Cheshire Fisheries Pool 3 A New Adventure...

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Well as mentioned in last weeks blog the river season for me ended as drab as the season its self really with my car breaking down.  The car back on the road and a weeks fishing missed i was as keen as ever to get out on the bank.

I had been told a few times by my mate about a fishery out Beeston way that was a really enjoyable place to fish and after nipping through a week or so ago to pick up a few lures i though why not give it a go?  So with my uncle about to go into his out of river season getting house jobs done mode i managed to persuade him to visit this fishery for one session before his hibernation.

The introduction this weeks includes a little on how my two trips to a proper commercial have changed my opinion on these waters and then the last piece of the introduction is a look at a reviews away from the bank and how they have been to test and write about.  The fishing is our first trip to Cheshire Fisheries.

Commercial Appeal..

In all my blogs i have always been brutally honest on my feelings around commercials and how they have sculpted and changed fishing in the UK in only a short time span.  I still am of the opinion they are the main reason why our banks are so empty on the rivers and canals and i think that is now widely accepted as fact in the angling community.  What i didn't realise is why the people where so in love with these places that to this point, fishing flushing meadows, where as described by the masses muddy holes in the ground full of carp.

On this session i found my self on the banks of a proper fishery, one where time had been invested over the years to produce somewhere that both looked a joy to fish but also had the amenities like a tackle shop on site and even toilets!!!

The banks on both sessions where quite busy, more so on the second session, but it gave me a chance to see what type of people where attracted to a top end fishery and the answer shocked me, all ages of all abilities! And the penny soon dropped, it was more than just the fishing why there people chose to come here.  The fishing for someone who can fish is easier than most places lets not be silly about that but when you looked at it as a whole package why wouldn't people fish here?

The banks where laden with hard core, relatively flat and even and the first pool you could literally fish out of the car park.  Litter bins all over the fishery and benches to eat your lunch at and given the fact there are literally over a 100 pegs there was no fighting or getting up at 4am to get a swim like we do on one of the rivers we fish.  As one guy i over heard said "that was a cracking breakie at Toby carvery this morning set me right up for a days fishing!".  It made me realise that everyone elses idea of fishing is not the same as my get out the crack of sparrows fishing and it really did make me look at it from a different angle.

I then noticed the sheer amount of tackle some of the, i presume, match men or guys who to them this is their fishing brought to the bank and safety must come into it.  I know when i fish the local canal i lean back on my heals as each person passes in case you get that one person who thinks its funny to push you in.  Never mind the fact if you ever got your gear stolen, safely was also an obvious reason why fisheries have become to places to go for people and you know what after my two trips i can see why!!  I see it now and although i could not myself fish a place like this every week i can see myself venturing here through the year and to others similar.

As a complete package its got huge appeal.  Even this bank holiday weekend just gone i was thinking of going the canal.  Early season its never amazing fishing and then i thought about the multitude of boats come 9am and of course watching my back for bikes, joggers and dog walkers every bite of put in, in short i found myself again on Cheshire fishery, more on that next week as i was a man with a plan on that session.

Blogging For Product Reviews...

As always the blogs email and social media pages have been full of questions around all my fishing but there have been quite a few in the past few weeks around blogging and product reviews.  The past few weeks there has been a few reviews on this page and it does seem to people new to my blog that companies are lining up to be featured on the blog, this is far from the truth.  One question i get a lot is:

"I have just started writing a blog, no companies have got in touch how long will it take?"

The truth is as a blogger starting out you are in a vast world of angling blogs already and if you are setting one up just to get free stuff then you are going to be sadly disappointed  My advise is to write a blog about your fishing to the best of your ability and try and find something that will make your blog stand out form the rest, update regular and in time the companies will come to you, but never expect them.  

I get quite a few companies get in touch now and believe it or not i turn more down than i accept as a lot am and not able to relate back to fishing in any way.  For me, i love the reviews they are like the little bits of extra fun on top of a blog i already love writing but the blog is not written as a means for getting 'free stuff'.

On a product review front it has been a really exciting period with the octoplus box review not live and the stinky stuff one in last weeks blog.  I am currently reviewing the GCell back pack and its already saved my blushes on a recent family trip by charging my phone up so we could get home, of course as soon as a review a back pack with a solar power source a storm hits!!  Still the sessions i have planned reviewing it as soon as the sun comes out will be interesting.

On to the fishing..

Cheshire Fisheries Pool 3

Driving down the A49 at first light we turned off at beeston as the busy A road gave way to a long winding country road that wound its way to a quiet fishery lying the the shadow of the historic castle.  With a back drop if ravens or crows ringing in the early morning air we walked around the fishery.  To be honest most of the pools looked very similar apart from pool 3 that had a high thicket fence behind it and a tree that was submerged in the edges.  

We made our way back to the fishery shop to pay our day ticket and had a good chat with the people on the till who where really helpful with their information.  In short all the pools hold good heads of silvers and carp, all have big carp in and fishing maggot and corn the word was we would have a busy day.  Great we thought as river anglers who fish mainly for silvers we are always happy with the float going under.

Me and my uncle decided to give pool 3 a go and we set up either side of the sunken tree with the plan being that if the wind arrived on this really open fishery it would be over our shoulder and the fence would offer us some protection.  My bait for the day would be around 3 pints of maggots, corn laced with stinky stuff and micro pellets also loaded with cray fish stinky stuff. 

As with all fishing the most important part of the session is the first 10 minutes where you plumb the swim.  I found the bottom of the shelf quite close in at my top section plus my number 4 section and i also found the same depth at my top two plus two sections of pole level with the end of the tree.  My plan was to fish maggot and pellet close in and while i did this i planned to feed the far out line on just corn and micro's.

In keeping with fishery rules i did away with my trusty size 20 micro barb hooks and replaced it with a shark hook sized 16 barbless hook with a 2.7lb main line.  From the first put in i was straight into roach on my near in line and i was shocked at the quality of the roach i was catching from a swim that had literally only had two cad pots full of bait.

A lot of the bites at this early stage where in the drop and even at this early stage i was thinking i would be on for a nice weight of roach if i kept the quality of roach coming for a prolonged period.  My uncle on the peg next to me was fishing caster and although he was waiting a little longer for bites he was also getting a good stamp of roach but the castor was also picking him up the odd carp.

I then struck into a weird bite that saw the float move along the top before sliding under.  To my amazement up came a crayfish!  I had been told about these but i have to be honest i never expected to see one come up in my swim when i lifted the float.  No sooner was it on the bank than it fell of the line and shot back in the pool!  No sooner had i let it go than my uncle latched into one as well, the kray brothers!

These where to be the only two crays we caught all day, thank god, horrible things and what shocked me more was the fact the water was tick quite cold yet under its tail it was loaded with black eggs.  At this stage i was feeding the swim by cad pot each put in and was literally filling the pot full of maggots.  The bites kept coming on the silver line but did eventually slow down and despite little tricks like moving a little past the swim and altering my shot the silver action slowed down.

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At this point i moved over to my corn line off the tree that i had primed all morning and took a carp quite quickly, only around the 2lb mark but it was a carp.  This close to the tree it made me think about my choice to bait up so close.  I did not have a puller kit and was on a doubled elastic so it was not a cast of moving them away from the swim more of a case of having no back bone once close in to stop the fish getting into the huge sunken tree to my left.

The time around noon i was sitting it out on corn in the deep water with little success apart from the odd skimmer and roach so i decided to have a plumb around the margin to my right.  I found it went from really shallow close in, inches deep, to around a foot and half on the picture below.  Nicely lined up with a molehill!!  This gave me a cracking point to line up with and i fed on the inside of this mole hill and from previous experience on Flushing meadows in this depth i knew the feeding fish would gradually push bait down the slope so i fed quite a bit inside the mole hill and to kick it of put in a good spread of micro pellets, maggots and corn.

The feeding was not chaotic as in hand fulls of bait, that would come later, it was still a measure amount as i did not know if i would even get a bite down there at this point, remember i had never fished here before so it was all new.  A roach was quick in coming and then a few more came and of a nice quality as well and i was happy that one i would get bites here and also in such a shallow depth my bait was also getting to the bottom and not intercepted on the way down.  It didn't take long for me to strike a zooming bite and the whole margin to boil as a carp angrily left the swim.

Over the next hour or so i slowly picked up roach and the odd carp and at this stage there was little to give the presence of when a carp was there away.  Till around 2pm i was happily picking up the odd carp and enjoying the fight form them, i lost a proper nice one as well, i only saw it once on the top and it looked 10-12lb and i had it on for ages to the point my arm was aching and under my feet i tried to get its head up and was all going well till it saw the tree and it was good night Vienna  The carp to this point where around the 2-4.5lb mark.

After 2pm all changed in the swim i began picking up fish quite quickly after catching the last one and sometimes while playing one fish i would see swirls and tail patterns down my margin to the right as another carp was on the bait.  Missed bites at this point where seeing boils going out the swim as carp spooked in the shallow water and the margin that was, not clear,  but had some clarity was now very coloured up.

At this point i was still feeding by cad pot and was getting to work out the swim.  Pot in some bait and i was laying the rig down the swim to try and avoid the line bites.  It seemed to work a treat and by 3pm i was starting to get a little shocked at the fishing.  The carp where being caught amongst other carp but the swim was just a jacuzzi of boils and tail patterns as the carp with their heads down vacuumed up the bait.

At this point i did away with the cad pot and i was literally throwing bait in by hand, a hand full at a time.  As mat Hayes would say "it was like feeding the monkeys at Dudley zoo".  The bait going in the size of the carp was getting bigger with the fish in the last hour before we packed in all averaging 7-8lb.  Exciting fishing and all on two and three sections of pole.

As time went on i began to think  about how i was going to weigh and photograph the two keep nets i had in.  I knew i had a decent net of silvers already and although these carp where coming one a chuck i was starting to think about the sheer amount of carp in my carp net.  My uncle at this point came over and had a few fish in the swim and even he was shocked at what he saw, it was crazy fishing.

My uncle on the other side of the tree had caught steady all day and he suggested we called it a day as it was heading into the not being able to lift my net territory.  We looked at my uncles net first and when he lifted his net and i saw him get to the cod end of his keep net and he strained to lift his net of silvers i began to think about my net 15 yards away.

I always carry an unhooking mat with me now and my 32inch rubber mesh pike net so with two of us there it was simple to move the fish from the net into landing net.  On the scales it went a barmy 27lb of mainly silver fish with the odd carp.

We then moved over to my swim and we started with the silvers net and repeated the procedure we had on my uncles swim.  The fish put into the large rubber net over an unhooking mat it was quick operation to weigh the net and take a quick picture for the blog.  A 17lb net of silvers and for me had that been all i had caught i would have been over the moon as that alone to me was a cracking days sport.

17lb silvers

We then moved over to the carp and we tried to judge the weight so my scales did now completely bottom out, i was really intrigued to see just how many fish i had caught in those last two few hours.  We weighed the first few carp and took a picture and the net went 37lb.

 37lb carp

We then let these rest in the margin in the big net before letting them go and then brought the keep net out and weighted and photographed the remaining carp.  This second net went 22lb so in total nearly 60lb or carp.

In summary it blew me away completely i was knackered and gobsmacked at what had just happened.  Some regular commercial anglers will probably look at this and say "wow excited over only nearly 80lb of fish" and this might be a poor day for commercial fishing i really don't know.  What did scare me more than anything was the fact that had i carried on fishing till dark the weight it could have been!  Those fish where heavy on the feed and averaging a nice weight  I am sure that would had continued after the light fell and i am confident that 3-4 more carp would have come to take the total on the day to 100lb.  Who knows it might well of died and not got another bite, that's fishing i guess.

My first trip to a proper commercial and i left having gained a new insight into this part of fishing and if I'm honest a greater respect for it.  The fishing was easy at times but looking on the other pools it was quite clear this was not the session going on around the complex so how i fished and fed the swim must have had some impact.  It left me feeling knackered but excited to return and have some fun with this venue before the keep nets where banned for summer.

Till next time i wish you all tight lines

Danny

p.s I slept like a log that night

River Mania to Become A Reality??

A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and I start this week’s update by talking about a new river competition that is set to take place later this year with a working name of River Mania.   The idea of his competition is for River anglers to have a big money competition on a similar scale as the still water competition Fisho-Mania and is the brain child of the famous river match angler Dave Harrell.

The idea that is being suggested is to have 20 matches all around the country with 60 pegs in each match the 60 pegs will be split into 3 sections with the winner of each of those three sections going through to the final 60 peg match for the prize money.  The prize money being mentioned is up around £10,000 for the winner with good back up prizes if the participation levels throughout the whole country are high enough.  Obviously for a competition on this scale to work it is going to take some massive organisation by both angling clubs and match organisers and I am pleased to say it seems that enough angling clubs have contacted Dave allowing their waters to be used for the idea to be passed over to the Angling Trust for serious consideration.

Fishing the banks of my local river every week it is easy to see how low in popularity river angling has become compared to the busy still waters and commercials and it is not too hard to notice when you are one of the youngest faces on the bank.  The arm of river angling has declined from what it was many years ago and there are sections of rivers that once where lined week in week out with anglers that now have one or two pegs on them with the rest completely reclaimed by nature. I know of two places this is the case on the River Dee and I also know from fishing the river that apart from the busy winter venue I fish that me and my uncle only saw a handful of other anglers on the bank during the whole of our summer campaign. 

I myself have never fished a river match before but I would certainly be looking to take part in this competition as I feel it will be not only a really exciting experience but I would love to be part of something that I believe will really help the promote river angling in this country and in time I really think we will look back at this competitions introduction as a moment that possibly changed river angling in this country.  I know there are a few river anglers who read this blog so let’s try and spread the word about this fantastic competition and get this idea as much support as possible as at the end of the day it is only us anglers that can make it a success.

More information on venues and prize money is expected to be released shortly so check out the link below for more information as it breaks.

For more information check out Dave Harrell’s Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/DaveHarrellAngling

Dave also talks about this idea in this interview released a week or so back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JZqVvzomX0

This past two weeks the blogs mini carp blog has taken a front seat and I have been putting my exploits up on there, baiting up and my first session are on there so far along with some information on my plan for the rest of this year’s quest so feel free to check it out on the page bar at the top of the blog or on the following link.

10lb car quest mini blog: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/p/10lb-carp-mini-blog.html

As part of this mini blog I have found myself returning home just as the sun is setting and it has presented me with a perfect opportunity to capture a few pictures of the local nature reserve and the Mersey estuary.

On to this weeks fishing:

Friday afternoon was spent enduring a cold blank in pursuit of the carp for the blogs mini blog so come Saturday I was determined to get a few bites and that float going under so I decided to put my faith in my local commercial Flushing Meadows.   I actually called in this place last weekend and the pool I fished in this update was frozen solid with no chance of fishing it as you can see below.

With this in mind I arrived on the banks of flushing a few hours later than normal and it was gone 9am by the time I settled in my peg.  There were a few other anglers on the pool when I arrived and the peg I had wanted to fish was taken so I settled on a peg on the far margin on the above photo, I picked this peg as it gave me plenty of margin to go at and the option to fish deeper water straight out in front of me.

My plan for the day was to fish solely maggot and fish it high up the shelf to see if any carp where willing to feed the weather was surely warm enough for carp with clear blue skies and the warm sun on my back I was confident of picking up at least one.

The action was really slow and it seemed an age to even get the roach going let alone any carp but eventually I managed to get the roach feeding and was rewarded more with numbers of fish than quality but at least the float was going under.

The roach continued to come in fits and starts and it was noticeable the angler on the back of the island was having a really good day and catching a lot of carp, this can be the case on flushing meadows at times and myself and my uncle have had many a session on there where one of us has been bagging up on nice carp while the other is scratching around with bits.

The sun on my back and the float going under steadily I was a happy man but I just felt I should have been picking up a carp if they were feeding so ferociously for the other angler so with around a hour and a half of the session left I began to up the feed rate and really pile in some maggots hoping to prey on the greedy nature of the carp.  A few small roach and eventually I got what I was hoping for as the elastic melted from the end of the pole tip what I hadn’t remembered to change my top kit to a thicker elastic and it became really obvious early on in the fight that I was connected to a decent carp and that I was in for a long battle on only blue hydro elastic.

The fish was in no doubt as to who was in charge in this exchange as it powered from left to right and back again, I did all I could to gain control of the fish by submerging the tip of my pole in the water to increase the strain on the fish and I managed to turn the fish a few times from reaching the other anglers, I was in a right mess!!  Eventually I got the carp under my feet and I saw how big it was and I estimated it to be around 5-7lb and I must say around 5 minutes into this fish my arm was beginning to ache and as one of the other anglers commented “its having none of it”. 

The fish was getting to the stage when it was beat and I had the fish under some type of control and all of a sudden the line flew back at me, it baffles me at times how a fish can impart so much pressure on the hook at still not come off yet the stage in the battle where the fish is under control but still on a tense elastic the hook pops out.  I must say I was gutted as it would have been the first carp of the year and I knew in the conditions it could have been my only chance of a carp in that session.

The session continued to count down to its end and as time was just about to be called I struck into another strangely delicate bite and was connected to another carp but it was not in the same league as the previous one and armed with white hydro elastic it was soon in the landing net and on the bank.  It was a strange looking carp as it didn’t look like a common carp or a mirror but more like a really big crucian mixed with a common.

It was only when turning the fish over for a picture of its other side I noticed the fish only had one eye.

This was the last action from the trip and I must admit after the hard session the night before I was happy to get a few bites and left the fishery with my fishing itch well and truly scratched for another week.

This weekend I am hoping to get out on the bank both days, Sunday I will be on the carp quest as it is forecast to be the warmer day and I am undecided at the moment as to whether to go to flushing meadows or visit a water on the WAA card.

Till next week I wish you all

Tight lines

Danny