holder utilising plenty of colour to draw the eye to all the main objectives and benefits of the bottle and on the back the packaging again goes into detail around the facts of what the product offers and benefits as opposed to buying water bottles.  I was really impressed with the look if the products packaging.

Removing the bottle from the case i was impressed with the sturdy feel of the bottle and i did not expect the rubber grips around the bottle.  The bottle felt of good quality and opening it up the filter, although bulky, reminded me of filter you find inside a bag less hoover.  The feel of the bottle did make me feel confident that the product was made of good quality materials and the filter looked up to the job.

The Tests: Test 1: Works Dodgy Water

My first test was the terrible water supply in the building i work in, recently my office has moved into new premises and being on the third floor the water supply leaves a lot to be desired, it has a strange metallic taste to the water and many people in work actually but their own water bottles in from the local supermarket instead of using this "funny tasting" water.   I was very aware at this stage that i was not going to be able to prove any of the things the product proclaims to do with science, my views would come down to basic taste and would i have confidence in the product at the end of it.

Before any tasting took place i poured myself a cup full of water on my morning break to remind myself of taste of the water without the bottle, it tasted like water but with a metallic after taste. Lunch break and time for the bottle, pouring the water into the bottle i set off to my desk, brought the bottle to my mouth and took a sip, the water tasted no different at first but then a second or two later after stopping drinking i did notice that there was no metallic after taste and the water was actually nice to drink rather than leaving you worried about what you was drinking.

Test 2 - Down by the River bank

Thursday afternoon and i headed off to the river for a spot of fishing armed with the water to go and two plastic cups i was all set to see what the bottle would do with a few muddy still pools on the sandstone lined and very agricultural banks of the river Dane.  Stirring up the bottom so the water resembled a dirty brown colour i tried to replicate what i would possibly find if this river was carrying some water and the water was coloured and i had come across this river as the only source of water to drink. The cup on the left is the water i scooped up and into the bottle it went and i quickly scooped up some more in the cup for the picture.  I then squirted the water inside the bottle into a second cup and it was almost like a magic trick as crystal clear water came out and into the other cup. 

Now for a taste and apart from being very warm the water tasted fine and being a hot day i took more than a couple of gulps.  As said the water did taste warm but that was nothing to do with the bottle but the warm conditions and tasted and tasted very palatable..

Final thoughts:

All in all i was impressed with the bottle to go and will certainly be taking it with me on my summer tips as it will surely save room in my holdall where my bulky flask takes up some serious space being a litre flask.  Would i have bought this had i seen it in the shops? Probably not as the £25.00 price would have put me off but now knowing how well it works i think i would buy one and have actually made my mates in work who regularly go climbing and mountain walking to this product for them to use. A stylish product with a nice feel and being a man who loves his gadgets i loved reviewing it.

On to this weeks fishing:

River Dane Stick Float Fishing - Low Flow But Fish Still Show...

This weekend we again headed to the River Dane for our angling fix but as we did we made the decision that barring some major rainfall leaving us with no other option that this  would be our last trip to the dane, at least for the next few weeks as a change is well over due.  Changing away from this river is really hard though, as is turning away from any river that's steady fishing.   The facts are in this river we have found areas where we can almost be guaranteed a net of fish of around 7-10 from a normal session and when you add to that areas where we have found exceptional perch fishing its very hard to justify going to other rivers that in some cases can be all or nothing on the day and further afield petrol wise to boot.

 I do feel now though since the season has started we have done out to achieve the goal i set out at the start of having a good go at exploring the full length and breadth of the river dane system although i had hoped for some more varied weather for us to learn how this river fishes with some water in her but i guess with this being England some heavy precipitation is not too far away and soon us river anglers will be complaining about instead of as it is now crying for rain.

On this session i was again desperate to explore if ground bait is the way to go forward on this river so i travelled to the river armed with a bag of Sensas Red Bream ground bait, 2 pints of maggot and a pint of hemp.  My rod of choice was my 17ft Carbon Active Rod paired with a Shimano Reel loaded with 5lb line with a hook length of 2lb Bayer Perlon to a size 18 hook and i think the float was a 8 number 4.

In the early morning light it is very hard to see what state the river is in and although i was not worried about levels i was concerned about flow as since our thunder storms last week, that lets face it just wet the floor rather than adding any real water to our rivers, there had been no rain at all to talk about.  I knew where to expect bites in the swim but i fed slightly up the line i was going to fish as i full expected there to be little flow and as such i hoped to get the fish within a 10 yard run from my position.  So that was my plan so the first thing i did when i arrived was my ground bait and while i set up my rod i began to feed the swim with maggot and periodically with a ball of ground bait loaded with hemp.

The first trots down the swim brought the usual chublets that had intercepted the flow of maggots, during these early morning exchanges with the chublets and tiny roach fry it was noticeable already the amount of fish up in the water feeding, never a good sign for a days trotting as normally these fish are in quite large shoals and with them being just the right size to feed on single maggots it can mean that little or none of your bait is getting down to where your bait is on or near the bottom and they are normally too high up in the water and their bites so fast there hard to hit, as predicted this was the case and led to a very frustrating open to the session for me.

I made a quick change and bulked my weights down the line and also fed the swim with a few bait droppers of maggot so at least knew some bait was on the deck.  These changes instantly changed my fortunes and the stamp of fish as first trot down i hit the nice skimmer above.  It never ceases to amaze me with not just river float fishing but fishing in general how slight changes can have such dramatic results and the struggle of the first hour and half was well forgotten.

By this time i had been feeding the swim for some time with ground bait so i was confident i had a nice bed of bait but knowing how bream can feed i was not going to hold back and i fed a small ball every other fish and this did seem to get the fish in and keep them coming as roach, skimmers and gudgeon haha began to come with regularity.

As always it takes time for the better fish and roach to establish themselves in the swim and i suppose the same can be said for perch as even the smaller specimens seem to only come in to the swim after a while of feeding.  The session was steady for the next hour or so and it built to me hitting two solid fish right over my feed, both were absolutely solid and had me convinced they  were big bream as i could not budge either off the bottom of the river bed, it seems weird writing about these two fights as one but they were literally identical.  Half way through the fight the resistance lapsed and a weird jagged fish endured with unusual vibrations down the line, my weight showing i was dying to see what i had hooked and then through the gloom came an eel and then the struggle to one get it in the landing net as it swam backwards out time and time again and then unhooking them, luckily i won on both accounts.

I of course knew i was in a prime area for a nice perch and this was not a part of the days fishing i was going to miss out on so and i have learnt a lot of their feeding has to do with the shadows on the water and the cover it provides so knowing where the shadows would be later on in the session i fed the area through out the morning and the time had come to try for one so same as the last session over the fed area i went.

As with last week the bite was not long in coming and as the float rested before slowly sliding away, a sight i have become addicted to i have to admit.  The fish was again a lovely specimen of the species and weighing 2lb 5oz would have equalled my river Dee personal best a few weeks ago.  These fish have some lovely marking on them and although not as bright as the ones from the clearer river dee once inspected on the bank they have an almost prehistoric dark colour to them.  I have got into a set routine with these perch now and it was into the neck of the keep net it went to rest before i captured a few pictures of the school yard bully.

The fish in the keep net as to not spook the rest of the perch i hoped were down there it certainly caused ructions with the shoal of fish i had in my net as they avoided the moody predator in their ranks.

Back out i went and sat like an kingfisher on his perch i waited for the float to move but for a good 40 minutes to an hour nothing happened and it was getting close to wrapping up time that the float shuddered, a movement that travelled up the rod and down my arm like an electricity bolt instantly pricking my attention and getting me glued to my float, one dip, "go on" i said, another dip, "have it!!" i begged and with that the float again skid away and another nice stripey of exactly 2lb was in the keep net ready for its picture to be taken.

After this one i did go to lose a third due to a hook pull but you have to look at the 5-8 other perch i have landed at this point and be glad you got the others in and you always know that one of these was going to come off at one point, i was a little gutted though.   The two together a joy to behold and i was privileged to again be given a chance to hold two lovely looking fish.

I have not had a second to think this passed week as there has been a multitude of things going on with the blog but i do hope to get a chance to sit down and have a good luck at the perch pictures to see if these fush are individuals or separate fish as although the weights are different it only takes the fish to have just eaten and digested a 3-6oz roach for their weight to be different.

My final net went just under 8lb of mixed silver fish with those two perch added taking the weight for the day to around 12lb.

my uncles net we forgot to weight but was certainly up an around the 8-10lb mark.

Till next time i wish you all tight lines and look out for next weeks blog where i will be featuring a very exciting product review of the products available from Pondip Tackle Box

Danny

River Dane Fishing: Perch Heaven and Exploration

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update.  The past few weeks i have managed to get out on the bank on a number of occasions during the week and as such i have decided to break the sessions down into a midweek blog update, as such it has meant that the main weekly blog update for that week has not been live on the front page of the blog for long at all.   I thought it might be worth including a few links to the
past few updates since the season has started.

Chub Fishing on the River Tame: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/river-tame-fishing-sticking-it-out-for.html
Session to Forget on Dane and how i prepare Hemp: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/river-dane-fishing-tough-times-how-to.html
Busted by the coppers on the bank: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/river-dane-fishing-coppers-show-for.html

As of writing this introduction section of this blog I am just about to start a week and a half break from work and at the moment the only plan i have is to get out on the Dane on Thursday and of course our Saturday stint where i think we have got plans to get our discovering boots on to hike a few farmers fields discovering those never fished before swims hidden behind the walls of Balsam that suffocate the river further upstream.  After Saturday I have no idea what I am doing fishing wise, a bit of me wants to put some hours in on the carp quest but I am a running water man at heart and the lure of those rivers pulls hard for me when setting off in the car but its something i need to get my head back on track with so i may find my way out for a few evenings for the carp and maybe a sneak trip to the Tame, either way its going to be an exciting week to be off work and on the bank.  Born to fish Forced to Work.

This weekend is always a weekend i look forward to so much and that is because it is the Fishomania final.  As regular readers will know Saturdays are my normal fishing day so i will be setting a recording on Sky Plus for the match on Saturday but it is the Sunday International match i look forward too more and i guess that is down to the fact it is more similar to to the fishing I do in the way they target all species and the emphasis is not so much on carp catching methods and you get to see baits like worm and caster used.

Fishomania has been a great success and we can only hope that one day the Riverfest gains as much popularity that it also gets a televised final on Sky although the logistics of filming such an event along a long stretch of river bank may a problem.  The hope that this will on day feature may not be far off being a reality though in future years given the fact that every match in this years competition has sold out and the competition is attracting some big sponsors this year.

Away from the actual fishing i have this week been contacted by a company with a view of me writing a review of their product on my blog.  As i have said before on the blog i get many of these emails asking me to review all types of products and it may seem silly to stare a gift horse in the mouth but if i can not relate the product back to my fishing in some way then i politely decline, in past years there has been some "out there" ones like Hammocks and a full head to toe mozzy clothing!  As said may seem mad to  turn it down but it is what it is and if i can not find a use for it and relate it back to my fishing in some way then how can i give it a true review.

Speaking of past reviews i to this day still use most of the products i have done reviews for on the blog.  The lamp get used every week when walking the bank in the dark and to thread my line through the rod rings in the dark and the grill to go get used on the few sessions where you can get close to the car to name a few.

Before we get onto this weeks fishing I thought i would just go into where i feel we are up to this year with the river fishing and write up a bit of an update.  When i set out my plans for the season it was aimed predominantly around discovering what the river Dane has to offer and not just in the popular well fished areas.  I feel in the past few weeks we  learnt a lot about the lower reaches of the Dane in that it offers us a steady 10lb net of fish at least on most sessions when the river is in low summer conditions and looking back to the winter sessions it seems the chub stick around but in winter the better fish seem to shoal up as you would expect in certain areas of the river.

The steady nets available here and the good fishing we have found i must admit has halted our exploration upstream and this has been remedied a little in this update but in all honesty i had in my mind that we would have began moving a little earlier but it is so hard to branch out to other spots when you have such steady fishing with easy access already there and as such hacking your way through brambles upstream to fish the same river makes you think twice.  Then there is the River Dee, a river both me and my uncle love to fish but a river that seems to have fallen by the wayside of late but i am sure that will all change come winter and then there is the River Weaver that i planned to fish and i am pleased to say that i have a session planned on the Weaver next Friday so that will feature as a midweek blog during the following week as it will be too late for that nights blog so keep an eye out for that.

on to this weeks fishing.

River Dane Fishing: Perch Heaven and Exploration 

The idea this weekend was to take advantage of the dry conditions and head for a section of the River Dee that fishes really well for dace at this time of year if the river is at the right level so all day Friday whilst i was in work i had in my head we would be heading off to my beloved River Dee the next day.  All the bait bought as i headed home from work i had a quick glance at my phone and it showed that the next day we were in for some rain, not a problem for us as we go out all weathers, it was the predicted high winds that drew our attention as the venue on the dee is very open and does involve you to fish right down the middle of the river so these high winds would make line control and presentation of the bait difficult.  With this in mind we went back to the drawing board and looked through the venues we had at our disposal and we decided to scrap the idea of fishing the river Dee and decided on a early start on the River Dane at a very sheltered spot.

Waking in morning to the sound of rain tapping against the window i set about my normal morning routine, cup of coffee, round of toast, bait out of fridge and into my basket and all set to load the car.  The time come to load the car and in the pitch black and with the rain bettering down i loaded the car as one or two of the younger neighbours stumbled home from a drunken night out, been there done that and i was glad i was going fishing although i did wonder just how many anglers had set their alarms, woken up and saw the rain and turned back over.  You think it does not happen but when you see how quiet the banks are on these days it makes you realise it does effect a lot of peoples decisions to go fishing although this nature is not confined to angling as dog walkers, bikers and ever boats on the local cuts numbers are drastically reduced, at least until mr sunshine comes back out. Heading out along the roads with the window wipers doing double time we chatted about the session ahead and what we expected.  The river Dane is a river that shows the effects of rainfall quite quickly and even after a good month of hardly any rain we knew she would be carrying a little bit of water and we thought maybe a bit of colour too.

Walking the banks in the early morning light with the rain coming down we quickly scouted out two pegs and set about getting out gear set up, now i did say before fishing in the rain does not bother me but i must admit setting up in the stuff does as everything it soaking we through before you start so priority one for me was to get my basket down and the brolly set up over it and as we had chosen our venue wisely there was no wind so the risk of my box getting blown in was eliminated totally.  Putting the landing net in the margin i noticed the water clarity was quite good and i could see quite a bit of the keep net in the water even in the dim light.

Tackle and Bait

Rod: 17ft Preston Carbon-active Float rod  Line: 5lb Drennan Float Fish 2.2oz Bayer Perlon (hooklength)
Float: Dave Harrell 8 number 4  Hook: Size 20 Kamasan Animal
Bait - 2 Pints of white maggot 1 pint of hemp

We had timed our arrival well as no sooner had I set up it was light enough to run a flat through and as normal with this venue the fish had come straight onto the feed i had put in while setting up and the very first run down the fish where there.  I always take a photo of the first fish of the day and in this case it was a small roach.  The rain was still coming down at this point but with fish coming quite regular and my brolly up i was as happy as a pig in muck.  The great variety of this river was shown in the first three fish of the day which were a roach, dace and a chublet and this variety is what draws me to this river, not knowing what the next fish is or what is in the river that day just makes the session for me.

Having fished this river since the season has opened we have began to get a feel for how she fishes and it has been very noticeable that the swim starts with smaller fish and builds in both number of fish and the odd better fish start to show and it is normally around a hour or so into the session.  It has also been a huge feature that the swims build and build and then completely die so although i was catching very well i knew to make the best of it as it would almost certainly not last.

After around a hour and a half the better fish had started to show on my peg in the form or a few nice skimmers and perch.  It is around this time that my uncle normally visits my peg or vice versa to see how the other is fairing and when my uncle visited he brought the news he was having a session similar to mine the previous week where nothing had gone right to the point he had not even cast in yet with a mixture of getting caught on the trees and stuck on bottom first cast accounting for two hook lengths, needless to say he was far from happy and i would have been exactly the same, well i was the previous week so i knew how he felt.  A quick brew and he was back on his way to his peg and i got back to my peg and set about trying to get as many fish together in the early bumper period as possible.

The session moving along nicely i was catching some nice roach and even had one or two better chublets coming on my trots down the swim.  It was great to also see some nice perch showing if the float dropped into a slack on the far side of the swim and although we have caught perch on here before these where of a better standard.

Another reoccurring feature of our trips so far on the River Dane has been the appearance of some really nice perch both harassing small fish as they come in and also stalking the fish in our keep nets.  I knew they were ever present on the peg in was on so i had set out with a game plan and ever since setting up i had been feeding a margin line with bait and around two hours into the session i saw the first signs of predators in the area with all the silver fish coming up in my keep net and i was sure i saw the flash of a perch following my feed down.  The swim in front of me was starting to die off a little with fish coming in dribs and drabs and having to be worked for so it all pointed to it being time to try for the perch.

In i went with my bait and no sooner had the float settled was it sliding under and i struck into a fish that left no doubts to its identity as it went straight for the margins and feeling the pounding of its tail down the rod blank i knew it was a perch.  When the fish surfaced i was taken back as to the size of the perch it was massive and with that i started praying for it not to come off and playing the fish with a lose drag i managed to get it to the top only for it to dive time and time again and with every dive my heart rate increased till eventually i managed to slide my net under its crocodile skin flanks.

On the unhooking matt it looked huge and i thought it was for sure a new personal best but on the scales she went exactly 2lb and her stomach felt quite hollow.  I was in no way upset i was over the moon in fact and this fish was the fish of the season so far and could quite possibly be the fish of the season.

over the moon!!

As i was landing this fish my uncle appeared at the back of my peg and after taking some pictures and returning the perch back we got chatting and my after my uncles late start the fish had been poor and i concurred that the fishing down the swim had got worse over time so we decided to photograph my net and go and spend a few hours discovering an area we had scouted out upstream.

The Discovering Continues Upstream, 

Heading of upstream to discover what the fishing was like on an area we had scouted out a few weeks back filled us both with excitement and although we only had around 3 hours of fishing on the new stretch we knew it would give us a good idea of the potential of the area.  What would we find?  What species were present? and would we find the location of the better chub that we know must be in this river?

My uncle set up in a swim that had a deep run on its inside that led down to some really fast water and it was at this really fast water i set up in a swim.  This was not the plan but the upside of setting up in these swims would ultimately give us a chance to see what fish species are up here as you would think we would encounter fish that live in slow glides as well as the fast runs.

The great news is that although we did not break any records with the weight if our nets what we did catch gave us great confidence.  We both had a good few silver fish in roach, dace and even a perch while we both caught some nice grayling one of two i caught is shown below and was two fish of a 13 fish haul of grayling i caught and returned.

 We both caught chublets and my uncle also had a better stamp of chub than we had been catching down stream which really pleased us both.  The highlight of the short session for me was two brown trout i caught which both put up an epic fight in the fast water.

The two final nets although not going to set the world alight weight wise will give us the push to search out other areas around here and let us know that dedicating a full day to this area will be worthwhile.

till next time its tight lines from me,

Danny

Dreaming In a Winter Wonderland.............

A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and boy what a weekend on the bank it proved to be and I am still buzzing from it now, that’s the magic of fishing it can bring the angler so much joy and happiness, yes its nice being around the great wildlife the north west of England has to offer but nothing beats that feeling of achievement after a red letter day on the bank.  Another milestone also passed by with last week’s post in that it was my 100^th blog post!! It only seems like yesterday to me I was an avid reader of all the great blogs on Blogspot and now I am 100 posts into my personal blogging life, madness and surreal and all I can do is thank you all for reading my updates and I hope you all enjoy reading them as much I enjoy writing them.

I start this week’s update by covering a program that aired for the first time this week on the Quest Channel called Fishing in the Footsteps of Mr Crabtree (http://mrcrabtreegoesfishing.com/ ).  There are 6 episodes to the series that will show weekly at 9pm on a Thursday evening and they will cover all aspects of our sport from pike fishing to river fishing, the opening week was devoted the fish of spring, the teddy bear eyed tench.

The program stars John Bailey as host as he takes a different child under his wing each week hoping to teach them the ways of Mr Crabtree.  I have long said on my blog that it worries me how many new anglers to our sport only know how to fish with a heavy lead and a bite alarm, many times on the bank I get speaking to young people in our sport who have never fished a float, don’t get me wrong this is not me preaching but more me disappointed as it as such a shame that the art of float fishing a canal say for roach and perch is fast becoming a dying art and a young kid’s first fish these days is just as likely to be a 5lb carp than a perch of a few ounces and I just feel you have more appreciation for the bigger species like carp when you have spent time catching the smaller fish.

This program see’s John and Sam stalking the margins of a pond for tench kitted out with a rod and a centrepin reel fishing under the rod tip using old fashioned tactics tweaked with the best the modern day has to offer to fool these shy fish.  It took me right back to the days before I started writing my blog when I used to fish a lovely tench water on the Warrington Anglers card called Cicely Mill, at only a few feet deep and reed lined margins I used to fish with my centrpin right under the tip of my 13ft float rod for these lovely fish.  In review I thought the show was fantastic and a breath of fresh air to the very stagnant TV fishing series of late and it really didn’t surprise me to see the greats of our sport like Matt Hayes publically complementing the series on Twitter.  I think it did exactly what it intended to do from the outset in taking people back to their childhood and open the eyes of the younger anglers to our sport to the joys of float fishing, it certainly ticked box one with myself and I can only hope box two was ticked with a few youngsters and I really can’t wait this week’s instalment on the rivers, 10 out of 10.

This week on the banks of the Dee went to show why it is important to be polite and friendly on the bank to the people you meet as I had a very special fish capture as you will see in the update later on but my electronic fishing scales packed up on me and I had no means to get a weight for a fish that was obviously a personal best.  I walked along the bank to ask another angler if I could borrow their scales and on approaching the peg I realised it was a fellow I had had lengthy chats with last winter and he had no hesitation in lending me his scales.  It just goes to show treat others as you would like to be treated and be polite and it will always have its benefits later on down the road, far too often people on the bank can give you the cold shoulder and be ignorant and there really is no need for it, thankfully on the river Dee they are very few and far between.

The result of this was this week I decided to invest in some new scales that don’t require batteries, I will get the old one up and running as a backup but inspecting these ones below I am already more than made up with them.

On to this week’s fishing and although it all happened in one day I will split it into two halves, the day session and the short “on the way home” session.

River Dee Day Session:- TROTTING FOR DACE

  Last week I fell really ill with this vomiting bug that has been going round and it really knocked me off my feet so much so I was off work from the Wednesday and spent the majority of my days either in bed or in the bathroom.  Friday came along and it began to feel as if the worst of this bug had passed and late on Friday evening I “perched” myself at my desk and watched while the thick snow began to fall out of the window of our house.  The snow fell and fell and fell and eventually became so thick it blanketed the whole of our car park in a good foot of so of snow.  I wrapped the blog up around 12.30 and gave my uncle a call as to whether it was sensible to go ahead with our trip to the river the next day, a quick chat and we decided the trip was off. 

This decision was made, not because of the conditions being too bad to fish in but the fact that my dad and uncle both live down on streets that are on quite steep hills and with us leaving under the cover of darkness it would be really dangerous for me to travel in the conditions alone, not to mention we didn’t know how bad the conditions were in Wales.

With no fishing on the agenda I tried my best to have a lie in but it didn’t materialise at all and I was sat in my living room checking out the river Dee water levels at 5am.  It would seem that I wasn’t alone in my early morning vigil as I received a text around an hour and half later from my uncle saying how mild it looked outside, a quick glance out of my window and he was right the snow was thawing and it was very mild.  It took us a matter of minutes to change our minds and I was already in my fishing gear before I the phone left my ear and I quickly swallowed a few ibuprofen tablets and made a beeline for my mobile igloo, also known to many as a car.

The roads locally were treacherous and my head and body were aching more and more as the journey to my dad’s continued, this was a bad idea but looking at the EA chart I knew the river would certainly flood for the next week at least and this could feasibly be our last chance to get out on the river for a few weeks, the opportunity was there today we just had to take it.

Driving the river in the daylight is not something I am normally accustomed too and with our final destination being a popular stretch of the river we hoped the harsh conditions over night would see a few people turn over when there alarm clock went off.  Pulling into the car park the stretch was empty except for two cars right at the top end of the beat so we settled on two relatively open pegs that we knew would hold some dace.

In last week’s update I went into detail about my general set up for trotting the river and this week I decided to try and add another string to my bow by using a Bolo float and fishing a lot further out than I normally would.  These floats are traditionally fished with a bulk shot a few feet above your hook and I decided to go with this set up and used an ollivette to make up my bulk shot weight.  This style of fishing is generally used to fish a third to half way across the river so it would also see me using a piece of tackle I don’t normally use on the river and that’s a catapult.

Getting used to flicking the line out tangle free and baiting the hook without the float wrapping round the blank of the rod took what seemed like an eternity to get right but eventually I began to get to terms with it and managed to get a few decent trots through the swim.  The main problem I encountered was the swim was noticeably shallower just past my bed of hemp which made it really hard to get a decent presentation and to further my problems I was also struggling to cast in and feed the line with the catapult whilst letting line run from the reel to allow the float to still run through the swim.

With the wind coming down the river I decided to pull my line in to the end of the tree to my right, this had two benefits, one I gained control as it was closer in and two the maggots where going straight down so it meant I could trot a small distance in front of me and get bites. 

Doing this soon saw me picking up the odd dace but all of a sudden the swim died and did so for around 10 minutes, I decided to persevere and I was so glad I did as not long after casting in the float buried and I was into a fish that was in another league all together.

The fish made lunge after lunge for the safety of the snags to my left but I was determined not to lose this fish like I had done the better fish I had hooked into in previous weeks.  I am sure the new reel had a part to play in me winning the fight as it helped to cushion and control the fish’s powerful lunges where I feel the unforgiving nature of the closed faces drag would have seen me snap off on one of the final lunges the fish made.  In my head I thought it was a nice chub, which have been rumoured to be in the area, but what came to the surface was something altogether more rewarding, a big perch and the person who said nothing looks bigger than a big perch certainly knew there stuff, I was shaking with the sight of what was in my landing net, definitely a new personal best.

The fish safely in the net I made my way along the bank to see if anyone would lend me their scales to use and like I mentioned earlier I came across a guy I had had a few conversations with in the past and he was more than kind enough to help my cause.  Returning to my peg I quickly put the perch in a carrier bag and got it on the scales, 2lb 5dr, I was more than made up with this fish!! A perch over two pound is a fish I thought I would never catch.

The fish was put into the keep net so I could have another admiring look at the end of the session, the scales returned I spent a good hour chewing the fat with the guy who lent me the scales and both shared our knowledge of the Dee and the surrounding rivers.  I eventually got back to the trotting and settled in for an afternoons trotting and between 12 and 3pm I put together a respectable net of 10lb including the perch.  Not my best session on the float but considering I was on the bolo float I was more than made up.

 My uncle had a solid days dace fishing with bites coming all day long and he ended with an outstanding net of 16lb of all dace, a more than respectable day’s work and would have actually put him joint top with the winning weight in the Dee anglers match on the other bank.

 As many of the blogs followers on facebook will know I have been experimenting recently with an app called Instagram on my iphone and I am really impressed with some of the changes you can make to pictures, I was more than made up with what it allowed me to do to my perch picture, I feel it really brings out the fishes colours.

Going with the flow of the day – a bit of opportunistic piking

With there still a decent amount of light left and the fact we knew this would probably be our last trip to the river Dee in the next few weeks we quickly rounded up a few live baits in a bucket and set off to see if I could achieve my goal of a pike in the snow, after no activity all day again at our current location I was far from optimistic, but one thing I did know was if I was going to get a pike today the place we were heading was as good as anywhere.

Parked up I made my way to the spot and with freezing cold and shivering hands I baited up my rig, said a little prayer to the fish gods and cast out into the murky depths.  The float danced on the surface as the fish plodded around under its surface and then it settled into a rhythmic motion almost as if the lapping of the waves agitated the dace into motion.

In a blink of an eye the float descended into the depths and I struck into what felt at first a small jack pike, that was till it realised the dace it had just engulfed wasn’t heading into its lair as easily as it would have liked and that’s when I felt the full power of this pike as it made a strong run.  I was using my braided line for the first time and I have to say it left me in full control of this pike, I always felt I had power in reserve and whereas before I used to give the pike some drag this allowed me to firmly apply pressure to the pike so it remained in front of me and before I knew it I had my winter snow pike, I didn’t weight the fish as it was not a record breaking fish but I knew by holding it the fish was easily around the 10lb mark.

With the light fading fast I didn’t have long to try for another fish so I quickly got my pictures so I had time to hold the pike in the margins and let it rest fully, again this rumour that pike are a hardy fish is just that a rumour, we should really limit their time out of the water as much as possible, get our photos and rest them fully before releasing them, it is amazing how long a pike, that fights so aggressively will lie in the margins with you holding their peacefully before giving their big paddle a lazy kick and moving off.

The pike released I moved back into my swim and chanced my luck for another pike and I was not to be disappointed as after only a few seconds the float went for another soaking as it descended, this time towards the snags!! This was going to test thr line for sure so I quickly struck and applied as much side strain as I dared and I was amazed how the line gave me the strength to turn what was a decent pike  and which turned out to be slightly bigger than the previous one.  My target was one pike in the snow, two pike had me in dreamland, a dream land surrounded by a winter wonderland.

The pike is more than equipped for its role in the food chain.

That was it for the action and we reluctantly left the banks, a personal best perch and two pike around the 10lb mark, I still can’t believe I am catching pike of this size regularly and taking them in my stride, a few years ago a fish of around 10lb would have been a dream fish but I never take them for granted in my mind I know we are only a pollution incident or fish disease away from this great river going up in smoke, the fishing on the dee right now is up there with anything I see in the weekly rags and long may it continue, I am proud to be a River Dee angler.

my second home:

This weekend, if the conditions hold, we have a new destination on the cards, it’s a brand new fishing destination for us and will be a whole new learning curve, we may well blank, in fact I am sure there will be more than the odd blank as we learn this new place.

Till next week tight lines from one happy angler,

Danny