Tale of Two Rivers and Pike Blog

LA warm welcome to this weeks blog update and it finally feels like i am finding time to get stuff together with the blog.  I have found as the evenings have drawn in my evening jaunts have gone for pike so it has gave me scope to start getting back up to date.  As such i have one blog already ready to go this coming Friday and i am writing this one to go live the following week.  This has come at a great time for me as i do have quite a bit of fishing planned over the next month so finding time could again become a problem so its good to have some backed up.  Commitments to companies like Pondip have been full filled and i have again accepted a product review request from a company as i feel i have the time to put to it, i was declining some interesting opportunities but hey ho i need to be honest with them and myself, the times was just not there.

In this weeks blog update the fishing see's us travelling to two rivers in one day in search of silvers and what an adventure it was, a proper road trip.  The introduction includes a bit about piking in the form of how i am going to blog my pike trips this year and also a little on my thoughts on pike etiquette and how i see the unwritten rules being openly flaunted.  We finish the introduction with my dad going the extra mile for his son piking in the bitter cold.  I hope you enjoy the update so go put the kettle on make a brew and enjoy the update.

My Pike Blog....

I was thinking a lot this year about how to go about blogging my pike fishing and i mulled over a few ideas.  Pike fishing is a lot more relaxed than my river fishing and as such you can go into detail about rigs and different set ups for each location you are on.  The spare time waiting for a bite does also open up the opportunity for some video blogging which is also something i have looked at and hopefully will be able to do this year and include them in how i am going to blog my piking.

I have decided to move the piking onto its separate page within the blog and it will sit at the top bar of the page under 2015/16 Pike Season.  This allows me to write a smaller recap blog of each trip and hopefully document the whole season as it happens.  There are a number of potential stumbling blocks with this idea though and it might end up with some duplication on this blog and that one.  Potential problems could be if the rivers flood and i go out solely pike fishing that weekend away from the river then i would have no content for the main blog.  The other stumbling block could also be the sheer amount of writing on one page as you can not split the page down into bits it is one continuous living document with the most recent trip added to the bottom. 

It does though allow me to divide my different fishing up and allows people visiting the blog to go to the area that most interests them.  With no tabs or labels its going to have to be promoted by myself for it to be noticed as i don't think it will show on google searches like my other updates do.  Either way i hope you enjoy the diversity i am trying to put into the blog and enjoy reading about my adventures on the bank in search of pike, of course the ups and the downs will be featured.

The first few trips are live here: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/p/201516-pike-seaon.html

The First Rule of Pike Club

As mentioned above i have toyed with the idea of putting together a few video blogs and putting them on here or Youtube but the number on thing that has stopped me has been the fact it would be nearly impossible to put together a decent video blog without compromising the locations i fish.  I have had many comments over the years that i should name the venues i fish and i don't for the safety of the pike and of course the fact that with piking there is a huge amount of hours put in learning good spots and tactics that work and i think recently some people are forgetting that we should not be naming locations where pike are caught.

I read only this week about a club member who had gone out fishing caught a few pike yet the report mentioned the exact location he had fished to catch them, why? the number one rule of pike club is you don't talk about the locations you fish publicly.  By all means report a member had a fish on such a location but then do not go on to mention the exact place.  This does no favours for the pike safely from people looking for areas to target pike for the pot and also is disrespectful to the anglers who put huge amount of time in and in fact goes to show how far these people are detached from real angling, wrong so wrong.

Love my Dad...

So I'm away fishing recently and sat there on the bank i was travelling light hoping to cover as much water as possible.  A quick look to my right and threes a guy huddled up sipping coffee while the guy to my left looked to be breaking out some refreshing soup!  The wind howling in my face and not even a chair to sit on i had no choice but to make the call, the call for supplies.  My dad answered and asked where i was, a despondent sigh at my out of the way location was received.  He said he would put me a flask together and run it through for me, what a star.,

Well 40 minutes later on the horizon i saw my shining night, carrier bag in hand.  He then began pulling from the bag all manner of tin foil parcels!  Got to say he went the extra mile for me, two rounds of door stop toast and 3 choccy biscuits i was one happy camper!  Washed down with a nice warm brew and even had a pike to grace the moment.  Fantastic stuff, the best dad in the world.

On to this weeks update

A tale of two Rivers.....

Autumn and its a time of year we always associate with pike but it is also a time where my trotting senses start getting into the mind set for Roach.  This time of the year roach seem to start shoaling up, maybe they are the first silver fish to do this, maybe not, the mystery of angling is where the magic is.  All we knew was there was a good head of roach in the River Dee and last year we had done well for them so we set the sat nav for the banks of the Dee and headed off into the night.

Arriving on the banks we where met with an angler, also eager to wet a line, but also it seemed eager to deter possible competition,  "fishing rubbish here passed few weeks only small dace" was his line.  My head was thinking he was very eager to get on the bank to chase these small dace given  it was still dark.  We unloaded the gear and made the 10 minute walk to the swims. 

It is an area of the dee that is super deep under your feet and my memory serving me right i was at the tip of my 17ft rod last year.  Pluming up this year i was finding depths of longer than my rod could manage so i was already not happy to not be fishing bottom.  The swim seems to be a huge depression in the river bed as the river does shallow up further out and further down the swim it seemed.  I plumbed up and found a run there i would be on bottom where i thought my hemp was hitting the deck.  It took a while to get the first fish but when it came and it was a nice fat plump roach my enthusiasm went up a few notches.

My uncle slightly down stream was getting plenty of knocks but nothing solid to strike at.  He then landed a Roach that was to say the least massive, easily the biggest roach i have seen.  The splash at it hit his keep net confirming a sizable bar of silver.  I managed to put a few more roach in the net but nothing like my uncles of the first fish i had caught early on.

The morning wore on and our swims completely died, there was not such much as a knock or even a sign of fish around and the river looked dead with no fish topping like they had earlier.  It was time to make a decision as even leaving now by the time we had packed up and loaded the car and reached the river it would be getting on for midday.  We decided to make a move and drop on the River Dane on the way home.  Mine and my uncles roach from the morning shown below.

Travelling down the A roads we where soon on the banks of another river and to be honest it looked as low as i have ever seen her and really clear, i didn't hold out much hope arriving in the middle of the day.  Setting up in the closest swim i had a snag to my left but the trot was just off rod tip around a sweeping slow bend with plenty of water and slacks that could hold fish.

I was into fish from the off with dace being the main quarry and i was amazed at the sport if i was honest i was expecting a really hard session and again goes to show how you think you know a place and them boom nature throws what you think out of the window!  The fish took some messing around to keep them coming like following them right down to the extremity of the swim and changing depth to try a deeper line kept the bites coming.

Feeding also plays a huge part in it as well and i love nothing more than throwing hand fulls of maggots at a swim and getting a positive response from the fish with a bite a chuck but on this session i really trickled the bait in, literally 3 maggots every run through.

The final net was quite good considering the short amount of time we spent on the actual river

Till next time i wish you all tight lines and i hope the fish gods are good to you all.

Danny

Finally Comes Good on the River Dane!!

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Well what a difference a week (and a bit of rain) makes!  We are still dat here on my dinner hour writing the updates but i am finding that to be working well so far.  I spent a bit of time over the weekend deciding whether or not to publish last weeks blog update, it was all ready wrote to go live Friday night but i was unsure if it would be what i wanted to publish on the blog.  Reading it through on Friday night i felt the same as i did when i wrote it but was unsure if posting a bit of a warts and all update on how run down this river had made me feel was what people would want to read.

I slept on it and decided to publish the update as at the end of the day this is a fishing blog update and my thoughts, emotions and frame of mind around a venue is all part of the journey and documenting it.  We can all write about a fishing session and hold up a fish but the updates like last week i feel give a more in depth view of how much time, effort and thought goes into my trips to the river.  That down on paper it will allow people who read last weeks update to then appreciate and understand the thrill i get when it all comes good like it did this weekend, although it still left us with a few questions but hey will we as anglers ever understand the feeding habits of a fish?

On to this weeks update,

Pike Season Creeping Up #Excited!

I would say this week for the first time the pike bug has really started to bite.  The season is slowly creeping up on us and to be prepared for it you really have to be starting to be making purchases now.  Last season i invested a lot of money into my pike fishing buying all manner of pike related gear and in some instances not really buying the right tools for the job.  Last years big bait order was a prime example of this as it contained a whole manner of different species, last season has give me an idea of the crucial baits i will need for the waters i will be fishing. 

This year my orders will be more specific and contain the baits i want to use and more importantly feel confident using.  There is no doubt making my own pike rigs saved me a fortune last year and that will continue into this years fishing, again i will be able to specifically buy the tackle i know i will need e.g buying more size 4 hooks than 6's as i use them more. 

We then move onto the pike fishing itself and how i am going to approach it.  I will be going into this in more detail as the season approaches but my thoughts at the moment are all about keeping my feet on the ground!  There is no doubting last year was a very good year for me with the piking and on many trips i got very lucky catching some spectacular looking fish but i am also being realistic in the fact i know it could have been so different.  Pike fishing is a art and picking the right pots is a part of that art but if last year taught me one thing about piking its these fish are not mindless eating machines, a lot of different factors have to come together for you to get a take for example you need to be in a swim with a pike in for starters, then that pike has to be on the feed and then once you get a bite you have the uncertainty of the fish staying hooked,  as i said this year could be a lot different and i am preparing myself for that mentally.  Pike fishing wise i am sure there will be some type of numeric target to aim at but along side that my biggest goal is to enjoy my fishing and the magical journey pike fishing takes you on and i can not wait for the first time i see this float below starting to move slowly off.

Warrington Anglers Licence

A question i get asked so many times via private mesaage is "am i still an member of Warrington Anglers and is my fishing on their Waters".  The answer to this questions is yes and no,  Yes I have renewed my licence every year with Warrington Anglers and No most of my fishing does not take place on their waters.  Many of you will notice i very rarely post locations is fish or pictures of the swim i am fishing on the blog and this is a conscious decision i made a few years ago on my part and it is down solely to fish welfare.  I think some parts of the angling world need to open their eyes and see that the people taking fish illegally from our waters are amongst us on the world wide web, on the forums and social media and they use this to work out and plan where they are going to target to take fish.  This week i saw a post of people being caught on the River Trent, had people not been raving all over the Internet how good this river is fishing and in some cases specific locations then maybe these people turning up in vans on prime fishing areas would not be so easy and i would hate for my fishing to feed into that activity so i keep locations and pictures of locations to myself.

With regards Warrington Anglers then i don't buy the card till this time of year as the waters they have river and lake wise do not appeal to me.  I have a number of friends who have the card and during winter i do fish with them on the odd very rare social session so i just leave buying the card till later on in the year and use the money for other purchases earlier on in the year.  None of my posts on here or captures will ever be related back directly in word to Warrington Anglers as i don't agree with the current structure of the club and treating of members only trying to improve the waters they fish, they had a perfectly good advertising branch on here with my blog where their club was advertised, for free, to thousands of anglers a month, i don't agree with how they treated me so why should i help them?  In short i would say 98% of my fishing on this blog is not on Warrington Anglers waters so please do not buy the card assuming my fish is reflective of their card as it is not and i would hate for it to lead people to wrongly purchasing the card.

Cutting In a Swim

Some of the blogs long term readers will remember me digging in my first peg on the river dane last year.  It was the first time i have ever done so and boy what an experience, if you want a good laugh then this post is for you!! 3am spade in hand collared by the coppers!!

link: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/river-dane-fishing-coppers-show-for.html

Anyhow in the passed week and a half it has been great to see this peg put to good use as on a recent trip i stopped in to speak to a guy catching dace and perch and my mate Garry also got some use out of this peg this week! It needs some more digging in after the winter floods but still a great feeling to know others are getting the benefit of my work on there and hopefully it will encourage more anglers to get out on the bank as more anglers means more bait into the system and this can only be good for this developing river.

With that it is onto this weeks fishing

Effort Equals Success On The River Dane

Heavy rainfall on Thursday and some short down pours on Friday meant that come Friday evening a good amount of water was showing in all the rivers we fish and we had a decision to make.  River selection is always a fine balance between the weather in the week and the levels showing on the Environment Agency Website.  When you fish a river regular you begin to get a feel for the moods of that river and how rain will effect their levels and flow.  Over time travelling to the river you also learn how they fish in certain conditions and also, and i think more importantly, what the clarity would be like.

Every river is different in this respect for example the river Dee will be fish able to around 6.5m and the fish will continue to feed well in coloured water up to this point (we are talking stick float fishing for silvers here), where as the river Dane, from what we have found, does not take well to being well coloured at all.  We decided in the end to give the River Dane another go and the reason was to see what the effect the different conditions would have on the fishing. 

Knowing the river would be holding some colour the next morning i decided to mix it up a bit with my hemp preparation and i added a good bit of chili powder into the pan i was cooking my hemp seed in.  The thought process behind this was to get as much smell as possible into the water as possible and really try and utilise the sense of smell the fish uses to find my area and then hopefully take the float fished maggots.   We always need a plan don't we as anglers and at least if we have a method behind the madness then we are working towards something.

Arriving on the banks of the river in the last hour of darkness before the sun came up it was already clear the river was carrying a fair bit of colour and looking at pegs we had fished in previous weeks the river looked to be carrying around a foot of extra water, certainly my swim for last week was under water.  Walking the banks the first rays of light coming through to illuminate the river we could see the edges of the river where clear to the point you could make you little snags etc.  The rest of the river though was holding a lot of colour and i must admit i didn't hold out much hope for our chances of catching, in fact if i remember rightly my uncle didn't even put his keep net in.

Again on my 13ft Korum Float rod i tricked maggots and hemp into the swim as i threaded the line through the eyes in the early morning light.  One thing that was noticeable this week was the cold, boy could you feel it! My feet where cold and sat about to make my first cast i could see my breath in front of me.  I'm not saying summer is done and dusted but the signs are there that the seasons are on the change and we are not too far off autumn.  First trot down the swim and the float buried, so shocked was i, i completely missed a sitter of a bite.  Next time down i was ready and a nice fat plump dace was my reward, a great start and as i have said so many times before i love catching dace as i know there are certain to be more around.  I have to say i was relieved the fish where there as i was sick of the moving and dropping back onto ponds and other water ways, an act i had felt was a certainty at the start of this session.

The next few trots down brought bites but what really got my confidence was the fact all the bites where down the swim and not the frantic feeding right up the swim of previous weeks. Even this early on the session felt a lot more structured. As predicted then dace was followed by more and they where all of a nice stamp and fin perfect.  Another theme of the session was how the bites would change from species to species as different shoals moved into the swim.  The next species was roach and predictably they came as soon as the trot entered a slow slack towards the end of the swim.

At times during the day it seemed all fish moved out of the swim and this gave the chance for gudgeon to get in on the act and over the course of the day i must have caught countless numbers of these fish.  The key with small rivers is to try as much as possible to find two lines to fish this way you can rest one while fishing another getting more out of the swim.  So all session i was feeding a line right down the middle of the river but also i was sprinkling the odd bit of maggot and hemp down an inside line.  I came to fish this inside line and i picked up a few gudgeon and roach before i struck into a bite and honestly i thought the fish had come off so little was the fight.  Swinging it in i thought it was a gudgeon but looking closer it was a fine perfect baby barbel! My first river Dane barbel lets hope its not the biggest!

This slack slower inside line also brought with it some of the better roach during the session that where holding just inside the main flow.

As i said earlier the morning was really cold on the feet but the sky was clear and blue and i knew it would not be long before the rays of the sun where starting to creep onto the river.  The fish at this moment where coming right on my hemp seed which happened to be in the shadow on the river.  I knew this would not last and the test of  how good a session i was going to have would hinge on if the water was coloured enough for the fish to stay and feed.  The fish continued to come thick and fast and a little hold back on the float just before the hemp was killing it for getting the bites with bites coming as soon as the float settled after holding back.  The time was coming though i thought as the sun was now all over the swim.

The bites died off slightly but increasing the feed brought the fish right back up the swim.  The fishing from here went from strength to strength with some clonking dace and roach coming during the session.  The feed obviously did not go unmissed by the local perch who lived up to their reputations and bullied in from time to time.

I would say the fish of the day though was this dace which is a great sight to see on this river and really bodes well for the future as this fish will be breeding in the river year on year.

During the session i netted two more small barbel which again shows the fish must be breeding well in the river.  A good sign for the future of the river and who knows in years to come catching barbel here might be a regular thing.  There is no doubting the session was by far the best of this season on thus river and i hope shows why we have been so frustrated of late as we both know the potential of this river so when its not fishing well it really frustrates you..

We fished on through till 2pm enjoying the fantastic fishing.

My net went 17lb 10oz.

my uncles net went 12lb.

baring in mind we both returned a few graying at a pound a piece we easily had over 30lb between us.

Well that is another week on the bank done, i wish you all

tight lines

Danny

Tough Times on River and Pondip Tip card!!

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  The blog has been quiet of late and in truth i have really found it hard to find time to update the blog.  Friday nights are my usual slot but after a long week in work i was so tired on Friday night i just had to get some sleep before hitting the river the next morning.  There is nothing worse than going fishing tired and thats even more so with stick float fishing as it is so mentally draining.

Back to the normal routine now and this weeks update is one i have been looking forward to writing for a while as it covers a little project i have been working with pondip on, look out for that in the introduction.  The rest of the introduction covers a round up of how the fishing is going this year on the river so far and also a piece on how hard I'm finding it without my longer rod.  The fishing is a session on the river where the fishing is really tough but the day is saved by a nice fish right on last knockings.

Lets get into the update....

Pondip Rig Card...

At the beginning of last month i began working with the team at Pondip to create some pieces for their Pondip boxes.  The idea is to create a laminated card to go into each box with a carp tip on one side and a coarse one on the other.  My task was the coarse fishing tip and i thoroughly enjoyed putting the Rig card together.  The whole experience i found a challenge as it is a real step up from the blog in both the expectation in the quality of the writing and even more challenging for me an update in quality of the photos.

The writing i found quite easy if i am honest as i was well within my comfort zone talking about a rig for fishing the canal but i found it a real challenge with the pictures.  The problem is with coarse fishing rigs is the fact the line and hooks is so thin that getting a quality picture is so hard.  With the carp rigs you are dealing with thick line and big hooks that focus and show up nicely on any back ground whereas 1lb 7oz hook lengths are a different Kettle of fish all together.  These lines placed on a black background show well but the picture looks awful!!

The blog is all done on my iPhone and i take all the pictures on the phone and then upload them to an on line photo storage site via an app before uploading them to the blog.  This allows me to then use the IMG code for websites, any how i digress. The point being the images are ok for my blog and fit the purpose of use on here but for a company with a set image they are not, well good enough.  I really enjoyed working with the team and putting this together, working out styles and images and working to meet their expectations was interesting and now we have done it i can use that to make other ones in the future that are there or there abouts first time.

I was so proud this month opening my pondip box to see my rig card inside and knowing everyone who got a box this month will have seen this card!, so proud.

Tough Start To The Season....

Our time on the river dee a few years ago was spent really discovering this fantastic river and along the way we learnt a great deal about where the fish shoal up during the seasons to a point we had quite a good portfolio of locations to choose from all through the year.  The move to the river Dane and we set ourselves a goal of learning this fantastic waterway with the hope of extracting the best sport possible from its depths.  Last season was our first full year on this river and although we did deviate form time to time to other rivers this river was always our main stay.  We learnt a huge amount in that first summer to autumn but once the rains arrived progress slowed and we learnt that this river can not really handle a lot of water and still fish, not on the stick any way.

There is no doubting the river holds some mature chub, it has to given the amount of chublets, but we have time and time again found the same scenario, frantic bites for around a hour or so and then like a switch going off the bites are gone.  Pike where the chief culprit but with no fish taken it is getting hard to believe that mr pike is solely to blame.  Big fish is another option but surely with the amount of hours we have put in we would have connected with one of them by now? It is a puzzle that is proving hard to crack and i must admit is hitting the moral a little as we are not progressing with this river at all.  We have hit a brick wall and having tried new methods and tactics are yet to suss and crack this tricky little water way.

Not ones to give in we will continue to adapt and dig out new swims to find the areas the better fish are, we will crack it.  This is a glimpse at just how much hard work goes into our fishing to find the real jewels in a river.  One day we will find that area and with big nets of chub the reward for all this hard work, before that though i feel a complete change of direction is needed and a complete change of scenery.

Size Really Is Everything....

Having snapped my 17ft float rod at the end of the last river season i have started this one fishing with my 13ft Korum Flaot Rod.  The small waterway like the Dane it has proved a use able tool but i  must say you don't half miss that extra length...oooo err vicar....joking aside though that extra 4 feet of rod brings so much more to the party that makes trotting so much easier. 

First of all you have the fact that your rod reaches further across the river so in some swims the tip of your rod is almost behind the float all the time aiding that control of the float.  You then have that extra length of rod in the air to keep so much more line off the surface of the river, stopping line from dragging on the inside flow and ruining presentation.  The biggest problem though comes in striking, when that float is quite a way down the river your strike with a 17ft rod is so much more direct as you are in complete control of that float.

The part i have missed moat though about not having my longer rod is the fact it is halting our trips to the river Dee.  The river dee is a monster of a river compared to the small dane and with depths of 14 ft in places you need that longer rod to even reach the bottom, unless you fish the slider.  All in all i am praying for overtime to get this rod fixed and will not be making the same mistake again!.

On to the fishing...

Tough Session on the Bank...

The night before the session started like any other as the ritual of cooking hemp seed and making up rigs was enacted.  Mid way through a rig i heard the tapping of rain on the window sill, we have a small hole in the gutter on the new house and the rain drips down onto the window sill so any rain is heard straight away.  This tapping was followed by the window being illuminated by a flash of lightning followed by the long low rumble of thunder, we were in for an interesting session the next morning.

Waking up at 2am i was amazed not to hear the rain still coming down and even a hour later loading the car the sky was unusually clear, Accuweather, an weather app i use, was telling a far different story.  Heavy rain and thunderstorms where predicted in the early morning with it clearing up afterwards so in went the brolly and the seat box, this was not a day to be stood in the river or not under cover. 

The river looked in mint condition as we arrived, holding a tinge of colour with the margins just showing bottom it looked set for a good days sport.  I set up in a peg where previous trips had revealed a big snag at my feet but a clear run down the middle and the far run that shallowed up as it reached the tail of the trot.

Expectations where high but settled in the first few trots down the float trundled through without even a knock, strange i thought as normally the fish are crawling up the line form the off on this river.  I persevered with the line as with river fishing a shoal can arrive in the blink of an eye as your bait trundling along the river draws fish up to its source. 

Eventually the fish arrived in the peg and predictably they where small silvers, almost on their arrival the sky went jet black and in the distance you could hear loud claps of thunder as a storm passed by.  Luckily we seemed to be right on the edge of the weather front so barring a quick burst of heavy rain we escaped untouched.

The swim then was alive with these small fish but the bites where lightning fast as they battered the bait on the drop with the float on some occasions not even settling.  I put in a few droppers of bait to ensure bait in the swim on the deck and this did seem to settle the swim down a little and bring in the odd small perch.

All of a sudden the bites completely died, all the knocks on the float and the bites on the drop went and it was like a light going out in the swim. Pike? or bigger fish who knows but neither showed when i did finally connect with another fish.  A quick try down the indie line i had been feeding with maggot all session brought a few knocks followed by a better roach.  Then the float slid away and i was into a different animal all together, at first i thought it was an eel as was its strength but the jagged pulse of a tail gave it away to be a perch even before its green flanks and spiky shark like dorsal broke the surface.

A big snag at my feet i knew i had to pile the pressure on the delicate 1lb 7oz hook length if i was to lure it away from its obvious snaggy home.  Time and time again i put maximum side strain on the fish before eventually it broke the surface and flipped on its side, as it did so i took my chance and made sure its turn landed in the net.

On the bank it seems lay the apex predator of these waters and at 1lb 12oz a fish that turned the session round.

The session after this fish plodded away without much to shout about and the final net showed what a poor day it would have been without the perch

final net

Till next time i wish you all

tight lines

danny

River Dane Stick Float Fishing

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  The season is just over a week old and it has been great seeing all the fantastic captures from all over the country as anglers of all ages showcase what fantastic sport is available in our glorious rivers.

Last weeks short session saw me gazing longingly towards the end of the week and another chance to wet a line in running water, i could not wait!  This weeks introduction i will be covering how basic and simple the tackle is for stick float fishing and how cheap, once set up you can have a full days fishing for less than a price of a kilo of boilies.  The next part of the introduction looks at the effort that goes into finding and researching a good hemp seed supplier to buy a bulk order of hemp from and its not a simple as buying the best value option. The fishing this week is really the first proper session on the river as we travel to the river dane with a proper session on the river stood in the actual river with a bait waiter, after months sat on my seat box i was looking forward to it.

On To the Update:

Stick Float Fishing Cheap As Chips -

Stick float fishing is certainly seen as a specialist branch of our wonder full sport where you need years of practise and a deep pocket for plenty of specialist gear.  The truth is quite far from that mindset and although when you get into it more expensive and specialised tackle might be purchased, for example a longer 15-17ft rod, most rivers can be fished with a simple 13ft float rod.

The session you will read about in a moment i fished the river with my 13ft Korum float rod a open faced reel and the end tackle consisted of a stick float, some number 4 weights and a size 20 hook on a 1.7lb hook length it really is as simple as that.  The hook length there means a float can last you years as when you snag on bottom all you lose is the hook length so the initial outlay down you find most of your money is spent on hooks and weights oh and of course bait.

Week on week money spent on bait is where plenty of fun can be had for a minimal weekly outlay.  As a simple comparison the going rate now for boilies is around £10.00 now for 1kg looking around the bait for the sesison this week was £5.00 for two pint of maggots and i bulk buy my hemp in 20kg bags for 30 quid so say at most £1.50 for the pint of hemp, even with £1.50 for weights and £1.50 for hooks you are still under a tenner.  Maybe boilies where a bad example to compare against but then again when you see the amount bait costs to just go fishing for some aspects of our sport it really does make the eyes water.

So why not give your local river a try and learn a new part of our sport that offers so much fun and given the right areas plenty of action with fishing where you really don't know what the next fish will be and all for under a tenner, great fun.

In Search For Good Hemp Seed

Hemp seed plays a huge part in my river fishing and it is a bait that i really don't like travelling to the river without.  Hemp seed can be hit or miss from session to session and on some occasions you might as well have not brought it but when the fish are on it the results are outstanding.  Hemp seed is a fantastic bait for holding fish in the swim and as such when the fish are tuned into your patch of hemp seed then you can literally predict where the float will go under, a simple hold back before the hemp to hold it on the spot and soon as you release the line the float will shoot under, a great feeling.

I use that much hemp during the river season that its works out financially for me to bulk buy a 20kg sack of hemp and divide it down into pint session bags.  The savings doing it this way are huge and i have covered in a previous blog the prices in detail but i think of the top of my head it works out that we get 20kg for £30.00 and to buy from the shop each week raw it would cost closer to £100.00, so as you can see a huge saving.

The buying of hemp is not as easy as just looking for 2okg of hemp on the Internet and just picking out the cheapest one.  Although we just throw it in a river there is good and bad hemp seed on the market and research has to be done to see if the company has a track record of providing hemp that chits easily.  Hemp seed being the seed of the cannabis plant is mainly imported from abroad and as such it is treated to make sure the seeds can not be sewn to grow cannabis plant.   This process of heating the seeds if done for too long can lead to the seeds not chitting and you can boil it till the end of time and it will not split.

Once i find a supplier i will search the Internet for reviews given by anglers and you will soon see the bad ones as no one like to buy a huge sack of hemp to find its useless so you tend to find some strongly worded reviews, of course the same can be said for the good suppliers who get a lot of praise.  The last bulk we bought was fine but we did find odd batches that would not split as well as others.  Research this week has been ongoing but i will post the supplier i find and use this year and the results in a upcoming blog.

With that its on to this weeks fishing..

River Dane Stick Float Fishing: Just What I Needed...

The sesison on the opening day was  more a dipping of our toes in the running water than a proper session out fishing.  In reality we only fished the morning and was home in plenty of time for a nice relaxing afternoon, Saturday was going to be far different.  Our sessions out fishing are normally Saturday affairs where we get out at the crack of dawn to wet a line so it was really weird waking up Saturday morning around 7am and not being out on the bank.  My uncle had been offered some overtime in work on Saturday morning so we made plans to fish the afternoon into dusk on the river. 

An afternoon session to evening is a session we very rarely fish so on the morning of Saturday i was really excited to see what this session would bring.  The area we planned to fish was a stretch of river we had ventured to take a look at during the closed season and we had ear marked a few likely looking pegs we wanted to give a go.  My uncle set up on a cracking looking stick float swim that was a long straight down the river with what looked on paper as an even depth down and across to whole run.  My swim was on the inside slack of a bend as the river flowed from left to right and was a swim i knew i had a chance of getting a basket in but in reality i would probably find myself stood in the river with my bait waiter.

d

Stick float fishing is a great way of discovering the make up of a swim and what it holds, you set up only knowing a few facts about the swim like, it flows from left to right with a slow to medium pace and there is a submerged tree to my left in the edge.  Looking down stream there are willows on the inside of the bend and on the far bank some reeds.  I could not see the bottom of the river across the main of its length so that told me it held a decent depth and the flow was a gentle slow trot that looked great for a float.  That is about all i knew looking at the swim and as i say fishing it all day you learn a hell of a a lot so we will look again at the end of the sesison to see what the swim was really like.

By the time the bait waiter was in the water and the keep net nestled next to it i had already been trickling in some bait on the line i was hoping to fish.  As with all my fishing it was a case of starting easy and only going for the harder line if the fish stop feeding and move out.  Setting the rod up was a doddle compared to my 17ft rod which seemed to take an age and it was not long before i was ready make a cast.  I went With a 10 number 4 float and this was purely for control if i had to go on the far line as i knew i would be losing control due to the lack of length in the rod so i hoped a heavier float would help me stay in connection with the float and the heavier weight would keep it on a settled line.  

A nice depth of 4 ft at the end of the rod tip which dropped to around 6 ft in the middle and over to the far side meant i certainly had a nice depth to fish in.  The first trot down and the float didn't even settle signalling a fish had taken the bait on the drop.  A tiny roach is a predictable start to a session on this river but i knew better fish would be around.

The small roach where in a ravenous mood as they devoured maggots on the drop time and time again and i think most people would have given up thinking that was all that was around.  I drastically upped the feeding to make sure some bait was getting through the swim and a good hand full of hemp down the swim ensured the table was set for the better fish the settle over.

The feeding upped soon showed some results as the odd small chublet started to show among the smaller roach fry, not massive but it showed the better fish where around.  After around half an hour the swim seemed to settle down and the smaller fish either dispersed by the arrival of bigger fish of simple had eaten their fill.  The float now was at least settling and going down swim towards my hemp and the first trot down over my hemp  resulted in this greedy chublet.

A quick check down the chubs throat revealed a ball of hemp and the odd maggot down its throat confirmed some bait was getting through to the fish down the swim.  The quality of the fish certainly improved when the float was getting down through the swim but i knew this would not last on the inside line as the sun moving across was shortening the Shadow on the river where the fish where holding in such bright clear conditions.

The bites went from strength to strength on this line with the odd better roach and chublet coming between smaller fish but predictably the line began to dry up as the shadow retreated.  The only thing to do then is to try and feed a new line.  Whilst i worked the float down the inside line winkling out the odd fish over the bed of hemp i began to feed a new line around 3/4 across the river and i fed this for a good hour before moving onto it.  The hope was to have a few fish lined up on the line when i went over. 

This tactic is a huge risk on a small river like the dane as it does hold a number of snags and apart form the depth of the swim i knew i could be feeding a line that could contain a huge snag in it and wasting my time.  The time came to move over to the far line and i was instantly into some nice roach.

These roach all came right down the swim and i noticed trotting along slightly over depth that the float would settle after casting in but then all of a sudden the bottom number 8 would come into play and the float would dot right down and it was here i was getting my bites.  From this you can work out that there is a slight depression in the river bed her as your number 8 that in the first bit of the trot is dragging along then suddenly drops into the hole and the extra weight registers on the float.  In the low and clear conditions fish really can ball up in places like this and it is amazing just how many fish they can hold. 

The better roach where certainly in the deeper hole so i fed my hemp to fall directly on their location to keep them there and it seemed to work a treat with regular trips down bringing either a chublet or a nice roach.

As the afternoon moved on toward 8pm i expected the bites to come on again so a cheeky feed of the inside line began and with the far bank trot being so difficult to get right with the shorter rod i was relieved to get back to the tip of the rod fishing and in the last hour it did bring a few more fish to the net.

The final net for me went 13.8lb and it was a really enjoyable session on the bank.

My uncle also fared well in his swim with this cracking net of dace and roach.

So from a swim point of view what did we learn? Well we leaned the river was quite a settle depth across its length and it also held that depth for the entire run, a few trots down saw me hitting a snag down the middle of the river that was not moving so it was a sizable branch.  The far run was slightly shallower but the swim then dropped into a deep hole over the far side.  Fish wise we learnt how the fish hug the shadows so we can look out for that in other swims and also consider this swim when the river has colour in it as i reckon you could get the fish to come right under your feet.

All in all a great session on the bank fished with the sun on our backs and it was great to be back out on the bank.

till next time

tight lines

Danny

Go Outdoors Talk, River Dane fishing and Piking...

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Well what a weekend it has been for me i have just got back from my day at Go Outdoors where i was asked to appear at the opening of their New Store in Shrewsbury.  It has been a fantastic weekend and a great experience for myself and one i will never forget, more on that in a moment.

This weeks blog introduction covers the day at Shrewsbury and our time down there, spring arrives and i cover a bit on a short trip to Chester Zoo.  The fishing sees us on the banks of the River Dane trotting a stick float and a pike trip that shows why being in the right place is better than cumulative hours in the wrong one.  Please remember if you have any questions on any of my fishing or just want to share your fishing experiences with me the blog is on Facebook, Twitter and you can also email to Dannysanglingblog@hotmail.co.uk.

on to the update

Go Outdoors Opening....Amazing where a Blog Leads...

Friday evening and the day i had been looking forward to and been a bit nervous about was finally working its way round i had spent many hours practising for the event making sure i had a fair idea what to say when it was called upon.  The morning came and we set of on our journey to Shrewsbury and it was rather apt on the the way we passed all the landmarks of my fishing life to this point, first the bridgewater canal where i grew up as a kid and was taught the basics of angling by my dad then the River Dee where i have spent a great deal of the last 10 years of my life learning a new trade and falling in love with moving water and the joys its brings and then finally we passed many rivers like the Severn which i have only fished a hand full of times,  in my head these represented the journey in angling and the unknown adventures to come.

Arriving at Go outdoors there was a whole host of events going on outside with a huge climbing wall and rescue boat both visible for customers to go up and see.  On the door there where plenty of Go Outdoors staff who where really friendly and informative.  I met up with the ThisIsMission who where organising the event for Go Outdoors.  The team gave me time to look around before our event meeting so it was great to have time to look around the Fishing Section and also take in Ray Mears Question and Answers Piece on the main stage which was really interesting and a little piece of the talk is below.

A quick meeting with the team and it was time for me to meet up with Ray Mears and ask him some questions i received over Facebook and Twitter.  All these experiences where new to me i have been to events before but very much as a customer never as the person asking the questions.  I was really surprised by how easy going and easy to speak to Ray was he took just as much time and went into the same amount of details with my questions as i had witnessed him doing earlier on the Stage.  The transcript the questions will be in an upcoming blog introduction.

A few pictures with Ray and it was time for him to move on to other commitments.  My time for my Questions and Answers on the main Stage was 12 o'clock so that gave me a hour to look around and take some pictures of the Angling Section.  I was genuinely impressed with the quality of the tackle on show.  Anyone who was listening in on the Questions and Answers would have heard me say this but i remember 20 years ago if you did not go a dedicated angling shop for your tackle you where very limited to those small rods with the plastic reels and very thick white line, these are probably the reason angling never took off with people who where never taught by parents, now we have stores that are not dedicated angling shops but the section they devote to it has the quality for new anglers to catch with names like Shimano, Shakespeare, Dynamite Baits and Savage gear to name a few brands, see collection of pics around fishing section.

My time came to appear on the main stage and handing the microphone over to me the reality of what was happening did hit me but i walked on the stage confident if a little nervous.  The first question came in and replying i could hear my voice echoed through the speakers, my first time speaking on a microphone ever it did throw me a little but after a shaky start to the first question i got into it and as the questions progressed and we delved deeper i felt my confidence increasing as the quality of my answers showed this i feel. Fifteen to twenty minutes into the section and i felt i could have talked forever as we covered all aspects of my fishing from early trips with my dad to the delights and benefits of fishing near unusual spots like sewer outlets.  As the section drew to a close a talk that i had worried and been nervous about for weeks i felt like i didn't want it to end i was in my element talking about my thoughts and my own opinions on fishing.

After this talk my commitments i had signed up to on the day came to a close.  Having two children under three years old and me spending one day a weekend fishing means in the past few years time just for me and the other half has been very hard to come by and this trip down to shrewbury we decided to turn into a over night stay so after the event we got the ball rolling with a lovely meal at Chiquitos and a well earned beer.  We hit the town in the evening and made our way back on Sunday morning.

All in all looking back i am so glad i decided to go completely out of my comfort zone and do this talk the buzz once i got into it and afterwards was amazing and it is something i would do again.  Parts of the QA at the beginning where not perfect but being my first time on a stage talking in front of people it was never going to go completely word for word perfect but it will certainly set me in good stead if any other opportunities like this come along.  All in all i am so glad i did it and will always look back on that weekend with fond memories and a sense of personal achievement.

Spring has Sprung!!....

It has now been two weeks since i have hit the bank and i am thoroughly enjoying a well earned break away from angling although i must admit this week seeing all that tackle in the Go Outdoors store and stopping in on Gary pole fishing it has started off a need to get out there again in my mind.  Tonight i will be picking up my Environment Agency Licence and this act always is a sign that spring is here for me and to start thinking about days tench fishing and long mornings chasing roach and perch on the canal and local ponds.

Springs arrival need not be signalled by any set date in the calender as all around us for the past few weeks spring has been in a battle to break through winters sold clasps.  All the roads now have been taken over by flowers with crocus plants and rows and rows of both planted and wild Daffodils lining all the local roads.  My dads house is always the first place i look though as not only is it surrounded in trees that blossom at this time of year coating the ground in a carpet of white and pink but we also have a family of sparrows that nest in the guttering each year and their arrival and collection of twigs being transformed like only a mother can into a safe heaven nest is the start of the spring for myself.

Chester Zoo Trips....

I try and incorporate a little bit about myself in my angling blog and my family life as much as i can and this week we made our annual visit to Chester Zoo.  This was a very special trip for me as it was the first trip to the zoo where my little girl would know what the animals where and have an interest in seeing them!  I have always grown up with a real love for all types of wildlife and would spend many hours watching recordings on Wildlife on One, nature has always been a huge part of my life and still is to this day.  A huge part of why i go fishing is the wildlife i see on the banks and the journey to the water and it is something that i want my family to grow up with and have a respect for animals and the wildlife on our planet as its the next generation that the worlds wildlife fate will be left too.

Chester Zoo trips have been an annual trip for me since i was old enough to walk and i love how much this Zoo reinvests its money into improving the Zoo itself and the facilities the animals live in.  They also do a fantastic amount of work in with conservation all over the world which is great to see.

Arriving at the gates of the Zoo the magic was there in my little girls eyes she knew all the animals she wanted to see, Elephants and Giraffes being top of her hit list.  It was really warming to see her be excited by the animals and asking loads of questions as we moved form species to species and it was a great family day out that left me with lots of happy memories and i am sure left our little girl with more.

With that picture its onto this weeks fishing....

Stick Float Fishing River Dane...

With two weekends to go till the end of the River Season it is the time where all your hard work during the season should really pay off for you.  Having worked out where the fish are holding up in their winter haunts these last two weeks of the season as the fish are feeding hard ready for spawning should be the time where you are reaping the rewards.

Sadly for us our winter of exploration and discovery on the River Dane has been a little stop start with the regular rainfalls keeping the river running coloured and every time we thought the levels where right snow melt from the hills would flush through and make the river a torrent of brown.  It meant we had little chances over the past months to learn about this river but we did know where the better swims where from the end of the last season so we decided to take a risk and hit those swims.

The swims we set up in looked mint with plenty of visibility for trotting a float and the pace of the glide was bob on.  Casting in we expected roach and dace with a splattering of chublets but a hour and half in and we had little to show and certainly was not meeting out one a chuck expectations.  We moved to an area that had been good to us in the past but it would mean me doing a little pruning of the bank side.

The second to last weekend of the season is not the time you want to be digging in a new peg but it was a glide that i had wanted to fish all season and with a big snag in the main swim i really had no choice. Half a hours digging and i had enough room for my box and bait waiter.  I had been lose feeding the swim with maggot and hemp while digging in the peg hoping that food would distract the fish from the loud noise i was making.  I need not had worried as first trot down the float buried and i was rewarded with a palm sized silver dart.

The swim i had dug in was just above some really fast water so it was not the longest of trots and what happened on this session truly shocked me.  I returned the fish and began my next run though and instantly the float was getting knocks and bumps going through, eventually it went under and another dace was in my palm.  This knocking on then line as it goes through is a sure fire sign of plenty of fish in the swim and the key here is not to get carried away and think you need to feed heavy as you run the risk of the whole shoal coming up in the water and hard to catch, you want the fish taking 5-10 yards down the swim at a comfortable striking distance.

The fishing was a bite a chuck, some of them lightning fast and hard to hit but it was a chance of a fish each run through which is all you can ask for.  Some times the float would bury and a chublet would be the obvious culprit.  Among the smaller fish you would find the odd better dace show and these where either rough to the touch like sandpaper or really plump and slimy and bursting with spawn.  It was obvious these fish come into this area to spawn as we have not run into as many dace before in this location.

This area was a real find for us and in a season where we uncovered very little about this river it showed its hand to us right at the very end and i guess almost tipped her hat to us as a reward to all our hard work.  It will certainly set us in good stead for the season coming up.  Back to the session and the bites kept coming steady right though the middle of the day and into the afternoon but the size of the fish certainly deteriorated.

It was a weird feeling as the afternoon moved into time to pack up as i knew rain was planned during the week and i guess deep down i knew that would see this river colour up and not be worth the risk the next weekend and as such this would be my last session on the banks of the River Dane for this season.  I had left my scales in my pike gear, a problem that has happened a few times this season and one i will have to sort out with another pair of scales, we estimated them to be around 10-12lb nets and if the torrential downpours in the week did materialise it was a nice way to sign off.

my net

uncle net

Pike Fishing: I will Never Learn!!!!........but worth it haha

Regular readers of my blog will recall last weeks update where i dared the wrath of her in doors by sneaking off on a Sunday Morning for two hours pike fishing before the house woke up and although i picked up two pike i did pay the penalty when i returned home to cook my own breakfast!  In school my report always said the same thing, clever, easily distracted and does not learn from his mistakes, well some things have changed i am now not clever but others have remained the same, easily distracted and does not learn from mistakes as Sunday morning the fishing devils returned and off i went with a pike rod and a bag full of smelly dead baits...at least the freezer was empty...for a bit.

This time there would be no getting out of it i knew exactly what i was doing so ignorance was not an excuse this time.  I had to be stealthy and my clever side had to return.  6am and i arrived at the bank and set the alarm on my phone to go off at 8.30am to give me a warning to pack in and get back in the car and home.  Casting in i was confident the water was like a glass pane and there was not a breath of wind, my only company was the solitary robin looking expectantly for his anglers free breakfast.

A two hour window is hardly any time in piking but i would say in the time i have been piking this season the first two hours are the time to be on the bank.  You can often spend many hours on the bank piking but i would say the majority of my bites have come in the first two or last two hours.  The floats cast out into the gloom i sat back on a tree stump to await the pike to play their part.

The first swim produced no signs of fish so i moved into another swim and withing 5 minutes the float was showing the signs of a pike coming to dine.  A few tentative bobs on the float showed me a pike was interested in the bait but it took a good 10 minutes for the pike to actually commit to taking the bait and move off.  Reaching for the rod it was a slow run that pulled line steadily from the reel and then the best moment in pike fishing came, time to reel down on the fish and set the hooks.

In that moment of striking your excitement of the run has built and there is no going back, after the strike your either going to pull clean out of the fish, strike into a jack and the fish will normally come up in the water or in some cases you strike and the float gently bends over into something with a bit of fight.  This was the later.  The fish put up probably the best fight of the season it made long hard runs and i just hoped it stayed on.  Knowing the fish was a double i reduced the drag a little as to not pull the hooks but as the fight drew on i knew with each minute and head shake the tide was turning towards the pike escaping so i decided to try and take some control of the fight and upped the drag and the fish did respond and soon came to the net.

The fish went 11lb on the scales and it was a great start to the short session.

The pike returned i was smiling like the a Cheshire Cat, a quick look at the clock and it was 7.05am, i had around a hour max left but it already felt like mission complete.  The hardest part of piking this year for me has been letting myself not get complacent and lose my drive when i get an early bite.  so many times i have had a early fish and not had a touch the rest of the session just because i have been happy with the one fish.  Maybe these shorter sessions at the right time of the day are the key.

I leap made my way back to the car and leap frogged the rods as i did.  Right on the alarm for packing up going on my phone i was about to grab the rod and reel it in when i got a run on it.  This run was far more erratic that the first as the fish shot off with the bait.  The fish a jack of 8lb was the complete opposite of the first pike and i reckon it moved more in the run than in the fight!  The fish in the mat the hooks came out in the net, such small margins with this game.

The second pike returned it really was time to beat a retreat and with pike fishing its a simple task of clipping off your traces folding the rods in half and putting your gear in the back of the car.  Home and the gear stashed away i lobbed in some bacon and toast and a cuppa tea and it was mission complete!

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read my blog and all the people who constantly like and share the updates it means a great deal!, Thank  you and till next week, tight lines.

Danny