Good To Be Home: Stick Float Fishing For Dace River Dee

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and you nets wet.  The week where these fishing trips come from the temperatures where still in the 40's and upwards which has made the fishing really hard to predict especially when it comes to tracking down the silver fish fro trotting.  The pike have been up one day and down the next some sessions there all over my baits and others they are slowly drawn from their lairs only to come along side to enquire rather than to dine.  I  am loving the challenge that comes with my fishing at the moment and where i am with it.

This weeks fishing takes me back onto the river dee hunting for dace but this was not our intended destination but boy does it work out well in the end.  The other fishing is a pike trip the next day where i for once take me chances.  So with that lets get into this weeks update..

BBC To Release Fishing Show..

This week i was contacted by a member of the BBC looking for me to mention their upcoming project to produce a fishing programme for main stream television.  I always have fond memories of watching Go Fishing with my dad on television and although this series seems quite a bit away from the way John Wilson portrayed out sport i think anything that puts angling in the public eye in an interesting light can only be good for our sport.

The series will send amateur anglers around the world testing their skills again local anglers to that region.  The BBC are looking for anglers to apply to enter this series with the only criteria that you have to be over 18 and also not a professional angler.  I must admit had i not been at a stage i am in my life with a new child on the way and another one just over 2 years old i would certainly be filling in that application form.  The promotional information is below:

How much do you love fishing?

Have you ever sat on the banks of the Thames and wondered how

you’d fare on the banks of the Amazon?

Ever wanted to swap Lake Windermere for the Great Lakes or trade

fishing on the Welsh coast for the coast of Mexico?

The BBC is making a revolutionary new series about the world of fishing, so

we're looking for amateur anglers to test their skills in some of the most epic

fishing locations around the world!

COULD THIS BE FOR YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW? 

For more information or an application form please get in touch ASAP at:

thebigfish@bbc.co.uk or 0117 974 2349 

            Please note: The current talent search is open to non-professional anglers aged 18

            or over and resident in the UK

Pondip Blog - Lets Talk Bait Droppers...

This week my latest blog for pondip went live.  I must admit when i first started writing guest blogs for this company i was really nervous about what to write and their expectations but i feel it is a role i have settled into now and i am really enjoying writing guest blogs for them.  On my personal blog i purposely write about my fishing as an experience and try to capture the magic i find from getting out on the bank and hooking into a few fish and all the great adventures that go with it.  The pondip tackle box blogs allow me the freedom to write about how i go about my fishing in more detail and this weeks blog was all about how i use the most simplistic of tools, the bait dropper.

A link to the update is here: Let's Talk Bait Droppers Pondip Blog

EA Stepping up their game? 

A week or so ago i spoke about the Environment Agency and how good it has been getting my licence checked so many times this season.  It gives me great pleasure to again report my licence was again checked by the EA this weekend and what was even more pleasing was the fact that the sights of years one by of anglers packing in as they had been collared was long gone.  I do think though they could improve by getting on the bank a lot earlier to catch the people wrongly taking fish from waters especially pike on the river dee who are certainly on the decline.

On to this weeks fishing...

River Dee Stick Float Fishing For Dace.....

Walking out of the bait shop door on Friday evening the rain was still coming down steady, it had done so since around midday.  The rain although not heavy was persistent and i knew passing the River Dane in the dark on the way home that she would be carrying some water upon my visit the next day.

The EA river chart is normally a god send in these scenarios as the levels normally come in around 4am and sun rise not till around 7am it is normally there to guide you on where to go.  The chart above was the river dane chart on the morning before our trip and amazingly enough it did not show any sign of a rise apart from the first signs of a rise if you looked very closely at the last reading.

With this in mind we headed out into the dark looking to hit the banks of the River Dane at first light to set up and as the rain had stopped we thought nothing else of it and off we went. We knew she would be carrying a bit of water as she was going to be around what we thought was winter levels but pulling up at the pegs she was a thick brown grey colour and in that instance it was obvious the chart was wrong and with Trees and logs coming down there was no fishing this river today, not on the stick at least.

In all honesty it was a case of either fishing a pond, calling it a day and going piking or taking a huge chance on a 40 mile drive to the River Dee and hoping that she was not flooded and we could get a peg.  The dee it was and the car was quickly swung round and my trusty phone led us through the A Roads to Chester.  Turning the last corner we was met with a load of parked cars but to our delight there was two pegs still Free so like greased lightning we threw our boxes on each and it was good timing as in the next ten minutes four more cars pulled in.

The peg i chose was a classic dace run of an even depth of around 5ft down to a over hanging tree and it is a swim i have fished a lot in the passed and done well in for dace and the other excellent news was this swim would allow me to fish my trusty 13ft Korum float rad, a rod that sadly See's less and less action due to me using my 17ft one so much.

A 10 No 4 stick float down to a 2lb 2oz hook length and a number 20 hook was my set up for the day and with a pint of hemp and around 2 pints of fresh maggot and 2 pint of old maggots from the previous week if they were having it i had the feed to keep them there.  My first trot down and the float zoomed and then back up again and i unfortunately struck when it was back up again, i was rusty big time and had become accustomed to the unmissable chublet bites of the dane, these dace bites where going to take some improvement in my striking. 

I quickly added a number 8 to my line to sink the float down to a mere pin prick on the water and tried again, this time i was ready and right on my hemp i held back slightly and then releasing the line the float again descended into the depths.  no missing this one and no mistaking the jagged fight of the dace and in came a pristine river dee dace.  She fit the hand perfectly and glistened in the early morning light and in that moment i knew i was home, back on the banks of the river i love so much.

The colour of the water at this point was perfect as she was a dark black colour almost the colour of weak tea and perfect for trotting a float.  The dace is a fish that always fills me with confidence when i catch them as you know they are never alone and with the stamp of this early fish if i had a shoal of them in my swim i would be on for a good days sport.

The next few casts saw a dace coming and before i knew it i had around 10 plump dace in my keep net.  All the dace came to single maggot and loose feeding maggot into the swim by hand.  The first two hours seemed to by by in a blur and the fish just kept coming and coming and coming and all came on the same spot in the swim to the point i just kept over casting my float to make the most of this bounty of dace in the swim.

A call from another angler that the river had rose a foot prompted me take a moment to put a stick in the edge as safety on the banks is paramount especially when you know a period of rain has been around the previous day.  I had been concentrating so much on hitting the bites on the float that i had failed to notice the colour had also changed in the river as it began to turn a brown colour.  I knew from experience of fishing in such conditions that i had to make the most of this period as a rising river almost certainly would see the dace go on a feeding frenzy until the river reaches a certain point and then the bites would die off.

I also knew that with my swim being between two trees and relatively slack that the fish would not stay in the main fast flow and would move into the slacker water so i upped to rate of feed to lure as many fish into my swim as possible during this period. 

i really do love the dee and everything about it, i love it sits in the shadow of other rivers like the Severn and the Trent, i love the beautiful locations along its length i have the pleasure to wet a line but most of all i love it because it is a river you can attack and really be aggressive with your feeding on and this was one of those sessions.   The normal careful feeding on the dane of 5-6 maggots every trot was replaced with 10-15 maggots a time on the dee and the bites just became more and more positive and the quality of the dace actually increased with some lovely examples of the species gracing my palm.

The morning moved along at a frantic pace and the fish kept coming and coming and coming and i was in that scenario where in knew i was sitting on a nice weight of dace.  The river at this point was rising quite fast up the bank and my uncle was literally moving to higher ground to keep fishing his swim it rose that fast.  The river at this point was resembling the Dane we had left and from around 1pm my bites died of completely as the flow showed its power as it came through the tree to my left creating the slack water i was trotting along, this also meant my bait was not getting down before the other tree and despite trying with the bait dropper the next few hours brought only odd flutters of fish as i chased the shoal around the swim.

Had the fish continued to feed i can only dream at the net of fish at the end but come us weighing our nets i was eager to see what i had put together in those early hours fishing.  Lifting my net from the water it felt heavy and a little groan as i lifted it from the peg i knew i was up in the teens somewhere.  The 32 inch pike net now follows me on all my trips to the river as you never know when mr pike will show up at this time of year but this net has also proved really good for putting our nets in for weighing at the end of session and it also gives the nets a true representation of the numbers of fish as sometimes in the smaller nets the fish are on top of each other so a 5lb net looks the same as a 15lb net as the pictures don't show the depth of the fish in it, this net i hope will help with that.

My final net went 20.5lb of all dace and i was over the moon! It always brings a tear to my eye when i do well on this river as i always think back to the days i fished this river where i did not know what i was doing and struggled to catch one dace.

My uncles peg fished the complete opposite to mine, he struggled early on and he put together a 12lb net of dace in around 4-5 hours in the afternoon when his fish came onto the feed on his peg.

A check of the River Danes EA Chart showed we certainly made the right call as when we where stood on her banks it was the very start of the rise and had we stayed just look how much the river would have rose on us during that day.

Dead Baiting For Pike...not exactly pulling the rod in....

Waking up on the morning of this session my arms where really aching from a hard days trotting the day before.  Those who see fishing as a leisurely activity and a past time for relaxing certainly have never done a full day on the river trotting for dace as anyone will tell you its hard work and you are constantly on the move either feeding maggot or hemp, reeling in from a trot on concentrating on getting your presentation right.  A days trotting done right should leave you tired on your return, a least good days should.

The morning was again mild and i jumped in the car around 6.45am in the pitch black leaving my thermal base layer behind along with my thermal boots.  My plan for the day was to meet up with Ste for literally a few hours fishing till around 10am and then part ways as he went to a job and i planned to move onto another location i had done well in the past.

Although the morning session with ste produced no fish on the bank what it did show me was how you can literally take just your wobbling rod and how versatile you can be with the one rod.  During these few hours we used our wobbling rods to of course wobble a dead bait to imitate a dying fish but it was great to learn how you can also use this same rod with only a dead bait and a wire trace on the line to static dead bait fish by leaving the bait to sink down and using only the line lying on the top of the water for indication.  It was yet another learning experience for myself with regards the vast world of pike fishing and as always it was great to share then bank and talk all things angling with another angler that shares such a passion for this sport.

The pike where very off the feed during this short session which saw only one bit of interest from a jack that despite the best efforts could not be tempted to snatch the free meal.  I loaded the rod and ruck sack back in the car and said my goodbyes and headed off to my second location where i hoped to find the fish more obliging.

I have to say it was a weird day on the bank and one i have never experienced before with pike fishing.  First of all i had a run under my feed as i left my wobbling rod to lie in the edge and upon striking i was met with a set of hooks coming out of water with no bait on them which was very weird considering the line was still peeling off as i struck, i can only thing the bait was on the out side of the pikes mouth and i pulled the hooks from the bait.   The next weird occurrence was two definite dips on the dead bait rod which saw me putting my full attention into that float but no more action developed from it apart from the float bobbing twice, this actually happened on two separate occasions during the session as i said the pike where behaving very strange.

I knew the pike under my feet had not felt the hook but i was pretty sure it had got off with its brunch and my only hope was it had left room for dinner so i purposely left the wobble rod lying in the edge and it did not take long before i noticed the line start to tremble and go slack as a pike picked up the bait and then the line went tight ant started to move off tightly as line was pulled from the open spool.

I gave the fish a few moments to begin to take the bait, tested the drag, then struck to set the hooks.  This fish from the off was not happy at all and i it was one of this pike that constantly shake its head and i knew the longer this fight went on the greater the chance of losing the fish so i quickly placed the rod between my legs and grabbed the landing net and waited for the fish to come up within my nets radar and as soon as it did it was a quick lunge with the net and luckily the fish turned into the mesh and onto my seasons tally.

The pike was great example of the species and more than welcome on my unhooking matt that was for sure.  A jack pike around 7 or 8lb she had been feeding well judging by her hard stomach.  Last week i wrote a blog on taking your chances and that session i lost a fish and it proved to be my only chance well this session was the flip side on this session i took my chance but again it was my only chance of the session.  The lines between a fish on the bank and a blank are so fine with pike fishing.

till next time i wish you all tight lines and wet nets,

Danny

River Dee Dace and the Rolling Pike

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update and you find me probably in one of the best places i have been for a long time, coming up to four years ago my mum sadly passed away and with that i lost all interest in the sport of rugby league, a sport i had played since 10 years old.  The mixture of these two things and the depression and comfort eating that goes with it had seen me pile on the pounds over the past few years and it was not till September this year it hit me that i had too stop this trend and sort it out for myself and also for my little girl growing up.  I am here now, at this moment in time 3 stones lighter than i was in September, i feel great but i know as well i still have a long way to go.  I was going to go public with it earlier on the blog to put myself in a situation where i have to stick to it but i really am the type of person that if i say "i am going to" means i will do it as opposed to me saying "i might" which basically means "i wont".  As i said i feel great and there is still a long way to go but already there has been some real morale boosters and milestones,  my Berghaus coat that i never wore as it was too tight i wore on this session you will read about on Saturday and the difference was it was loose enough to sit in, which was great, but even better was the fact i had two T-shirts and my thick jumper on under it as well, long way to go but i have made a start.

The picture above got posted on the internet this week and how true it is as sometimes it feels like it only rains on Fridays causing the rivers to flood and not be in the best nick for the weekend yet all week driving in work its calm and clear, perfect for trotting.  This week has been a week that has killed me being in work as driving into work i knew the conditions were just perfect for a days trotting or even for hunting a big pike but alas as my missus always says fishing doesn't put food on the table and although i don't eat as much now she still insists the fishing wont pay the way ha-ha.

The river this coming weekend will be in fine fettle and the popular beats will fish well but i must admit the buzz for me comes from finding those quieter areas and the shoals of fish that the masses do not know about and not to mention the bystanders you get visit your peg on the more popular stretches can be tiresome at times, even to me as ask any of my family and colleagues form work i can talk for hours about fishing but when i am actually fishing i like to get away from it all, so this weekend i will be targeting a stretch of river where i have found some depth on a summer trip hoping that it is home at this time of year to some shoals of dace and chub as lets face it not all the fish in the river can go to the popular areas as you literally would not be able to fit all the fish in the short stretch, so this weekend will be some of the most enjoyable fishing i do, searching out new areas of river and learning more about this fantastic river, we may well blank but what if we don't?

One of the joys of writing a weekly blog is you have a detailed account of each trip you go on to look back on and it is something i often do, not from a vain point of view but more to remind me of the session i am reading about and it lets you know where you fished in the same conditions in previous years and it can influence your decision come the weekend. For example around this time last year i fished the dee in the snow and caught well fishing for dace and pike but on on the session in question i remembered i had caught a few roach on corn so this weekend i might pack in a tn of corn and feed it during the session it also provides you with a brilliant confidence boost when times get tough.

Here are a few i have read this week:

Fishing in the snow: http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/dreaming-in-winter-wonderland.html

Dace when rivers fining down: http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/water-finally-flushing-out-of-our-rivers.html

This week i was contacted by a company around possibly reviewing one of their products on a future blog and as discussions are only in the early stages at the moment so i cant go into detail on this product review but thought it a great opportunity to show some of the product reviews i have done in the past and also open the opportunity up for other companies, so if you are a company that has a product or piece of kit you think i would use and want a honest review on a popular blog that at the moment attracts 6000 plus views a month feel free to approach me and we can see if we can put something together.

past reviews i have featured:

Calor Gas Grill to Go: http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/calor-grill-to-go-review-and-rixton.html
iFishlocator Review: http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/river-dane-chub-delight-and.html 
Minke Fishing Tool : http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/minke-fishing-tool-review-and.html


Moving on to this weeks Fishing:

River Dee Dace And The Rolling Pike

The joys of last weekends net of dace and the bonus session for chub where still flowing through my veins like the water through the river i intended to fish which was again the River Dee.  The winter of 2012 taught me one thing, make the most of the fishing while the river is in form as for too long it can be unfishable like it was last year and although weather forecasting technology is the best its ever been you never truly know what is around the corner and us river men really are at the mercy of the winter rain and snow.

Although it is probably obvious from my weekly writings about the dee, i think this river is a magnificent venue and in my eyes one of the most underrated rivers in this country and although her fishing quality is often questioned one thing that is not in doubt is her sheer beauty.

With no birthday celebrations this week i was joined again by my uncle on the bank and we headed for the same area i had fished the previous week where we hoped to find the dace hungry.  Arriving at the river we were full of anticipation for the session ahead as our arrival on the bank was greeted with a cold overnight frost and temperatures below freezing.  Walking the bank with the leaves crunching under our feet we debated which area to target but after taking into account the river levels, temperature and colour of the river we settled on two swims close to each other that had a steady pace and even depth.

As always the first trot down was etched with expectation and although the freezing conditions would have put many off we knew this very cold would be the reason we would catch.  This is why rivers a re so magical as they offer anglers a chance to catch fish all year round and the fishing is especially good in winter as a number of factors come together to make the fishing so good,  the depth offers the fish warmth so they are attracted to the few deep areas on the river and the fact the fish are constantly swimming against the flow means they have to feed to survive and as there are large numbers of fish in this area you get competition for the food that,if fed right, keeps the fish coming.

The first dace of the session took a while in coming but like on so many sessions on the dee the first fish is always the most difficult as once you hit that first fish you know a shoal of fish is about and you get that flush of confidence.  The fishing at this point was slow with bites being at a premium on both our pegs so much so after a good two hours of fishing we were both in single figures for fish in our nets.

We both chewed the fat over a brew and agreed something was not right and it was amazing to see the similarities in our experiences so far, we both had caught fish all over the swim and both had noticed that any hooked fish was fighting in a way they could not wait to get out of the river, pike are what sprung to mind but i guess only time would tell as if it was pike it would only be a matter of time.   Our brews finished we returned to our pegs and continued our trotting ritual and it seemed like the break had done my uncles fishing some good as straight away i could hear the unmistakable sound of him striking into fish and the same could be said of my swim as it seemed like it was really starting to improve as well as bites where now coming on the same line in the swim and with greater regularity and for the next hour or so i caught with increasing regularity.

The swim was really starting to get to the stage where you think i might be on for a decent net here when on retrieving a dace i had the life scared out of me as a pike rolled at the dace about 7 yards in front of me, i just was not expecting it and what surprised me was the fact it missed such an easy meal.  Never to be one to miss an opportunity and knowing the pike was about i quickly grabbed my pike rod and had a go for the pike but nothing was doing so it was back to the dace fishing.  This marked the start of  a pattern in my swim that would last for the whole session and it was surreal experiencing such a weird phenomenon as what i witnessed on this session.  I would continue to catch dace all over the swim, maybe four or five and then BANG the same pike would roll at a dace as i was bringing it in, not take it just roll at it then the fishing would die for 10-15 minutes and the swim would slowly build up with four or five fish and then bang there was the pike again.  Even when i thought i was due a roll from mr pike i would try the pike rod with no success and then the next fish i caught it would have a go at.  I lost count during the session how many times this happened.

My uncle was also having a similar experience on his peg where he had pike attacking the fish in his keep net, pike lying in wait in the margin of his swim yet he never had one dace taken all day, very very very weird behaviour and certainly i have not witnessed anything like it.  We have all seen videos of pike or seen in the flesh how devastatingly accurate pike can be at taking fish and in my eyes no pike misses upwards of 4 times never mind 15-20, very unusual and interesting at the same time.

What was really weird was the quality of the dace we was catching with such pike around with the one above being my best fish of the day and a real example of what winter river fishing is for me, dace with fat plump pigeon chests darting and gliding upstream through the swim as they come to the net and that sudden realisation that this is a dace you cant lift in and you joyfully reach for the landing net.

My uncle continued to fish for dace the whole session while i, in hindsight, wasted far to much time on mr pike but his dedication and skill showed in the final net as he put 18.6lb on the scales at the end and my net went just over 10lb.

my net:

uncle net: 

Till next week i wish you all tight lines

Danny

Fishy Fact or Fiction and River Dee Dace Fishing

 A warm welcome to this weeks blog and this weeks blog marks the start of a little something new on the blog and its longevity will depend on how many interesting bits of information i can find.  The idea is to search the Internet for sweeping statements that are made about angling and discuss whether based on logic built up from the fishing i do whether i think they are Fact or Fiction.  It is a bit of fun and will add some diversity to the blog and feel free to get involved in the comments section at the end of each post or on twitter and facebook if you want to add anything and who knows we could always do a round-up of the comments in next weeks update.

The idea for this came to me in work when i got into a conversation with my work colleagues about the damage done to fish by angling and how they didn't see what i saw in fishing to put them all back, any fisherman will know the conversation and how they go and it always ends up with someone who doesn't go fishing making a sweeping statement and this conversation was no different.  The argument i put up against it was exactly the one below and it gave me an idea to maybe run this as a little ongoing fun part of the weekly blog and so Fishy Fact or Fiction was born, so here we go.....

"About one third (33%) of fish caught on bait will die after being released and over 60% of deep hooked fish die .."

So the statement says one third of fish caught on bait and 66% deep hooked will die, it is a hard statement to disprove 100% so i applied this to mine and general fishing on the River Dee for Dace for which i use a keep net to put my fish in before i release them.   In this weeks blog myself and my uncle caught a combined net of 16lb of dace from the river,  I released the net back into the the river and witnessed every single fish swim off strongly, one or two took a moment or so before moving off but they all did swim off so the first question i ask is, given the fact they where all lip hooked,  at what stage does one third of this net which equates to 5.3lb of fish go belly up? is it just after they get out of sight? or is it over a course of the next week or so?

If we then accept this as a fact and 33% of all fish die and then apply this to winter fishing on the river Dee where its not uncommon for both banks to be full of anglers which would roughly equate to 20 anglers and the top nets are normally over 20lb so as an average we will say for this that the average net is 15lb being caught by anglers in one day for a total weight of 300lb of fish, based on this statement it would mean 99lb of fish dying from being caught that day.  These banks are normally full on both a Saturday and a Sunday not to mention the nets caught during the week it would equate to a massive weight of fish dying every week and a weight that i think would be unsupportable and would soon see no fish left in the river rather than the 20lb weights being caught consistently week after week through winter and lets not forget the fact that in my years of fishing the river i have never seen pounds and pounds of dace floating dead downstream.

I think the final nail in the coffin for this comment comes from the carp fishing world in the fact that carp are caught a number of times through their lives to the point they are given names like gut bucket and tommo's fish etc surely running the 33% gauntlet for these fish each time they are caught would see very few of them reaching maturity and certainly would not see so many fish reaching over 50lb.  So for this weeks fishy Fact or Fiction i am saying i think this is Fiction!.

Moving on, this week in work the leave sips for next year came round, a time of year that See's all the mothers in our place booking holidays to coincide with the school calender, but not me, i had my eyes firmly fixed on the 16th June 2014.  This drew plenty of weird looks from all the people around me but i had a smile from ear to ear knowing i would be out on the bank on such a magical day.  The 16th is always a day i like to get out and although the fishing is never normally great after a three month exodus from the bank just being out next to flowing water is enough for that first session, so next year i will be out again next to flowing water on the 16th.

I was also asked this week if i would agree to take part in a bit of charity fund raising so along with a few other lads in out office i have agreed to take part in Movember.  Movemeber, for those who do not know is a charity event where men don't shave their moustaches for a whole month to help raise money and awareness for male heath.  I must admit i am not too bothered about walking around work with a tash but i have my reservations about how much of an idiot i am going to look walking round town and on some of the upcoming blog photos.   The blog i have a plan for that of course relies on the fish being co-operative but if it comes off should make one or two humorous pictures, so please enjoy every minute of me looking like a fool hahaha.

Looking forward to this weekends fishing coming up its not looking like it is going to be the driest of sessions as even now a i write this blog at tea time on a Friday evening i can hear the rain taping at my window and how i have to say, how much does it now feel like we are moving into winter, it is pitch dark outside!  I also noticed on the way to work this week that it was still dark at 7.30am, this on one hand is bad as it means less time on the bank as the mornings and evenings draw in but on the other hand my whole body tingles with excitement at this time of year as i know full well the time for those big bags of dace and the chance of a special pike capture is drawing closer, i cant wait, lets hope mother nature gives us more time on the bank this year than we got last, you are in our debt this year madam!

on to this weeks fishing:

I must say before i get into this weeks fishing a big thank you to Cheshire Angling Shop in Warrington as for one reason or another my uncle was unable to get get into town in time to buy his bait on Friday and i called through to this bait shop to see if they were still open and although i got there in the nick of time they agreed on the phone they would wait open for me if i confirmed i was certainly coming through, i have no doubts had i been a bit late the shop would have still been open, many thanks for your great customer service.

With last weeks session on the River Dee proving to be a bit of a disaster we headed  further afield for this weeks fishing, still on the Dee but a completely new section to us.  The river was up around a foot or two but judging form the banks she was dropping slowly and the colour of weak tea she really was bob on for a spot of dace fishing.  The only downside being the pace of the river as she was really belting through on a stretch that looked like it normally had a bit of pace to it at the best of times.

I set up a good distance down stream form my uncle to give him enough water to work with so his bait was getting down before it got to myself.  I always see the two of us going fishing as us working as a team, we generally allow enough room between us to give both of us the best chance of getting a solid net at the end, on some occasions this hasn't worked out to be the case but i would say more often that not we get it right.  There is of course those stretches where there is always a better peg and  although its hard to always guarantee getting on those pegs on consecutive weeks we always try to share out who goes on this peg during the season so we both get to enjoy the pegs that have an easier trot or hold better fish.

I was being strict with myself on this session with my pike fishing but there was a great looking swim at the tail of the pool that just screamed pike to me so i said i would give it an hour at the start of the session and a hour before we packed up at the end and the rest of the time i was determined to enjoy a days trotting for dace.   The bait for the session would be hemp and maggot and would be fed generously throughout the course of the session and judging by how fast she was going through i was going to need a fair bit.

The session started off slow for us both as the float trundled through the swim without so much as a knock and at these early stages on a fast bit of river it can be really disheartening as at least on the slow deep sections you find minnows and gudgeon to keep you going till the dace arrive but on sections like this you have to keep going till the dace move on the the steady stream of bait, this can take 10 minutes or on some days it can take a hour and of course on the days to forget they do not show at all.

The first hour past by in a blur with only a single dace to show for my efforts, my uncle had had a few fish but nothing like we expected to catch from the look of the river.  I decided to give the pike rod a go next to the snag i had seen further down stream and was soon nestled against the bang with my pike bung bobbing in the slack.  It was during this hour fishing for pike i noticed a disturbance on the other side of the tree to my right, at first i thought it was a duck or a swan, which there seemed to be a number of on this stretch.   The splashing continued but it was right close into the edge and i was really intrigued now as i could not see any sign of a bird a rat i thought or bank vole but then on the debris beneath the tree a otter popped up and sat on the dead tree branches beneath the tree and for what seemed an eternity we stared at each i guess trying to work out what each of us would do next.  i was first to flinch as i slowly reached into my pocked to grab my phone but as i did the otter slip silently back into the water and a line of bubbles went across my swim as the otter moved upstream.  This was the last i saw of the otter as i kept my eyes pealed for the rest of the session but i did spot this behind my peg which i think might be otter spraint.

The pike fishing was a none starter which might have been down to the otter working the inside bank but i think it was more down to the pike just were not feeding as we did not get bothered by pike all session.  After the hour was up i moved back up to my peg and began to feed the swim heavily with hemp seed and also moved out slightly on the line i was fishing, it is a line i don't fish often as i much prefer to try and get the fish to come to where i can catch them easily and fast and that is normally right under my feet or just off the rod tip but today with the river so fast they just din not want to know close in.  When moving further out it is always important to have control so i upped the weight of float i was suing from 10 number 4 to 14 number 4 just to give me that extra weight and control.  The fish would take a while to get going given my departure from the swim for a hour but it was not as long as i thought before i connected with my first dace and i was made up with the quality of it as it was what you call a "proper" dace and what made it even better was it was not alone as a few of his friends joined him in the keep net.

The dace shoal kept on moving in and out of the swim and it would see flurry's of fish coming to the net before they would move for a while then all of a sudden they where back on the bait again and for a while i was perplexed as to why this was happening.  My uncle was catching steady above me and had found a good shoal of fish on a closer in line than mine and was well on his way to putting together a nice net of fish.

It took me till the afternoon to nail the method on the day that would see me getting bites more consistently and it was to hold the float back really hard to the point it was going down the swim in what looked to me an unnatural way with the float pulling out of the water but it must have looked right under water as if i got it right the float would nail under at the same point in the swim every time.

My uncle had of course got onto this method and in previous months i would have probably gone up to his swim and had a look at what he was doing but i feel i am now at a stage with my trotting where i can trot a float down with confidence but i need to develop the different techniques and more importantly when to use them and i am only going to do tat by finding my own way through sessions and working these puzzles out for myself.

Once the method was developed the bites came with greater regularity and it almost became predictable when the float would bury and there is no better feeling in river fishing than the seconds before the float gets to that sweet spot and you know inside the float is going to bury under and sometimes the excitement gets too much and you inevitably strike too early, truly magical fishing.   The bites coming regular and with great quality dace still coming to the net i was more than made up with how the afternoon was going and i eventually hit a fish that was a bit better in this trout? sea trout? below.  I think it is a brown trout but it was the length of it that had me confused as it was a really long fish.

The fish returned to the river i continued to pick up some nice dace and i could hear form the striking upstream that my uncle was also having a good session as well.  The bites continued to come and go for the next hour or so as the game of cat and mouse continued between getting the presentation right and wrong.  The end of the session came and i have to say i was cream crackered from the amount of striking and reeling in through out the day as when you imagine a trot was lasting around 20-30 seconds its some amount of trotting throughout a few hour session. The average size of the dace was really impressive and i cant wait to get back on this beat once the river drops again, first class fishing for pristine dace.

My uncle ended the day with 10lb dead

and my net went just under 7lb.

The final picture of the two nets combined was really impressive considering the time of year and shows how fertile a river the Dee is at the moment and we have not even had the first frosts yet.

Short Session on the Bridgie

On Sunday i found myself with a few hours free in the afternoon so i decided to have an hour or so on the local Bridgewater canal.  The weather report for the afternoon was not the most promising with heavy rain showers due but to be honest i rarely look at the weather now when going and travel in the knowledge i am well prepared for what ever conditions come along.  I must say there is an exception to this rule with the wind and it was the wind on Sunday that designated what stretch of canal i chose to fish.  I chose a stretch that was relatively sheltered and set out my stall to fish 11 metres, just where the river started to shelve on the far bank. 

The session was steady and i caught steady for the majority of the session and although i was not there long enough to build a swim for the bream to move in i did connect with some nice roach and roach bream hybrids.  The shock of the otter the previous day was still with me and i must say the rare sightings continued into Sunday as to my shock i was joined by a Warrington anglers Bailiff, the guy was a pleasant man who took great interest in what i had to say and i am glad he was open to my my thoughts on the club even though they may not have been what he wanted to hear i feel its only far to be honest and inform the bailiffs about what i see week in and week out on the banks of the club waters from litter to waters that i have been that really should not be on the card.  It was also great to speak to such a wide variety of visitors to my peg over the course of only a hour or so, i guess that is part of the magic of fishing the canal.

The final net was just a picture to be taken rather than the reason for the session, i just thoroughly enjoyed a few hours on the canal.

Well that brings to an end another blog update, if your out his weekend, take care and tight lines.

Danny

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Big Bags of Dace on River Dee To End River Seaon

A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and I start with a huge thank you to all the people who gave last week’s product review post such great feedback, from Re-tweets on Twitter to some nice emails sent to the blogs email address, thank you all so much it really means a lot to receive feedback from regular readers of this blog.

What the future holds with regards more product reviews will be down to the companies involved but if nothing comes from this little venture I thoroughly enjoyed writing last week’s blog and any side ventures like this are always there as a luxury or little bonus for all the hard work I put into writing this blog.

This week’s trip to the bank was the last one of the River for us and I thought it would be good in this week’s introduction to look back over the last river season.  I set myself a target this season of having sessions purposely dedicated to targeting pike and I think I did quite well on this front considering the river was rarely at a steady level for more than a week at a time.  The sessions where I did get out for pike and targeted then I did have a few fish to double figures and the season really culminated for me in that pike in the snow.

Trotting is always my passion on the rivers and with the river being flooded for so many weeks it was always going to take pole position once the river dropped to a near normal level and hence the last few weeks of the season the pike fishing took a bit of a back seat towards the end of the season, had the winter not been so wet my plan was to get my fix of dace fishing out of the way in preparation of targeting the pike in February and march when the fish are fattening up in preparation for spawning, this just serves as a reminder that we can make the best of plans but we are ultimately in the hands of mother nature and the end of the day.

A Positive to take from this season, a season I think we did well to get in so much fishing, was us discovering pastures new in our few trips to the River Ribble, a destination that will live long in the memory with the capture by my uncle of that massive 1lb 3oz dace.  This river really captured both mine and my uncle’s interest after our first session it was hard fishing and we worked for every bite but boy was it exciting and a breath of fresh air from the sometimes predictable nets of dace on the River Dee and there will certainly be more of this river to come next season. 

The fish of the season for me would have to be the perch in the snow from the River Dee, just the day itself with the capture of that perch and the two pike on the way home just topped that session off for me but that perch will live long in the memory for myself and has opened up a whole new avenue of exploration for next winter as I really fancy a session dedicated to targeting these tenacious sergeants.

The next three months are always a time I look forward to being on the bank as I love seeing the world around me wake up from its winter slumber and I also can’t wait to welcome our feathered summer visitors back to our shores in the coming months not to mention the return of those long warm evenings after work as the evenings lengthen chasing tench and carp.  I think there is one thing I want to reintroduce into my fishing this year and that is fun, over the past year I feel I have been in an intense frame of mind on the bank, eager to learn new methods and techniques and develop them to a standard I am happy with and I think this year it’s time to get back to the real reason I fell in love with fishing and that’s the fun and excitement of being on the bank so I can see me mixing it up a bit in the coming months on the bank, maybe blow the cobwebs off my centre-pin and have some fun with that or spend some time targeting carp off the top like I used to do as a kid.  My mind really does go into over time thinking about ideas of what I can do, I just hope mother nature is on my side this year.

Tight lines to all if you either changing over from winter to summer fishing or just blowing the dust of your rods from last summer’s campaign, tight lines and the best of fishes for the coming months, I am off to watch a fish for all seasons by Martin Bowler, a great way to get into spring mode, before writing the rest of this update tomorrow.

On to this week’s adventure:-

The end of the river season? Surely not!!

The end of a gruelling river season had arrived and with it our last chance to trot a float on running water for 3 long months we had only one destination in mind and that was the River Dee, a destination we had spent far too little time on during the course of the year but one that now was in perfect condition for a decent bag of dace.

Fishing on Saturday was chalked off due to a family commitment but whilst enjoying the delights of a pint of lager me and my uncle studied how the river was looking and we both agreed she would be just about perfect when we planned to visit the next day.

The last weekend of the season mixed with how good the river was looking we decided to take no chances in not getting prime position so the alarm clock was set for a ridicules time; all I can say is it was a time that makes it very hard to convince doubters of our mental state of mind wrong! Either way effort this time would surely equal success, well at least we hoped.

Turning the penultimate bend before the stretch and the excitement of not knowing what pegs are free was tangible, would we get a decent peg or would we be left settling for a less fancied area?  I have learned from past disappointments not to let myself even think of fishing a certain peg but you never lose that feeling of knowing where you would like to be.

Creeping slowly round last endless corner I strained my neck slightly trying to make out the faint outlines of cars or bivvys on the bank but low and behold my full beam headlights revealed the whole stretch to be derelict, devoid, absent of anything resembling an angler, Result we thought as we parked up in the areas we wanted to fish.

The dusk till dawn lamp out it was time to get the gear unloaded on on the pegs ready for the session ahead and with a good amount of time till even the most enthusiastic of birds began to clear its throat we had plenty of time to make sure we were set up perfectly, this lamp really has saved us loads of time on the bank.

Anyone who reads my blog with any regularity will know my set up by now for trotting so I won’t go into it again apart from mentioning I decided to go with the 3 gram Dave Harell Bolo over a stick float.  I would say at this point I went with my 17ft rod to give it one final outing for a few months but I have plans to use this rod on a deep pond on the WAA card in the coming weeks.

The dawn began to break and it revealed the river to be in perfect condition, she was flat calm without a breath of wind and was carrying a few feet of water with a tinge of colour but not enough for us to be reaching for the feeder rod.  The conditions were far from ideal though as a icy chill had moved in the valley and with it a smattering a snow than would unfortunately be with us the whole day long

The first cast of the morning is always a special moment in branch of our sport but few branches of our sport is the first cast met with such instant results as the final shot had only just registered as the float zipped under and the first dace of the session graced the palm of my hand and what a pretty sight it was and I remember thinking to myself to make the most of every minute of this session.

The session was a cracker from the off and even the on off snow could not dampen my enthusiasm the fish were there and there in numbers and I was determined to learn from last week and be prepared for the midday lull when the tide came in.  The fish at first where like the one above around the 2-4oz mark and smaller but I wasn’t too bothered as that float was still going under and to me that was all that mattered.  I continued to drip feed the swim and the better fish settled in over my bait and it was during the early stages of the better fish moving I landed one of the most stunning dace I have ever caught, it really was fin perfect, scales like pearls and a fins that went from dark purple to clear at the tips it really was a pleasure to catch this dace.

The action continued to be consistent and the general standard was upheld with the odd splattering of “eyes” but by dinnertime I had no room to complain at all and was more than made up with my efforts.  It was not long after visiting my uncles peg around dinner time that the peg started to change, the bites where coming further and further down the peg and where all over the place instead of in the place I had been getting them all morning, something was aria and I knew exactly what it was, a pike.  Two or three dace came in the space of around half an hour as the peg ground to a halt and then it happened I struck and was met with solid resistance as a large fish swam upstream and held deep, there was that few moments where the pike just thinks its swimming off with its lunch but doesn’t quite know why it can’t move off as smoothly as it would like.

The battle went on for around 5 minutes and I eventually managed to get the fish up near the top and caught a glimpse of it and I estimate it to be around the 5lb mark and with one flip of its tail it made a lunge for the depths and with it my hook came flying back at me. I was more gutted about the fact it had covered my whole swim on its foray for freedom  than I was about losing a jack pike and I knew I was basically back at square one and would have to feed the swim back up again. 

The dace being temporarily moved out seemed to make room for some different species to move in and the first fish I connected with after the pike went was a nice grayling shown above. The grayling was a welcome and refreshing change to the precession of dace I had caught in the morning but unfortunately this grayling was the only diversion away from the dace for the rest of the day, not that I am complaining.

The swim began to again build slowly with smaller dace at first and then the better fish moved in but in all it took a long time for the bigger dace to build their confidence and move into the swim in any numbers.  My uncle fishing the peg just up form me had took a bit longer to get them going but was more than making up for lost time and was caught regular through the whole day on both his trotting line and under his feet.

We both continued to catch steady and was both still catching when we decided to call it a day at 3pm, it was always the plan to pack in at this time to get back for the football but I must admit had I known how close I was to 20lb I would have carried on for another 15 minutes.

It came to the time for us to see what we had caught, we both knew we had caught well and had a very good net and in my head I thought my uncle had piped me because he had caught so steady all day.

My uncle weighed in first and his net look colossal I was certain he had battered me on the scales as they went round to 16lb 9oz.

My turn and as I pulled my net out of the water I was shocked at the weight at what I had caught it was, for me, no matter what the weight a net I was going to be proud of.

The scales went round to an astonishing 19lb 10oz!! I must admit I had to check it again as it was a  new personal best net from this location and I was over the moon.

We both agreed we had given the season a good send off and we packed up and left happy it could not have gone any better and with that we said goodbye to the most majestic of rivers for another 3 months and vowed to return enthusiastic as ever in June, hungry to search out new locations and the summer dace shoals.

Till next time I wish you all tight lines

Danny