Winter Chub Fishing on the Stick Float

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you well and your nets wet.  After a drab Christmas period fishing wise the arrival of Double overtime at work to start 2018 did nothing to help me find time to hit the bank to rekindle my fishing spark.  Fishing can be many things from addiction to part of a routine and for some like myself it is almost a necessity, a place where the hectic and sometimes frantic 9-5 week can be washed away.  I needed to get out on the bank and have a good session, venue would be key in this, as it always is in winter, but with all the waterways finally fining down i knew of one such spot that might just see me scratching that itch.

Winter Chub Fishing on The Stick Float...

Nothing quite scratches a fishing itch quite like the rod bending round into a chub and it was this species i hoped to find on the session.  A few jobs to complete on Saturday morning i quickly set about completing these tasks and finally packed the car around 11am.

A cold over cast day with plenty of grey cloud cover greeted me as i loaded up the fish mobile who's skirts still sported the brown splatters of mud from the weekly commute the day before.  The car loaded with the bare essentials a warm glow of excitement inside polarised the cold air nipping at my nose, i felt confident of a bite.

Meandering along the B-Roads to the river the car bounced as it emptied the winter pot holes of their overnight rainfall, a salute to the buzzard on street lamp number 3 as i passed his usual station.  He looked as fed up of the weather as all us anglers of late but funny how this same bird sites on the same post every week.  The fields adjacent to the roads bare of their autumn crops that lay wrapped up tightly in bales next to the farmers barns and the whole landscape just had the mid winter feel to it.  A complete contrast to the greens and bright yellows of summer but none the less beautiful, fishing in all seasons is such a pleasure.

The river i was heading too was one we had not graced in a while but it still felt like i was heading to an old friend and the car, on auto pilot, knew the path to take.  Arriving at the venue and opening the car door for the first time you could feel that cold wet breeze hit your face, not an unpleasant winter breeze but the cool refreshing clean air breeze that only comes when beside running water.

The river looked in fine fettle her margins clear but more akin to weak tea than Gin,  the pace just faster than walking and not a breath of wind around it was a perfect day to be fishing a stick float.  The calm nature of the river now certainly had not been the case weeks earlier as the rivers raging dark side during the floods had deposited a whole tree upstream that pushed the flow more into the middle of the river than before but did mean the flow now pushed into and alongside a far bank overhanging tree.

The overhanging tree looked similar to our Christmas tree that we let our 3 year old lad and 5 year old daughter decorate, a mess! Its overhanging branches festooned with twigs and branches held in place against the tree by the constant flow it created a nice raft that just said one thing, Mr chubs home.

Tackling the swim would not be easy as the flow down the middle had created some slack water on the inside and keeping the line out of this would be crucial to presenting the float as naturally as possible.  I had my 14ft Drennan Acolyte in the holdall and i was aching to get some proper chub on it but i knew time was of the essence and every trot down had to count.  It was a day where the functionality of my 17ft Preston Innovations Carbon active float rod would rule of the style of the acolyte.  Its extra length would keep as much line as possible out of that slack.

My reel loaded with 4lb4oz Drennan Float fish on which sat a 6 number 4 dome top stick float and all this went down to a 1lb7oz Bayer Perlon hooklength and a size 18 micro barbed hook.  As i have said before on the chub blogs you don't need big hooks or heavy lines to catch chub and when the video of this session goes live hopefully it will show just how much pressure this set up can take, balanced tackle and a correctly set drag are key.

Long term blog followers will know i have used Cheshire Particle products throughout last year and such is the quality of the hemp seed that will continue through 2018's adventures.  As always with my blogging i wont be sat there head to toe in all the gear i will simply mention when i use the product and what i catch while using and if you like what you see head over to Cheshire Particle and try it out. You will not be disappointed, Marks puts a huge amount of time and effort in creating his particles and it shows in the final product and the fish it has help catch.

I knew the chub would be sat under the raft and ideally i did not want to have to go hunting them underneath the raft.  My plan was to feed the swim heavily with maggot and hemp and create a baited area of hemp just up and to the side of the snag to lure them out and feed heavily with maggot to have a steady stream of maggots going past their door.

Chub by nature are as crafty and cautious as them come, almost like the carp of the river, but once you break that cautious barrier they can be quite easy to fool and catch and their main down fall is their greed.  While setting up the gear i fed the swim heavily with 3 good pouches of hemp and the same of white maggot and at periods while setting up continued to feed well with the maggots.

By the time i come to make the first cast the swim had been primed for a good 20 to 30 minutes and as such it only took around 5 or 6 casts before the float buried and the rod arched round solid as a bold brassy chevin held station in the fast flow.  As defiant as they come the drag on the reel gave line slowly as it ticked over as a battle of wills was played out.  The key is remaining calm and making sure you do not lose the fish right in the zone you are fishing.  Eventually the chub kicked into the slack and i knew, as long as the slack had no snags, it was a case of playing it out under my control and a few seconds later the first chub was in my palms.

Chub fishing is the ultimate game of chess and this chub a pawn in the early exchanges and one that gave me great confidence as i knew where there was one there was like a shoal.  The key is not to be in too much of a hurry to cast back in.  The shoal will have spooked and needed luring back into participating in the game again so rather than casting back in i fed the swim heavily for a good 5 minutes with hemp and maggot.  The mindset early on is to pick off as many as you can preying on the sheer greed of the chub to feed.

The time for another cast came and after a few trots through the float again bolted under and a smaller chublet bundled its way through the flow.  It lacked the brutality of its earlier brother but still had the cunning to bolt for a tree stump under my feet.  This small chublet was followed by a small grayling that of course went straight back after its capture.

A close up of the small chub showing how small a hook you can use for chub.

Reading the swim is key but so is reading the captures and i knew the arrival of a grayling meant the shoal was still not in residence, simply put the chub would easily out bully this fish.  Keeping the flow of maggots going through the swim and the odd pouch of hemp seed patience was key.  Getting into a rhythm and inching the bait through the swim it took a good half an hour before the next fish and instantly i knew it was a better one as it swam up against the flow till level with my peg.

Solid on the bottom it lazily kicked its tail and moved over in the flow the rod bending in tandem with the fight and the clicks from the reels drag increased in frequency as the chub glided across the flow.  I knew this was the best fish so far and this was confirmed when a big set of white rubber lips broke surface the only issue was it did so mid flow.  Inching the chub closer in slowly it came into netting range and a proper chunk of a chub was mine.

After this fish a change of tactic was used, i went from feeding a huge amount of maggot to just 3 or 4 every trot through.  I knew the shoal was there and all the chub had mouth fulls of feed so i knew the fish where hungry and on the bait the reduction in amount of feed had them fish now competing for just a few maggots.

Under the water the chub where sitting picking off the maggots and hemp at will now they would be searching out the maggots as they competed and this tactic worked a treat as a few more chublets came in quick succession as this game of chess was played over the next few hours.

3pm came round as quickly as the float was burying with a chub bite and before i knew it we where moving into the last hour of the session.  The famous witching hour where i expected the chub to really come on.  In that last hour they did just that as bites came on successive casts that culminated in a proper barrel of a chub showing up.

The final net went just under 16lb of fin perfect chub and capped of a very enjoyable few hours on the bank.  The 17ft rod was really put through its paces and come through it still in only 3 pieces.  joking aside hopefully this session and the video on the blogs youtube channel shortly shows how robust this set up can be.

Till next time i wish you all tight lines, please check out the blogs youtube page on the link below, over a years worth of weekly videos on there.

link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCogqlnE3gK_Re7vdU5bv8sw

Danny

Fishing the Whip Using Mole Hill Soil and Free Kids Fishing!!

A warm welcome to this weeks angling blog i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  So we are now a few weeks into the year and i have to say i am feeling confident and optimistic for the year ahead.  The piking is still dreadful but i guess thats where being an all rounder adds strings to your bow as the roach fishing on the rivers has been fantastic and if i am honest has drew my attention more than the piking.

A nice update this week to the written blog where i will cover a session recently using mole hill soil ground bait for the fish and of course i am as busy as ever trying to keep all angles covered there is a video to go with the session as well.  So if you like a read you can read the blog and if you like to see it in action and on film then there is the youtube arm of the blog.

Thats it from myself point of view as the only thing i need to add is the fact my profile has gone live now on the Warrington Angling Centre website on the links below and there is one or two articles already on there.

link: http://www.warringtonangling.com/about-us/our-team/danny-bellfield/

Free Fishing For Under 16's!!

I was recently contacted by a club and asked if i would share some information on their club via the blog and social media.  As you all know i am all for getting the next generation out on the banks of the rivers, lakes and ponds so i was more than happy to help the club out.

"Free Fishing for kids under 16 at Twyford & District Fishing Club"

The Club is called Twyford and District Fishing club and is based just outside reading.  They have several stretches of the rivers Loddon, Thames and St Patricks Stream which offer fantastic barbel,chub, pike and silver sport.  The club also has lakes containing bream and carp as well as some beautiful ponds on the card.  

A Junior ticket last year cost £15.00 but in a fantastic move for angling the club has wavered this cost this year and with the fact the EA has also wavered the licence costs for children from April 1st it means youngsters under 16 can now fish this clubs waters for FREE!! 

If you are local follow this link and fill in the form: www.tdfc.org.uk. 

On to this weeks fishing:

River Fishing on The Whip using Mole Hill soil Ground Bait..

A video of the following session is available here:

After 2 weekends over time i was chewing at the bit to get out on the bank and wet a line so when the opportunity of two days came up on the leave i hastily booked the Thursday and the Friday off work.  The 3 days in work seemed to pass by in a second and i was soon getting the fishing gear into the hall on the evening of the session and preparing some rigs.

The next day was due to see a drop in temperature so i made the decision there and then not to go with the stick float and decided to fish a small whip.  The huge advantage here would be speed of course and also if we had a freeze over night then i knew there would be no issue with the rod rings freezing.

The night before i prepped one rig using my favourite 2lb 10z line and a nice fine hook length.  A simple light float was all that was needed as i knew with not much rain about i expected a low and clear river.

The whip was made up in seconds and put away in the holdall and i was all set for the session the next morning.  I have to say i was really excited as the 2 weeks exile had me itching to get out on the bank, if only to wisp away the cobwebs from 2 weeks at a desk.

I awoke the next morning to the ground glistening white and opening the front door i was met with a icy blast of cold refreshing air.  Not ideal but not exactly a disaster.  As an angler who fishes all year round i am more than accustomed to the bad weather this country can produce and to be honest opening the door to a hard frost fills me with more excitement than opening the door to it blowing a hooilie and raining.

The layer of ice removed from the car i set about my normal Thursday routine of dropping the kids off at school.  A few funny looks later from the teaches who seemed a little surprised to see me in thermal boots and fishing gear and not my normal work shirt and pants i was on my way to the bank.

The luxury i have of a weekend was evident straight away as i fought through rush hour traffic to get to the river, never an issue at 5am on a Sunday morning!

"With the Ground bait my whole aim was attracting the fish
and not feeding them so reducing feed content was essential"

I arrived at the bank and first job was to mix the ground bait.  The temperature was just above freezing cold so i knew feeding the swim was going to be a balancing act and this had to show in my ground bait.  My whole aim here is to attract the roach into the swim and not feed them. My mix on the day was Dynamite baits silver x ground bait, a fantastic silver fish ground bait all year round but like all ground baits it does contain a lot of feed like hemp and maize in i so the first job was to riddle the ground bait straight from the bag.

As you can see below just a quarter of a bag contains quite a lot of bulk feed

So the extra feed removed and up the bank i mixed the ground bait as normal and then passed the mix through a riddle to give me a nice fluffy ground bait base.  I then added the mole hill soil, i add here i had riddled the soil when it was harvested.  

The aim here is to bulk out the ground bait so you have a lot more to work with and also to reduce the feed content of the mix.  The mole hill soil is neutral and contains no feed at all so it means that every time i mix a ball up that ball contains a mixture of mole hill and ground bait so its not all ground bait going in the swim.  The mole hill soil will add colour and the ground bait adds the smell and attraction with little or no actual feed when the fish arrive.

The most important component when whip fishing is feeding.  You only have a certain arc and range in which you can catch fish so you need to feed in a way so the feed is on the bottom of going through the water in front of you.  Keeping the fish where you want them is key and you control this by feeding the swim correctly.

Too much feed will see the fish come up the peg and in the water and make them hard to catch while too little can see not enough fish attracted to the swim and can see the fish back off out of range where they know its safe.

In an ideal world you feed just enough to keep the fish in the swim and to attract more but still only enough to keep the fish in your swim competing for the food.  Once the roach are competing the formula is complete and the fishing really does become easy.

The feeding established i soon got into a rhythm,  cast in, feed, hold back, hold back and then strike.  Doing this i was soon putting fish in the net at a good rate and although the fish where not of any size i knew through sheer numbers a weight was possible.

It was literally a bite a chuck all session and by the end i had the fish right off the end of the whip.  When you get the feeding right and prepare your baits correctly you can have a really good and cheap days fishing.

The final net went 19lb and the only thing that saw me leave was the coldness on my hands from holding so many freezing cold roach.  I left the bank a little sad i didn't stay a but longer for the magical 20lb net but happy with the session and the footage i had put together.

Thank you for reading and please like and subscibe on the youtube channel to be alerted when videos go live.

till next time

tight lines

Danny

Do Seasons Still Exist? And A Stolen Few Hours For Silvers...

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Life is slowly getting back to some type of normality with me getting back in work and although there a huge loose ends to tie up there the schedule of 9 to 5 working life is setting back in.  The fishing blog side of things has never been as time consuming as it is now with the written main weekly blog, pike written diary and also the youtube videos arm of the blog now gaining momentum, its great fun to put it all together and really enjoying the video logs but i think next season the piking may have to reside in youtube only format or as part of the weekly written blogs with maybe the videos i do put together linked into the weekly main updates.

We will have to assess that come next year but for now lets get into the update.....

Do Seasons Still Exists..

Now i am nto for one second suggesting here that the 4 seasons we know and love are not there as we quite clearly have summer, autumn, winter and spring, what i am questioning is if those seasons still hold the same identity we assosiate with them.  For example we always link summer with hot temperatures and clear blue skies and for the past few years we have had what seems abut a 2 week period of what we would call a summer period of hot weather but we have also had deluges of rain.

Rivers in summer have been in full blown flood the last two summers as a result of pure heavy downfall.  Last week i recorded my first silver fishing video for the blogs youtube channel and it was done so in minus 2 degree temperatures, we forward to this weeks session and yesterday myself and my uncle where say with no thermals on at all in barmy 12 degree heat.....in DECEMBER!

Even today while i was doing a spot of piking in 11 degree heat all around be i noticed buds appearing on the trees, of course nature knows nothing of our calendar seasons so naturally they think its coming into spring.  I really do think the defining weather within our seasons is changing and long gone are the days of winter being a prolonged period of cold weather as we will now be looking at mixed weather seasons with severe fluctuations in temperature.

From my fishing point of view i just wish it would settle into a steady 1 or 2 degrees, odd frost here and there and then the fish will move into their winter haunts like they have now but will stay there.

Blog Media Pack...

Safe to say this week the blog took a step and dipped its toes into a serious world of companies.  Over the years i have always been contacted by companies with regard product reviews and other affiliate items.  Normally a few emails and all i sorted and ironed out with regards expectations.  This week a company asked for my "media pack", i was like "A whats??".  Long story short its a A4 piece of paper all about me and the blog.

So we are not very official and have our own "media pack".....it all sounds too much like blue peter to me when the presenters harped on about press packer packs....never got one of them either, not even a blue peter badge!

Youtube Blog Update...

So this week the first ever silver fishing video went live on the channel, to this point it had just been pike fishing, i have to say i was a little apprehensive as i didn't think the silver fishing would be a popular choice to do over the pike fishing but i was in for a surprise.  The silver video is well on its way to being the channels most popular video and im over the moon as it means i can cover all aspects of my fishing with confidence.

Check out the silver fishing here:

With regards the channel itself it is really doing well and well beyond my expectations.  As of writing the blog it is on 89 subscribers so only a few to go till we reach 100 subs.  As with all aspects of the blog i have no problem in letting the page grow slowly preferring a 100 people to like it because they like the content rather than 300 liking it to win a beanie!

Check out the video and if you like please subscribe..

On to the fishing..

A few Stolen Hours For Silvers...

Writing this i feel i should change the title to be more festive and call it a few Stollen hours but i fear some would not get it and the spelling police would be all over me.  I do digress, this session was around a week before the silvers video above.  Coming out of a period of heavy rain we had blanked big time on the weekend session and it really was not a surprise with the rivers all over in full flood which saw us trying our luck and failing on the upper reaches of the river.  We had hoped this would be the first place the colour would drop but in reality we where on there right on the rise and beginning of the fall.

A few days later and the river was still carrying colour but she had lost her pace and a few feet in depth and looked bang on for some bites.  A simple 6 number 4 stick float down to a hook length of  2lb kamasan perlon line and a size 18 hook.  Bait for the day as always red maggot and hemp.

I literally only had around 3 or 4 hours for this session and setting up i did not really know if the river was right for the fish to feed.  This section always does well with colour but i knew a few days earlier we did not get a bit in 8 hours fishing.  All set up it was time make the first cast and down the swim my float trundled.  Half way down i clipped bottom so a slight adjustment to the float was needed and back to it.  It took a while for the first bite and i did get a little worried but right at the end of the swim i struck into a tiny roach.

I kept the bait going in and this one tiny roach told me i could catch well.  Most would say how do you know from one tiny roach but? In my thinking if one small roach can see my bait then others can and these fish are never alone so i knew it was only time till the next fish.

With this better stamp or roach coming i knew it was going to be a decent session on the bank.  I steadily fed hemp and maggot into the swim and bites where soon coming regular and the bites that where right at the end of the run where soon mid way up on my hemp, where i wanted them.

The swim then died and the fish moved instantly right back to the bottom of the swim, i knew it was not pike as it would have nailed one of the small roach coming through the swim.  A hard hold back on the hemp revealed the culprit, a nice chub had muscled in the swim.

As the session went on this would repeat its self a few times,  Small roach and then it would die and a better roach or chublet would come, all a dream to catch on my drennan acolyte plus rod, i love this rod to bits what a piece of kit and a joy to use.

The final net was one that recharged my batteries for the week ahead and took away the blues form that hard blank earlier on in the week.

well thats another update to the blog rounded off,

till next time i wish you all

tight lines

Danny.

New Blog Supporter....Welcome Fishing.TV

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  We will get straight into the blog update this week as there is quite a bit i want to cover.  There is some fishing at the end of this update but it is more of an update about a blog supporter and myself than the fishing this week. 

On to the Update...

Welcome Fishing.TV

Some of you may have noticed new advertisements on the side panel of the blog and i am really pleased to announce that as of a week or two ago Fishing.Tv is now officially a supporter of Dannys Angling Blog.

Fishing.TV offers a wide selection of fishing based programmes that can be rented out for a set period of time.  You purchase coins from the site and each programme costs you a certain amount of coins to rent.  I have been playing around with this over the past few weeks and i have found it to be really enjoyable.

The best feature for me has been the fact that the company not only has a website but also has backed this up with Apps on your phone.  This meant that if i was on the laptop i could watch content on there but also if i had a spare bit of time of an evening or even on my dinner break in work i could quickly get my angling fix at the touch of a button.

The content they offer is amazing quality, being available in HD, and the content on offer i found very varied covering Match, Fly, Carp and Predator fishing, with match and predator obviously grabbing my attention. The content available on there looks to be very varied within the Genre and the programmes i rented where both as informative as they where action based.

Check out their website for yourself using any of the links on the blogs side bars.

Hows the Vlogging???

I have to say i was very very apprehensive when i set up the blogs Youtube channel.  In general i am quite a shy person and although come out of my shell when i know people well it does take me time and as such was very unsure about even doing this venture at all.

So there are around four or five videos on the blogs youtube channel now and i have to say i have loved every minute of it so far.  All things start of small,  i love that,  as you can see the development of yourself and your content over time.  Even early on now the videos have gone from around 3 minutes long to one of the upcoming ones touching 10 minutes.

The actual recording of the blogs is quite addictive if i Am honest and i am slowly learning little tricks to speed up the editing of the blog as well.  There has also been plenty of positive feedback in the comments section and on websites around areas i can improve them and slowly and surely they have been Incorporated into the blogs.  The main additions being the addition of music, less talking on the intro and more information on how i catch the fish.

The content so far has all been pike based buit i can see next spring and summer carp trips and trips to the river and canal also getting a look in.

Please take a second to subscribe to the channel here:

Dannys Angling Blog Social Media......

The social media side of the blog has really grown over the past year and depending on what format you are on you can keep up with the blog on all formats on line now.  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube are all formats now where content is posted on a regular basis.

All can be found on the following links:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCogqlnE3gK_Re7vdU5bv8sw
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/DannysAnglingBlog/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/satonmyperch


On to the Fishing...

Cold Snaps Produce Mixed Results...

When a venue gets under your skin it can be very hard to motivate yourself to go other haunts you have been and fished before.  We again headed for the venue we have fished the passed few weeks and the hope was that the cold snaps would condense the shoals and also bring them hard on the feed.

A change of venue or scenery was needed but also was the urge to suss this new venue out remembering once it was sussed it would form part of our venue choices from season to season.  This blog is a living document for anyone in the world to see but it also acts as a detailed diary for myself to look back on and look where we did well and where we did bad in years gone by.

The leaves all around now are a array of coppers, browns, dark greens and amber's as the trees all begin to shed their summer blankets.  We are well into the change now form summer into winter and for me this is the time i get excited and as the days get colder i wake up happy at that nip on my feet as i walk on the kitchen floor.  All around people wrapped up in thick coats and the odd scarf, all add that little bit of cheer to the ordinary commute to work for me.  My wait now is for that first morning when that first hard frost of the year nips hard at my nose as i open the front door.

Arriving at the venue it was bitterly cold and from the look all around it was not getting much warmer.  The sun rising over our shoulders did little to warm the air where we sat beneath a thick blanket of trees.  The skee tex thermal boots where a necessity on this session and come the end i was glad of their warm company.

Its safe to say that you look back on sessions and sometimes you can pin point your error and i think on this one i made it very very early on.  Having fished the area heavily over the passed few weeks i again mixed up a good amount of ground bait with the usual addition of mole hill soil.  In went 5 balls on the line and i have to admit at the time i expected to go straight over the bait and catch.

I did this quite well and in no time i was getting steady bites from roach that occasionally where of a nice stamp.

As normal i continued to feed with the swim with maggot and back this up with a ball of ground bait every 15 minutes.  The bites continued and i continued to feed for that first hour and then the swim died and i could not get a bite.  We had seen no activity in all the trips from pike on here so i ruled this on out quickly but thinking better fish had moved in i continued to feed the swim.

The swim declined then and for a good few hours it was a case of a odd fish here and a odd fish there but there was no consistency to it.  I stopped feeding the ground bait and going to a completely opposite stance i started up a new swim and fed it lightly with just pinkies.

This change to a completely negative approach worked a treat and i began picking up some nice fish on double pinkies.

I dont think i would have got away with this as i did had i not been fishing in such a depth of water.  The last two hours of the session till 3pm we both picked up some fish and it seemed as the day went on the bites came on better.  It got us thinking that maybe this place is worth trying into dark on an afternoon session.

The final net showed how sport had been hard to come by on the day with our joint net going around the 20lb mark when on previous weeks the individual nets had been around that mark.

till next week i wish you all

tight lines

danny

Roach Fishing on Pole and Pike Vlogs go live...

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Been a bit of a week for the old Dannys Angling Blog in terms of expanding into new areas and also a new blog sponsor but there will be more on that in the coming weeks.  The fishing this week is another session for roach on the pole but this time i have a game plan.

Pike Videos Go Live on Youtube......

So yes i finally bit the bullet last week and headed off into the night with my phone and a phone older in tow.  Driving along the road i pressed record and began speaking.  It came surprisingly easy the first recording and it seemed to flow nicely, a few fish on the session helped greatly to put together a nice video.  As i mention in the video it is going to take time to get to grips with the new format and learning to capture little clips on the bank that will fill the gaps between fish and give the video another dimension.

First Pike Session Video:

After publishing the first video the second soon followed and you can find that on the channel there as well.  There will certainly be more videos coming on the channel so subscribing is also an option if you so wish.  The videos have done better than i could have imagined with over a few hundred views between them and some nice comments on the videos.  It really has taken me back to when i first started this written blog and remember getting 100 views in the first months blogging and being over the moon and i am hoping in time and with patience this addition to the blog will develop the same way.

Pike Blog 2016/2017

I have decided to again write a pike blog of the season in diary format.  It makes the season read as a story from start to fishing and the weeks where i do a vlog will make putting the pike blog together really simple.  It keeps the piking on its own little bit of the blog and gives it the respect the time and effort i put into it deserves.  I put as much effort into my piking as i do my other fishing so for it to be just a add on bit on the end of the normal weekly blog feels a little like i am doing the trips an injustice.  Keep your eyes on the top bar of the blogs page for the 2016/2017 pike blog going live in the next week or so.

The pike season so far has been really fun with a few pike on the bank despite the barmy warm day time temperatures we have been experiencing of late.  Some mornings have been as low as 44 degrees rising to close to 70 degrees when i was leaving at 3pm, it might have been bad for the piking on dead baits but wobbling has put fish on the bank.  More on that in the pike blog though.

on to this weeks fishing...

Roach Fishing on The Pole

As we walked back to the car on the previous session we got talking to a guy who had fished the area extensively and he did mention a few interesting bits of information that added weight to our findings during the session.   Our session had thrown up over 30lb of mainly roach with the odd perch and gudgeon thrown in for good measure.  This guy mentioned about bronze bream shoals and having to put the bait in to get them to come in and feed.

With this information still ringing in my ears i set about a plan of attack for the venue.  I was going to try and ignore the fact the fish could be in the really deep water down the middle and hope that the fish would be willing to come up the shelf in the warmer conditions to find my bait.  Speaking of bait it was 2 pints of maggot and a pint of hemp seed all to be mixed into my ground bait mix which was 2kg of ground bait with about 40% of that being mole hill soil mix.

Again moil hill hunting gained a few funny looks..

Sat on my box i took my time in setting up and getting my ground bait mix right.  Plumbing the depth i found around 8ft on my top two plus one section of pole and it slowly went out before it really dropped away.  I knew i had to keep my feed on the inside of my line and knew i would probably end up chasing some bites down the gradual slope as the session went on.

So lined up where a few big balls of ground bait laced with hemp and maggot.  to me it was quite a lot of bait to be feeding before i had even started fishing but i was a man with a plan today and i knew from the previous session that the river held enough fish to clear this little big of bait up.

Although only fishing my top two kit and my number four section out i knew accuracy was key so i fed with the large cupping kit on the line and fed in line with a tree on the far bank.  In went to balls of ground bait and in two of the cups i also added a good helping of maggot.

The swim fed it was time for the first cast and i remember the first 10 minutes being really frustrating with me hooking fish but them coming off.  I then remembered i had used the rig from the previous week and checking my hook it was about as sharp as the thick end of a piece of wood, no good.  A quick chance of hook and i was soon turning bites into fish.

Roach after roach was coming on the line i had fed and i was now left with a huge question, how do i feed the swim?  Remember this river fishing on the pole and ground bait is all new to me and although ground bait plays a huge part on my canal fishing but i have not done much fishing on rivers with ground bait and certainly never mixed up 2kg of ground bait for a session!

I decided i would set myself a routing of feeding and every 30 mins regardless of bites or the swim i was going to feed the swim with 1 or 2 balls of ground bait.  I started to pick up the odd small skimmer adding fuel to the mans comments the previous week about the river holding bream, not that i didn't believe him of course.

As the swim developed and progressed some nice Rudd began to show shallow and with them some better roach.  There was signs of fish feeding in the swim with bubbles coming off my ground bait area but to this point none had found my bait.

I was catching steadily and the lulls in action where short before i began picking up fish and i knew i was amassing a nice net of fish that i hoped would beat last weeks total of 16lb.  A hour or two of the session to go i was thinking i had done so and when i had a chat to my uncle i was thinking around the mid teens in weight in the net.

During the last hour i upped the feed rate to every 15 minutes a big ball of ground bait went in and in it a decided to mix some micro pellets and this made a huge difference.  I began to catch some skimmers to around the pound mark and these extra fish in the sack i felt confident i had beaten last weeks total.

That dreaded time of the week came round, 3pm this time of year on a Saturday, time to pack in and begin the trek home.  Always a time of the week where you know the adventure for that week is over.  Lifting my net out i could tell i had a decent net when i strained to lift it out the water, into my rubber mesh landing net on the scales they went, just under 28lb of fish. I was over the moon.

My uncle had also caught steady all day on the pole and his net added 16lb to the total.  A combined weight of over 40lb of silvers form a completely new waterway.  I had recently been in a conversation with someone on facebook who claimed to know how to fish, so didnt need my help, despite them asking where i was fishing,  i am still awaiting his net to be posted with the co-ordinates of the swim ;-)

till next time

i wish you all tight lines

Danny

Barbel Blues and Sneaking on the Pike Shoes...

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Pike, Pike, Pike and more pike has all that's been flowing through my mind the past week.  The excitement to get out there and catch them is there, even if it only seems seconds ago the season finished, but the weather at the moment is making it really difficult to imagine casting out a dead bait in earnest for these fish.

In this weeks blog i look a little more at my ideas and thought for the upcoming season and incorporated in this will be a little bit or reason as to why i decided to hit the bank with the idea of catching a pike this weekend.  The other fishing is a session on the river for barbel, a species i have not really given enough time and attention to if i am honest over the past month or two.

Lets get into the update..

Piker with a Plan

So we stand on the cusp of another pike season and with it a whole host of memories are waiting to be created and lived and i can not wait to find out what this season has to hold for me.  The past few seasons we have always had a numeric target for the three of us to aim.  Past seasons have proved this idea to be a fun target to aim for but needing numbers of pike it does put you off trying those areas for quality rather than quantity so this year i wont be getting involved in chasing a numeric total of individual pike.

Last season i did set myself a target of 10 double figure pike and i think given the venues i fished last season this 10 doubles was an obtainable and nice target to go at so again this season i will be setting myself a personal goal of 10 double figure pike.  A target I hit last season and a target i actually enjoyed chasing.  In my piking i think as the season goes on it gives you that push to keep on getting out trying for pike even on the days where it seems a complete waste of time.

10 doubles will be a nice target to chase and I'm hoping will also fit in with my change of direction with my piking this season.  The past two and a half seasons i have been very lucky to share the bank with anglers who have been piking a good number of years and there is no escaping that hours spent on the bank with experienced pikers has seen my learning and understanding of pike fishing drastically truncated.  Although my main focus of going fishing with other pikers is for the laugh, chin wag and hopefully catch the odd pike while there you can not go fishing with someone who has been piking over 20 years and not learn and improve yourself as an angler.

This season i hope to start on a new adventure on a bigger waterway and take some of the lessons learnt and try and adapt them for fishing for pike on my own.  Using my water craft mixed with my determination to put the hours in i'm hoping i will find some success.  Last season i tried a new area of water and managed to bank some small pike and a few doubles so i would  ecstatic to replicate those results but as with all fishing you don't know until you get out there with a bait in the water, right now? I am chomping at the bit to get out, lets hope the pike are as veracious.

On to this weeks fishing...

Barbel Blues...

So far i have done two evening trips for barbel fishing into dark with two eels and a lost barbel to show for my efforts.  I say efforts loosely as in all honesty i do not deserve to put a barbel on the bank right now, i have put minimal effort into it and the time just has not been there to travel to the river to try for these fish.  I think there are a number of factors surrounding why the effort hasn't been there but mainly it just hasn't grabbed me like new adventures normally do and i don't think it has helped that i have enjoyed and had success in my carp fishing adventures this summer.  A venue a lot closer than the river as well.

That said recently we decided to go back and try the river again.  My uncle on the stick float and myself sitting it out for a barbel or chub.  My bait for the day was luncheon meat that had been cut at home and frozen in a food bag that contained a mixture of chili flakes, hot chili powder and garlic granules and i planned to fish this over a big bed of hemp seed so i boiled up 3 pints of chili flavoured hemp.

The day was going to be a warm one so i picked a swim that on paper looked a dream.  It had bags of cover and a good depth, in fact it would make a cracking winter swim i reckon.  Settled back in the swim i made my first cast of the day and sat back.  No action for two hours but i continued to drip feed hemp into the swim and a good hand full of hemp every 30 minutes.

Out of the blue with no warning the tip walloped round and striking i expected to feel the reistance of a fish but the rig just come back at me.  Casting back in i fed hemp again and sat back in my seat waiting for a second chance.  The chance came sooner than i thought around 15 mins after casting in the tip again went round but again nothing was on the end.

A change of tactics to a bigger hook, size 4 instead of a size 6, i was back into the swim.  A long wait till our midday pack up saw the tip go round again with the same result.  A frustrating day on the bank to say the least, i would say at least one was a barbel judging by the how hard the tip went round but not knowing barbel fishing i don't really know where i went wrong.  I upped the size of hook which was buried in the meat i can only think maybe increasing the weight of the lead maybe bit all the books say fish with enough to hold bottom and my one ounce lead was doing that easily.

All part of the learning curve and with piking coming up soon i think the barbel may well have to wait for next summer now and a rethink on tactics as it seems location is nailed in me getting bites.  This update should please those followers who believe we catch every visit we go out lol.

Sneaking on the Pike Shoes....

I have been doing my homework for some time now with regards the upcoming pike season.  I have been scouring Google earth and printings out maps of my destinations for the coming months whilst making the odd visit to plumb the depths of the areas in want to fish.

Baring rain fall and the water being up and coloured i have earmarked one location for a visit come Saturday 1st October.  It has a nice summer depth and a few features on top and beneath the water that really interests me with regards pike and with that in mind we decided to visit it for a day session on the pole recently.

My plan for the day was simple, fish the pole for silvers and put a rod out to the side on a live bait paternoster for a pike. Prepping the Paternoster rig the night before it felt weird prepping a pike rig as it only feels like 5 minutes since i packed the pike gear away.

My main focus on the day was to fish the pole to the best of my ability and as such preparation for the pole was as in depth as the preparation for the piking.  I must admit though i got some really really funny looks this week collecting my molehill soil.  I knew rain was coming in the evening so it was on my way home from work i decided it best to collect the dry soil form the molehill.  There i was, dressing in my work shirt and pants, at the side of the road at rush hour riddling molehill soil into a bucket.  All in the name of fishing, some of the looks where priceless.

The preparation done it was time to see the next morning if the location had any legs in it from a pike point of view.  I know this should really be the session on the 1st of october but excitement got to much for me.  The first fish caught won the prize as a live bait and the pike rig held up well in the water as it allowed the fish to move freely around a centre point and the bigger float was enough to hold it there with a weak bit of 5lb line as a rotten bottom to a lead.

The whole process of adding molehill soil to my ground bait is new to me but i am learning a few lessons and will be posting a in depth blog about this in the coming weeks.  The ground bait mixed i added the soil till i got the mix i was looking for.  I was aiming for a 50/50 mix as i wanted there to be feed as well as colour in the mix and i think i achieved that.

The bites where steady on the pole line bit there where not many better fish showing on the line.  The swim as producing mainly roach and the odd perch at around 5 metres.  I was hoping for the odd bream to show and as i fished the pole line i kept one eye on my pike rod and on the water for signs of pike striking.

It was becoming clear that the area held a decent number of silver fish at this time of year and with one predator in the perch already here in numbers i knew the apex predator would not be far behind.  It took around a hour and half but eventually one found the bait and the paternoster float began to move off into the deeper water.  Temperatures warm it was a quick strike, in fact it was an instant strike, trying my best to avoid foul hooking the pike.

Worth remembering here i was not really out pike fishing i just wanted to gauge if the area was any good for pike come october.  A nice pike around 6lb was soon on the bank and one treble right on the tip of its mouth it was soon unhooked and back int he water to rest.  A quick lift out for a picture and back in till he was fully recovered and ready to go.

A fantastic result so far with plenty of bait fish and a lovely marked pike showing.  The fish continued to bite on the pole line till our midday pack up.  The ground bait did not bring any bream in but the perch did muscle the roach out in the end and it was a perch a chuck for the final hour or so of the session.

I decided to try a perch as a live bait just to prove to myself that pike will take these fish as well as roach and this plodded away on the paternoster that again showed itself to be a great rig and one i will certainly be using come october, especially if the temperatures are still high.

The final net showed a great number of bait fish in this area.

This was proved when the pike rod went again while we where drying our nets in the sun.

All in all a worthwhile exercise and one that sets me up nicely for october 1st.  I now know the area holds pike and come that opening days session i am going to be hitting the bank confident in this area and if i get the same result then i will be over the moon.

Till next time

tight lines

Danny

Morning Fun on the river with Acolyte Plus....

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Its been a mad week this week in work so i find myself on a Sunday morning putting this weeks blog update together, a cold wet day on the river yesterday where i forgot my umbrella means i am just about drying off now! Id like to say it was worth it but as you will read in next weeks update it was a fruitless trip.

On with this update and we start with a addition i have made to the kitchen, yes the kitchen! A place i thought was only for boiling hemp seed and preparing luncheon meat turns out there is more too it than meets the eye.  I do jest of course but this addition could turn out to be a bit of a game changer.  The next part of the update is a little trip on bank holiday Monday with my little daughter who madly turned 4 last week!!  The main bit of fishing is a short trip on the river where i literally had a hour or so to target its occupants, sit back grab a brew and lets get into the update.

A Great Addition...

As regular blog readers will know i am quite fond of my winter pike fishing and at the start of each season a few of us put together a bulk order of dead baits from a website. I myself am now moving into my 3rd season on the run piking and as such i feel i have learnt a good number of lessons about the venues i fish and more so around what baits i will probably be using this season.  My first bait order back in 2014 i was like a kid in a sweet shop and ordered a multitude of different baits but only a few samples of each and i spent around 20 odd quid.

This year is a lot different and i will go into more detail on the contents of my bait order and why i have chosen these baits in next weeks update when the order is here but it is safe to say a bait order of near £50.00 has presented its own problem.  Till now i have been splitting my bait order between two fridges at my house and my dads and i have to say its caused a bit of friction, not least last year when my partner defrosted half a kilo of roach instead of chicken for tea!

Problem was resolved on Friday when i collected my very own bait freezer! The bait order due on Tuesday it will soon be full but it also offers me some great time saving opportunities as i am planning on boiling up pint sized bag so f hemp so i can literally gab a frozen bag on  Friday evening rather than having to boil it up after work.

Bank Holiday Fun With My Little Fisher.

Bank holiday Monday and with the other half in work i asked my little girl if she fancied going fishing with daddy, of course she jumped at the opportunity to catch some little fish.  The weather was not ideal as it was quite windy and to be honest heading for the canal at 10am is never a great time as there is a good reason you see my canal blogs are from first light till 10am and this down to one thing..boats! Boats don't really do much damage to your fishing but on this canal it is not just the one its four or five at a time when they get going.

My daughter is only 4 this week so i am knew to the whole taking her fishing but i have picked up one big lesson over my years fishing and that is KEEP THE SESSIONS SHORT.  Over the years i have lost count how many times i have been fishing and seen dads taking their kids fishing and a hour or two in the dad is pulling his hair out, kid is crying to go home bored and the whole thing is not fun at all.

A short session on the local canal using up some maggots on the short whip.  The development is there in here fishing as last year she knew she was catching fish but was not really understanding the whole float going under where as in the sessions this year she has put two and two together and on this short session of only a half an hour she struck all these bites herself!

She was more than made up with her little net of fish and she left the water full of excitement from the little amount of fishing she had just done.  Right now half an hour to an hour is about right for her to go and not lose interest.  It might be the last session of the year for me and my little girl fishing as i dont think she is ready to be sitting waiting for a bite.

Packing up we where rewarded with a visit from the local swam family,

One of the things i love about fishing is the development of the wildlife through the year, my how they have come on.  Well done mum and dad!

Morning Fun On the Acolyte...

Having purchased my 14ft Acolyte a few weeks ago i have found opportunities to get some use out of the rod few and far between and with my car also playing silly beggars with spare wheels being employed till pay day and such like it has meant long distance trips have been out of the question.  The recent roach nets as the bolo method suggested have been on a deeper rivers so the 17ft rod has been my tool of choice giving my that extra control.

A few days off work last week for a short family trip to Blackpool i arrived back with a day to spare before the return to work on the Thursday.  I was determined to get out on the river so a slow drive to the river was in order.  I arrived to find her as low as i have ever seen her and to be honest i knew the length of the session would not be down to myself as much as how long the fish would not spook from the dark deep recesses they where residing in.

Reading the river in these scenario really is child's play and about as easy as watercraft comes.  Anywhere you can not see the bottom there will be fish and all the spots that look lovely and serene with wavy green weed dancing the the rivers methodic beat forget about as the fish in such low clear conditions just wont be on these shallows.

I settled in a nice swim on the inside of a bend.  The water rushing round the out side of the bend had created a 10 to 15ft deep run with the back eddy and slacker water on the inside under my feed carving out a deeper whole in the river bed.  I knew the fish would be under there and it was a case of how many not if i would get a bite.

The first few casts brought two really fat plump dace that in february could go on to be very special fish indeed.

The dace kept popping up one by one at a time and bites where hard to come by and i was working hard each time to get a bite, holding the float back as much as a dared to prolong the time my bait was in the killing zone of darker water.  The swim did go through a lull and i knew straight away the big chub had come into the line of feed and muscled out the dace.  A theory that was confirmed seconds later when the float buried, as only chub do, resulting in a more than healthy bend in toe acolyte rod.

I can not express enough just how much of a joy these rods are to use they are as light as air and the action in them when you get a better fish is fantastic.  The have you on the edge of your box as you play a fish and you do need to play the fish.  If you are an angler that is hit and hold and give no ground in  the fight type of angler then you are certainly going to end up with a three piece rod becoming a five piece rod really quickly, you have to actually play the fish with these rods.

The chub was soon followed by the next family member in the shoal and then as predicted the chub show was over and the dace packed up not long after them.  It left a swim full of gudgeon and oh my god what a joy it was to bag up on these mini barbel for a good half an hour of so and there was some lumps among them!

Eventually the sun came over the trees behind me illuminating the whole swim in its warming glow.  We live in a world full of electrical alarms and clocks when the truth is that if you spend time on the bank you kind of fall into a time when there was no break down of the beautiful day into hours and minutes and learn to follow natures own time zone.

In short it was an enjoyable little few hours on the river before the bustling world around me awoke for their daily musings, i was gone long before the roads became busy and back home in time for a warm break fast.

Sat drinking my coffee and tucking into a bacon buttie i reflected on a morning of bliss spent beside a beautiful river as i watched the last of my worries from my working life float off down stream and left feeling refreshed and ready to attack the two days in work before my next angling adventure into the unknown.

till next time i wish you all tight lines

Danny