Mussels on Corn and Sun Drenched Crewies

Welcome to this week’s blog update and all I can say is WOW, what a mad week it has been away from fishing, a week where I feel I have not had a minute to think and every evening has been taken up with one job or another.  This week has really got me thinking of the blog come September when our baby girl arrives and how the current format of updating my blog every Monday night is, in reality, going to be very difficult for me. 

Most weeks I follow the same cycle with my fishing I go fishing on a Saturday or Sunday or both sometimes and then write my weekly blog after work on the Monday night.  The writing of the blog can take me anywhere between 2 to 4 hours to complete depending on how many trips in that week and how many pictures I need to upload and as the due date for the baby is getting closer and closer I feel I am struggling to find this time on a Monday and feel when I do I am rushing and fitting it in around other jobs.  As you will have noticed there was no update this week on Monday and although the blog was wrote and all in place to go live on Wednesday night I decided to hold it back to publish on its new day of Friday.  So from now on all my updates will be going live on a Friday evening.  This gives me all week after the fishing to write the blog and get it together and allows me to do a little each night.

This week I had only one opportunity to get out on the bank and I chose to spend it on Woodshaw Reservoir searching for one of the 3lb crucian that are reported to live in this beautiful water.  I had all week to prepare for this trip and plenty of text messages where banded between both me and uncle on our plans for the day.

My plan for the day was to fish the pole close in off the edge of the reeds and bait wise I was going to lure the crucians in with a ground bait mix I have real faith in.  The ground bait in question is Dynamite baits Silver X ground bait and to this I added dampened micro pellets, corn and a sprinkling of maggot.  Crucian carp fishing is some of the most exiting fishing you can do as they readily give their presence in the swim away by the stream of pin prick bubbles they produce as they sift through the bottom hovering up the particles of bait you produce, sometimes culminating in theses bubble engulfing your float and eventually, if you are lucky the float gently slides under.  The mix I had put together was aimed at keeping these fish grubbing away in my swim for the maximum amount of time and I had every confidence this mix had enough small particles to do that.

Crucian carp have one other characteristic, apart from being very aggressive bottom feeders, they are renowned for being the most delicate of biting fish sometimes making the float dip a few millimetres so when crucian fishing our rigs have to be as sensitive as they can to pick up even the slightest sign of a fish.  I knew my regular pole float would take 5 number 9 stotz to bring it down to the bristle but after experimenting I noticed by adding a number eight shot instead of a number 9 shot it lowered the float so it was a mere pin prick, a setup that would pick up if a crucian carp even breathed heavily on the bait!!  I believe strongly in finding a style of float that suits you and sticking to it, in both my river trotting and pole fishing I only use one type of float design, this way you can learn how that float fishes and more importantly when there is something not right with how its fishing.

The weather I believe is the biggest factor we should take into account when fishing and all week the country had been basked in glorious sunshine with temperatures soaring to around 26 degrees in places.  These insane may temperatures inevitably brought in reports far and wide on the forums of fish starting to spawn and I just hoped that come Saturday it wasn’t the crucians turn on Woodshaw to spawn.  With the promise of Saturday’s weather being windy but very warm we made a point of arriving on Woodshaw in the cool early morning when we knew our chances of a decent fish were at their highest.

Saturday I was joined by both my dad and uncle on the bank and both had adopted different tactics to me, my dad was fishing the float using a rod and reel while my uncle joined me on the pole but was using hemp seed as his base to attract the fish in.  We all shared one similarity though and that was we all had plans to fish corn on the hook.

The fishing on this venue can be frantic at times due to high density of roach that reside here but my biggest fear for the day was that the pellets in my ground bait would attract vast numbers of small skimmers into my swim.  This fear was put slightly to bed when we arrived as it seemed great numbers of bream where busy spawning in the reeds.

Fish came into all our swims straight from the off and while the songbirds reached the end of their morning dawn chorus all three of us where busy catching all varieties of fish.  I glanced over the pool towards the car park to witness a heron stalking the bank for his breakfast and it amazed me just how much patience these birds have.  The heron must have spent a good hour and half patrolling the bank without so much as a strike at a fish before calling it a day and moving on, I did consider trying to get a picture but knowing how shy herons are I felt it not right to disturb him.

The first few fish to the nets where all small roach and palm sized crucians but I then had a stoking bite that buried the float, no messing around here I thought and expected to strike into a tench if I was honest.  Striking I felt solid resistance and then nothing as the line slowly lifted towards the surface a bit like when you catch a bream solid for a few seconds but soon give in, what broke the surface baffled us all, a fresh water mussel and hooked fair and square in the shell.

Not long after returning this specimen some decent crucians descended into my swim and they slowly began creeping up towards that 2lb mark and culminated in this lovely marked fish which weighed exactly same as last week’s pb of 2lb 2oz, may even have been the same fish as I was in the same swim.

I continued to catch a net of around 30 crewies and some really lovely bream and also got snapped a few time by rogue carp or tench, fishing for these crewies you really have to fine your gear down and getting the tench out when you hit on is a matter of luck if the fish turns, unfortunately mine was out this day.  My uncle also had some nice crewies in his swim as well some top quality roach with the best of his bunch is shown below.

It may seem like I cut mine and my uncles trips short in the above paragraph and I did for a good reason, this blog for the last few months has been a lot about me and my uncles catches and my dad has missed quite a few of the trips out and has struggled when he come back with us but Saturday in my eyes belonged to my dad he caught some exceptional fish on Saturday with nice crewies and bream coming thick and fast and you know what it really made me happy to see him enjoying his fishing again, meant a lot to me, well done dad!!!

So that marks the end of this week’s visit to the bank and next week’s blog update will be the last one before the glorious 16^th and believe you me we have got some plans for the river season this year, I really cannot wait, all that remains between now and then is to pick up a few bits I will need for the coming season.  Next week’s update will include some of my plans for the coming season and some targets I want to achieve.

With a bumper bank holiday weekend ahead I am sure to be out on the bank a few times this weekend and if you are out I wish you all

Tight lines

Danny

Chasing bars of buttery gold

Welcome to this week’s blog update and I begin by proudly announcing a new supporter for the blog in half bean Baits, you will find their logo on the right hand side of the blog and a link to their website below. What does this mean for me and the blog? Well it means in the future I will be using some of this companies bait in my fishing exploits on the bank and have already ear marked a few of their products to use in both my still water fishing and in my future river campaign, no part of the agreement we have in place confines me to just using this bait in all of my fishing on the blog so I will still be looking to use a variety of baits in my fishing throughout my angling year but also incorporating some of the half bean baits as and where I think they will work well. I am really excited about using some of these baits in the near future and I cannot wait to get out on the bank and try them out for myself.

This week I have begun getting together pictures for a few location videos that should be going live shortly in the Stillwater and commercial venue sections of the blog. The Stillwater section should see the addition Woodshaw Reservoir and I am looking at producing a separate video in the commercial venues section for every pool on the flushing meadows complex, showing the diversity of the pools and the fish you can expect to catch in them.

This week my attention really began turning towards the opening of the rivers even more so than the previous week, the oily swirls of the water as it glides its way down its course towards the sea just captures my imagination time and time again and the soothing noise of the water as it rushes by your peg and the challenge of keeping those fish biting as the course of the river changes throughout the day, nothing beats it for me, the banks of the river are truly a magical place to be and in this sport where we put anglers into special pre-defined boxes I think I am well and truly in the river anglers section of our sport and I cannot wait to get back home.

The week gone by marked the first bit of steady, warm weather we have experienced this year, yes it may have been grey and gloomy but the air now lacked that chill it had in the previous weeks. The sun is beginning to set well after 9pm at night now and with this and warm ambient temperature in mind me and my uncle’s friend, Curly, decided it was time to make our first evening midweek trip to Flushing Meadows fishery of the year.

The day in question was Thursday and looking out of my window in work I did feel it looked a bit grim outside to be considering going fishing but upon leaving work I noticed the air temperature was quite high, certainly over the required level for carp to be out and about feeding. This temperature would surely see those carp searching the margins for those piles of bait dumped in as the anglers that had been there since early morning left the fishery.

Arriving on the fishery around 4.15pm I bumped into the bailiff who informed me there had been a few on the canal pool that day but they had just left and had indeed struggled for bites, after enquiring where they had fished on the pool I quickly paid my fee and made my way down the rocky farmers path to the pool and set up in a swim that judging by the corn on the banks had seen a fair amount of bait that day.

My tactic for the day was to fish the near side margin hoping to pick up some of the fish that patrol the margins in the evenings looking for the free surplus of bait left by the anglers. Curly was not due to arrive for around another 45 minutes so I wasted no time in setting up and with rigs already made from my last session It wasn’t long before I had a bait in the water and my first carp of the evening on the bank.

Not long after returning this fish did I hook into another carp which also took a liking for my margin fed bait and it was while unhooking the fish curly pulled up in his carp the fish returned I spent the next 20 minutes catching up with him having not really seen him since our fishing trips last year. The greetings over we both settled into our pegs for some late evening carp fishing and we both had an enjoyable evening catching carp all the way through till we could no longer see the float in the evening gloom, one more cast syndrome had well and truly taken over and it took me losing a fish by the hook pulling and me consequently snagging in the tree to my right for me to call it a night.

The biggest carp of the night for me weighed just less than 6lb at 5lb 5 oz although I think the biggest fish of the night went to curly with a fish that was certainly bigger than mine but we neglected to weigh it at the time. My total for the night was 12 carp which isn’t bad considering we were only on the bank a few hours and I think curly had at least the same amount of carp so it was an enjoyable first evening session all round and I cannot wait for the next especially with the temperatures form now on set to rise considerably.

After this session on Thursday evening it left only one more day I work and that flew by in a blink of an eye and before I knew it I was on my way up the M6 with my uncle on his first trip to the Wigan pools on the Warrington Anglers Card. Our plan for the day was to fish the carp pool in the morning and spend the afternoon on Woodshaw Reservoir, this way we could take in two waters in one trip and give my uncle a better knowledge of the waters that club have in this area.

Leaving the M6 we were soon driving through Wigan town centre and up the road towards the pools and it amazes me time and time again just how close to Wigan town centre you can cross paths with deer, literally 5 minutes after leaving the town centre we saw two Doe deer in the fields around us. They were far too quick from me to stop and grab my camera but hopefully next time I will be a little more prepared for their presence

The carp pool holds great memories for me from last year, when I put together a 15lb bag of crucian carp and tench from this venue. Setting up on the pool I knew with the warm temperature we were in for more of the same and I was not to be disappointed. My uncle was first to connect with a fish in the shape of a small tench which was his target from the outset and it was not long before I followed in his footpaths with some stunning crucians.

This pool is a real gem of a water for anyone wanting to get their children into fishing, it is absolutely jam packed with crucuan carp and I imagine the odd larger specimens of both the carp and tench variety. We continued to catch small crucians all morning loosing count at the amount of fish we had actually caught.

Towards the end of the morning we were visited by one of the bailiff’s that run the Wigan side of Warrington anglers and it was a real pleasure to see a bailiff on the bank who cared so much about the pools he looks after and his knowledge of the pools was second to none and even took some of our queries on board to take to the next bailiff meeting which was great to see.

The carp in this pool provided us with some great sport and kept the float going under all morning but it was soon time to move onto the next venue in woodshaw reservoir to see what awaited us there.

Woodshaw reservoir is like no other water I have visited on the Warrington anglers card it is immaculate, the banks are always freshly mowed and the pegs first class with some of the steeper pegs even having wooden rails to help anglers up and down the banks and the reeds around the water are well maintained with not a single inaccessible peg on the water, this is in such stark contrast to some of the other waters on the card that seem to have either half completed pegs or left to rack and ruin, like the river weaver complex at Frodsham. I personally think the whole of the club committee should visit this venue and take a leaf out of the Wigan bailiff teams book and see what proper club waters should look like, a real water to be proud of and the Wigan team should hold their heads high, hats off.

We set up on pegs on the far side of the pool where there was less angling pressure on the day and was soon into bites form roach on maggot on the edge of the reeds and I can quite see why the club has a thinning policy on these silvers each year as the place is alive with roach of all age brackets.

Sat in the sun catching fish whilst being treated to a spectacular aerial display by the visiting swallows who where greedily hovering up a massive hatch of flies whilst taking the odd sip as they went about their daily activities. These birds are now appearing in great numbers as they complete their annual migration from Africa and are a real sign that summer is on its way and more importantly for me are a sign that the rivers gates are not too far off opening.

The fishery I believe used to be an ex bloodworm farm which would explain why the bottom erupts with a mass of tiny bubbles when the crucian carp move in rummaging through the silt for the particles of bait we introduce. There are few sights in fishing that are more exiting that a float sat off the reeds surrounded by a mass of tell tale bubbles, real exiting stuff!

The bubbles where happily fizzing away and at any moment I was expecting the float to slide away but strangely it remain upright in the swim with only the off line bite giving away that fish where certainly around the bait, it was time for a change. I changed over to a more substantial and visible bait and this was instantly rewarded with the float sliding away and I was into my first proper crucian of what was to be an exceptional day for these bars of buttery gold.

The first decent fish on the bank and it was soon in the trusty co-op bag to be weighed and I was delighted to see the scales rest on 1lb 13oz, a great start and I was more than made up with this fish.

The afternoon continued in the same vein with many smaller crucian carp coming to the net and I will be including some of these pictures in the video I produce for this venue so be sure to check that out for more pictures of the crucian carp and of course anyone that follows the blog on Twitter or Facebook will have already seen one of the pictures I posted on Sunday.

The afternoon seemed to go on forever and what a joy of an afternoon it was and right on last knockings it was topped of with a glorious crucian carp of 2lb 2oz a fish that will live long in my memory and I cant wait to get back on this lovely venue to chase these most delicate of fishes.

I topped the week off on Sunday by making a visit to flushing meadows to meet up with a lad who emailed me regarding this fishery, I managed to put 6 carp, two tench and a few bream on the bank but the highlight of the day for me was putting a face to the email I had received and meeting up with a genuine top guy on the bank who was not only well into his fishing but obviously had a great knowledge and love for the sport and a fellow river angler to boot as well, I look forward to hearing how he gets on once the rivers open, tight lines mate.

That is all for this week and I leave you with a picture of one of the carp from Sundays fishing trip.

Till next week I wish you all

Tight lines

Danny