A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet. We will get straight into the blog update this week as there is quite a bit i want to cover. There is some fishing at the end of this update but it is more of an update about a blog supporter and myself than the fishing this week.
On to the Update...
Welcome Fishing.TV
Some of you may have noticed new advertisements on the side panel of the blog and i am really pleased to announce that as of a week or two ago Fishing.Tv is now officially a supporter of Dannys Angling Blog.
Fishing.TV offers a wide selection of fishing based programmes that can be rented out for a set period of time. You purchase coins from the site and each programme costs you a certain amount of coins to rent. I have been playing around with this over the past few weeks and i have found it to be really enjoyable.
The best feature for me has been the fact that the company not only has a website but also has backed this up with Apps on your phone. This meant that if i was on the laptop i could watch content on there but also if i had a spare bit of time of an evening or even on my dinner break in work i could quickly get my angling fix at the touch of a button.
The content they offer is amazing quality, being available in HD, and the content on offer i found very varied covering Match, Fly, Carp and Predator fishing, with match and predator obviously grabbing my attention. The content available on there looks to be very varied within the Genre and the programmes i rented where both as informative as they where action based.
Check out their website for yourself using any of the links on the blogs side bars.
Hows the Vlogging???
I have to say i was very very apprehensive when i set up the blogs Youtube channel. In general i am quite a shy person and although come out of my shell when i know people well it does take me time and as such was very unsure about even doing this venture at all.
So there are around four or five videos on the blogs youtube channel now and i have to say i have loved every minute of it so far. All things start of small, i love that, as you can see the development of yourself and your content over time. Even early on now the videos have gone from around 3 minutes long to one of the upcoming ones touching 10 minutes.
The actual recording of the blogs is quite addictive if i Am honest and i am slowly learning little tricks to speed up the editing of the blog as well. There has also been plenty of positive feedback in the comments section and on websites around areas i can improve them and slowly and surely they have been Incorporated into the blogs. The main additions being the addition of music, less talking on the intro and more information on how i catch the fish.
The content so far has all been pike based buit i can see next spring and summer carp trips and trips to the river and canal also getting a look in.
Please take a second to subscribe to the channel here:
Dannys Angling Blog Social Media......
The social media side of the blog has really grown over the past year and depending on what format you are on you can keep up with the blog on all formats on line now. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube are all formats now where content is posted on a regular basis.
On to the Fishing... Cold Snaps Produce Mixed Results...
When a venue gets under your skin it can be very hard to motivate yourself to go other haunts you have been and fished before. We again headed for the venue we have fished the passed few weeks and the hope was that the cold snaps would condense the shoals and also bring them hard on the feed.
A change of venue or scenery was needed but also was the urge to suss this new venue out remembering once it was sussed it would form part of our venue choices from season to season. This blog is a living document for anyone in the world to see but it also acts as a detailed diary for myself to look back on and look where we did well and where we did bad in years gone by.
The leaves all around now are a array of coppers, browns, dark greens and amber's as the trees all begin to shed their summer blankets. We are well into the change now form summer into winter and for me this is the time i get excited and as the days get colder i wake up happy at that nip on my feet as i walk on the kitchen floor. All around people wrapped up in thick coats and the odd scarf, all add that little bit of cheer to the ordinary commute to work for me. My wait now is for that first morning when that first hard frost of the year nips hard at my nose as i open the front door.
Arriving at the venue it was bitterly cold and from the look all around it was not getting much warmer. The sun rising over our shoulders did little to warm the air where we sat beneath a thick blanket of trees. The skee tex thermal boots where a necessity on this session and come the end i was glad of their warm company.
Its safe to say that you look back on sessions and sometimes you can pin point your error and i think on this one i made it very very early on. Having fished the area heavily over the passed few weeks i again mixed up a good amount of ground bait with the usual addition of mole hill soil. In went 5 balls on the line and i have to admit at the time i expected to go straight over the bait and catch.
I did this quite well and in no time i was getting steady bites from roach that occasionally where of a nice stamp.
As normal i continued to feed with the swim with maggot and back this up with a ball of ground bait every 15 minutes. The bites continued and i continued to feed for that first hour and then the swim died and i could not get a bite. We had seen no activity in all the trips from pike on here so i ruled this on out quickly but thinking better fish had moved in i continued to feed the swim.
The swim declined then and for a good few hours it was a case of a odd fish here and a odd fish there but there was no consistency to it. I stopped feeding the ground bait and going to a completely opposite stance i started up a new swim and fed it lightly with just pinkies.
This change to a completely negative approach worked a treat and i began picking up some nice fish on double pinkies.
I dont think i would have got away with this as i did had i not been fishing in such a depth of water. The last two hours of the session till 3pm we both picked up some fish and it seemed as the day went on the bites came on better. It got us thinking that maybe this place is worth trying into dark on an afternoon session.
The final net showed how sport had been hard to come by on the day with our joint net going around the 20lb mark when on previous weeks the individual nets had been around that mark.
A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet. The river season is well and truly open now and Facebook has been awash with mainly flood water barbel pictures. The rain kept on copming down till late evening on the opening day and the only highlight was getting home from the carp to catch England pip Wales in the football.
We knew opportunities to get out on the river come the Saturday would hinge on a dry day on the Friday and with that we said a little prayer to the rain gods and prayed for a window of opportunity, in all honesty i feel like i am writing a winter blog here not a summer one, ridiculous weather we are having.
On to the update:
New River Season Preperation..
I have to say with all the stuff going on in work with over time and loads of jobs being done in the house the new river season really did creep up on me. This season is without doubt the most unorganized i have ever been for the start of the rivers, normally by now i have spring cleaned my tackle box, replaced some weights and give my reel a through clean.
The beauty of the rivers is in their simplicity and in short its only a few components that come together to make up the stick float rigs i use so much and with my gear levels looking in an ok state i think i was only a new packet of weights away from being ready to go, so not too bad.
Although time to prepare for the season has not been there physically the mental thought processes have been working for some time and i did have a few changes i wanted to make in how i approach the rivers this season. The main one is cutting down on the amount of gear i take with me, it has been ok carting my big Preston Onbox with its metal footplate to the banks of the river Dane these past few season as the walks have been quite short. This season will be a lot different and long walks over rough farmland terrain are looking like being the norm, a wild river with wild surroundings will mean i will be lucky to have the luxury of having a peg where i sit on my basket at all.
The cutting down of gear started with me utilizing the Octoplus infinity box i was sent to review a few weeks ago, this box bos light and robust will be ideal for those river trips. Its deep storage will spread the load i carry more evenly between my box and my net bag and should mean a more enjoyable walk to and from the river and if a swim is box friendly then i have a nice comfy box to sit on.
Of course terminal tackle would be an issue and i invested in a small tackle box above and in it is all the terminal tackle you need to fish a stick float. This box will of course be built upon or joined by another box when we hit areas where bigger fish like barbel might be on the agenda but for my first session out this little box was ideal. A huge reduction in weight carried losing the huge heavy box and the mountains of terminal tackle i carry but never use when fishing the river on the stick.
A Stinky Delivery...
I have really enjoyed the passed few weeks working with Stinky Stuff Bait Spray and incorporating it into my fishing for carp has been very interesting and rewarding. Sessions where the flow on the lake has been towards the snag it gave me the confidence to know that smell was lapping into their hiding space and hopefully drawing them out. Future blogs will show just how good this bait has been for the carp and it was great last week to receive a delivery from Stinky Stuff of two more bottles of their other products in the Stinky Stuff Match and Stinky Stuff Bubblecream. The bubblecream is a really interesting one having spent most of my childhood next to a sweet making factory it brought back quite a few memories of summer nights where the streets where full of this sweet smell.
Excited to get out on the bank and a little teaser of sessions to come the Bubble cream is just as good as the crayfish for catching carp.
Glorious First River Session - Chubbin'
As mentioned in a previous blog June 16th passed by for me on a local lake fishing for carp, not the ideal way i wanted to spend the glorious 16th, but with rivers flooded it was better to be catching fish than struggling on a swollen coloured river. Truth be told i had a nice day catching carp and thoroughly enjoyed my morning fishing for them and that will be covered in an upcoming blog.
Thursday gone and it was straight into a days work on Friday. Looking out of the windows in work it was hard to judge temperature, dam air con, but i could see that the sky was cloudy but thankfully we had received some strong winds that kept the clouds passing over us and not dropping their rainfall. It filled me with hope for the rivers the next day.
Fridays for me normally follow a set routine that see's me nipping into Widnes Angling Centre for my maggots and terminal tackle bits and pieces but seen as i already had 2 pints of red maggots left from the no go session the previous day it felt weird to fall out of this routine and not nip into the shop on my way home.
During the closed season hemp seed has featured in my canal fishing but i have to admit that despite having close to 10kg of hemp under my stairs i did take the easy option and buy some tinned stuff. It splits nicely and is convenient for the canal sessions where you are not really using that much hemp seed. The rivers are an entirely different animal and less care needs to be taken in the preparation for the rivers as i dont use it on the hook. This coupled with the fact the batch we have at the moment is terrible and will not split well for us meant that come Friday night the kitchen was "high" with the smell of hemp seed on the boil. I have to admit though i was in bad books as upon finding half a packed of chill mix in the cupboard and dded said mix into my hemp i was was soon busted by her in charge who had that put away for Saturdays tea!! House stinking like a drug den and using spices ear marked for meals i was not in good books, if the chub liked it though surely its acceptable. :-)
A quick sort of the tackle box and all the essentials loaded into the Octoplus box it was a chance to make up a few hook lengths and get the gear in the hall ready for a 2am wake up call the next morning, no rain i was excited to say the least. Over the past few years we have really put the time and effort in and now have quite a large portfolio of waters to choose from. Time spent on these rivers in both high and low water and also time spent away from the bank studying how fast these rivers drop all pays dividends in the end when it comes to the fine lines between un fishable and fishable levels. This info can not be gleamed just form the EA chart as it only gives you a number which means very little if you have nothing to refer that too as in how the river will be and fish at that level.
From huge spate rivers to tiny brooks all where looked at and we came to a decision to fish a river we knew would hold its colour and have some pace but we could also find a few fish willing to take a bait. The walk to the river was quite a long one and i instantly felt the benefits of the new box, so much easier and lighter to carry than my preston seatbox. Looking at the river in the darkness we could see she was still carrying a bit of pace, unexpected pace if we were honest, but we knew as the morning would draw on this river would drop and with it the pace would settle. Setting up on opposite inside bends of an "S" shaped bend in the river we both had slack on our inside with the river moving fast around the outside bend. It presented us with 2 main areas to catch, one just off the main flow as the river would naturally flow and two in the deep er inside slacker water under our feet, both i knew would bee good areas.
Setting up my 13ft Korum float rod i fed hemp right in line with some overhanging brambles as this is where i thought maggots fed at the head of the run would reach bottom. A few hand fulls of maggots i knew would get the chub on the feed and in the flow, this huge influx of bait does quicken the process i have found on this river.
The set up a dave harrell 6 number 4 wire stem stick float was the chosen float and with the extra turbulent flow i went with the dome top as i felt this would give me more control in the flow. A size 18 hook to a 1lb 7oz hook length i was all set to go and it came a no surprise that second trot down the float buried and i was rewarded with my first chub of the season, it was great to be back on flowing water.
The chub in the swim and having had no pressure over the passed months i felt sure the next chub was not far behind. Low and behold hald way down the run i was again into a aggressive and hard fighting chevin that made for the overhanging cover time and time again before giving me plenty of grief under my feet, not a huge chub but two in the net in the first 10 minutes it was a great start to the session.
When the chub are in the swim every thing else barring trout i have found clear off and it was the same on this session you could tell when the chub had spooked or moved out the swim as i started to pick up smaller chublets and dace. These are great to see as these are the next generation of fish coming through the ranks and although they dont always show its reassuring to know they are around and ready to make the jump into the main chub shoals when big enough.
The dace and chublets came and went like the wind and after a few trots though without a knock i knew the chub had moved back in. It took a few goes down but eventually i sussed it out and just holding the bait back slightly on my hemp would see the signs of a bite develop with shudders on the float, letting the float go would see it sail under with unmissable chub bites. I can only liken chub bites on the stick to the bites you get from carp on commercials.
The action from these chub then was solid taking four on the bounce in what was crazy fishing as the cub really bullied in on the swim.
Fishing the swim i did i knew i was fishing for one shoal of chub as there was no way a shoal was moving through the rapids above and below this deep run. The chub went and in came the dace and chublets again until eventually bites dried up completely. My uncle had the same issue just down stream and had also had some chub and some nice roach.
The session finished for me with a 18lb9oz net of chub, dace and chublets and it was an excellent first session on the river. Plenty of bites and had a few chub pull back so i left a happy angler.
Early Morning Carping Fun off the top......
The next carp session i got out was just after my 18lb pb and at this time i was treating carp fishing as something i would do when i wanted a challenge but at the same time some fun. Armed with a loaf of bread and my floater rod i headed off to the lake. Arriving at first light it was cold and many would be forgiven for dismissing floater fishing but i knew the carp would be in the shallows form the previous evening and being shallow i knew there was a good chance of them finding my free offerings of kingsmill.
upon arriving i threw in a few bits of bread all over the swim and under my feet. Setting up the net and the floater rod it was a case of waiting for the carp to start taking. Sure enough the rods was not even of its rod wraps before i heard the first swirl and slurp as a carp came up for its break fast.
I arrived at the water at 4.30am and i had to be leaving at 7am to get back, washed and showered before a full days overtime in work so it was a short session. These short approaches seemed to see me do well with the early mornings also keeping the ducks away as they didn't seem to come to life till later in the morning. The water colored i sprayed the crusts with some stinky stuff bubblecream to add some extra smell.
A cracking hour or so's fishing later i was leaving for work with 4 carp under my belt to just over 10lb.
Well thats another few trips on the bank caught up with and this format i think will continue for the next few weeks with carp trips added to the end of my other fishing, I guess it adds loads of diversity to the blog as if you like rivers or carp fishing there is something there for everyone.
A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet. Well i arrived at the bait shop on Friday and unfortunately there was no replacement rod section waiting for me, no fault of the shops just no Preston orders had come in that week, fingers crossed for this week. A tough start to the working week today as i feel the pain from a weekend trampling through the undergrowth and of course that monday morning blues feeling of no fishing for a few days. A third cup of coffee of the morning just arrived on my desk so fingers crossed that this much needed caffeine gets me through this afternoon.
Since the birth of our children my fishing has remained structured but the writing of the blog has been all over the place but i finally feel that i am finding some much needed structure to my week with writing my blog on my dinner hour in work. Jotting my ideas for the blog down over the weekend while fishing means i am now starting writing the blog on the Monday and hopefully this will see me starting to publish my blog on Friday evenings.
Now we all remember the famous program as kids called the poddington pea's, respect to those currently signing the theme tune!! But this week i was literally down at the bottom of my garden amongst the birds and the bees, i didn't see a lot of Little people but i did find a gem right at the back of my garden that i never knew was there. This gem is a elderberry plant and although not yet in full bloom it soon will be and for me as an angler it means i can now have a go fishing with elderberries over hemp seed. A great little find!
I will be leaving this a few days to come into full bloom and hopefully i will beat the birds to this bounty, do they even eat them? sure they do. The first session they are ripe i will be taking a few to the bank and trying them out. The end of the garden is a right little Aladdin's cave of surprises though with a Apple tree currently laden with apples, any ideas on variety appreciated in the comments section. There is also some form of berry tree as well and i am informed its not the best thing to make cherry pie from so i will be giving these a miss but the apples might get a look in if they are edible.
All in all with the bird feeders up the garden has been a real surprise this year. What started out as a overgrown wild garden is slowly getting to a managed state and the wealth of wildlife is astonishing from robins, finches and sparrows to hedgehogs, frogs and squirrels. These have mainly come from the bird table but most have had little don't to attract them in so i can only imagine the oasis we could have if we really directed some energy towards their habitat.
Natural History Museum.....Great Day Out!!
Bank holiday weekend and we decided to make a trip into Liverpool town centre to visit the Natural History Museum. All i can say is WOW! what a fantastic day out and set up they have there it really was a great day out and i have to say it was done in the right way. The exhibitions are set over 5 floors with aquariums, space rockets, dinosaur bones, preserved animals and a bug zone to name a few areas they had. As an angler i was of course pulled by the aquarium bit and it was fantastic to see so many children fascinated by the fish on show.
We had recently visited the Blue Planet aquarium and it was a nightmare with every room containing children's rides or sweet vending machines, all these do is distract the attention of the children and you are left with kids crying to go on rides rather than looking at the fish, in short had we wanted to go the fair ground we would have gone Alton Towers. This place had none of that and it showed in the fact all the kids where looking at the fish and reading the information on show. This spoke volumes for me and it is a place where entry is free!.
Parking right outside the place and i think it was £3.00 for a few hours parking. All in all a great day out and a place i fully recommend for taking the kids too. I know its not angling related but thought it worthy of a share.
Pondip Blog Goes Live.....
My most recent blog for Pondip Tackle Boxes went live this week. It is the second instalment of my canal baits series i am writing for them. This blog looks at castors and hemp seed for fishing the canal and the results it can bring. We all live close to a canal and even the most neglected of waters can hold a decent head of fish, in fact waters that are gin clear and you can see the bottom all the way across are not always the best quality for fish to survive. Why not have a read of the blogs and try your local canal and even better drop me a email or message on facebook and i will feature it in one of the blogs.
So Saturday morning and we pulled up on the banks of the river dane and in the gloom of the early morning light the river was looking in tip top shape. We walked the banks looking at all the swims before deciding on where to fish. We are always out on the bank at first light and are very rarely beaten to a peg if we really have one in mind but on this river that is not even an issue as the gear stays in the car and we walk the banks looking at the swims before even getting the gear so confident are we no one will be on the peg when we arrive back.
By the time we walked back to the car the river was fully visible and she looked in mint condition in fact as rivers go she was bang on! The river was carrying a little bit of water, had a nice pace but more importantly she had a lovely colour. You could not see the bottom in the middle and the edges where just visible. Having fished the rivers for a few years you begin to understand how they fish and in both mine and my uncles opinion it looked class and we expected a decent days sport.
I set up in a swim where i placed my basket actually in the water and fished a few yards into the river. The main glide on this swim was on my side of the river so it was nothing more than a two rod length cast to be on the line i wanted to fish. I fed the swim with maggots and fed it slightly down stream so i was confident the fish would not be right up on the feed and my float was settled by the time i got to the swim. A few pouches of hemp seed and i was all ready to set up my 13ft float rod loaded with 5lb line and a 1.7lb hook length.
The fishing from the off was frantic as the fish moved right onto the feed and a shoal of chublet where obviously in residence as the early exchanges where dominated by these fish with their mouths laden with maggots.
At this point it was looking like we were set in for a good days sport as i could also hear my uncle some 50 yards down stream confidently striking into bites. Chublet and the odd roach coming each cast you begin to think it could be a good days fishing with a decent net. The float rarely made it to my bed of hemp seed at this point and i must admit alarm bells where ringing as the bites where beginning to feel frantic and not the settled swim you really want when trotting a float. I persevered with it but slowly i could feel the bites ebbing as i went further down the swim and onto my hemp seed where i found the odd skimmer had taken up residence.
This was around a hour into the day and i will never forget this skimmer as it was literally the last fish i caught on the session as the swim died. From a bite a chuck to nothing and the float going through the swim with not so much as a knock, "it can not be right this" i thought in my head "all these fish can not just go!". This time i was determined to do all i could so out came the maggot feeder rod and ground bait and i began fishing on the tip where i had fed my hemp.
The tip remained as motionless as the float and i even decided to risk a cast right on top of a over hanging tree where there just had to be a fish lurking but still the tip remained motionless. My head ticking over i could only imagine a predator had moved in so i set up a small live bait rig. If any predator was in the swim it must have been blind as this live bait was doing all you would want it to do making a commotion and frantically moving all over the swim.
I have said in previous blogs this place is getting me down and i have to admit on Saturday i finally gave up. I literally said stuff this and packed my gear away and went to see how my uncle was doing. He was a good 50-100 yards down stream and his swim had literally mirrored mine and he was going through with not a knock. I took a picture of my net and thought about what to do next.
Not one to waste time
We had plenty of the day left so we decided to pack in and do some investigation into some other areas of the river i had researched in the last few weeks. The first was a stretch miles upstream and upon getting out the car we where met with head high balsam and nettles. We grabbed the bank sticks and began hacking a route through to a point where we could at lease see the river.
like with most rivers you get through some of the under growth and you find big open expanses of bank behind it and so was the case with this. The river was really neglected so a lot of fallen trees had gone into the river and had not been removed but the whole area screamed fish and had some really nice glides. Getting the gear to the swims was going to be a nightmare so we made our way back the car and vowed to return another time to hack a route through and fish the swims we found and we headed off to another area we had explored the previous week with a view to seeing if it held any fish at all such was its remote location.
Armed with a shovel we began digging in some foot holes and a place to sit on the steep banks.
We fished the swim for a hour or so in the blistering heat, not the best time to be wetting a line on a shallow river but we knew these fish would not have seen a bait so we where confident of getting an idea of species present. My uncle set up just upstream and we took it in turns to trot the swim. Early trots down saw us catching bottom as the swim gradually got shallow but eventually we found a line and to our surprise some stinking dace came to the net!!
By the end of the hour or so on the bank we had caught a few nice dace that showed us this area does have some potential and is worth us dedicating time to this area.
We left again a little frustrated with the days action and we are yet to find an area that can sustain a day session and produce a decent net of fish. Moving and picking around is not how we fish and its really becoming a problem. Hopefully this coming weekend my rod will be here and we can make some moves to other rivers.
A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet. It has been great to see this week how well last weeks blog update around how quiet canals are has been received it has drew debate on all forms of social media and hopefully the debate has stoked a few anglers to give the canals a try.
It has been a busy week for myself with the blog putting together videos and getting pictures for this update and others to come. This way of writing a blog is not really why i wrote the blog as fishing and the voyage of discovery that goes with learning the art of fishing should be down to the individual. There is no better feeling than blanking and getting it wrong, sticking at it and then starting to get results as you learn. I am fully aware though that some anglers don't know where to start with canals and are quite daunted by them so it can do no harm me sharing all i have learnt fishing canals and how approach them if it at least helps someone out wanting to fish the canal but not knowing where to start.
I hope the previous blog and this one don't come across as preaching or me saying this is the way to do it. The blogs are just my way of fishing canals and how i approach them so always bear that in mind when reading them. It may also be the case that the canal you fish is completely different to the Bridgewater and you may need bigger baits or stronger line.
In this weeks update we look at what baits i use on the canal and we look at each one in detail and the benefits they bring. The next section is a video on how i prepare my ground bait for fishing the canal so it is working and prepared to do the job i want it to do. We finish the introduction with a surprise i received this week when out of the blue last weeks blog was featured in an online magazine!! The fishing sees me again fising the canal and i begin to change things up based on what i have learnt from previous sessions on this new section of canal.
So onto the update..
What Baits For Fishing Canals??
So in last weeks blog we covered location and picking where on a canal you want to target. You have gone out and you now have a fair idea where on the canal holds a few fish and the locations along them stretches to look out for when planning to fish. The next step is to look at baits for fishing the canal and there is a whole host to choose from.
We will start with the smallest baits and work form there..
Pinkie/Squatts
These tiny maggots are the larvae of the small little house fly that pester you in summer and these tiny baits are deadly on canals. On a canal when you are trying to build a picture of an area you really want a bait that will catch everything that swims. This includes some fish that may only be 1oz in size but fishing normal baits your float will be going under but you will miss the fish if you are not using a bait small enough for these fish. You could literally be getting a bite every put in but not hook a single fish if you where using a bigger bait like maggot and its only when using this bait you see what the fish are.
This bait is best fished down the middle and mixed in with your ground bait, fed accurately via a pole cad pot will ensure these maggots get to the bottom and you are fishing right over the baited area. A single our double pinkie or squatt on the hook and your away, an excellent bait and one i always take the canal.
Bread Punch
Normally regarded as a winter bait for canals liquidised bread and bread punch is great bait for silver species like roach and bream. A bait that i normally feed down the middle track instead of pinkie and ground bait. It is a bait you have to feed carefully as it is very easy to over feed the fish on it. A chap days fishing can be had on a few slices of bread liquidised and two slices for on the hook. A top tip is to place the bread in the microwave for 10 seconds and roll it thin this way its easier to punch.
Maggot
The larvae of the bluebottle these baits come in all manner of colours but over the years i have found white, red and bronze to be the best. These baits are great fed on their own on a far bank line for better fish on your first sessions out learning a water as they will pick up the better fish that hug the far bank. The white and red are great also when you know your pinkie or squatt line has better fish to be had but you are getting hammered by tiny fish. This bigger bair is the same colour as the smaller pinkie or squatt but to a fish this bigger bait is too much to resist and can ofter see you picking up the better fish on your pinkie and squatt line.
Once you have fished an area for a while you will build a picture of the size of fish in the section and later on in the blog you will see after past trips hitting better fish i go completely over to maggot instead of pinkie and squatt to single out these better fish i know are there. read on to see the results.
Caster
Casters are the cryssalis form of a maggot before it turns into a blue bottle. There is no getting away from it castors are "THE" bait on canals for the better fish. There is a saying "You catch more fish on maggot but you catch better quality fish on Caster". As a bait if you can get fish feeding on castor you are in for a special session indeed as it normally means you are getting the better fish in the canal.
The beauty of casters are the fact they will stay where you feed them. I normally feed this bait with hemp, a bait we will talk about later and these two baits together make a deadly combination for big canal roach and bream.
I normally feed casters on my far bank line once i kn ow thee are better fish in the area. Firing over 5-6 castors every 10-15 minutes while fishing my pinkie line down the middle it allows the better fish to move in and get comfortable on the bait. The longer its left the more confident the fish feel and once you move over to the far bank caster line after a few hours you need to be prepared for the better fish to be there. Remember though you are fishing for better fish, the small fish are more feeding on the movement of a maggot where as this static bait seems to only pick out by the better fish. Also remember you are fishing for better fish so you wont normally get as quick bites on castor as say maggot but the fish will be better quality.
I will be including a top tip for getting your castors just right in a upcoming blog.
Sweetcorn
No explanation needed here good old sweetcorn out of the tin add the juice from the tin to your ground bait, of course, we all know it works haha. A lot say freezer bought stuff but its got to be jollly green giant for me it just smells so much more....well sweetcorny (not even a word). I use this bait when i am going all out on the canal for tench, bream, carp or really big roach a few grains fed on the far bank line and then it gives you the option to try it on the hook. A fantastic bait but careful not to over feed it.
Hempseed
The seeds of the cannabis plant these seeds are treated before they are brought into the UK so plants cannot be germinated from the seeds. When cooked they turn jet black and a white kernal appears from inside the seed. This bait fish love and there is one species in particular, the roach, roach absolutely love hemp and if you can get them feeding on it you would be amazed at the size of fish.
There are many theories to why hemp works but i believe the thought process that these when on the bottom of the canal resemble a bed of water snails and the crunch of the shell with the soft white centre i imagine they are similar to the feeling of eating water snails when the fish eat them. Mixed with castor or corn its a deadly bait for feeding into the swim.
Pellets
Being quite and old school angler that generally fishes using tactics used 30-40 years ago i still see pellets as new when in reality they have been around for a number of years now and to some fish are now probably regarded as their natural diet. There is no doubting the attraction of pellets to fish and although i never actually fish with pellets on the canal i know a number of lads who do quite well.
The pellets i use are the 1mil micro pellets and they are simplicity itself to prepare simply empty into a bait box when you arrive, cover in water and then straight away drain all the water out, it 10 minutes they will be ready to go. Excellent for attracting and keeping bream and skimmers in your swim and for this reason i mix them into my ground bait mix.
So that's it for baits i use on the canal next weeks update will cover what terminal tackle i use for fishing the canal
How to Mix Ground Bait For a Canal Session..
There is one bait missing off the list above and in my opinion it is the most important bait for canal fishing and a must for any session going the canal. I would go as far to say that if i did not have ground bait in my tackle box for a session on the canal i would pick another venue to fish.
Although canals look quite small in width we have to remember that canals when considered by how much water and miles they cover are huge. When you see shoals on the canal in summer you will see they travel along the canal in shoals in search of food and even a small shoal of roach can cover a large length of canal in a day. What we want is for the fish to be attracted down to the bottom to feed as they pass over our swim and ground bait is what we use for this.
Canals also are major highways for boats and some canals can literally be a boat every 10 minutes. This activity stirs up the bottom and leaves the canal quite coloured. When this is the case the fish we are fishing for stop don't just stop feeding, this is their home remember and they are used to boats and the water colouring up, they still have to feed to survive. The fish then move over to smell to locate their food and all baits even maggot and worms give of smells into the water that attract fish but ground bait is by far the best for attracting fish into the swim when its coloured.
With canals our approach has to be a lot more refined and as such we need to give extra attention to our ground bait. When first mixed it will contain a lot of lumps of ground bait and these fed into the swim will over feed the fish so we riddle the ground bait. I have put together a short video below on how i prepare mine.
Blog Featured In Online Magazine..
Sat in work on my dinner break this week i got a notification through the blogs Twitter account, @satonmyperch, that the blog had bee selected to be featured in an online magazine. The magazine article can be found on the following link.
It is always great when i am contacted to say my blog is being featured in top ten lists, magazines and other bloggers pages but it is special when it comes as a surprise to you. I was having a pretty poor day in work on this day and this cheered me right up!! Thank you for selecting my blog to be featured it means a lot.
On to this weeks Fishing...
Pole Fishing The Bridgewater Canal - A Plan comes togehter..
Although the information I am sharing about how i fish a canal might seem like i know a thing or two about canal fishing the reality is I am still very much learning. In this weeks blog i talk about how i approach a new stretch of canal by using Pinkie and maggot to catch any fish that swims to give me a picture of what is in the stretch and then build a game plan from there with the final outcome of this to be me fishing the section of canal and getting the most i can out of it. This may range from me finding out the stretch is full of tiny fish and skimmer so my approach to get the most might be to fish close in and get the fish feeding shallow so i can catch as many as possible quickly but it has been the other way with this section i am fishing.
In past trips i have caught a lot of small fish on pinkie down the middle and quite a few better sized skimmers and roach and i have also hit the odd really big fish that on my light elastic i have had no chance of stopping. I was at a quandary to what these fish where but the answer came on the previous session as sat on the bank setting up in the early morning, well it was only just light enough to set up, i saw a tench roll right in the middle of the swim and there my answer was. I didnt not have the tackle to land the fish on that session as i did again hit a better fish.
When asked for advice on fishing i always say there is no substitute for getting out on the bank, you can read and watch content online till the cows come home but there is nothing that will teach you more than getting out on the bank at the crack of dawn and fishing the water. With all this in mind the process of formulating a plan began.
So on past trips i had fished pinkie down the middle and fed maggot over my far bank line. The middle line had brought small to medium sized fish and the odd better skimmer and when i went over to the far line the maggot swim consistently was producing a sustained line of quality fish with the odd special roach capture. I drew from this this that the pinkie was doing what i wanted it to do i was catching all fish that swim including the odd better fish that was keeping the net ticking over while my far bank line built up. This part of my set up i was not going to change as it was doing what i wanted it to do, it was strangely enough my far bank line i was to make all the changes on.
Changes to far bank line attack
The first change on my far bank line attack was the pole top kit, i replaced my match kit loaded with blue hydro elastic for white hydro to give me that extra back bone i needed to get the tench under control. The second change i made was with bait i moved over to feeding caster on the far bank line instead of maggot and teamed this up with hemp seed. I was slightly worried about bumping fish with the heavier elastic but then again i knew fishing caster that if the fish was of the quality i was expecting then i would have no problems with hook pulls. The next change was u upped my line from 1.7lb line to 2.1lb breaking strain and fished this all the way through. It was only a half a pound difference but on a canal it can make the difference and feared 3lb plus line would see me not fishing fine enough for the roach. The final change i was making was in my policy of leaving the far bank line hours before fishing it, normally around 9-9.30 when the boats come, on this session i would be going over earlier around 7.30am just a hour and half into my fishing.
Starting off just over the marginal shelf where the canal begins to flatten out i fed two balls of ground bait and pinkie, even before i had attached any lines to plum up my rigs. I knew from past trips where i was going to fish so feeding the swim now and leaving it while i sorted out my top kits for the far bank line and for this swim would give the fish time to settle on the bait ready for my first put in. The lines prepped i fed the far bank line with caster and hemp, initially with the cad pot for accuracy and get a set area to fish when i go over there but i knew later feedings of Castor would be by the catapult. The lines plumed up i put my far bank rig down for a bit and fed a small nugget of ground bait and pinkie down the middle line and lay the float right over the baited area, as predicted it was not too long before the float slid away and a small skimmer was heading into my palms.
As i have said previously, with canal fishing you have to be realistic with your fishing as very rarely do you go in first time and pick up a really high quality fish, unless you are just targeting them of course. Most of the time your first fish will be a small skimmer or roach and some times these can be tiny. This is where i feel canals offer new anglers something that i feel some of the angling world is really beginning to miss and that is the appreciation of better fish. When you have caught small 1-2oz fish and then say a 6-10 oz skimmer or roach comes along you really see this fish in a different light and appreciate it, better fish looked at like this then become something special and as they should be the jewels of a session rather than the expectation as they can be with commercials.
Any how i digress, as the swim built so the bites became more confident and the quality of the fish improved slightly. The fish really got their heads down at one point and it was a fish a chuck with quite a few fish coming in quick succession. On this bit of canal i have noticed the swim can die really quickly down the middle and i think the main reason is pike. I did have my pike rod on me with this session but if i am honest my whole mindset is on pole fishing at the moment and having a go for a pike in the swim is really being looked at as a last resort to relocate them further down the canal away from the swim.
The fish will always back off on the canal so adding just a few feet onto the line your fishing can see you picking up bites and I mooched and etched my way to 7.30am picking up a bites here and there whilst pinging castor over the far bank line. The time had come to have a look if anything had settled in over there.
It can be quite hard work on castor at times as you know in your head bites will take longer to come than maggot and i knew had i fed maggot over there or even put maggot on the hook i would be catching a few fish and maybe the off better stamp of fish as well but i was a man with a plan and i waited it out on castor. The float knocked and slowly moved along the top before slipping away, fishing over depth to lay as much line on the bottom as possible to not spook the fish this was how i wanted it to work except i expected the elastic to move but to prove all the best laid plans don't work a small roach was the culprit.
Feeding the far bank line again, only with 4-5 castors, i went back over and re started my vigil. lifting and dropping the bait adds a little attraction and it was just after letting it settle again the pole float zoomed under and upon lifting the white hydro came oozing out of the end of the pole. I knew the fish where about and i was expecting them all the time so as soon as i knew i was into a better fish i began shipping back straight away to coax it away from the snags. It worked a treat and the fish being played down the middle of the canal was a different animal as it plodded up and down and in knew it was just a case of letting the elastic tire it out.
As with all better fish it knew where home was so there where a few nervous moments but eventually and more a puff of the cheeks in relief than excitement the tench slid into the landing net. Weighed it went 3lb 9oz, i knew there was a chance of more and i also knew i was not going to be around till much after 11.30am so i placed it in the keep net and to be extra careful i staked the net along the bank.
The tench returned i fed the swim with a good pot of hemp and caster and over i went again. The plan had worked a treat but i must admit to being a bit lost at this point as i really did not know what to expect. The better fish i target using this tactic are normally bronze bream that are normally in shoals so you expect maybe some more but with tench i was happily in unknown territory and learning a new lesson.
The next few bites where from roach and the odd better skimmer but then the swim died a little and i thought to myself, wait this out it could be better fish. A good 10-15 minutes latter the float slid away again and this time the water erupted with a big swirl as i struck and i knew i was into a better fish. The fish was strong and powerful and in the early exchanges i never had it under control as it snagged me up and come off on a number of occasions, luck pays a huge part some times. The pole tip under the water i hoped and prayed the fish stopped and turned and came round back towards me as it headed off down the canal. In my head i was carp all the way for sure.
Thankfully the fish turned and a battle of me letting the elastic wear out the fish in the middle of the canal endured as held the pole above the fish adding a removing sections. It eventually felt like i was beginning to win as my float came up through the water and broke the surface. A glimpse of olive dark green as she turned and i knew i was into a nice tench which added a whole host of pressure! She finally saw my side and in the landing net i could not believe how lightly hooked she was as the size 20 hook was just nipped through her top lip! At 5lb she was a fish i was ecstatic over and am still buzzing about now as i write. A run of the mill fish in some places but for a canal on the pole on light medium elastic a battle i will remember forever.
I guess i had not returned this tench long when i was again into a better fish, this fish from the outset was not in the league of the past two fish and the elastic had it well under control from beginning to the end of the fight. Another tench and i was made up to have had three tench in the morning.
Going back over i got bites from roach and skimmers straight away and i knew there and then the tench game was up really. Time moved on and the clock ticked round to 11am and with the warmth came a regular stream of boats and people on the towpath. The last fish of the session was this nice bream below.
I decided to call it a day after this fish as i had a mountain of decorating to do at home and in my head i thought i had caught the best of the fish and was happy with what i had sitting in my keep net. I was also conscious that the fish had been in there for around 3 hours at this point and although settled with plenty of room the increased temperatures i knew it was time to pack in.
The final net went 15.8lb and of course a quick cheeky shot of the three tench was a must.
A quick Reflection
So packed in i looked back on the session and began to analyse it. Firstly it was very apparent the castor was picking out the better fish and although i was waiting for bites when they come they where worth waiting for. The odd better skimmer also showed there must be a good head of these to try and directly target on future sessions. The tactic of going over the far line earlier really had paid off well and i was made up with that. I feel the whole collection of sessions has shown how you can build up a picture and tailor your techniques to get the best out of a situation and i hope this blog in particular has shown that.
A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope if find you all well and your nets wet. Absolute madness at the moment away from angling with us moving house this week which i am really really excited about. We have lived in a small two bedroom flat for the past two years and eventually found the house we are hoping to make our own. The house is a three bedroom house with a garden front and back which i am really excited about, growing up in a terrace a garden is all new to me! What it will mean is the blog will continue to be updated but with plenty of decorating and painting to be done it will be only one trip a weekend for me fishing so i will have to make the most of it and be really careful about my venue choices. All in all its an exciting chapter of our lives we are about to move into and who knows a future blog might see me fishing my own pond in my back yard.
Moving away from that and onto this weeks update to the blog, we start off with the introduction which includes a HUGE blog milestone, a little piece on my hook lengths for trotting for dace and chub and we finish the introduction looking at a picture from Facebook from a match fishing club that i think is confusing itself with a swimming club. The fishing is a sad one for me as these two sessions marked the end of two seasons for me as we fish for chub on the last day of the river season and the pike session turned out to be my last session of the season out for pike with Ste.
So on with the Update........
Quarter Of Million Views......
On the 11ths of February 2011 i sat in work chewing the fat with my good friend Ian, he was and still is an avid lover of dogs and capturing the sights and sounds from his walks. At this time he had a lovely dog called max and he would write a blog in Blogspot after each visit with the pictures he took of scenes of wildlife. During our dinner break he said to me "why don't you write a blog about your fishing mate" it sounded crazy at the time as although i loved fishing i was in my eyes not doing anything special, was not catching big fish or great numbers of fish so my reaction was "2ho would be interested in reading about my fishing?"
Any how that night i got home and sat at the lap top i decided for a bit of fun to create a blog called Dannys Angling Blog and just this week it has reached the milestone of 250,000 unique blog views. I put a lot into the blog and its great for me to see my ramblings proving to be so popular so thank you to everyone who visits my blog on a regular basis.
The passed few years writing my blog have been amazing i have loved the fishing and also enjoyed reliving those experiences as i put them down during the week after. In that time we have visited so many fantastic venues and had some memorable catches and i only hope the next 250k worth is as enjoyable.
In that time i have met some fantastic people, firstly my dad who i wet a line with every week at the start of the blog and then later on my uncle who shares my passion for angling and get up in the dark walking 5 fields dodging bulls mentality. In more recent years i have also met some a group of lads who i have loved fishing with for pike in Ste, Garry and Ryan and we have had some fantastic adventures and i cant wait for more to come. There has also been anglers i have met on line who i have never actually met but love talking fishing with, too many to mention but you know who you all are. There was also one angler who deserves a special mention who i met on the bank called Gordon Munro, i had the pleasure of meeting this man a few times and he was such a nice fella always would come over with his spare bait and would private message me on facebook regular about his fishing trips, a proper gentleman, he sadly passed away a year or so ago, a proper nice man and was a pleasure to meet him.
The blog being popular views always attracts the attention of companies and it has been great to work with companies like Beechwood Baits, Pondip, Go outdoors, Water to Go, Calor, minke tools and Buff to name a few, all of which have been great to work with. Sounding a bit like a final chapter this! i assure you not and here is to the adventures to come!
Hooklength For Stick Float Fishing....
While the rivers are open Fridays nights means two things for myself, one is sorting out my gear to match the venue for the next day and two is tying up hook lengths. The tackle shop i used to go into was baffled at the amount of hooks i went through, i could never understand as he was making money, anyhow most times into the shop i would buy hooks and get the same comments.
It turned out he was a avid carp angler and then it all made sense he was paying ridiculous money for one hook but that would be the only hook he would use for that session and he had never fished a river. On a river you can lose a hook length first trot through as in effect you cover so much of the swim you will find snags. Some sessions you can go through 10 hook lengths if there is a big snag that you have to try and navigate round with your float so it pays to be prepared as having hook lengths made up saves so much time. Also if you are catching well on the float for dace and you feel the hook has lost its sharpness, which can happen when you catch numbers of fish, changing hook lengths quick so you don't lose the shoal can be a god send so i always make sure i have a number of hook lengths in my box the night before.
Stick float fishing for dace and chub i keep things as simple as possible, 4lb main line down to a 1.7lb or 2.1lb hook length that consists of three number 8 shots on the line and a size 18 or 20 whisker barb hook. River fishing does not have to cost a fortune and as long as your gear is balanced for the species you can had some real fun fishing for smaller species. Above in the picture is all the components that make up my hook lengths for trotting the Dane and river Dee.
Don't Forget Your Arm Bands....
On social media this week i came across the following picture:
As you can see on the picture above the lake has been divided into sections or lanes, looks a bit like a swimming pool rather than an angling lake to me if i am honest. I delved deeper into it and some of the clubs where using this as a means to scare off cormorants as it stops them landing on the lakes, i fully can understand this as the damage they do to still waters can be catastrophic but the other answers threw up a more shocking answer.
Apparently these "lanes" as quite common on the match scene to stop anglers from encroaching on the anglers swim next to them during matches. Of course, in any walk of life or sport, when you introduce money into the scenario you are going to get people who will take liberties and go beyond the gentleman's agreements limits during matches but has it really got so bad that lanes are needed? seriously? it really does baffle me in a sport where men fishing in matches with money involved need such childish barriers to be set out to stop cheating, it really does baffle me. Lets hope these clubs never hold matches on the rivers or we may need a line of buoys at the end end of each trot to stop people going too far! what ever next. Not so much a rant as a bafflement on my part with this one.
With that its onto this weeks fishing, no armbands where deflated in the following sessions...
Lovely Chubley End To The Season....
Well the last weekend of the river season has really come around fast this year it seems the winter on the rivers passed by in the blink of an eye. I was with a tinge of sadness i loaded the car on the final day of the season, first my seat box followed by holdall and net bag and it was then the short trip to pick my uncle up. It was quite surreal thinking it would be a while before i made this same journey again as my uncle always has a few weeks off the fishing when the rivers close. I must admit at this point i had given fishing everything i had all season going full on with the rivers and the piking i was a little tired and drained as i made that final journey.
As predicted the previous weekend we got quite a bit of rain during the week although my prediction of it ruining the fishing was far from the mark. We stood there in my uncles kitchen and looked through the various locations we could fish and we settled on one and if it came off it could be a spectacular end to the season.
We arrived and made the long walk to the river and as we did so we passed familiar fiends that have made this such a spectacular place to fish, mr Buzzard perched in the second fence post of the first field and as we saw the river mrs kingfisher flashed past us almost as a bye see you in 3 months salute. Setting up in the first swim where i had done well in the past i was expectant of a nice net of chub, i took my time and fed the swim as i did as i knew the fish where there and there was no need to rush. The first trot down i expected the float to go but very defiantly it refused to do so.
A hour of trotting and i even tried running along the snag but there was nothing doing and when the float eventually went under my reward was a very fat trout with a gob full of maggots.
One thing i have learnt doing a fair bit of trotting for chub this seasons is the pecking order in the swim your in. If the chub (shoal of the big ones 2-3lb) are there you catch nothing but chub, if the chub move out you get the trout move in next and when they are missing your smaller fish like dace, roach and chublets get a look in, if your catching bull heads, gudgeon and minnows for a length of time then there is nothing around at all. I had chub on my mind for the end of season trip so the arrival of another trout marked my signal to move swims.
The swim i moved too was a swim i had fished recently and done OK in but on previous trips i had only caught 4-5 chub and i had then struggled but i was also yet to do a whole day in it so i guess the last session on the season i had little to lose. The swim is a beautiful glide to trot a float down it is a even 5ft deep from nearside bank to far side and keeps this depth for around 20 yards down the swim before it quickly shallows before some faster water below and with overhanging trees nearside and far side it offers plenty of places for the chub to hide.
In this swim i set my stall out straight away with a few bait droppers of hemp and maggot to really get the chub on the feed right down the middle of the swim and away from the snags they call home. Chub are hard enough to get out at the best of times but are certainly a different animal if you can hook them away from their snaggy homes. The bait droppers in and settling i calmly got myself comfy and ready to trot a bait down the swim. A 8 number 4 float was my chosen float down to a 2lb 1oz hook length and a size 18 hook loaded with double maggot, i was super confident. My confidence was proved right as as soon as the float settled it zoomed under and i was playing my first chub of the day.
The fish came out without too much trouble and splashing so i was straight back into the run and again the float went under and in 5 minutes fishing i had two chub in the keep net as opposed to the hour or two earlier spent for one trout. With a relatively short swim its a case of catching fish and then gaining their confidence again as catching the fish does spook the shoal.
Two fish in the net i fed the swim again with the bait dropper to keep the fish more concentrated on the feed than the fish being caught around them, bait and more importantly competition for bait does really overcome the fishes fear. The next fish was a greedy trout right up the swim and this really did make a right mess of the whole swim jumping clear of the water on a number of occasions.
I again fed the swim heavily but left it to stew and went to see my uncle who had also had a couple of chub. A quick chat and i returned back to my swim and the trick worked as the float buried first trot down and my 13ft korum rod bent nicely into a chub. Next trot down and another chub was again fighting a losing battle. Again its worth mentioning that all these fish where caught on really light 2lb hook lengths and a balanced set up.
So at this point i had been fishing a while and had four chub and the odd trout and i was confident there was more to come from the swim and was a case of just keeping patient. I kept drip feeding the swim and introducing the bait via the bait dropper but in the next 30 minutes i went on to lose 4 chub all to hook pulls as the chub darting for cover and a lot of this was down to my reel suddenly sticking on the drag. With these four fish lost the swim was a as dead as a door nail and i needed to do something so i again fed the swim heavily and set about sorting the reel out. Taking it apart i noticed some sand and mud had got in between the spool and the front drag so i gave it a good clean and returned to the swim.
This messing around took a good hour before i was ready to go again. I knew the chub where there and it was a case of gaining their confidence. The river on the day was quite clear with just a tinge of colour and i don't know what was going on up stream but the river suddenly really coloured up quite a bit, might well have been cows in the cow drink just upstream but it really coloured the river. At this point it was around 1pm and i had around 3 hours of the session left.
Returning to the swim it was like the gods had shone down on me as the added colour really brought the fish on and it was the best end to the season i could have wished for as time and time again the float would go under and another chub would come in, drag sorted they where all making their way into the keep net. In the course of the next few hours i put a good number of chub n the bank and all the fish where just down from the swim as the colour gave them the confidence to come right up onto the bait.
Now some might think all the feeding with the bait dropper is a bit excessive but when you are catching chub and finding this in their throats it makes you realize just how much they can eat. The final net had around 15 chub in it and you add to that the ones you do not catch plus the trout you can imagine how much bait is needed.
The final net went 27lb and was a fantastic end to the season and i was gutted packing in the leave the banks of the river, roll on June 16th!!.
Pike Season Comes To A Close.....
The next day saw me meeting up with Ste for a social pike session. We only had from first light till 11am. The first session where we really battered them taking 9 fish with 4 doubles showed us the potential but since that session the numbers of fish kept on coming but we really had to work for them and the bites where certainly a lot more finicky.
We met up before first light and walked the bank hoping to see signs of feeding pike but none where forth coming. The water was flat calm with not a breath of wind and the clarity of the water was bang on so we were really confident. We both cast in two rods each and sat back awaiting the action, where we confident? of course we were we had caught some beautiful fish and had some steady action. 06.49 and Stes rod was the first one to one to get some attention, Ste a picture of calmness nonchalantly picked up his rod and felt for the fish on the end. Experience letting him know from the plucks on the line as to what is going on at the other end. Like years ago watching azza trotting a float watching Ste going about his trade you cant help but pick up on stuff and showing a willingness to learn and ask questions has certainly seen my piking improve dramatically towards the end of this season.
Striking into his fish it was clear it was a nice fish and as i have mentioned in previous blogs having someone to net you fish when piking is so beneficial as the first time the fish comes up you can scoop the fish up and net it a lot earlier than if you where alone. The fish on the bank it was a solid start to the session and a fish that we both knew would be there or there about the double figure mark. On the scales she went 9lb5oz, another fish so close to being a double this season.
As i mentioned earlier the bites have been very funny of late and it was a good hour and half till the next fish came to the net, in the period in between i had a take that dropped the bait which was frustrating to say the least. The next fish was a real funny bite that saw the float move gingerly and erratically across the water and we both said this is a small jack that could not take the whole bait. We where proved right and a small jack was landed and released to run the gauntlet of the females in the area.
A hour and a half wait for that bite and the clock ticking it was time for a move and we moved to a place we had done ok in the past. The baits in position it took a matter of minutes before my float was off along the the water. Now this season has been very special to me with the pike and i have had some epic tussles and fights along the way but this was well and truly up there.
Set up between two moored boats there was a big enough gap for two of us to fish a rod each left and to the right. My float moved off with a steady but fast take and in true jaws style the float disappeared into the depth. The speed the float was moving meant when i was winding down i had no idea where the fish actually was and it had gone half way down the canal along the boat so striking i had to play the fish blind. The fish fought like a demon with long hard runs and it was clear it was a nice fish. The fish eventually come round in front of me and what it did next was truly scary.
In one flick of the pikes tail if went on a long hard run under the boat on my inside bank, i can only imagine it saw the darkness under it. We my years of chub fishing on rivers really paid off as my natural instincts kicked in and i shoved the rod tip as deep as it would go beneath the water, upped the drag and prayed the hooks did not find the bottom of the boats hull and the knots held and brought it back from under the BOAT!
I have said so many times with this piking that the lines between catching and landing a fish are so fine, sometimes i fish that is well hooked can come of with one shake of the head and then you get scenarios like this one where i fish goes really hard under boats the lot and you get it in and the hooks literally fall out its mouth in the net!
A fight to remember and a lovely reward with a pike of 10lb 8oz.
The fish released i breathed a sigh of relief and we both had a good celebration as that fish marked us reaching the target of 30 double figure fish between us for the season. The time passed by and it was a case of 15 minutes longer on the session proving worthwhile as we should have both been packed up and away but like two anglers addicted to our sport we where still there come half an hour after we should have been gone and thank god we did as ste nailed a beautiful mike to round of the season with this stunningly marked pike, was a cracking fish to end the season on.
So apart from one session i did to help a mate out who is new to piking where i blanked that about brigs my pike season to and end. I will be doing a round up of the season on my blog as i feel it would be good to write a summary of the pike season as i went through it and also a final scores on the doors for the pike challenge we set out on at the start of the season so keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks.
i leave you with a video of my rather energetic pike going back!
So that is another chapter in my angling life documented,
