River Roach and Dace Brace To Remember!!

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Well finally the temperature has dropped and unlike the rest of the non anglers i am over the moon.  This update i share my thoughts on going fishing in the cold and then look back at some of my favourite memories of fishing in the cold and the snow. The fishing this week see's us heading out to take advantage of another window of opportunity on the river and this time i remember my scales.

On to the Update...

4 Below Are You Mad To Go??

The news is full of all manner of stories telling of the "Storm of The Century" is on its way or "brace for the Icy Blast" and although from time to time they are right on most occasions the weather is no where near as bad as they mention.  Angling is a sport that has many divisions and sub divisions but the biggest way to divide all arms of angling is into two brackets.  Anglers who fish all year round or anglers who fish in the warmer months, commonly know as fair weather anglers, there in my eyes is nothing wrong with being in either camp.

I am most certainly in the All Year round camp and one of the things i love most about angling is experiencing the great out doors in all its forms.  I find the sight of a canal path laden with ice covered puddles and snow covered river banks just as exciting as the sight of the first daffodils rising in spring and the new lambs in the many fields as you travel to your location.  Each season is as magical as the other in my opinion.  Winter is not a season to be afraid of, many look out and think "as if I'm going fishing in this" but others also look out and think they wont catch in the cold and in my opinion that is the thought process i aim to challenge in this piece.

Winter for me fishing wise is a season i love and although the bank sides are barren and died back it really is in my opinion the season of plenty and actually the easier months fishing for me.  Fishing can be hard don't get me wrong but if you have put the time into learning where the dace will shoal up or taken the time to walk a lake at first and last light to see where the silvers as topping then you are already half way there.  At this time of year location is everything and being on the fish is paramount as the distance fish will travel to their winter haunts can be huge but the difference between catching and not can be minute.

 A great example of this was a session me and my uncle fished on the river dee.  We both fished an area known to hold huge heads of silver fish in winter.  My uncle pegged below the bridge and me above it a gap of only 100 yards and both swims an even depth.  All above the bridge netted up to and above 20lb of fish while my uncle had 3 bites.  Again once you find the fish the lines of success can be so thin.

You have to be prepared to fish in the colder months with the right gear but with good thermal base layers and solid thermal boots you should be fine.  Target fish you know will feed in the cold and you will be amazed what great fishing you can have.

Cold Sessions To Remember...

So when the cold really sets in the excitement levels really start to rise and there has been a few times we have headed out with snow on the ground and had some fantastic sessions but the river Dee sessions really do stand out for me.  The first i remember was a session when me and my uncle headed off to the river in search of dace.  The roads all the way there where a nightmare and it was more out of relief than anything else when we pulled up to the pegs.

The weather for the day had forecast freezing rain, what the hell is that we thought, we ll later on in the session the rain hit and as it hut the floor it froze instantly.  I remember being warm in my thermal gear but my hands where sooo cold and every time i had to put my hand into my hemp that was no mixed with a freezing cold slush i regretted it.  The dace really showed up on the session and i remember us both bagging up on dace, a real show of what can be caught even when the temperature goes into minus figures.

full update of this session here: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/ice-ice-baby.html

The next species normally on my mind when the cold and especially when the snow arrives is the pike.  A few years ago i set my heart on a pike in the snow and off i set to try and achieve that goal.  A stop of first for a bit of stick float fishing to catch some live baits and it was off to the spot i had in mind, same river mind.

The mighty river dee was my river of choice and i arrived at a spot i had caught some pike in summer.  The pike in summer where all jacks around 3-5lb but my target was a pike in the snow i did not really care about size of pike.  The bait lowered into the slack i waited and it didn't take long for the float to disappear into the depths.  A good hard strike and the rod hooped over, at this time i was not really into my piking and was using my 1.75lb barbel rod so you can image the bend.  Certainly not the tiny jacks of summer and yet not a monster, in the net i had my pike in the snow.  Was there more to come though? find out in the update.

link to update: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/dreaming-in-winter-wonderland.html

There are of course many other sessions over the years where we have gone out in the snow but these and the ones that spring to mind.  Having been out yesterday as well in the snow with not so much as a touch you really appreciate the sessions you make the effort and it all comes good.

On to the Fishing...

Brace To Remember On The Stick Float...

The night before the session we had a good look at the rivers and decided to fish the same river as the previous session and in a twist we decided to just take one set of gear and fish the same swim taking it in turns of around 30 minutes to trot the swim while the other fished a lead into a deep hole. 

We arrived on the bank full of expectation and hope.  The swim we knew from experience held a good head of chub with the potential to give us both a bend in our rods for most of the day.  We expected to get the full day as there was no rain forecast and although the river was up a foot or so it had a nice clarity so we expected to catch.

Feeding the swim as we set up i was excited as i sat in the hot seat for the first half an hour stint.  The first trot down and i small little dace was my reward, a good sign as these fish in the swim would only increase the amount of fish In the net s.  A trot down again and the rod hooped round as i struck, a chublet came up in the water and into the net.  Two casts and two bites a solid start.  The nature of this swim is that you normally hit a few nice chub and then the swim can die for a half hour or so and then they come on again.  By fishing the way we did we hoped for one person to catch, then stop catching and then time it so the other person took over right on bite time.

The third trot down i hooked into  fish that felt like another chublet, this was till it came up int he water and i noticed it was a dace and a big one to boot!.  Fighting in the clear water i could see my prize right in front of me and it was a dace i did not want to lose.  A few anxious moments as the dace held in the current and then moved flank on in the current giving you that horror feeling of slack line and a lost fish.  Eventually she came up and slid into the net, a clonking dace and this time i had my scales, 14oz!

The next trot down i decided to go along the fast water to the snag and inched the bait down the swim.  Reaching the snag i held back and the float zoomed under, a nice bend in the rid again and in the fast flow it put up a great fight.  Again an unusual fight that had force but lacked the brute power of a chub.  Up the fish came and revealed itself to be a massive Roach!  Another big silver and a fish i did not want to lose.

My hands trebled as i lifted the roach from the landing net and marvelled at its beauty, a very rare fish indeed and one that certainly a new personal best for myself.  On the scales she went 1lb 5oz, although in the roach world a long way off a monster fish, for me, was two trots down the river i will never forget.

Handing the rod over to my uncle i sat back and thought about the two fish i had caught and was over the moon.  The only thing i love more than fishing a river is watching my uncle trot a float through, it takes me back to when i first started trotting and i would spend ages just sat in his swim watching how he fished the river.  Asking questions about why he fishes that line and why he holds the float back in that place in the swim was all a vital part of the stick float angler i am today.  Able to read a river and approach a swim on my own and feel confident i can catch fish is all down to those early sessions.

Trotting the float through it was no surprise that he was soon into some chub and a good standard to boot.  He took a number of dace and chub during his stint.  Taking over i caught some more but the bite had become really patchy.  The fish where not moving out and the river had gained pace.

For the next few hours we really struggled for bites with my uncle picking up the odd one on the float and a lead fished tight to the snag accounting for another.  Come pack up time at 2pm we had put around 15lb in the net, not the 30lb plus we had hoped for but a nice day on the bank with plenty of banter. 

This session will aways live in my memory for the two trots down in succession early on with a 14oz dace and a 1lb 5oz roach looking as pretty as a picture together on the mat.

One happy angler wishing you all tight lines till the next update

Danny

Lets Talk Blanking And Monster Dace Scale Regrets...

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  To be brutally honest i have tried to put a blog together a few times since new year and each time my mind has just been blank.  Just like fishing blogging can have its peaks and troughs where blogs like fish either come easy or seem to be a struggle.  A day or two off work i find myself with time on my hands and suddenly it feels right, laptop booted and here we go.

So in this update i am going to really concentrate on one main topic and that topic is blanking but before we get into that i would like to take a second to wish you all a happy new year and i hope 2016 is a year filled with success both on the bank and in your family lives, all the best to you all.  The fishing sees a trip to the river and boy do the fish turn up, sadly it is the one and only trip i have ever forgot my scales and boy do i live to regret it.

On to the update..

Blanking, A story or woe? or good lessons learnt? 

I am very fortunate to be an angler that gets on the bank at least once a week, madness some say and others will call it passion, me? I call it a necessity for my sanity.  Fishing offers me all manner of benefits, time alone to think through problems, relaxation and with a ever increasing amount now companionship and comradeship towards a common goal.

Getting out on the bank this much you experience peaks and troughs in your angling, the times where you feel like an angling god where it seems no matter where you out your bait you catch a fish, you never tangle and no fish come off.  You then have the flip side of this where the float can be as stagnant as the very still mill pond you are fishing, every cast down the river is a snag and it seems that no mater what you do the float not go under.

Blanking, a word that seems to send chills down any anglers spine, a word loaded with a sense of failure and almost embarrassment as each trip seems to be a quest to avoid "the dreaded blank..  I know when i first experienced a dip in my angling a few years ago it really hit me hard and fishing turned into something that was not a pastime filled with excitement and relaxation and became more a chore that built into fishing becoming frustrating.  As time has gone on and i have matured and grown into fishing these dips i know are times to not to be too hung up upon, i know from experience to keep doing what worked before and in time the tide will turn.

Blanking is part and parcel of fishing, we all do it and at times its to be expected and this is all forms of angling.  In mine when i try a new area of river or a completely new river then finding the areas the fish congregate especially in winter can lead to a string of hard sessions but in the long run these hard sessions make the good ones even the sweeter.  Pike fishing of course has taken off with me the past few seasons and these early lessons learnt trying rivers have put me in a good mindset for dealing with the blanks that come more often with the pike fishing.

Pike fishing does present a new set of problems with blanking as you might only get one chance on a session so that chances of a blank are high.  I feel the key to dealing with these is to evaluate if the area you are fishing is still where you think the pike will be as pike can be so seasonal in their movements as they follow the silvers and then also remain confident in your tactics.  Very rarely are huge changes in tactics needed i feel, the tactics and baits that caught pike before will catch pike now and as mentioned location can be reevaluated but in essence time is the only healer here and keeping positive, the fish will come.

One thing we should try to avoid is beating ourselves up as this only leads to you making more bad decisions on the possible bad decisions you are already making.  Try to avoid looking too much at what other anglers are doing and concentrate on your own fishing.  When blanking it is never a good idea to go looking at groups or pages on facebook of other anglers catching as remember only catching anglers really post so it will seem like the whole of the world but you is catching. Keep concentrated on your own fishing and in time the bites will come.

On to the fishing....

Monster Dace, Big Chub and Scale Regrets.....

So with the majority rivers around all in the fields we had a good sit down on Friday night and evaluated our options.  The river Dee was in the fields and most would say un-fishable but if you find the areas where there is a slack and the colour is not like chocolate you have a chance.  Most people look at the river charts, as i do, but from this chart only see the numeric level.  The chart is there to show you the trend of the level, if a river is in the fields then it is deemed un-fishable yet if this river has been in the fields for 10 days then the clarity of the main river might be good for fishing and its a case of finding the right spot.

We went through our options looking at the blog and past trips, yes the blog is my main tool for looking at passed trips over the years haha, we settled on a venue where we knew the level was i would say "ok".  In reality it would be the highest level we had ever fished this river but it had been dropping for a day or two so we knew we where in with a chance of a fish.

My plan for the day was to spend the morning in one swim where i was hoping to pick up the odd chub and if it died, it normally does due to the low stock of fish in this swim, then move and spend the afternoon in another swim where i knew there was a good head of chub.

The swim i was in was a stick float anglers dream, a nice even pace, even depth and fair bit of cover along the banks for the fish to feel safe around.  The first trot down brought the expected trout, greedy and always willing to feed i had a feeling this would be the first fish in.  Either that or a chub, i would have preferred the latter.  Trout are lovely fish but their erratic fight and flapping allover the swim does little to help your dace and chub swim.

half an hour into the session and i was pleased to see the dace hard on the feed as i knew it would prolong the longevity of the swim.  The swim being positioned where it is i knew the shoal of chub would be around eventually when the maggots proved too much to resist but in reality i would be happy to catch dace all day.  The quality of the dace seemed to suddenly improved with a me losing a nice dace and putting this dace on the bank.

I took a minute to admire its beauty, scale perfect as its mirror like scales glistened in the mottled light coming through the trees.  A few more trots down brought a few more dace and i was in heaven and then i hit a fish that felt nice.  You can normally tell from the fight what you are connected too, dace seem to thug and give a gliding fight, dace you really feel the tail, chub feel like your connected to the bottom and barbel leave you feeling like your in trouble from the off.  This was a weird fight and at first i thought chublet and even more so as it came up as it was a nice big fish, chub i thought, then i saw it on the top!  "jesus its a dace i thought!!"  in the net i was in ore at its beauty it was a really big dace.  I then thought scales which hit me where in my pike gear! gutted.

A fish i will never know the size of although i will always have the memory of its capture and this photo.

After this dace was in the net it seemed the dace died off and over the next hour or so i picked up the odd chub but as predicted around midday the swim seemed devoid of bites.  All my tricks to tempt another bite attempted i decided to take a picture of the net and move on, not a bad mornings work.

The move of swim brought me closer to my uncle and i looked forward to an afternoons banter as we fished the last two hours of the session.  The swim i was in i knew held a good head of chub and i had experienced some phenomenal sessions in this swim over the years with nets of chub over 30lb but the next two hours i have to say shocked me.

The pace of the river was more than i would have liked here and at first i thought i was wasting my time as the bait float trundled through the fast glide down to the snag.  A few trots down and nothing to show i started to experiment with feeding and presentation and it took a few changes here and there before i unlocked the key to the lock on how the chub wanted the bait on this session.

Trundling down the swim i feathered the line through my fingers along the swim slowing the bait right down and then right before the snag a gentle hold on the line and as soon as i released the float buried!  Solid resistance as only a chub gives and the 13ft korum float rod was bent double.  A tense battle i the extra flow and the chub came up to be netted.

The tactic nailed i went on to have two hours fishing to remember taking 11 chub and a few dace for a net estimated to be around 25-30lb.  A cracking two hours sport and fishing does not come much better than that on the stick float.  All caught on maggot and hemp.

That brings us to the end of this weeks blog update i hope the talk on blanking and the nice river session where a nice introduction to 2016.

Till next time i wish you all

tight lines

Danny

River Bollin Roving and Hard Day on the River Dee

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets full.  This week started off with some really great news in the form that myself and my partner found out the sex of our unborn child due in December.  The scan revealed that we are expecting a baby boy later this year which we are both really excited about and i can not wait for the fishing trips to come with both my little girl and boy i will have to start looking for pink and blue seat boxes! Honestly i can not wait to meet the new guy and continue our family adventure and at the moment my head it just full of all the future fishing trips to come, exciting times.

It is a weird feeling writing this weeks blog update as it is the first for a number of weeks that has been back to the old rambling update as the past two updates have been based around two exciting product reviews that i have thoroughly enjoyed completing.  To be frank the world in the back ground of the blog has been quite frantic of late with both the Water to Go and Pondip reviews sandwiching a on line Social media competition i have been running for ALDI and the launch of their new Fishing range.  I am not one to really blow my own trumpet but i was really proud of myself when dealing with ALDI as they asked if i would be interested in running a competition, i agreed of course but when sent the list i was met with all manner of prizes from small bivvys to spinning rods and rather than picking the most expensive prize i proposed a prize that would allow an angler or someone new to the sport to get out on the bank with all the kit they needed, baring bait of course, so the prize was a carp rod and reel loaded with line, bite alarm set, unhooking matt equipment and landing net.  The winner of the competition was Ian Johnston and it gave me great satisfaction that i had put a prize together that could put a new angler on the banks of one of our fantastic lakes, what a feeling that from just a mere angler writing about his fishing that some good can come from it.

Moving back over to the Pondip Tackle Box supporting the blog and i am pleased to announce that I will be submitting a separate update to them each month for review and possible publishing on their website.  The content will be more around how i do my fishing using the contents of the box and not around the adventure involved in the whole picture of the day.  I will post any blogs that are published on their page in that weeks update so please take the time to check it out when they go live!

The pike season looms large and it has seen me slowly putting some gear together for the upcoming season.  The first thing i purchased was my Warrington Anglers Card as with a baby due in winter my venues for the short piking trips will certainly have to become more localised, although i am sure the odd trip to the River Weaver will sneak in there.  Along with the licence i have also been picking up the odd bit of tackle in the form of some Grey Wire, Treble sleeves, sinkers and needle for injecting oils this along with a bargain of Ebay of a Carp Holdall for £10.00 means a steady start to building up my pike set up has begun.  

The pike season does sit on the horizon at the moment but before then i am hoping to get out on the banks of Warringtons waters chasing some of their carp to add a nice end to the carp quest which i will be writing up this Winter with the mount a water i am keep on getting on before winter.

Speaking of piking its got me thinking about all those wonderful winter sessions to come where the grass is glistening with an overnight frost and those long mornings where the sun barely makes it above the yard arm, the rivers are like a plane of glass and your stick floats dotted down to a mere pimple, dreams of plump fist fulls of dace and pike bungs lazily sliding away allowing you to hold the sinister green mottled frame of a pike in your arms you know what i can not wait!

On to this weeks Fishing

Roving Session on the River Bollin....

The timely lull in workloads in work saw me rushing home an hour early to load the car and pick up my uncle and an hour may seem like a waste of time but in the world of motorway Rush hour traffic jams a hour can mean the difference between a half hour journey and an hour and half journey say in a jam.  The gods thankfully shone on us as we were blessed with an empty M56 motorway as in no time at all the car was unloaded and ready for the short walk to the swims.

The plan for the day was for me and my uncle to swap swims we had fished the previous Saturday, it is something we do allot on our trips and even more so if there is a swim that is really productive to give both a chance to fish it.  I set up just upstream from a willow and my uncle on a bank with a shallow run down into some deep dark water.

The river was very different to the river we had left on Saturday as all the colour had dropped out of it and it was gin clear with all the gravel runs and streamer weed clear to see.  To the casual glancing eye these open clear stretches looked devoid of any fish life but giving it a few seconds for your eyes to adjust you could see some serious sized chub and dace crammed under every shadow offered by a tree or streamer and the sheer number of fish that had crammed into one space astounded me.

My tactic was to go all out, seatbox and all, to stick in one swim knowing the better fish were under the willow and would hopefully come out to my steady stream of trotted maggots and corn.  The truth be told two hours in i had about 60 or 70 minnows in my keep net, it was time to make a decision.  My choice was to stick in the swim and put all my eggs in one basket and hope that the fish came on as the light dimmed but with not a single dace for a hours fishing i was dubious or to nip back the car grab the essentials and rove up and down the river. The fact i had no hooked a single dace made the decision for me so i quickly nipped back the car and off i went with a landing net, net bag, rod and few bits of terminal tackle.

Stopping in on my uncle he had been having the same issues as me with minnows and small dace but he was getting the odd better one thrown in to keep him ticking over and i left just as he was landing a nice dace.   With around 2 hours of the session left i walked the banks and fed three swims with a plan to fish these in rotation and return to the most productive on at last light.

The first swim i tried was a really shallow run that dropped off into a big black deep hole where you could not see the bottom it just had to hold a fish or two and i hoped a nice chub.  Feeding the swim upstream so the bait was going directly into the hole i dropped down stream and noticed no maggots where coming out of the flow behind the deep depression, something was eating the maggots!

The swim was a hard trot as you had to hold back tight to get the bait to skim across the rocks without pulling under and then release the float so the bait feel nicely into the depression the first few casts i struggled but then holding back at the right time if dropped in and BANG under the float went and i was connected to a nice sized fish that kept deep i was convinced a chub as it went for the inside cover and then it started jumping clear of the water as time and time again it tried to throw the hooks.  When i eventually got it in i was met with a fantastic trout that has some amazing colours and for its aerial aerobatics i named him Marlin!

With all the disturbance in the swim it came as no surprise that the next 20 minutes was spent bite less i really do love the look of trout and grayling to say that but the crashing they do in the swim when you are dace and chub fishing can be a real pain.  After the minnow fest in the last swim i was just glad to have a decent fish on the bank and i called it a day in that swim and moved onto the next.

Dark water towards a far bank lined with brambles leading down to a nice pool and some over hanging dark trees was the next swim to grab my attention, it screamed to me both chub and dace and just teasing the float back induced a few bites, as you can see on the video below that a little hold back on the float is the killer.

the result a nice nice silver dart

This swim produced a few more nice dace and as i knew i was not spending long in the swim i kept them in the landing net in the margin and sure enough after 10 Min's the commotion of the few fish saw the swim die off so it was time for a quick picture before moving on to he next.

The next swim produced some small dace and i also lost what felt like a chub to a hook pull.  I persevered with the swim and took a few more nice dace but it was getting to that time of day where the light was just starting to do and i knew i still had unfinished business in the first swim that i had fed with corn before leaving.  Arriving at the swim it looked mint and i made one big change to the last time i dropped in the swim in the fact i left the maggot tub in my holdall and it was out with the corn, big fish or bust time.

The tactic worked straight away with this fantastic example of a dace, plump and long with pearl like scales, a fish i am hoping to meet again next February with her winter spawn added.

The swim gave me a few more dace before i called it a day and released them all to fight another day and made my back up to my uncle.

Arriving at my uncles peg he was catching steady on the stick, had caught a nice chub and some nice dace.  I dropped in down stream for a few casts on corn and was rewarded with a chub first cast, a nice way to end a  rare roving session for me.

My uncles final net showing the benefits of sticking to the one swim and both results combined shows what this small little river has to offer the angler willing to explore its shallow depths, not bad from a river you can jump across.

River Dee - Tough Return To An Old Stomping Ground

Driving along the M56 motorway with the head lamps pointed towards the Welsh border was a surreal feeling to say the least as it has been a whole 9 months since we last set foot on the River Dee's banks.  With good fishing on the Warrington Anglers card not worth the risk to your car we headed to a upstream beat we head fished once or twice before and found some nice dace.  In the early morning light the river was like glass and with the banks being really open myself and my uncle were soon picking up the odd dace or two.

The session was going well till the the sun came up over the tree line and was shining down right where i had put my hemp seed and was getting steady bites.  This bright light on the water made seeing the float impossible and any bites well you could just not see them.  This made for a frustrating hour or so's fishing for both myself and my uncle who was experiencing the same issue.  Eventually the sun rose to an angle where it was no longer an issue but by then the early morning flat calm had disappeared and was slowly being replaced by a swirling downstream strong wind.

This down stream swirling wind made presentation impossible to entice the better dace, they were there all right but in the wind it was only the silly this years fry falling for our bad presentation and catching these was a lottery given their ultra fast bites that more times than not resulted in you retrieving a snotted maggot like the one below.

As is always the way the conditions improved right on packing in time and i would say for the last half an hour we put together some better fish but the nets bared no resemblance to the 20lb nets we had caught her previous.

My net and my uncles net marked a OK return to the river but all in all a hard days work on the river.

my net

uncle net

Well that's the fishing for this week i wish you all

tight lines

Danny

Pondip Review and River Bollin On the Stick Float

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update hope i find you all well and your nets full.  There have been some changes over the past week to the blog and I proud to announce that Dannys Angling Blog is now supported by Pondip Tackle Box .

Last week i was sent two boxes from Pondip, one coarse and one carp for review here are my thoughts on the Pondip Tackle Box and what they offer the modern angler.

1. EXCITEMENT 

Opening the front door after a long hard day in work i was met with the sight of two parcels laying invitingly upon the door mat, my tired eyes lit up as i realised it was the two pondip boxes for my review.  Straight away the excitement of the unknown was there, i knew they were being sent out so their swift arrival was expected but their contents were still a mystery as in the past days i had purposely avoided researching June's contents to allow me to experience the full package Pondip Tackle Boxes has to offer.

2.BIG NAMES

I opened the boxes at the same time and upon looking inside and through the contents i was genuinely shocked not only at the quality of the contents but at the BIG names from within the angling world it contained.  Across both boxes there was tackle from Kryston, Taska, Enterprise, Matchman and Kamasan to name a few, excellent stuff.

3. CUTTING EDGE

A lot of the tackle I recognised from my day to day fishing such as the Enterprise Corn and Kamasan hooks but the box also contained some exciting tackle i had never seen before such as the Kryston Doppel Ganger Real Meal Halibut Pellet that certainly got the Carp and Chub senses buzzing. 

It was obvious this box not only offered the angler every day tackle to keep their tackle boxes ticking over but also tackle that could add that edge to their fishing. The box also offered a taste of the old school whilst also incorporating a means to try a different approach for example i am always and angler that uses eyed hooks the addition of the matchman hook tie will certainly see me purchasing some spade end hooks to learn a new method. 




4. FUNCTIONAL

At first the boxes just looked to contain a mixture of different pieces of tackle but upon sitting down and inspecting the boxes further it was clear its contents where put together for a reason.  The carp box contained all the items needed to put together a surface floater rig for carp, within the box was a controller float, float stops, hooks and imitation floating baits such as corn and dog biscuits while it did not take long for the river angler in me to notice the Coarse box contained all items needed to have a days fishing on a river with a stick float, float rubbers, weights and pre tied hook lengths all featured.

Being an angler who is out on the banks of his local rivers nearly every week of the year i was soon using this tackle on my weekly fishing trip and with the contents of the Coarse box i put together this nice net if dace, roach and chub.

5.VALUE FOR MONEY

For just the excitement of that Christmas morning feeling of a package containing the unknown arriving on your lap this box is worth every penny of the £15.00 per month and the fact this box contains fishing tackle only adds to the excitement. When you actually sit down and add up the value of its contents you soon see it stacks up financially as both boxes pass the £20.00 mark all this added to the fact its streamlined design meaning there is no waiting in to sign for a delivery makes this box an exciting, fun and sound investment. 

To find out more why not check them out at: Pondip Tackle Boxes

On to this weeks fishing

Saturday 02 August River Bollin On the Stick Float

I always take great pleasure when talking about my blog to people when i say i am yet to meet one bad person through it and the people i have either shared emails with or actually gone out fishing with have all been a joy to both share angling experience or a bank with and it was one of the latter that contacted me this week with news of a Private stretch of the River Bollin he was fishing and would i be interested in wetting a line in her depths.  

With more than a few weeks under our belt fishing the river dane and learning some of her secrets we were ready to give the big perch and silver nets a rest and if we were honest both me and my uncle were ready for a change of scenery so this opportunity was very timely indeed and with a few pictures of dace and roach in printed in our minds and just enough rumours of recent good sessions still ringing in our ears we arranged an early morning session on the Saturday but before then a was the dreaded long Friday in work.

The river Bollin is a river we both knew little about and is a river i have only been on on the banks of once and from that trip i remember a really really shallow river that was so shallow i could walk across it and not wet my ankles so with those thoughts of a shallow small river in my mind i was worried in work as all day Friday the rain came and went and come on heavy again and with it i knew our chances of getting on this river hung in the balance. 

Waking up Saturday morning loading the car in the rain i made the sort journey to my uncles where we decided to bite the bullet and make the trip to the Bollin instead of visiting the River Dee which was our back up plan. Walking the bank in the pitch dark it was hard to make out where the shallow and deep bits of the river resided as in the dark it all looked deep but as our eyes adjusted we began to make out one or two deeper runs and also that the river had a lovely steady flow to it, full of excitement we unloaded the car and trundled to our chosen swims.

Feeding the swim as i set about my routine of setting up my bait waiter, landing net, keep net and rod it was a good 30 minutes of feeding before i was sat with rod in hand ready to plumb up and make a cast.  Out into the gloom went the depth plummet and after weeks fishing 6-7 feet deep it came as a shock when the plummet registered on bottom almost instantly.  As mentioned in the above review i was using quite a light float and adjusting it to the depth i found a depth of around 2ft, i was a little worried but i need not have been as first trot down the float buried and i was over the early morning departing moon to hold a bar of chunky silver dace in my palms the picture showing just how early it was. 

It doesn't matter what river i am on as soon as i catch a dace or a roach i am a happy bunny as one thing you know about these species is they are very rarely alone and so it proved as the next trot down resulted in a chublet, again great to see as this capture raised my confidence that there could be some better chub specimens around the area.  In the first exchanges i caught fish from a few ounces all the way down to this years fry and as the session went on it became very hard to get 5 yards down the swim before one of these hungry mouths snaffles the bait. The better fish would show around every 5 or 6 fish and it was great when one of these was a roach, another species added to the list.

The amount of fish in the swim was incredible as time and time again the float went under anywhere from under the rod tip as soon as the float settled to my bed of hemp but visits to this hemp filled area where few and far between but when i did i was always met with a better fish and on one of the runs down i struck into a fish that shot off down stream at a rate of knots before eventually turning and shooting back up through the swim before putting on an aerial display all over the swim, thrashing and crashing its way to my landing net and there in front of me was a nice trout i must admit they are much better on the eye than in the water thrashing about all over your swim, still another species ticked off. 

The fishing went quiet for a bit after this and it in fact helped me out in the long run as the really small fish being young and naive stayed at the top of the run and it pushed the bigger fish down into the darker deeper water and as soon as i worked this out i was able to over cast the early part of the run and was getting some nice dace with great regularity and at this stage i reckon i had easily over 60 fish in the net. 

The dace continued to come with the odd smaller fish but then the whole swim went quiet and the float trundled down further than it had all morning and down along some really dark water where it zoomed under striking i hit a fish that showed none of the panic of the trout earlier as it held defiantly in the flow, here i stand mentality. The fish, obviously a stubborn chub, was hell bent on getting me into a snag but thankfully i turned the fish and i must admit using a hook length from the box that i was unfamiliar with i did not know just how much pressure i could put on the fish but the tackle held sure and the fish surfaced its big white lips gulping as the net slid under its brassy flanks.

The very next cast i was shocked to again hook into another nice chub which had me thinking i was in for a extraordinary day as you can not help but feel after two chub like this in two casts you might have a nice shoal in your swim.

The time at this point was getting on fro 7.30am and the initial part of the swim where i had caught so well was clearly visible now as it had become illuminated by the early morning sun.  Fishing from 5.30am till 7.30 i had caught a decent net of fish and over the next hour till we decided to call it a day i only added a few dace to the net as the bites completely died.  With small rivers like this you have to take what you can get and although on most of our trips we fish till 2-3pm we both knew now the sun was up on the water it was time to make a move home and cash in those early return home brownie points ;-

my net

uncle net

We left two happy anglers having added another river to our armoury and caught well.  The drive home we shared our excitement from the session and how we had enjoyed the morning and planned another session later on in the week.

The midweek trip will feature as another blog on its own to go live mid next week sometime.

Till then i wish you all

Tight Lines 

Danny

River Dee Dace and the Rolling Pike

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update and you find me probably in one of the best places i have been for a long time, coming up to four years ago my mum sadly passed away and with that i lost all interest in the sport of rugby league, a sport i had played since 10 years old.  The mixture of these two things and the depression and comfort eating that goes with it had seen me pile on the pounds over the past few years and it was not till September this year it hit me that i had too stop this trend and sort it out for myself and also for my little girl growing up.  I am here now, at this moment in time 3 stones lighter than i was in September, i feel great but i know as well i still have a long way to go.  I was going to go public with it earlier on the blog to put myself in a situation where i have to stick to it but i really am the type of person that if i say "i am going to" means i will do it as opposed to me saying "i might" which basically means "i wont".  As i said i feel great and there is still a long way to go but already there has been some real morale boosters and milestones,  my Berghaus coat that i never wore as it was too tight i wore on this session you will read about on Saturday and the difference was it was loose enough to sit in, which was great, but even better was the fact i had two T-shirts and my thick jumper on under it as well, long way to go but i have made a start.

The picture above got posted on the internet this week and how true it is as sometimes it feels like it only rains on Fridays causing the rivers to flood and not be in the best nick for the weekend yet all week driving in work its calm and clear, perfect for trotting.  This week has been a week that has killed me being in work as driving into work i knew the conditions were just perfect for a days trotting or even for hunting a big pike but alas as my missus always says fishing doesn't put food on the table and although i don't eat as much now she still insists the fishing wont pay the way ha-ha.

The river this coming weekend will be in fine fettle and the popular beats will fish well but i must admit the buzz for me comes from finding those quieter areas and the shoals of fish that the masses do not know about and not to mention the bystanders you get visit your peg on the more popular stretches can be tiresome at times, even to me as ask any of my family and colleagues form work i can talk for hours about fishing but when i am actually fishing i like to get away from it all, so this weekend i will be targeting a stretch of river where i have found some depth on a summer trip hoping that it is home at this time of year to some shoals of dace and chub as lets face it not all the fish in the river can go to the popular areas as you literally would not be able to fit all the fish in the short stretch, so this weekend will be some of the most enjoyable fishing i do, searching out new areas of river and learning more about this fantastic river, we may well blank but what if we don't?

One of the joys of writing a weekly blog is you have a detailed account of each trip you go on to look back on and it is something i often do, not from a vain point of view but more to remind me of the session i am reading about and it lets you know where you fished in the same conditions in previous years and it can influence your decision come the weekend. For example around this time last year i fished the dee in the snow and caught well fishing for dace and pike but on on the session in question i remembered i had caught a few roach on corn so this weekend i might pack in a tn of corn and feed it during the session it also provides you with a brilliant confidence boost when times get tough.

Here are a few i have read this week:

Fishing in the snow: http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/dreaming-in-winter-wonderland.html

Dace when rivers fining down: http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/water-finally-flushing-out-of-our-rivers.html

This week i was contacted by a company around possibly reviewing one of their products on a future blog and as discussions are only in the early stages at the moment so i cant go into detail on this product review but thought it a great opportunity to show some of the product reviews i have done in the past and also open the opportunity up for other companies, so if you are a company that has a product or piece of kit you think i would use and want a honest review on a popular blog that at the moment attracts 6000 plus views a month feel free to approach me and we can see if we can put something together.

past reviews i have featured:

Calor Gas Grill to Go: http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/calor-grill-to-go-review-and-rixton.html
iFishlocator Review: http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/river-dane-chub-delight-and.html 
Minke Fishing Tool : http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/minke-fishing-tool-review-and.html


Moving on to this weeks Fishing:

River Dee Dace And The Rolling Pike

The joys of last weekends net of dace and the bonus session for chub where still flowing through my veins like the water through the river i intended to fish which was again the River Dee.  The winter of 2012 taught me one thing, make the most of the fishing while the river is in form as for too long it can be unfishable like it was last year and although weather forecasting technology is the best its ever been you never truly know what is around the corner and us river men really are at the mercy of the winter rain and snow.

Although it is probably obvious from my weekly writings about the dee, i think this river is a magnificent venue and in my eyes one of the most underrated rivers in this country and although her fishing quality is often questioned one thing that is not in doubt is her sheer beauty.

With no birthday celebrations this week i was joined again by my uncle on the bank and we headed for the same area i had fished the previous week where we hoped to find the dace hungry.  Arriving at the river we were full of anticipation for the session ahead as our arrival on the bank was greeted with a cold overnight frost and temperatures below freezing.  Walking the bank with the leaves crunching under our feet we debated which area to target but after taking into account the river levels, temperature and colour of the river we settled on two swims close to each other that had a steady pace and even depth.

As always the first trot down was etched with expectation and although the freezing conditions would have put many off we knew this very cold would be the reason we would catch.  This is why rivers a re so magical as they offer anglers a chance to catch fish all year round and the fishing is especially good in winter as a number of factors come together to make the fishing so good,  the depth offers the fish warmth so they are attracted to the few deep areas on the river and the fact the fish are constantly swimming against the flow means they have to feed to survive and as there are large numbers of fish in this area you get competition for the food that,if fed right, keeps the fish coming.

The first dace of the session took a while in coming but like on so many sessions on the dee the first fish is always the most difficult as once you hit that first fish you know a shoal of fish is about and you get that flush of confidence.  The fishing at this point was slow with bites being at a premium on both our pegs so much so after a good two hours of fishing we were both in single figures for fish in our nets.

We both chewed the fat over a brew and agreed something was not right and it was amazing to see the similarities in our experiences so far, we both had caught fish all over the swim and both had noticed that any hooked fish was fighting in a way they could not wait to get out of the river, pike are what sprung to mind but i guess only time would tell as if it was pike it would only be a matter of time.   Our brews finished we returned to our pegs and continued our trotting ritual and it seemed like the break had done my uncles fishing some good as straight away i could hear the unmistakable sound of him striking into fish and the same could be said of my swim as it seemed like it was really starting to improve as well as bites where now coming on the same line in the swim and with greater regularity and for the next hour or so i caught with increasing regularity.

The swim was really starting to get to the stage where you think i might be on for a decent net here when on retrieving a dace i had the life scared out of me as a pike rolled at the dace about 7 yards in front of me, i just was not expecting it and what surprised me was the fact it missed such an easy meal.  Never to be one to miss an opportunity and knowing the pike was about i quickly grabbed my pike rod and had a go for the pike but nothing was doing so it was back to the dace fishing.  This marked the start of  a pattern in my swim that would last for the whole session and it was surreal experiencing such a weird phenomenon as what i witnessed on this session.  I would continue to catch dace all over the swim, maybe four or five and then BANG the same pike would roll at a dace as i was bringing it in, not take it just roll at it then the fishing would die for 10-15 minutes and the swim would slowly build up with four or five fish and then bang there was the pike again.  Even when i thought i was due a roll from mr pike i would try the pike rod with no success and then the next fish i caught it would have a go at.  I lost count during the session how many times this happened.

My uncle was also having a similar experience on his peg where he had pike attacking the fish in his keep net, pike lying in wait in the margin of his swim yet he never had one dace taken all day, very very very weird behaviour and certainly i have not witnessed anything like it.  We have all seen videos of pike or seen in the flesh how devastatingly accurate pike can be at taking fish and in my eyes no pike misses upwards of 4 times never mind 15-20, very unusual and interesting at the same time.

What was really weird was the quality of the dace we was catching with such pike around with the one above being my best fish of the day and a real example of what winter river fishing is for me, dace with fat plump pigeon chests darting and gliding upstream through the swim as they come to the net and that sudden realisation that this is a dace you cant lift in and you joyfully reach for the landing net.

My uncle continued to fish for dace the whole session while i, in hindsight, wasted far to much time on mr pike but his dedication and skill showed in the final net as he put 18.6lb on the scales at the end and my net went just over 10lb.

my net:

uncle net: 

Till next week i wish you all tight lines

Danny