Canal Pike Fishing: Putting In The Time...

A warm welcome to this weeks angling blog i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Well not much to report from last weekend as Saturday the other half was in work so a day was spent in with the little lad and girl, playing shop, dinosaurs and telling fishing stories was the order of the day.  Sunday morning i headed out with our Baz for a session on the feeder...

Snow and Friendly Robin..

Setting up the weather was not so bad at all a sharp nip in the air but nothing to worry about.  A mix of ground bait made up and settled into the peg i began making a few casts.  It is always a case of patience in winter and building the swim up over time, this can take a good hour or so.  A hour in we had our first fish on the tip and small ice cold roach.

Not long after returning this fish the sky turned that shade of grey, you know the one that says one word to you...Snow!  Over the next half an hour the clouds built up and a slight rise and then drop in temperature saw the first white fluffs of winter fluff fall from the sky.  Only the odd flake at first but before long we found ourselves sat in a full on snow flurry.

A few more fish came but the weather was slowly getting worse and worse and looking back at my tackle bag it was now covered in a layer of white.  Baz sat behind me was feeling the cold a bit so we decided to call it a day and pack in and head home.  Testament to the heavy fall the picture below shows how much fell in the time it took me to put my box down and bring my keep net in.

That short session out of the way we headed home and a good natter about the footie was had while we defrosted our baz.

Chub Video

With these written blogs beginning to develop some sense of organised and regular uploads it seems the written account of a session will go live earlier than the videos do so those who read the chub blog will be pleased to know that the video of that session is now available to view on the blogs Youtube channel on the link below.

Looking ahead...

Well its been a manic weekend just gone with three sessions on the bank, one a session for silvers where it doesn't go all to plan, a session for pike on Saturday and another estate lake trip for pike on the Sunday all of which will have videos made from them and also give me plenty of memories and content to transfer into written blogs.  Having a backlog when it comes to blogging is always good and even more so when trying to create both written and video blogs. 

Looking ahead to this weekend i am  first hoping and praying the fish mobile passes its MOT and secondly that  the rivers sort themselves out so we can get some decent stick float sessions and wet a line with our baz for those river pike.   Catching pike is hard enough as it is on the river but having to make do with half hearted windows of opportunity it is very hard to build any type of campaign.

On to the session:

DeadBait Fishing For Pike: Covering the ground

As most people will know with my blogs i don't really beat around the bush and i guess in life i am quite a black or white person, there is not much of that grey area.  In fishing as it is now there is certainly a section of anglers who feed of the work of others and simply go from angler to angler trying to prise information for their own gain with then no shame of then going and fishing these spots.  These "anglers" look at pictures people post and have Little interest for the beautiful fish in the frame in fact they almost certainly look past the angler to see the back ground with the only thought process of working out the where.

There is then the "anglers" who prefer the private message route where a flood of compliments is soon slowly and smoothly into a working out of where.  In my blogs i try and help people as much as possible and thankfully over the years blogging i have managed to get a feel for the genuine anglers looking for help and some great fishing friendship's have been born from these conversations.

For those parasites who are too lazy to actually work stuff out for themselves then the session below is what us proper real fishermen do week in week out to work our venues out, try it sometime you might actually get to feel that special buzz from catching your own fish than holding up others work ;-)

Covering The Ground

Saturday morning and all week rain had battered the UK leaving the rivers again swollen with chocolate milkshake like waters any slight break in the weather was seeing them dropping fast but with the ground, natures sponge, saturated even small downpours where seeing the rivers rising.  EA reports on Twitter all week had been awash with reports of officers clearing drains and debris to allow this water to get from land to see as soon as possible and reduce the risks of flooding.

Sat at the kitchen with a brew the arm on the clock struck 6am and before me lay a blank piece of paper upon which i began to jot down a few options for the day ahead.  A few lakes and canals made up the list and all had their positives and negatives for sure whether that was hard conditions or poor reward for the effort needed.  Grit and determination to understand a clear hard venue where a blank was a high possibility was my chosen destination.  Today we would spread the rods out and cover the ground fishing a hour in each swim before moving and cover as many swims as possible to find the pike.

Tactics for the day was to fish a large herring jack on a running ledger rig in the hope of a big girl and then fanned either side of this would be my float rod on a skimmer bream and baz's on a smelt.  Arriving at the venue there was a gently left to right breeze and intermittent cloud cover which i hoped would build and give us the dark conditions this session most certainly needed.

The baits in position the waiting game began and the clock was set for a hour alarm.  In this type of scenario you have to be strict with yourself and have the mindset that an hour is more than long enough for any fish in the area to find and take the bait.  When i am piking i think pike are on you every session you go and i feel there are few session where in the hours you spend on the bank are spent when you cast in and no pike at all sees or investigates your bait.  The very splash is proven to attract the fish not scared them, just look at perch as a species they hear a plop the come to is as a signal food is there, its the nature of a predator and pike are no different.

The first swim passed by in no time and it was time for a move and swim two proved to be equally as quiet.  Moving into swim 3 i cast out the ledger and then both float rods went out.  The next action is of course to set the clock for the next hour move but so quick was the action we had no time.  Minutes after casting in my rod was away and striking into the fish it felt like a small jack, until it came close in and i realised it had wrapped on the line and was actually quite a nice pike and worth a weigh to see if it was a double.

No sooner had i gone to lift the net than our harrys float was away a jagged take i knew it was a jack just by the violent turning, fishing a smelt any pike over 5lb would generally have no trouble in just eating the bait so i knew the violent turns probably meant it was a small fish.   Giving it a few seconds to finish turning baz set the hooks and played a pike of around 2-3lb into the net.  As i say on these trips, when you both catch it is the ultimate goal and two pike in the net we where made up.

So nothing in 2 swims in 2 hours fishing then 2 in minutes from swim number 3 shows just how little these pike are willing to move to find your bait and how tightly packed in they can be.   Had we just stayed in swim 1 would we spent the day there and blanked?  I guess we might well have landed a new PB but in fishing that is the fine line we tread and two pike on the bank, for me, justified the decision to keep moving.

I placed my pike on the scales and was made up to see the scaled settle on 10lb, another double to the tally although i will have to check the records to see what number double it is, i think 15. A lovely pike with nice markings.

The pike rested and returned we gave the swim a good hour and half before moving again and with the clock edging ever closer to that 1pm pack up time we knew this was our last chance of a fish.  During the time in the last swim the weather really did change the wind got up and with it came a icy nip as a real hoolie began to build.  With presentation not being great on the float ledgers i knew my best chance of a fish was on the ledger rod on the bottom and to try and tempt a bite i changed it over to a popped up herring. 

Like two expectant herons we waited for the fish to come but unfortunately time passed by quietly with only the sound of the wind whistling through the trees to break up the silence on the rods.  A tough final few hours on the bank but warmed by the fact we had caught two in very tough conditions we made our way home via the local Costa for a much needed warming hot chocolate.

A session that shows the value in getting out on the bank and covering the ground to find your fish and a few pieces of a jigsaw put together as next time we now have a good idea of where the pike are holding and who knows next time Mum and Son might be joined by their grandmother ;-)

A video of this session is live to view now below, please take a second to like the video and subscribe ti really does help the channel out

till next time tight lines

Danny 

Pike Fishing: A Session of Memories, A Session where Rumours of Monsters become reality....

Saturday, a day of the week I would normally be setting out on another river adventure with my uncle chasing the elusive shoals of dace, roach and chub that reside in the north west corner of England.  A phone call the night before and my uncle sounded like death warmed up.  Fishing was off the agenda and for my uncle Saturday morning, this week at least, the heady smell of lemon from his lemsip’s would be replacing the usual fermented unmistakable smell of the hempseed that lay beside his fishing box.

The past few weeks my uncles lad Harry had been on the bank with me learning to pike fish so we agreed to another session chasing the mysterious esox Luscious. To this point he had done fantastic in learning to handle pike on the bank and what it involved in catching them.  This learning curve had seen him bag a 3lb and a 7lb pike in his last two trips.

5am and as I made my way downstairs for a strong brew to wake me from my pre fishing trip restless slumber I could hear the rain tapping onto the windowsill from a hole in the gutter, its repetitive rhythm of drips alerting me to damp conditions awaiting my venture outside.  The kettle groaning as if bemoaning my request for a warm beverage i glanced out of the kitchen window at the pitch black darkness in which only the outline of a large fern tree could be seen arching in the breeze.

If possession is 9 tenths of the law then preparation is certainly 9 tenths of the art of fishing and rightly so I had little to do with the mornings prep bar choosing which fish to offer Mrs Esox from my bait freezer.  A session earlier on that week had left me with a few open packets of smelts and herring jacks so I loaded the bottom of the bait cooler with some fresh unopened smelts and sardines and placed the old opened smelts and herrings on top. 

The old fish mobile loaded I began to make my journey to pick up our Harry, my windows misted up I wound down my drivers side to allow me to safely leave the street.  Blob...Blob.Blob as I pulled off could only mean on thing that overnight drop in temperatures has seen the pressure in one of my tyres drop.  Like a  dog that has just stood on a thorn I ambled and plodded my way to the garage pleading with the fishing gods the Air Machine was still alive, to my delight she was and then tyre was given a quenching boost! Such fine lines can see sessions called off, only at the end of this fisherman’s tale will this become important.

The journey to the venue with our Baz in tow the radio politely alerted all normal people in the world to probably stay in doors as storm Brian was due to hit the North West.  Like all fisherman the urge to keep going is much stronger than worrying about such things as storms and further into the dark we plodded, the headlamps on the car almost Hansel and Gretel like illuminating the bread crumbs to the water.

The session was all about continuing our Harrys development, I had shown him the basics of piking, it was now time for him to make decisions himself and learn from decisions he would make.  A float ledger rod had been set up for him and on this session he would be baiting it up and deciding the placement of his bait in the swim.  I was in super lazy mode so out went a ledger rig on a bite alarm with a fox back bite arm, bait wise it was a whole herring from one of the opened packs.  Yellow, shriveled and still possessing the hook marks from a previous session where it had been out for a few hours.  My other rod was on a pencil float fished float ledger style and on this I would be presenting the humble smelt.

The baits out and the dark angry skies over head we awaited the arrival of a pike at the dinner table.  An early few knocks on Harrys float alerted us to a pike in the area and two dropped runs only went to confirm a pike was in the area.  A cast over the area and jagging the smelt around the swim would either entice the pike to confidently take the bait or spook it completely.

Thankfully the latter was not the case and a few minutes later his float confidently sailed away.  A huge lesson in how cruel piking can be was played out as the pike spat the bait after a few moments playing the fish.  We replaced the bait and an air of that float being the epicentre of all our focus did follow as we eagerly anticipated the hungry pike return.  The vigil was soon broken by the piercing sound of a delkim alarm and a pike that had come across my herring dead bait.

A countdown and a hard strike and I was connected with a pike that was not happy at its meal being disturbed.  Aggressive head shakes it was a relief to slide the net under the first pike of the session, a nice upper single with a full set of gnashers.

The pike blogged and released we sat back and put a brew on, an act that was surly to entice a pike to dine.  The steam rising from a whistling kettle was like music to my ears on a damp windy morning. The calmness that comes with a pike on the bank is quite surreal as the excitement and sense of anticipation before its capture almost lifts.  A calmness that was soon broke by baz running to his rod as his float trundled confidently across the surface before disappearing into the gloomy depths. 

Learning from the mistakes on the previous take he set the hooks and played the fish, a fish that angrily kept deep.  I knew inside he was into a PB and a potential double figure pike and talking him through the fight we slipped the net under a double figure pike.  The question now was just how big his new PB would be. 

13lb on the scales and a beaming smile looking at them he was proper made up, if a little cold.  We places the pike I the net to rest and so we could get prepared for a few pictures for him to remember the day by.  Our celebrations where short lived as my delkim alarm broke up out chatter, a screaming run so violent the rod tip was bouncing away. 

With a fish in the keep net I decided there and then I would have to hand in the pike.  A hard strike and my 2.75lb test curve rod hooped over solid as a decent fish stayed deep.  Plenty of head shaking I knew I had a fragile hook hold at best, a thought that sent shivers down my spine the longer the rod stayed bent over and the fish kept deep.  Long hard runs as the fish realised the predicament it was in.  I loosened the drag and tried to coax the fish closer in and it worked as the fish glided in under my feet.  In the semi clear water I caught a glimpse of her, a big fish she was long with a huge head!

I knew there and then I was in a bit of a predicament, I had a fish in the net that under normal circumstance I would have just released to land this one but that fish I knew held a special value, Harrys first double and a fish I knew we had no pictures of for him to remember the day by.  A long hard battle was played out with the fish going on long hard powerful runs that just ate line from the spool I eventually got her up to the top and quickly I took my chance, sliding my hand under her chin I had a solid grip and lifted out a huge fish.  Lightly hooked she was soon unhooked and placed in the net to rest before a quick weigh, 19lb on the nose!! A fish of a lifetime from the venue I was on and braving storm Brian had paid off with over 30lb of pike in the net resting.

On the mat they looked amazing, both in fantastic condition and been feeding well.  The 19 had a huge head and was certainly a fish that in February will be over 20lb mark.  A quick photo and video for the blog and she was returned back.  I had heard many rumours of these fish, many claiming to have caught them but no pictures to back them up.  I knew there and then I had returned one of the true ghostly monsters, a true fish of a lifetime.

The session was not over there with a first for me late on with me getting a run on the wobble rod, a good 2 hours later and our harry’s 13 had recovered and was back on the feed!! Madness and a first for me as I have never caught the same pike twice in the same session, crazy.

The session coming to and end it was a pleasure to share this session with our Harry, a session we will talk about for years to come no doubt.  It showed everything that is so magical about fishing for pike, that float goes or that alarm starts ringing you just never know what monster could be on the other end,  a session of memories a session where stories and rumours of monster fish became reality.....

till next time

tight lines

Danny

Where I Fish? and Top 30 Fishing Blog Award....

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Last week i mentioned i had been off work the past month and although i wont be going into any detail about the reasons its again fishing that shows its worth for proving that there is so much more to getting out on the bank than catching fish.  That's not to say i have been out every day fishing, parental duties still have to be completed, but when i have managed to get out to wet a line i have to say those few hours alone with my thoughts have really helped me these past weeks and of course the company and support of good family and friends.

I generally keep family off this blog to keep the fishing and that separate but the good friends side is easy to share, this session for pike took my mind off all my problems, just for that day, thank you.

On to the blog.....

Top 30 Fishing Blogs on the Web Recognition...

It was great this week to get an email from Feedspot in which they congratulated me for the blog making the top 30 on their best fishing blogs on the web.  Starting the blog all those years ago for a bit of fun its amazing to see where it is today and how its developed and almost taken on its own identity as time has gone on.

The blog has been mentioned before in such lists but when i had a good look at the list it was blogs from all over the world and the majority of the top ones where all american, not a bad thing, but showed it was a list compiled form blogs all over the world.  Dannys angling Blog come in at a respectable number 28 on the list and i was proud to have even made the list never mind the top 30.

I would like to thank the organisers for not only putting the list together but also show casing angling blogs as i do think as we move into an age where anyone can write a blog or create videos of their fishing experiences that bloggers and video loggers will be the face of angling in the future.  As paper sales of the weekly magazines decline we will see them unable to pay such high salaries to their stars and as such we will see a decline in variety in the papers and thats when we will see these companies go full out paperless and online and part of that will be embracing bloggers and video loggers int he angling world.

You only have to look at the quality of videos out there and i even my little bit of the world is regularly getting 10k a month views,  in short its great that finally the people putting their heart and souls into their blogs and videos are getting some recognition and long may it continue.

Where do You Fish Danny??

If there was one question i get asked more than any other it is this one.  Dont get me wrong you put your fishing out there for all to see, you should expect it, right?  As much as i disagree with this there is a bit that is right i do put my fishing out there for all too see and if you go back to my very first blogs i cover the main reason i started this blog, the lack of information out there on fishing and i hoped tis blog would inspire people to get out there and find fishing based of what i share that proves the rewards are there.   Of course the internet is now approaching saturation point with information to the point you can get the low down on any venue out there before you even see the place and if we look at the carp word on some venues you can read how many doubles, 20's, how many 30's and then a roll call of their names, such is the world we live in.  To first know where i fish you need to get into my frame of mind, simply put its as far away from these places as i can get.

My fishing involves hours of looking on google earth for places to fish and although we do from time to time fish match lengths or popular haunts i would say the huge majority of my fishing is done on places that have no queue in the car park, no rush to get a peg and certainly places where the fish have no names.  When i do visit the busier places i almost leave with a headache from the constant reams and reams of absolute drivel some anglers find it necessary to shout to each other on the bank, some anglers i am sure don't know how to be quiet.

Have you ever drove down the road in the car or looked out the window of a bus and caught a glimpse of a spit of a pond or gone over a bridge and thought that "i wonder if there is fish in there?".  Well this is where you will find me fishing, i looked out the window and didnt just think i went out and found out.  It baffles me how people actually pay commercial prices in winter to catch silvers when most to get to the gates in time to get "the peg" they must drive past hundreds and thousands of silvers in their local canal.

Fishing the local cut or river you are not going to leave the superstar angler you will after catching a tonne from the commercial but what you will leave the canal or river with is a sense of achievement.  How many times do we hear in matches, "well hes won hes on the peg" or "billys on the flier"  we hear this all the time dont we? Well believe me once you have saw a water, got on their first light to look for fishing topping and then fished the area, you will have found your own flier! And you know what? Its all yours to enjoy, no queuing up at gates, no paying a land owner to fish.  I would say over 50% of my fishing is done for free.

So in short, where do i fish?  I fish all those crap places that people see day in and day out but turn either  their nose up at or pass wondering what if......Dont thin what if get out there and wet a line trust me its the best feeling in the world.

On the to the fishing...

Long Rod And The Bolo...

The rain had been falling hard all through Friday and it continued to tap against my bedroom window as i tried to get off to sleep, a hard enough task the night before a fishing trip as it is, waking up at silly o'clock in the morning i quickly went about my pre fishing routine part of which involves opening the back door the check what mother natures mood is.  In short she was in the same stubborn sour mood she left me in the night before with steady rain falling still.

A quick check on the EA levels page revealed them all to be on a steady rise and carrying water.  We decided on the river we where going to fish, a good depth and the fact it normally has a slow pace at best we knew with the extra water in it might have a decent flow and there was a good chance of a fish or two.

Arriving on the banks there was a few fish topping and we took the lazy option of the first two pegs we come too.

My plan for the session was to fish rod tip on the bolo float and the picture above shows just how simple the components are for river fishing.  My rod of choice was my 17ft Preston Carbon active rod teamed with my shimano reel loaded with 4lb line down to a 2ft long bayer perlon hook length.  The bait on the day was 2 pints of red maggot and about the same of hemp seed.

My plan was to fish rod tip and finding around 8ft under my feet i did think about putting a stick float on.  I fished this line from the off and started to pick up the odd small roach but i soon began to notice a snag or some sort of weed on the bottom i kept hitting.  Time and time again i would go down and right where i wanted to get my bites i would clip a snag.  Some of the time it was a fish and the bites

The times is was bites i was rewarded with a roach.

With silver fishing the basic tackle is simple, for this session it was a simple as putting on a float and adding a hook length with most of the shot in a bulk using a 2.5 gram olivette, skill in this form of fishing comes from repetition and learning the method and the art of bolo or stick float fishing.  As you trot the peg you begin to map out the line you want to fish, parts of the peg where you need to hold back to get over a depth change or a rock.

In this peg on the line i was fishing the bite dropped back below the snag on the bottom and despite me trying the feed further upstream to draw them back up the peg it was to no avail and the snag on the bottom was becoming the end point of the swim as it became a case of get a bite before the snag or no bite at all.

I eventually hit the snag solid and there was no moving it so it was game over with the hook length.  At this stage i was a tad frustrated by striking at, and missing, bites so i decided to abandon the line completely and go just this side of the middle.  It was a case of my regretting not doing it sooner as i was quickly into roach on the bolo.

This is where the beauty of owning a long rod comes to its own.  At 17 feet long i had amazing control on the inside line as i was right behind the line of the float but when it come to then going down the middle the extra length of the rod meant it was as easy fishing as it was under my feet.

Settling into a rhythm of under arm casting out, feeding maggot and then feeding hemp.....run it through, hold it back and strike.  I was quickly putting a few better roach in the net.

I got chatting to a guy and as i did i managed a run of skimmers to around a pound and a half which really boosted the final net.  No pictures unfortunately as i was too busy nattering to take one of the skimmer.  We ended the session with two nice upper single figure nets of fish on a day where most rivers in the country where in flood.  Location and knowing your rivers and picking the right one from your armory is the key.

till next time i wish you all tight lines

danny

Catch Up and Red Letter Pike Day....

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  The written blog and fishing in general at the moment has taken a bit of a back seat with me taking some time off work.  This is of course the wrong format to be going into any detail on but its safe to say that the motivation just has not been there to sit in front of the screen and put a written blog together.  The main reason is to be honest content, to the point of going off work i had done quite a bit of pike fishing and i had accumulated quite a bit of video content to keep the pike blog and the youtube side of things ticking over with a weekly video.

The main blog did suffer a little as the last session before i went off work was a session on the river where i went all out for pike but the silver fishing of side was really poor so it really did mean the fat reserves for a fishing blog just was not there.  With blogging it is always good to keep things ticking over so in this update i will be doing a bit of a recap on the piking and where i am up to.  Luckily i also had a good session for pike before i went off where i had a real red letter day for them.  The pike diary is good but it does make blogging red letter sessions in detail really hard as the real estate on the page is not great.

With that all said lets get into the update:

Pike Fishing Progress

Well its safe to say the pike season hit the ground running and it has seen me have some good success chasing the old esox.  As it stands now i have caught 48 pike with 7 of my target of 10 doubles on the bank.  It has been a solid start to the campaign but with November being a but of write off with me being off work then progress will slow and right at the wrong time really with November being a great dead baiting month.  Such is live and i am sure i will be making up for lost time when i get back into work with my new leave year starting next month.

So the piking vlog is coming along well I'm comfortable speaking to the camera and its getting to a point where my editing is becoming easier as i learn the package.  I can also see this video logging being part of the angling year now out side pike fishing with sessions on the canal and river being a real possibility.

There is already plenty of content on the youtube page with some dedicated tutorials and actual sessions on the bank.  For anyone looking to save money with their fishing then piking is a great way to save money and a huge part of that can be making your own pike traces.

There is plenty of content coming on the pike blog as we are a few weeks behind but there have been some lovely pike caught so far, not least this lovely 14lb pike.

Red Letter Pike Session

A early start on the river and driving through the lanes in the dark i was optimistic of catching some pike as the forecast was for plenty of cloud cover and there was a nice nip in the air.  I of course got stuck behind the slowest of slow tractors heading there so it was already light when i arrived on the bank.

My tactic for the session was my trust paternoster live bait rig and setting up in a swim i had caught some pike in recently i was confident of a bite or two.  The sun rising over the river revealed the river to be in fine fettle with plenty of clarity for presenting a bait.  A good two hours in the swim and the rods remained motionless, i say motionless they or course dances to the live baits erratic tune.

A change was in order as it was clear the recent drops in temp had pushed the fish from the area.  The beauty of pike fishing is how simple and quickly you can pack in a move.  A ruck sack, two rods, two bank sticks and a landing net meant i was soon on the road to a new location.

One rod in i set about plumbing up the depth for the next one and i was soon presenting two baits in a new spot, a quick turn round and my first rod had gone and line was peeling off the open bail arm.  A strong strike and the rod hooped over straight away, a sure sign of a ok fish.  To this point i had caught two doubles and quite a few jack pike so i was pleased of the hard fight from the first fish.  A hard fight later i was pleased to slip the net under a 10lb 7ox pike, a great start.

The pike returned it was a great start to the new spot.  Of course the fish was rested in the net before releasing her back to her home and it did seem like it was only seconds after releasing the pike that the rod went again.  This time a jack just under the 6lb mark.

This pike was caught at 12.19am and showing how much the pike where on the feed the 3rd pike was caught and banked at 12.41 showing how hard they where on the feed.  Nothing in 2 hours in one spot yet 3 pike in no time at all in the other.

A nice break in the action allowed time for me to grab a warming brew and i was visited by a friend i have not seen in a while and it was great to catch up on our angling adventures since our paths crossed last time.  A good angler and it was great to see some of his angling pictures form recent silver fishing ventures.  Of course being the good man he is he also gave me a few pointers about potential other hot spots to try and the river in general, all of which i was grateful for.

1.30pm till 2pm brought on another flurry of activity with two lost fish and two more small jacks on the bank with a 5lb14oz fish followed up with a 5lb on the nose barrel of a jack pike.

Moving into the last hour the light levels really began to drop rapidly and with it so did the temperature.  Stood watching the floats i knew it was only a matter of time before the float went.  The odds so stacked i the favour of the predators they just had to be on the feed.  You could feel the tension building and hard flurry's by the baits gave a sign that something was about down deep.

My feeling was right as the right hand rod slid slowly away, a slow take that was so different to the other jack takes and i let the run develop before setting the hooks.  The reward a nice conditioned 9lb pike

The fish back the last half hour of the session was upon me and it was a session that passed in the blink of an eye.  I know there was 40 mins between takes but it did not feel like that to experience it, it felt like it was manic.  The time for the slow pack away had come and i was fresh out of baits baring one roach.  I decided to slowly pack all the other gear away and spent 15 minutes with just the one rod out.

Reaching for the rod it was time to call it a day and as i reached down i caught the float disappearing out of the corner of my eye.  Another slow take and striking i knew i was into another nice pike.  A hard fighting pike had me on all types of runs as line oozed from the spool.  The fight was a good one and up from the depths came a dark green shape of a lovely pike.  A double for sure and i thought around the 13-15lb mark.

On the bank she went 11lb and i mist admit i weighed her again and low and behold she was 11lb she just looked a lot bigger.

A cracking way to end a nice session with two doubles and 7 pike on the bank i left a happy angler.  At least the fishing was going ok and providing a space for solace away form the troubles developing in work.

Till next time

tight lins

Danny

Roach Pole Fishing and Autumnal Carp Hunt..

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Writing this angling blog over the last few years has been such an enjoyable experience, going fishing then sharing my adventures on this format.  Finding the words to say without sounding repetitive is a constant challenge but i think over the years i have managed to keep it all both interesting and varied.  I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all the people who have ever taken the time to read the blog and a special thank you to the ones who religiously come back to keep up with the adventures.

This weeks blog see's the pike blog go live and with it a few videos to kick start the Youtube channel and i will cover a little bit on why i write the blog the way i do as it has been a subject that comes up quite a bit in the comments and on websites.  The fishing is a session for roach, cant have too much of a good thing right? And then a chase for an autumnal carp to end the season on.

Lets get into the update....

Pike Blog 2016/17 Goes Live....

As you can see form the top bar of the blog the Pike Diary 2016/17 is now live to view.  It will again run in a rolling format reading top to bottom with new trips added as it goes down.  Its a format i have found works well in previous years and with the odd video log added in it will also act as a kind of archive and play list location for these videos.

link to Pike Diary: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/p/pike-diary-201617.html

I know the writing is not for everybody so i have set up a Playlist on the Youtube page so if you just want to follow the VLogs then you can watch them all on the play list or subscribe and they will fall into your subscription box as and when each goes live.

I have set up a spreadsheet for this years piking so i know exactly what trips i have done on, what i have caught and what trips i have video logged and uploaded.  This should mean the pike diary this year will certainly be a lot more structured in the updates.  I am thinking of weekly updates on a Friday night and trying to include a video every 2 weeks.

There is currently 3 sessions live now on the youtube page and i have done this to kick start the channel, get a bit of content on there and then settle into a structured format.  Lets just see where this new part of the blog takes us and if it is feasible to continue both given amount of time and effort it takes, especially if vlog lengths increase.

For those looking to subscribe a link to the Channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

Lets Talk Locations and Secret Squirrel Blogs....

So this week i have again been defending my stance on not sharing my locations i am fishing and again been met with accusations that i just write my blog to show off and believe it or not "make money".  I can assure you there is no money to be made in blogspot for writing an angling blog so we can clear that one up right away.

Locations i fish, i do not share them for a number of reasons and i will cover them now.  The first reason i dont share exact locations on my coarse and pike fishing is fish safety, i believe the Internet is the prime area for people poaching our waters to find the good places to go and catch fish for the pot.  I have no problem in people sharing the locations of when they have fished a commercial or a syndicate water as these waters are well protected and it is in the interest of the owners to keep it that way, its their lively hood.

As you will see looking back over the last few years of blogs i am an angler that tends to avoid the popular spots and the places where its like a circus of anglers and prefer to fish the canals, lakes and rivers getting right out of the way.  As such i do fish waters where i see evidence of this poaching and fish being taken, a few years back i witnessed the decimation of the pike stocks on the Dee and right there and then i promised myself my blog would never be the source of this disgraceful act.

Sights like this now are rare on the dee:

We then move over to actual time and effort i put in, i put a huge amount of time and effort into my fishing and subscribe to the moto "fail to prepare, prepare to fail".  If you are willing to put the time into you fishing then you will get the results and this blog proves that, how long is it since i wrote a blog on coarse fishing and blanked?

Roach fishing is a common blog of late on both the rivers and a huge canal that's 22ft deep in places, the blogs show the final result, methods used and a recap on the session but what it doesn't show is the week i went without a dinner hour in work looking on google earth for accessible water and places to park the car, the trip then to the bank at 6am on a Sunday morning to see if any fished topped to give the location and in some cases even the presence of fish.  Then comes the risk and sacrifice, do you not go a water you know you can catch this time of year on in favour of possibly walking a few fields with your gear to blank?  The inner angler in me is an explorer and always want to chase that new adventure.

A swim there somewhere

Maybe with these vlogs i might look for a water and vlog the amount of effort i put into it and have that water as just one water that when its location gets out its done and dusted but it will show the amount of effort i put in.  why should i then just from someone putting a comment on facebook saying "where" give all that effort away to someone who can not even be bothered to say nice net, well done just a "where".  They then proceed to call you all the names under the sun when you don't share it.

Rant over ha ha its been a while and i am still waiting for this person to post their net up as they where adamant my help was not needed and they could use their own water craft and match my nets....i feel i may never see the fruits of their Internet fishing labour....

i feel liberated now lets get into the fishing...

Roach On The Pole...Never Too Much of a Good Thing...

This new area certainly has produced the good the passed few weeks with mid teen nets and a 28lb net for me last week.  When you suss a venue like this the challenge for me then comes in trying to get the best i can out of the venue.  The first week i fished castor on the hook and did not really get a better stamp of fish for my efforts than my uncle on maggot,  I fed little ground bait on this session and did feed heavy on the hemp.   Last week i decided to try and get the bream so i went heavy on the ground bait but i packed the ground bait full of maggot, hemp and micro pellets.

This week i toyed with the idea of again taking castor but decided on a different approach.  I decided to mix up a greater amount of ground bait adding a full kilo of Van Den Enyde Roach to the bucket and riddling before ten adding to it around 3 pints of mole hill soil.  It gave me a lovely fine but heavy mix containing the attraction of the smell of the ground bait but with the fact that at least half of the mix in the moil hill soil was neutral, e.g contains no feed content at all but would add colour.

The mix ready it was time to answer the call of nature and what a view i was met with as i walked the bank, a beautiful morning to be on the bank.

Back to the peg i set up the gear while the ground bait settled, i added a small amount of maggot to the mix as i hoped to attract the roach in with smell but them find my bait quickly.  This week we had moved down stream slightly and was in a new swim.  I got to work with the depth plummet and found the same depth as i had last week on a general slope but it was five sections of pole out and not the three i had fished the previous week.

My uncle had come with a altogether different approach as he decided to fish the whip to hand.  Madly enough we fished around 10 yards apart on this session and it took me right back to when i was a kid on the canal watching him fish the little whip snatcher to hand as so many of my early trips with my dad where on such a pole.

The session started off and i fed three balls of ground bait into the swim, it being a new area i didn't want to ruin it before i started.  My uncles fishing closer in was feeding sloppy ground bait with maggot on the hook.  He was soon into fish which was great to see in the new area.  My swim was really quiet though as i waited it out, my float was set a floats depth over depth to hopefully pick up a bream but for the first part it seemed like i would be lucky to get a bite.

I made a slight change and came up a float depth so i was literally dead depth bit the bottom on the venue and straight away i was into razor blade roach. It really is amazing how much a small change like that can make, from no bites all to literally a bite a chuck!

For the first part of the session the fish where quite small in size but every so often a better fish would show its head.  I was soon into a rhythm of catching roach steady and i was keeping to a set routine of feeding three big balls every 30 minutes and i was feeding a little top up ball every 15 minutes in between like the one shown below.

Keeping the feeding accurate on the spot the fish kept coming and form thinking i would be lucky to get a bite i was soon moving into the afternoon thinking i had into double figures in the onion sack.  My uncle catching steady on the whip was madly enough 10 feet away also bagging up, huge amount of fish in the swims.

As the afternoon wore on and the feed built up my average stamp of roach grew in size and i would say most put ins i was coming back with a roach around 4oz and knowing how the weights last week had come around due to average size and numbers of fish i was confident of a ok net.  My uncle was knee deep in fish and was also getting the odd better roach and a lovely bream around 3lb mark, the challenge now is to work out how to get the shoal in to feed.

As the afternoon wore on towards packing in we had both had a cracking days sport and it was noticeable this week that the fish had kept in the swims all session.  Previous weeks i was adding a section of pole here and moving closer in there, feeding two lines etc etc to keep fish coming but today the fish where in the swim and hard on the feed.

I think this was sheerly down to the drop in temperature this past week and the fish have really sensed it and got their heads down on the feed. We have a new venue to try next week but i am sure as the weeks tick on the fishing will go from strength to strength here as the cold kicks in and the fish come hard on the feed.  I am sure the bream will start to show in more numbers and i am sure this venue has a surprise or two in store for us.

We finished up with two fantastic nets both we agreed where over the 20lb mark and we left made up

my net

uncles net

The Hunt For Autumnal Gold.....

So a week or so back i set off on a little adventure to try and catch one more double figure carp to finish of the season. The water in question holds a lot of singles a sprinkling of low and upper doubles and of course the rumored "twenty pounder".  It was one of these mid to upper doubles i was targeting to end my season.

Arriving at the water there was no signs of fish on the top so i went with my trusty micro pellets and corn approach with an added liberal spray of Stinky Stuff Crayfish.  The swim soon was a jacuzzi of bubbles with a number of carp in the swim on the feed and in no time i had a few single figure carp on the bank as the delkims danced a merry carp tune on a regular basis.

As the sun came over the water and finally began its decent leaving only a mottled light through the brown and orange leaves i spotted a few nice fish up on the top, they where all nice fish and all in the target bracket.  The long summer of being caught had took its toll on these fish and they where in the area full of snags with deep undercut banks and tree roots providing ample areas to relieve themselves of my hook.

A crust of bread was my approach and there was no feeding up to be done here i was hoping to catch the group of guard with one morsel of bread cast in their patrol route.  The first fish came up and turned away, a nice common as well, the next two swam ignorantly under the free offering......"mud pigs?" slurping up anything they can find? not exactly fitting that profile here.

At the end of the group appeared a dark shadow and like as if laser guided it came straight up and took the bait.  Instantly my line went tight and the rod hooped over and in seconds all was solid.  The line whistling in the wind and that awful feeling of line grating against a snag.  Braid was great for floating on the water but i knew its abrasion qualities where not as great.

A change of angle and i felt a kick, i was still attached, i let all go slack for a second and used the oldest trick in the book to wait for the fish to think it was away and swim out of the snag.  A good minute i waited before he line headed out into the middle and the fight continued.  I had the advantage now though as lunges for the same snag where prevented and eventually i slipped the net under her golden autumnal flanks.

A perfect end to a perfect summers carp fishing...

Till next time

tight lines

Danny