2018 A New Start...Winter Pond Fishing For Silvers...

A warm welcome to this weeks angling blog i hope i find you all well and your nets wet, wow its been too long since i wrote that line! Just over a year ago i made the huge step of beginning to document my adventures in video format on Youtube and when i did i never imagined that one i would enjoy creating the content this way so much and two that this page would continue to be so popular given the lack on content.

Over the past year i have had loads of emails asking if the written blog would be making a come back as they enjoyed the weekly blog. All through last year i tried and tired to put blogs together but lack of time to do so and also a lack of inspiration, the words just would not come if you get me.  Over the new year a spark lit with me and this sudden urge to get back blogging kicked in, so here we are the first full week of the new year with a blank canvass so lets get this show back on the road.

Changes -

These really come down to yourselves the readers and you getting your thoughts out there on social media and in the comments section below as to what you like and what you dont like about the blog.  In the past it has had many identities and themes from me answering questions i receive in to me posting my thoughts on things i see in angling, rants and all, before getting into the main part of the blog the fishing.

As a content creator if none are forthcoming then i  am thinking of the blog being more like a written diary, just the fishing sessions in written form trying to capture the sessions that i fish, the sights and the scene and the session as a whole.  Either way i want it to be something that you yourselves want to read so let me know please.


So lets get straight into it:-

Winter Pond Silvers on The Waggler...

Friday morning and with the incessant rain still tapping irritatingly at the window of the living room i sat, feet up, watching yet another repeat of Home Alone on the box.  A great film no doubt but after a long Christmas period rocking around the Christmas Tree has just lost its appeal and truth be told the sound of rain incessantly falling had me feeling more like banging my head against the Tree than dancing round it.

Cabin fever well and truly set in i just had to get out and wet a line the next day so plans with my uncle where made and we made one promise, we would find somewhere to wet a line.

Saturday morning and a clear crisp morning met me as a loaded up the car for another adventure.  The rain had meant silver fishing really had taken a back seat of late as the ease and versatility of conditions you can pike fish in had seen me targetting these camouflaged predators more often than not, it meant me delving right to the back of the fishing room for my box and drennan acolyte rod.

Our journey to the river my heart sank as we passed all the local ditches and run offs that where grey and carrying plenty of road run off.  I knew then the river we where travelling too would also be "on the edge".  You can look at the charts on the rivers all you want but the simple equation is, if the side streams and upper reaches are a mess then the main river is also going to be similar.

Arriving at the river as day light broke we could see straight away the over night rain had really come into the system in a big way, no way would we be float fishing today.   A quick chat and a video of said waterway done for the blog we decided to drop back on a small pond.  When picking winter venues to fish its never easy but one thing i would say is always looks for one with some depth and as small as possible.  Simple physics then mean fishing the deepest but you are not too far away from any fish.

The pond surrounded by by old trees their forks bare from their summer foliage and the pond now also free from the chocking summer weed had a black tinge to its crystal clear depths.  A tough day was in order for sure with such clear conditions but i set my sights on 10 to 20 fish.  A solitary fishing topping right in the middle of the pool sparked some excitement as it meant the fish where at least on the move.

Tackle for the session was my 14ft Drennan Acolyte coupled with a shimano Techium reel loaded with 4lb drennan float fish line.  A simple waggler was attached via a float rubber to the line and this all lead down to a 1.7lb Bayer Perlon hooklength and a size 18 micro barbed hook.   The shotting pattern was strung out number 8 shots.

My bait choice was simple in the form of around a pint and half of white maggots that i planned to drip feed the swim with.   The swim in front of me was like any pond, shallow margins dropping into a deep bowl, i plumbed up at rod tip just where the bowl levelled out and spent a good amount of time making sure the float was shotted down as much as i could to register even the faintest of bites.

The first cast and the float settled nicely with just the bristle breaking the glass surface of the pond.  More fish began to top around the pool but my float remained stagnant in its position.  I kept feeding the swim with two to three maggots and on every few feeds recast in the hope the fish where intercepting the feed on the drop.

Eventually the first bite came in the form of a small roach and despite the air being quite comfortable the roach stung my palms as it graced them such was the harsh coldness of the fish, bitter! I knew there and then bites would be at a premium and feeding had to be careful as these fish, although feeding, would not need much to be overfed. 

It took around half an hour for the first bite but then like the kingfisher that past me so came a flurry of bites as the first fish was followed by two more.  Many who will have watched the videos on youtube will see my thoughts on feeding and with a few bites like that it is easy to think they are having it but you have to be restrained and not go mad and over feed so i continued to drip feed the swim with 2-3 maggots at a time.

By midday a pattern had shown in the fish would move in, you would catch one or two and then would follow a period of quiet before their return, i was happy with this on the day as a good bit of banter was had with my uncle during the lean spells, i would say by midday i had around 10 plump roach like the one below in the net.

Into the afternoon and the swim completely died for a good hour and all signs of fish in the pool seemed to cease as an eerie silence came over the pool the birds seemed to have lost their voices and even dying reeds to my right ceased their whistle as the wind dropped.  A solemn calm in a world crammed with impatient people clambering to get their mundane tasks completed, a moment of utter peace and tranquillity in the middle of an urban landscape, a world few of these people who partake in this modern rat race stop to even acknowledge.

The calmness was broken when my float slid away and likes its action the whole swim descended, into chaos that is, as the drennan acolyte bent smoothly into a better fish.  The camera grabbed to capture this moment on film it was utter shock when up through the clear depths came the olive green flanks of a tench!!, The camera went down and all that mattered was sliding this fish into the waiting net.  A winter Tinka a real surprise given the cold conditions.

The tench was a real surprise on such a cold day and i guess goes to show that these species do not just sit there dormant all winter till spring comes, a nice addition to the days sport.  The disturbance of this fish did kill the swim for a bit but eventually a few roach moved back in but in reality it was not until the sun sank down onto the horizon and its oily watery winter gaze jeweled through the trees that a few better roach started to top and out of the blue right on last knocking a real beauty of a roach made an appearance,

The roach was a fitting end to a nice day on the bank with my uncle and hopefully the net below goes to show that you dont need 20lb nets of roach to have a good day on the bank, a few bites with a mate can lead to some of the best and most memorable days on the bank.  A special session on a special water, see you in spring.

Till next time

tight lines

Danny

You can watch a video of the session on the blogs youtube channel on this link below

Cheshire Particle, Bailiff Role and Some Pond Fishing :-)

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope find you all well and your nets wet.  Two blogs in short succession it finally feels like i am getting stuck into this routine and finding the time to fit it all in.  I am on top of the extra additional duties and sticking to my promise to be more proactive in my fishing this year.

Recent trips out on the bank have seen me bump into loads of people who read the blog, like buses you don't have many people mention it then all of a sudden you get people coming over for a chat everywhere you go.  I love this side of the blog and if you do ever see me on the bank please do come over and have a chat its great to hear your fishing stories.

The past two weekends has seen me targeting carp for a product review i have got coming up for a carp sling and it was great to bump into a regular blog reader on the bank and share a moment that saw him catch his first ever chub! A keen predator angler it was good to hear his stories from the same canal we fish, share some of my hot spots i have come across for perch and then sat back and waited for a run whilst watching his roach swim get stalked by a small jack pike.  We spend all winter chasing them on dedicated gear and how typical if fishing when you set up a roach rod and leave the pike gear at home, mr esox then finds you.  Who would be a fishermen eh?

I can honestly say i am loving my fishing at the moment and in that i mean all aspects of it.  The challenge of the fishing, different challenges with the writing and then the extreme challenge that is the youtube channel.  Challenge is good in any part of life not just fishing it keeps you on your toes and makes the journey one to remember.

Cheshire Particle...

Cheshire Particle is a North West bait company run by Mark.  Working from home to produce his own blends and mixes of particles he, in a short space of time, has gained a reputation for producing quality baits.  The 2016 sponsor of the wales carp fishing is a testament to the hard work put in by mark and his team of anglers.

link to cheshire particle: https://cheshireparticle.com/

The range of products on offer is fantastic ranging from parti-mixes, pellets, nut mixes to his new range of snail boilies and of course his particle mixes with hemp tares and maize, it is a range where anyone can find a bait that fits into their fishing.  I always like it when i come across anglers with an obvious passion for their sport and products and even more so when they are local, long term blog readers will remember me working with Beechwood baits a few years ago.

Of course this blog does stray into the world of carp fishing from time to time but when i was asked to work with Cheshire Particle i wanted to of course use items that compliment my fishing and dovetail nicely into my methods and ideas.  The stand out was of course hemp seed and i was also very interested in the hemp oil the company produced and the different ways i could incorporate that into my fishing.  A review of these two products will bin the coming blogs but here is a little taste of what this hemp and hemp oil can be used to catch.

Lymm Anglers Bailiff Role...

The world of fishing can be at times a world of gripes and discontent, certainly if you frequent facebook groups a lot you will certainly be open to this world.  I, at times, have also been guilty of having a lot to say on certain subjects but offering little in the way of a solution to the problem but like i said earlier 2017 i made a resolution to be more positive and more proactive in my angling,  April is fast approaching and i think i have been true to that word.

In the past 2 years i have seen the banks of my local canal, the bridge water, (Northern One) become a place i dont like, a place where you worry about its long term future and the effects certain types of behavior are having on the water.  In the past two years i have seen the pike fishing be reduced to a shadow of its former self and increasingly in that time i was catching pike with large sea hooks in their mouths and trailing tackle where the angler had been snapped on really light lines with no traces.

More and more i was seeing anglers mistreating fish when handling them and after getting chatting to  few anglers an ever increasing number of anglers with no licence.  This year i got chatting to another bailiff and i decided to put my name down to join a team of dedicated bailiffs and as a group we are now completing checks on the canal and in only a short amount of time have i think got a message that the canal is now in safe hands and being well bailiffed.

For me a bailiff role does not just confine to the boundary of checking cards and i want it to become the canal i remember as a kid, i want to see anglers back on the banks fishing the canal,  The lads and dads getting out and about to wet a line and create memories together on the local cut.    To achieve this is going to take time and a lot of effort and hard work.  I will certainly be covering in detail my sessions on there in the form of my youtube videos and on here and if you are local to the Cheshire area come and give this canal a go, you will not be disappointed.

You can acquire a licence here: https://www.lymmanglingclub.com/join-us

On to the Fishing:

Welcome to my...Pond Life...

So with a few product reviews in the past few weeks my fishing for once has been mainly dictated by the blog, not my normal way of doing things but some times it has to be done and carp fishing has been the area i have been spending most of mt time in recently.

As with all aspect of life it is always good to break away and  spend a few hours doing something completely different, an evening on a local small pond with my uncle offered such an opportunity and it was away with the carp rods and out with the maggotts and hemp.

A small secluded pond situated in the ruins of an old monastery it holds a wealth of history and the pond itself is part of that with it being a stock pond for the monks when they inhabited the local area.  How times change now someone taking carp from this pond for the pot would be seen in such a different light.

This pond is also quite sentimental to myself as both me and my dad helped to create the fishing pegs many years ago and s reward we where both granted with a fishing licence for life to fish the pond, a reward we drop in on from time to time, but in all honesty a place i fish quite infrequently.  A place, like the local canal, that holds so many special memories of mine and my dads fishing trips.

So with only a few hours in the evening we decided to give this little pond a go. The margins lined with toads in quite a amorous mood it was one of those typical early spring evenings, a warm breeze and intermittent sun and cloud, i was interested to see how the fishing had changed.

Feeding red maggot via the catty over the top of my light pole float soon saw some roach coming on the drop.  A decent pouch of hemp from the off would guarantee some feed on the bottom when the maggot arrived.  A deep swim for a pond at 10ft i fished a rig full depth with little shot to catch in all the layers as the bait fell.  Roach where soon coming steady on the drop.

As with all truly wild fish that need not our baits to sustain their existence their natural instincts soon kick in and caution outweighs the need to feed.  Changing feed and depths can fool the stranglers but keeping the fish coming can really be a game of cat and mouse.  My uncle was also getting steady bites and had actually landed a few small carp, distant ancestors of the very fish this pond was created for, the history of this place as i have said makes it so special.

A solemn silence soon came over my peg and it all felt very atmospheric as the float sat lazily dancing to the ponds tune as the slight ripple lapped up against the float.  A rhythm soon interrupted by the slightest of line bites, a fish moving on the bottom was the obvious culprit and when the float finally gave in the ever excited angler on the other end of the pole and sunk into to depths i knew little of what was going to be on the other end.

A hard fight seeing the drennan aqua elastic oozing from the end of the pole it was a good while before the fishes identity was certified especially with the severe depth of this pond.  Eventually through the surface came the shimmer of dark olive green and that most iconic of spring fish was slid into the landing net.  A teddy bear eye and a paint brush tail she was by far the fish of the session and a sign spring had finally sprung.

As the session wore on to its end and we reached that most mysterious time in any session, the last hour, the witching hour, a hour when you know those wise old fish are starting their hunt for food and if you get lucky maybe they will slip up and allow you to admire their beauty.

The last hour as the oily sun dropped below the horizon my palm was graced with bars of gold time and time again as some lovely crucian carp moved in over the bed of hemp seed.  A sight that brought those childhood memories flooding straight back.

A session end came in just as fast as the darkness began to fall and a cool mist began to creed over the pond, many say the morning mist is the ghost of anglers past then surely this mist rolling in just had the be the ghosts of the monks moving in to protect their pool through the hours of darkness.

Two nets that held so many memories.

Till next time enjoy you fishing and creating those special memories that will last a lifetime.

Danny

River Dane Troubles and Daughters Second Trip

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  A little change to the update this week as it will not be broken down into an introduction and then the fishing i am just going to use the beginning of the blog to talk about my fishing and where i feel i am with at it at this moment.  This will include what type of fishing and the blog and will be more of a ramble than anything but i am sure we will come out of the other side with a lot off my chest and hopefully a clear sense of direction.  So no script or brain storming with this update i am on my break and lets see where it takes us.

A Wee Ramble.....

The past few years fishing for me i have always had a set goal, a finishing point, a place i wanted to end up and was working towards.  These goals have changed from starting on a complete river and going out each week trying to work out the best spots and methods for finding and catching the best possible nets from a river to my pike fishing where i was learning from scratch.  In all these pursuits there has been a fitting ending with my first 20lb net on the river dee on the stick being a huge milestone and last year catching my first pike on my own trace or going form not knowing what i was doing dead baiting to being able to go out alone without garry or ste and feeling confident i could tackle it, these where all huge milestones and places i had worked hard towards and these where, not so much a fitting ending, but a nice closing point to move onto the next part of that adventure e.g first dead bait double, first wobbled pike.

The river dane has been our latest challenge and when we first tried this river i was full of expectation we could work this river out, find the hot spots, and then go from there with plans to work out best baits and places to go in winter for good sport on this river.  We knew starting out then it would be a hard road but with double figure nets being the norm we knew the target was achievable.  Winter came and we travelled out to this river time and time again only for it to be unfishable or the fish to not be feeding and it was a long hard winter struggling for a bite never mind a decent net on some trips.



We came out the other end and into the new season and we expected nets to again be improved as fish moved and fed in the warm sun, like last year.  To a certain extent this has happened this year but working out this river has been a slog to say the least, a river you walk along alive with fish topping can die once you fish it in a hour or so and die as in a light switch going off its a bite a chuck then boom dead as a door nail.  I cover a lot of things in this blog but i have not really been going into much detail as to my tactics on these sessions and boy have we tried them all, ground bait, feeder with corn, meat and even trying for a pike to see if one is moving in with all not working.   It has left me facing something i have never experienced as an an gler before and that is a feeling of being beaten by a challenge, i find my self becoming unmotivated to visit this river and when i do i know what will happen, bite a chuck then nothing and you winkle out fish over course of the rest of the day bit for the amount of fish in the river you know it should not be that hard, maybe we just need a break from this task and a move to somewhere different if only for a change of scenery.

Away from the fishing the blog continues to tick over, even without much pushing on social media, but with two kids and a 9-5 job i am finding it harder and harder to devote time to putting my all into writing these updates, i love writing my blog, it means a lot to me as it holds so many memories of great times so hence my want to put stuff fount there that is the best it can be.  I think as time goes on it is only going to get harder to do so maybe the format of the blog will have to change to where i update it just with the fishing or find a different way of putting it together, maybe like this in my dinner hour in work.  This may not be a healthy alternative though spending my only free time in work still sat at my PC.

So far this has been as bit of a doom and gloom rant but i am already feeling better for getting it off my chest.  I do still have plenty of ideas for the blog with plans to maybe do some videos when the pike season starts.  I do also have an idea to start taking a more specimen approach to my angling from time to time and maybe taking my barbel rod and big baits like luncheon meat and corn to trips.  I really would have nothing to lose as my uncle on the stick would certainly guarantee some fish on the blog that week regardless if i blanked or not and would serve to mix things up a little for myself.   As i have said before though i find it so hard sitting and waiting for a big fish when you can hear your uncle bagging up on the stick upstream.

Well i think i have just about got it all out and off my chest,  Hopefully it gives some insight as to where i am with my fishing at the moment, reading back the word lost is probably a good way of summing it up.  I have faith in angling that something will come along at reignite a spark that sends me off on another amazing adventure.  Till then all that is left is to plan this weekends fishing and i think a change of river is a must maybe a spot of chub fishing to get a decent bend in the old carbon.

With that it is on to this weeks fishing that See's us fishing the river Dane and then a trip out the next day with my daughter.

Same Old Same Old On The Dane....

Leaving my house to head off into the night to pick my uncle up i crossed paths with a rather large hedgehog, i have seen a number of these over the years but like most normally having met their end in the road or a fleeting glimpse as they trundle into a hedgerow.  Saturday morning was different as in the dark i looked down to see i was literally about to stand on one.  There it was rolled in a ball i waited a few moments and like a jack in a box up he popped and off on his merry way.  I can honestly say i have never heard so much noise in my life as he greedily ate all manner of food in the hedgerow, put it this way you knew he was there!  I left him at this point to go on his merry way and off i went to pick my uncle up.  Funnily enough it must have been the night for hedgehogs as he had one in his yard as i arrived!

Arriving on the banks of the river dane she looked dreadfully low and gin clear, walking the banks you could see the odd fish on the sand banks and there was already one or two topping.  I set up in a swim i had fished a few weeks earlier when i had stood in the river and my uncle set up in a new swim slightly upstream of myself.  We both knew setting up it was going to be a frantic mornings action till the sun got on the water and it would go quiet on the bites front as the fish spooked and seek the safety of cover during the day light hours.

The swim i was in i felt confident of a few bites and from experience i knew the fish would move over the far bank tight to the reeds.  With this in mind and knew i had a hard fish coming up i started off easy down the middle and from the off was picking up fish.  The first fish of the day was a dace, i love it when i catch a dace early on,  they are a shoal fish for one so you know where there is one there is certain to be more and secondly they don't seem to spook as easily as the roach do, one big roach and the shoal can be gone for a while.

A run of dace followed this fish and then came the Roach.  They started off literally as eyes with tiny fish coming thick and fast but eventually a better stamp of fish got their heads down.  This river is unlike any i have fished before with shoals moving in, you will be catching dace one minute and then roach the next but never a mixture its either one species and the same goes for perch.  The perch push all other fish out and for a while you just catch perch, its weird but interesting at the same time.

You learn how to change your approach for what is in your swim, dace like it to go though normal and will normally fall to you holding back right on your hemp where as the roach like it dragging bottom and the bait edging through the swim where as the chublets up in the water at the top of the swim like you to hold back as soon as your bait hits the water.  Its fascinating to learn and really keeps you thinking all the way through the session.

The fish, like i predicted, where coming thick and fast between 5am and 9am, but not settled if you get me? The bites where all over the swim almost as if the fish where in a feeding frenzy.  Trotting you ideally want to get the fish feeding where you want them, right on your hemp.  This way you can feed the swim to keep them there and also you can pre empt the bite and hold back to induce a take.  When the fish are all over the place it makes it hard to work out when you will get a bite.

As 9am approached we both knew it was going to slow down.  Looking at the clock i had just placed a nice roach in the keep net and gone back in and my uncle arrived behind me.  He was in a really shallow swim and it did not have the cover from the sun mine did.  I was not surprised to hear he had started off like a house on fire but had gone the last hour and half without a bite when the sun had come up. 

I was already chasing the fish over the far side and i knew my swim was on the same time line as his was as i could already see the bottom quite clearly 2/3 the way across my swim and as soon as sun reached mine it would be good night Vienna.  We gave it another half hour but then decided to call it a day, both nets testament to a mornings fishing, if only we could find the answer to catching all day it would be some net of fish.

my net

uncles net

We decided to call in on a pond on the way back home for a few hours, we caught a few fish but we spent most of the time chewing the fat trying to work out the river dane.   We left after baiting up a swim for my daughter the next morning as i planned a quick trip for her second foray into the world of angling.

Second Time Out In A Week.....

A week after our first fishing trip and my daughter was all up for another go at this fishing lark.  Picking her up on Friday afternoon after work we nipped through to the bait shop to pick up some bait for my trip to the river and for her trip on the Sunday.  She insisted on holding the maggots haha

Sunday came around and it was time to head off to a little pond close to us.  I thought it would be a really nice touch to ask the man who taught me how to fish to come along for the hour or so, that person being my dad.  You know what it was so special to take a step back and see my dad showing my daughter how to fish and all the memories came flooding back.

I must admit she was not as good at concentrating as the first trip out but as my dad said i have to remember she is not even 3 yet.  This into account she is doing really well and i am made up she shows such interest in both fishing and also admiring her fish as she catches them.  Again seeing her face when she caught her first fish on Sunday was amazing.

Again she got snapped by a carp! i bet if i went solely for these fish i would blank.

Well that sums up another week on the bank, till next time i wish you all tight lines

Danny

Special First Trip to the Bank With Daughter and Terrapin Tangles

A warm welcome to this weeks update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Well its been a funny old week or so and i have been dying to get some time to put this blog together as there have been some corking laughs in the past week and some trips to the bank that will last in our minds for a lifetime.

This weeks update i will cover two more product reviews that are available during ALDI's Angling event with the Day shelter coning under the microscope, later in the update i cover a surprise capture by my uncle this week that had us both bent double with laughter on the bank and we finish the introduction covering a my first ever trip out on the bank with my little girl as we set off on the hunt for her first fish.  The fishing this week see's us back on the banks of the River Dane where my day is saved by another big billy and we stop off on the way home on a pond to catch some silvers.

On to the update

ALDI Specialbuys Reviews

Day Shelter Tent Review

Product info:
Price: £19.99
Zip up Front, Carry Bag included, Sturdy Fibreglass Frame, Detachable groundsheet, size 205x125x100cm

My Review:
Sunday morning and me and my little daughter decided to do the first part of this product review, putting the tent up.  The first thing i noticed was how small and light the tent was when packed away it could easily fit inside my ruck sack for piking come winter without adding too much weight to the pack.  We set about putting the shelter up and following the easy to follow instructions we soon had gone form all the gear laid out to a shelter.  I would say the shelter took us 15-20 minutes to put up but this was the first time and i think once you know how the rods go and how it is supposed to look in the end then this shelter could be up in a maximum of 5-10 minutes.  Set up we pinned the shelter down with the multitude of ground pegs you get with this kit and my daughter set about testing the rigidity of the walls and fabric by jumping all over the inside and outside.

We left the tent set up in the garden all day and this was to test how the shelter put up in weather conditions as where we live the wind is really funnelled between the houses and causes a really strong wind to howl through.  I left the tent in the garden set up while we went shopping and i must admit a bit of me expected to come home to find my self knocking on doors finding which garden it had ended up in.  I need not had worried as returning home the tent was still solidly placed in place and a quick check inside revealed none of the heavy down pour had penetrated through the zips or seams.  This piece of kit will get a full test come winter when i plan to use it on my river trips to keep the wind and give me a place to be dry when out on the banks of the rivers and canals.  For the price of £19.99 it is a fantastic bit of kit and it really did shock me as to how good it was as when i saw the price i must admit i had low expectations but was genuinely surprised to the point i recommended it to a friend.

Tussles With Terapins

Fishing week in and week out on the river you do get to see some sights and during our years travelling along the rivers of the northwest we have seen some sights to remember and lets say some we would rather not.  One thing we always seem to do is have a laugh, no matter how hard the fishing gets, this light humoured approach to angling takes away the serious aspect of our fishing and although we do put a lot of work into fishing locations and trying to get the best out of them you can  always be sure there is been plenty of laughs along the way.

This week me and my uncle where fishing on the river dane and as action slowed i decided to go and see how he was faring.  He was catching well and steady with the odd chub and better perch coming and after a brief chat i left him to carry on trotting, returning to my peg i had just settled back in when i heard the sound of my uncles bib and brace coming along the bank a quick turn round revealed a bulging landing net and it looked big!

Coming down the peg i was sure he had bagged a big perch but what he pulled out of the net had me in bouts of laughter, he had only fairly and squarely hooked a terrapin clean in the mouth and not being one for risking fingers he brought it up to me to unhook!  Holding the shell all i could see was a head scrunched in with a rather sharp beak, it was beautiful and ugly as sin at the same time.

"put up a good fight azzer" was the call followed by all manner of turtle related comments.

i reached for the discoger as i attempted to unhook the animal but trying to do so through tears of laughter and a stitch in my side was a task in itself.  My uncle holding this shell and me at the other end trying not to be bitten we both at the ages of 50 and 30 could not stop laughing and comment like "zorro in a half shell" and "teenage mutant ninja azzer" did little to hold the laughter back especially as the terrapin was making lunges for us. .  I was finished off when the terrapin decided to bite the disgorger and clamped down hard which left us with two men a rod and a terrapin with hook in lip eating our disgorger! boy it had some power you could n ot get it out of its mouth, not a place to get your fingers for sure.

Finally we managed to free both the hook and the discorger and get a good look at this peculiar animal.  It obviously liked maggots as it had a gob full off them, was this down to being so hungry, it certainly looked healthy enough.  Of course i thought about keeping him but not knowing where to start i feared his chanced where probably better in the wild than under my guidance in a tank at home.

One last picture for my uncle and his new personal best terrapin

We left the guy in the margin in the lading net for a bit and he started to mooch about and look around and kick so we let him go on his merry way and the funny part was he went straight back downstream to azzers peg.

The adventures of fishing eh...

My Daughters First Fising Trip..

A week of my daughter saying "i going fishing this weekend daddy" had finally come to an end and the most special of days was finally upon us, mine and my daughters first trip to the bank.  It is a day i have to be honest that i have been looking forward too as much as Abby as i know the memories created during this day will hopefully live with her forever whether she chooses to go out on the bank during the rest of her life or not.

Choosing a venue was hard as i wanted somewhere where she would have a good chance of catching a fish quickly and maybe catch quite a few to keep her attention.  I did think of the canal but they can be funny old beasts at times so i decided on taking her to a little pond.  The place holds a good head of silvers but also the odd wild carp that really rocket off, i hoped we would not cross paths with these.

It was a real trip down memory lane for me as i sorted through my old gear in my bedroom at my dads and found a very old 4 metre whip or snatcher as we called them.  This type of pole was the very same type i grew up learning to fish in although mine was a black shakespeare pole with red circle etchings on each section.  These are certainly a great place to start as you simply tie your line to the ring at the end of the pole add a float and hook and weights and you are away.

All settled in on my basket she was away and fishing!

I have to say she was fantastic from the off she sat really still and kept her concentration and was rewarded by the float going under,  "strike" and lifting up the pole bent over double and a load zipping noise as the float zoomed across the water before the book length snapped!  Well she will certainly have a good story to tell when she gets older about her first fishing trip, snapped by a carp first put in.

A quick hook tied back on and plumb of the depth and she was back fishing and this time into fish more in keeping with a light whip.  My prediction was a perch as her first fish but in fact it was this palm sized rudd which claimed the prize as Abigail's first ever fish and i was made up when she needed no pushing to hold the fish in her hands, we may just have an angler in the making.

She really seemed to enjoy fishing and what i really loved was with every fish she took some time to hold the fish, admire its colours, features and scales before placing it in the keep net.  She was not afraid of the maggots in fact i had to remind her to concentrate on her float and not pick up maggots so little was she bothered by them.  Each time the float went under she would lift the pole in expectation and then if no fish was there, with my help, lower it back in before waiting for the next bite.  The rain moved in and Lucy and the little lad headed for the car and i asked her if she wanted to go in the car and her answer "no daddy, I'm fishing"
made me chuckle.  We stuck it out in the rain for a good 15-20 minutes catching some more fish and she ended with a lovely little net of fish.

For a first trip it was more than i could have hoped for and she has not stopped speaking about it since.  For now i think it will be really short trips to the bank 30mins to a hour till her concentration span is a little longer but one thing is for certain this will not be our last trip, one proud dad.

on to the fishing...

River Dane Stick Float Fishing and A stop off on a pond...

This week we continued our exploration of this intricate waterway as we targeted an area we had talked about a number of times but never really pulled up with our gear and wet a line.  The river had received a good flush through in the week and the river was still carrying a little bit of colour, not the muddy colour you get with the first flush through but that beautiful tea colour you get as the last of the sediment leaves the margins and leaves the main channel a dark black colour, she looked perfect.  My swim for the day was a sight to behold bu then again i don't think when god had rivers in mind he even thought about there being such thing as a bad looking swim.

Casting into the unknown week in week out and not knowing how the story will unfold is the magical part of fishing for me, that magical first cast where the tone of the day can be set, either the float goes straight under and you know the fish are there or on the flip side the float goes under and you hit your first snag of the session.  This session the float sunk and on the end was a small roach, perfectly formed in every way and more than welcome on the first trot down the river and more to the point with my new keep net i knew it would be in there come the end as opposed to previous weeks where mr pike had ripped a sizable hole in the net which meant the small fish escaped during the session.

These roach made up the majority of the early exchanges with roach of this size coming regular and it was clear i had a nice shoal of small roach in front of me.  I am an angler that is not too bothered about the size of the fish i catch, if that is floats going under regular then i an happy.  Do not get me wrong we all love having our string pulled by a big fish but when trotting a river i always feel that will come, as long as the small fish are coming then i always feel confident the better fish will arrive and if not, well keeping the smaller fish coming is an art in itself.

This river has a unique way of going from every thing to nothing and as soon as the smaller fish bites had died i knew something else was on the prowl.  The roach generally where taking the bait was it was falling through the water collums and i knew had the fish been a chub in the swim then it would have probably slipped up by now so i added a few inches to the depth meaning the bait had to be edged through the swim meaning the bait was almost trickled along the bottom.  This is great if you have got bottom feeders like bream, barbel or perch in your swim and it was the latter i had down as the culprit here due to the dispersing of the small roach.

My hunch proved right on the third trot down the float slid away and the pulsating fight of a perch was my reward as it made for the sunken branch under my feet i had it all on to stop the fish making the safely of the snag.  The fish was a prime example of the species, fin perfect and i am sure if this fish evades the cormorants and pike it has potential to be a big fish in the future, just look at the back on it.

This proved to be a blessing for the swim as it saw off the small roach and after i had placed it in the keep net the shoal of fish that moved in was of a better stamp. This period of the session was certainly a tome where i put the majority of the weight in my net as nice roach after nice roach came to the maggots.

One thing that always gets me about river fishing is how you can fish a line for a good two to three hours and not have a problem with snags and then all of a sudden there it is smack bank in your trot and you hit it two times on the bounce.  Setting up twice is never fun.  Changing the line you fish is the only option at this point and that's when on this session i started to hit problems as moving a line slightly further out saw me hitting another snag and this search for a line continued for a good hour with a number of hook lengths being sacrificed.  It was during this time i had a visit from my uncle with his terrapin capture which really did take my mind of the problem at hand, a welcome diversion.

I eventually found a line right down the far bank and with a 13ft rod it was not the easiest of fishes but it was producing steady bites small roach at first and then the odd better roach like to the one below.

It was not long after returning this fish that the swim again died and again moving slightly over depth saw me picking up the bonus fish but striking i was not expecting to hit such solid defiance, another snag i though momentarily, till it moved into the middle and i felt a kick of a tail.  Fishing with a 1lb7oz bottom i was not confident of extracting this fish from the swim, especially with the snag down the middle and one visible one under my feet.  The new reel certainly played a part here with its silky smooth drag ticking over and the soft action rod softening the deep runs and i soon had the fish through the mine field of sangs down the middle and under my feet where it went for the inside snag time and time again.

At this point i got my first glimpse of the fish and as i turned i caught a glimpse of the hook right in the top lip and if i could see it i knew it was a light hook hold to be that visible.  A big perch was to be my reward if i got the fish in and looking at it, well it had new personal best potential.   My heart was in my mouth for what seemed the eternity of time it took for the fish to grace the mesh of my landing net but when it did i was one relieved angler and even more so as the hook fell out in the net.

Picking the perch up she felt hollow so i knew it might not weigh it full potential but at 2lb 14oz it certainly rocked my personal best.  A few pictures and it was time to release the fish back to its watery home to wreak havoc with the roach fry that i am sure these fish gorge on.   After releasing the perch the swim never really recovered and after a hour or so without a bite and the sun shining down we decided to take a picture of our nets and stop off for a few hours on a pond on the way home.

my uncle had done really well picking up fish down the middle.

We both stopped off on a pond on the way home to use up the remainder of our maggots and it was an enjoyable few hours roach fishing with pent yo of bites and banter.

Well that sums up another weekly blog update i hope you all have a fantastic week on the bank and if you entered the blogs ALDI competition then good luck.

tight lines

Danny

Pole Fishing the Bridgewater Canal and Monster Pond Perch

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  I have to say from the outset these past few weeks getting back on the canals has really saw me having a great time on the bank.  I am not currently fishing the old haunts i fished as a kid but just being on the canal has brought back so many memories for me and at the moment the only thing that is missing is the sight of the bark black and bronze flanks of a big canal bream breaking the surface.  Hopefully i will experience this before the rivers open again.

This weeks blog update introduction See's me giving my thoughts on the lack of kids fishing on the canals and ponds and my thoughts behind what is to blame.  As a result of that i will be covering all aspects of my approach to fishing canals in the coming weeks and we finish the introduction with a little on the pike review going live.   The fishing this weeks See's me fishing on a private pond called Curlston mere where the swim dies and for once i find out why and the second trips sees a morning session on the Bridge water that i hope shows anyone reading who is fed up with the rat race that goes with commercials that the canals are a live and well and are great places to fish.

on to the update..

Bite A Chuck But The Banks Are Barren....

It is safe to say we are living in the Golden era of fishing, never before have fish grown to such large proportions, never before have our rivers and waterways been so clear and unpolluted and never before have we had such a wealth of places to fish with commercials dotted all over mixed with the lakes, canals and rivers we are literally spoilt for choice. 

That is the good news story of the times we live in but i also feel we are living and witnessing the demise of old school fishing as we know all remember it.  I first started to feel like this when i was fishing on the banks of the River Dee and noticed that i was by far the youngest angler on the bank.  Many excuses not to fish rivers are presented from rivers being muddy and dirty uncomfortable to people saying walking endless fields and lugging their gear was not up their street.  That may well have been the case but the river i was fishing was the River Dee at Farndon where you can park your car at the back of your peg and you fish off sturdy relatively clean EA pegs so this kind of blows that out of the water.  The simple fact is that the art of trotting a float and fishing rivers is dying, not all over the country but certainly in the areas i fish.

At the time i thought it was just rivers that where quiet but the past few weeks fishing on the canal and local ponds has genuinely shocked me.  I would say i have been fishing 5-6 times on canals and ponds the past few weeks and i think i have seen 4 anglers in that time, not counting the same ones on different visits.  The fishing on all the trips has been steady with regular bites and some nice fish to boot yet on most trips i have not seen a single angler wetting a line.  I drive along miles of the canal to get to where i fish and pass it every day on my commute to work and see the empty banks.

As a kid growing up i remember the sights of 100-200 pegged matches on the canal and the local ponds where always a rate race to get their before your mates to get a peg.  I now think the canal and the local ponds sit below rivers in the pecking order.  Are we slowly losing canals and ponds as a place where young anglers are born and skills are learnt? I don't fish commercials regular but have there fish filled commercial ponds now become the place to go because you are guaranteed to catch something?  or is it that kids growing up are no longer in love with angling as we where as kids and we are facing a gap in years to come of new anglers coming through?  I am a Strong believer that if you can fish a canal you can fish anywhere as the refined skills you learn fishing a canal and feeding truly wild fish that don't need our baits to survive are being lost for the generic 5lb line to 4lb hook length attached to a pole and a pellet on the end fishing for a carp a chuck?.

It is also possible that with the rise in popularity of carp fishing that we are facing a scenario where dads have only ever carp fished so then their children are naturally shown carp fishing so you are left with anglers that may only know one way to fish.  Either way i hope the tables turn and the canals and ponds are discovered by youths its such a crying shame that the banks are so empty and i will be trying to include as much as i can about canal fishing in my blogs in the coming weeks to try and help as much as i can for people wanting to try it but now knowing how.

Where To Fish On A Canal...

Canals are very similar to rivers in the way that they can be quite long in length and location plays such an important key in catching fish.  When i am looking for places to fish on both rivers and canals i always start off at my computer screen with a A4 pad of paper and slowly work along the length of canal to find certain features and areas that require further investigation.

Initially i am looking for any type of features that provide cover for the fish such as reed beds, bridges supports that come across the canal and wides in the canal where the canal is naturally wider.  On google maps you can sometimes even see the stretch before you visit as you can view it from the street view where roads go over the canal or along side so Google Maps is the place where i start and pin point a few key areas.

While on the Internet its also worth doing some searches on the canal you are going to fish as you can guarantee someone will have posted some kind of report from a session on the Internet somewhere.  Don't always read these as gospel as they may be a few years old but use them as a pointer to what the canal can hold.  Another good avenue is to look for where the club that owns your canal fishing has matches and the type of weights that are winning them, chances are these people have fished matches for years and invariably hold matches in the good spots on the canal.

All said and done though there is no substitute for getting out there on the canal yourself and looking at the canal first hand.  Summer is a great time to get on the canal as in the blistering heat you can count on the fish to be up on top showing themselves and this is where you find out where on the canal your better fish like bream and carp are holding up as in the blistering heat you are bound to come across this sight.

Once you have a fair idea where the fish are make a note of the amount of boat traffic your canal has, blistering hot days are great for this as you see how many boats use the canal at peak time.  Most canals will have some form of boat traffic and you should never as an angler see these as totally bad as although the canals do pollute the waterways they also impart movement and colour into the water that the fish need to feed and also get used too.  The canal i fish on the Bridge water does have a bit of boat traffic so if this is the case you need to take this into account when picking a swim.

So you are stood there on the canal and it all looks the same and picking where to fish can be a hard task.  The boats on the canal will all normally follow a same line so what i look for in a swim is an area where i can feed away from this main boat line where i know my bait will not be disturbed.  I walked the local canal after work today and these are the features i would fish on one section of canal.

Up the side of the bridge will no doubt be shallow as no boats will have been able to go though there and as such the silt will have built up.  This area is a great area for fishing as you know any feed going over there will not be disturbed by the boats.  The stone work also offers a feature that species like roach and perch love. 

Reeds are fantastic areas of canal and the places i always head too as they offer you so many options.  Up the front of the reeds will be deep for you early line and up the ride of the reeds offers a line again where you can feed and not be disturbed by boats.  Reeds are naturally areas where fish come to spawn in the warmer months and the very nature of the reeds attracts all manner of insects and invertebrates which in turn attract the fish that feed on them a great natural area to find fish on a canal.

On this picture you can see the canal widens slightly, no boat is ever going to go over there naturally as it moves along the canal and any fish following the far bank wall will also be pushed into your swim as they move along.  Great places for bream but be careful as areas like this are also prime areas for boats to turn round and believe me some will think nothing of turning round in front of you.

As a rule i generally avoid turning circles, marinas, boat yards and ends of canals for this very reason as although boats generally do not effect the fishing a barge turning round pumping its engine turning really does ruin the fishing and can do for a good hour or so.

So that is location covered in the next blog we i will look at where at baits i use on the canal and preparing your ground bait.

Pike Season Review Goes Live

Finally before we get into the meat and potatoes of this update this week the content of the "First Pike Season" went live.  This page documents the whole pike season through all the months of autumn and Winter.  I have tried to explain the journey as i saw it and the lessons i learnt along the way.  It was a season where there was certainly more highs than lows and in reflection it will be a season i will never forget. What an adventure it was as fish from 2lb to nearly 22lb made an appearance.  A link to the page is at the top of the blog or can be found on the following link.

My First Pike Season

Please take a second the read the blog as it did take me some time to put it together and feel free to share it on your pages.

on with the Fishing..

Morning Session on Curlston Mere...

With a day booked off work and no commitments till the afternoon i decided to give the canal a rest and head off to a little slice of fishing heaven called Curlston mere.  Its a old pond situated on farmers land that we have been aloud to fish for a number of years after my uncle did some work on his farm.  The pond is proper old school pond fishing and it contains a decent number of silvers as well as some really old looking wild carp that when you get on the bank are like bars of buttery gold.

On a recent trip in early Jan i think it was myself and my uncle has a surprise capture of a very nice perch, we should not have been so surprised as the amount of roach fry in this venue is more than enough for such a predator to grown to a nice size.  My plan for the session was simply to fish maggot in the margin while feeding up a 11 metre line hoping to latch onto some of the big roach i knew can show on this venue.

Feeding pinkie on my inside line i was soon getting regular bites and plenty of activity to suggest a few fish in the swim.  The main of the fish where only small roach like the one below.

The swim was ticking over nicely with the odd small perch also starting to show and then like a light switch going off the swim died.  I moved over to the far line and picked up the odd fish on the drop but holding out 11 metres of pole is never fun when your not getting a bite so it was back onto the near line.  Not a knock for a good half hour not even a knock and i was on the verge of calling it a day and heading home to get ready for the jobs i had planned when the float shot under and instantly blue hydro elastic was oozing from the top of the pole.

The fish bolted for the safety of the snags but with carp being around i had been prepared and had my extra sections to hand.  Quickly adding sections i obviously thought carp as i dipped the tip under the water to increase the drag on the fish.  At this point i was convinced carp and then the fish stopped and turned and it was not the normal actions of the carp that keep going till you get over them.  Getting the fish in the edge i saw it was a big perch and not a fish i wanted to lose.  Straight away i was praying don't come off and thankfully i slid the net under the green flanks of an immaculate perch that went 2lb 5oz on the scales and the scary part was it was spawned out.

The fish turned the session around for me and i headed off home with the songs in the car playing loud i was buzzing.

Bridgewater Canal Fishing on the Pole..

Saturday saw me back on the banks of the Bridgewater canal looking for some steady action on the pole.  Knowing from previous sessions the amount of fish in the area there was no rush setting up i took my time getting my gear sorted and peg comfortable.  I knew where in the peg i would be feeding so before i set up my gear i fed two balls of ground bait and pinkie on my middle line and fired over some maggot on the far bank line.

With the peg fed and already accumulating fish on them i plumed up the swims.  I will go more into different tactics in coming blogs but on this session i set the float so the my number 10 dropper was just touching bottom.  The swims plumed up and each top kit to hand i began to fish over my middle line on a single pinkie.  The time 6am and straight away soon as i put in the float slid away as the fish moved onto the ground bait and pinkie.

When canal fishing you have to be realistic about the fish you are going to catch, 85% of your bites if you are fishing like i do for everything that swims of any size are going to be canal sized fish like this up to around 5-6oz although if the session goes to plan they will not make up that percentage of the final weight as the better fish on the sesison should be between 6oz to 2lb. 

The middle line i always feed with the pole pot mixing the pinkie in with the ground bait.  The canal being so deep this ensures all the bait gets to the bottom and reduces the risk of the fish moving up in the water as this can lead to problems with the swim.  The far bank line was still being fed by the catapult with loose offerings and no ground bait.

As the middle swim develops and you catch a few of the early fish that have moved in on the bait it does eventually attract other fish in and that species is normally the perch and it was not long till the first billy of the sesison made an appearance.

At 8am the bites on the middle line dried up, this often happens on the canal but in my experience it happens a lot quicker on this canal and i think it can be attributed to a number of things, either i am not getting my feeding right and I'm underestimating the head of fish down the middle and feeding too much, bigger fish are moving in and i am not giving them long enough to fall for my bait or finally and i think this is the real reason the swim is dying, Mr pike moving in.   The pike on the canal often sit down the marginal shelves and this activity of fish feeding surely would not be going ignored.

Waiting 1`0 minutes without a bite down the middle i knew the time to go over the far side was coming so i fed a large pouch of maggots and concentrated on trying to get a bite down the middle.  Eventually one came but it was a tiny tiny gudgeon and i knew there and then it was time to move and the skimmers or perch where not around.

Fishing every week of the year i have learnt the hard way that its always best to have a pike rod with you whether it be summer winter or fall as although we associate these fish with winter these fish can be very active all year round.  I had a feeling Mr pike was about so before i went over the far side i had a little try for a pike.  Knowing if one was in ambush it would not take long i only gave the bait 2-3 minutes over my middle line before i pulled out my far bank top kit, obviously Mr pike was not about.

Straight over the far bank on maggot the first bite was instant as the float fished over depth slid away and the elastic was showing that erratic action of the fight of a roach.  In my head i thought "well if my pike is about this might be it for this roach"  Thankfully no such brutality happened and my palm was graced with a silver anglers delight of a nice canal roach, i am sure there are better to be had but it was nice to see these around.

My confidence was up after this as i knew from experience that fish of a similar size on canals seem to shoal together.  It is very noticeable when you fish a swim from scratch, first of all the small fish are there and then once the better fish move in they all seem to be of a similar size.  This hunch was proven correct as a few plump roach followed this fish into the onion sack.

The early morning fishing down the middle is as much to keep myself occupied while this far bank line attracts fish as the far bank is where the better fish feel comfortable to feed with plenty of cover and away from any noise on the tow path so i knew this part of the session would be where my main weight would come from and after a hour or so fishing catching roach and the odd better skimmer i knew i was putting a few pound together.

I don't really feed in a tight pattern on my far bank line as i find with bigger fish like bream and roach its best to keep them spread over an area and set your float so its over depth at the back of the swim and dead depth closer in.  This way you can move all over the swim picking up bites and i don't think you spook the fish as much.  The skimmer above was picked up doing this as was a few of his brothers and sisters who were showing signs of getting ready for spawning.   These fish for me on the canal are certainly the bonus fish along with the big dark bronze bream but these can be very very hard to track down/

The session coming to a close a few better bream moved in amongst the fish and it literally was a bite a chuck.  The over cast conditions kept the fish feeding all morning and it was great fishing on the canal.

The time to call it a day came and i was literally gutted to pack in.  The final net went just under 12.5lb.

Well that it is for this weeks blog i hope you enjoyed reading it and if you have any questions around fishing canals or fishing in general or you want to share your canal fishing pictures feel free to contact me.

till next time

Tight lines

Danny