Pondip Blog Live and New Swim Trecks!

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Well i arrived at the bait shop on Friday and unfortunately there was no replacement rod section waiting for me, no fault of the shops just no Preston orders had come in that week, fingers crossed for this week.  A tough start to the working week today as i feel the pain from a weekend trampling through the undergrowth and of course that monday morning blues feeling of no fishing for a few days.  A third cup of coffee of the morning just arrived on my desk so fingers crossed that this much needed caffeine gets me through this afternoon.

Since the birth of our children my fishing has remained structured but the writing of the blog has been all over the place but i finally feel that i am finding some much needed structure to my week with writing my blog on my dinner hour in work.  Jotting my ideas for the blog down over the weekend while fishing means i am now starting writing the blog on the Monday and hopefully this will see me starting to publish my blog on Friday evenings.

On to this weeks blog update.. http://blog.pondiptacklebox.com/coarse-fishing-2/canal-bait-2/

Down at the Bottom of the Garden....

Now we all remember the famous program as kids called the poddington pea's,  respect to those currently signing the theme tune!! But this week i was literally down at the bottom of my garden amongst the birds and the bees, i didn't see a lot of Little people but i did find a gem right at the back of my garden that i never knew was there.  This gem is a elderberry plant and although not yet in full bloom it soon will be and for me as an angler it means i can now have a go fishing with elderberries over hemp seed.  A great little find!

I will be leaving this a few days to come into full bloom and hopefully i will beat the birds to this bounty, do they even eat them? sure they do.  The first session they are ripe i will be taking a few to the bank and trying them out.  The end of the garden is a right little Aladdin's cave of surprises though with a Apple tree currently laden with apples, any ideas on variety appreciated in the comments section.  There is also some form of berry tree as well and i am informed its not the best thing to make cherry pie from so i will be giving these a miss but the apples might get a look in if they are edible.

All in all with the bird feeders up the garden has been a real surprise this year.  What started out as a overgrown wild garden is slowly getting to a managed state and the wealth of wildlife is astonishing from robins, finches and sparrows to hedgehogs, frogs and squirrels.  These have mainly come from the bird table but most have had little don't to attract them in so i can only imagine the oasis we could have if we really directed some energy towards their habitat.

Natural History Museum.....Great Day Out!!

Bank holiday weekend and we decided to make a trip into Liverpool town centre to visit the Natural History Museum.  All i can say is WOW! what a fantastic day out and set up they have there it really was a great day out and i have to say it was done in the right way.  The exhibitions are set over 5 floors with aquariums, space rockets, dinosaur bones, preserved animals and a bug zone to name a few areas they had.  As an angler i was of course pulled by the aquarium bit and it was fantastic to see so many children fascinated by the fish on show.

We had recently visited the Blue Planet aquarium and it was a nightmare with every room containing children's rides or sweet vending machines, all these do is distract the attention of the children and you are left with kids crying to go on rides rather than looking at the fish, in short had we wanted to go the fair ground we would have gone Alton Towers.  This place had none of that and it showed in the fact all the kids where looking at the fish and reading the information on show.  This spoke volumes for me and it is a place where entry is free!.

Parking right outside the place and i think it was £3.00 for a few hours parking.  All in all a great day out and a place i fully recommend for taking the kids too.  I know its not angling related but thought it worthy of a share.

Pondip Blog Goes Live.....

My most recent blog for Pondip Tackle Boxes went live this week.  It is the second instalment of my canal baits series i am writing for them.  This blog looks at castors and hemp seed for fishing the canal and the results it can bring.  We all live close to a canal and even the most neglected of waters can hold a decent head of fish, in fact waters that are gin clear and you can see the bottom all the way across are not always the best quality for fish to survive.  Why not have a read of the blogs and try your local canal and even better drop me a email or message on facebook and i will feature it in one of the blogs.

link to Pondip  Blog: http://blog.pondiptacklebox.com/coarse-fishing-2/canal-bait-2/

On to this weeks fishing

What is going on!

So Saturday morning and we pulled up on the banks of the river dane and in the gloom of the early morning light the river was looking in tip top shape.  We walked the banks looking at all the swims before deciding on where to fish.  We are always out on the bank at first light and are very rarely beaten to a peg if we really have one in mind but on this river that is not even an issue as the gear stays in the car and we walk the banks looking at the swims before even getting the gear so confident are we no one will be on the peg when we arrive back.

By the time we walked back to the car the river was fully visible and she looked in mint condition in fact as rivers go she was bang on!  The river was carrying a little bit of water, had a nice pace but more importantly she had a lovely colour.  You could not see the bottom in the middle and the edges where just visible.  Having fished the rivers for a few years you begin to understand how they fish and in both mine and my uncles opinion it looked class and we expected a decent days sport.

I set up in a swim where i placed my basket actually in the water and fished a few yards into the river.  The main glide on this swim was on my side of the river so it was nothing more than a two rod length cast to be on the line i wanted to fish.  I fed the swim with maggots and fed it slightly down stream so i was confident the fish would not be right up on the feed and my float was settled by the time i got to the swim.  A few pouches of hemp seed and i was all ready to set up my 13ft float rod loaded with 5lb line and a 1.7lb hook length.

The fishing from the off was frantic as the fish moved right onto the feed and a shoal of chublet where obviously in residence as the early exchanges where dominated by these fish with their mouths laden with maggots.

At this point it was looking like we were set in for a good days sport as i could also hear my uncle some 50 yards down stream confidently striking into bites.  Chublet and the odd roach coming each cast you begin to think it could be a good days fishing with a decent net.  The float rarely made it to my bed of hemp seed at this point and i must admit alarm bells where ringing as the bites where beginning to feel frantic and not the settled swim you really want when trotting a float.  I persevered with it but slowly i could feel the bites ebbing as i went further down the swim and onto my hemp seed where i found the odd skimmer had taken up residence.

This was around a hour into the day and i will never forget this skimmer as it was literally the last fish i caught on the session as the swim died.  From a bite a chuck to nothing and the float going through the swim with not so much as a knock, "it can not be right this" i thought in my head "all these fish can not just go!".  This time i was determined to do all i could so out came the maggot feeder rod and ground bait and i began fishing on the tip where i had fed my hemp.

The tip remained as motionless as the float and i even decided to risk a cast right on top of a over hanging tree where there just had to be a fish lurking but still the tip remained motionless.  My head ticking over i could only imagine a predator had moved in so i set up a small live bait rig.  If any predator was in the swim it must have been blind as this live bait was doing all you would want it to do making a commotion and frantically moving all over the swim.

I have said in previous blogs this place is getting me down and i have to admit on Saturday i finally gave up.  I literally said stuff this and packed my gear away and went to see how my uncle was doing.  He was a good 50-100 yards down stream and his swim had literally mirrored mine and he was going through with not a knock.  I took a picture of my net and thought about what to do next.

Not one to waste time

We had plenty of the day left so we decided to pack in and do some investigation into some other areas of the river i had researched in the last few weeks.  The first was a stretch miles upstream and upon getting out the car we where met with head high balsam and nettles.  We grabbed the bank sticks and began hacking a route through to a point where we could at lease see the river.

like with most rivers you get through some of the under growth and you find big open expanses of bank behind it and so was the case with this.  The river was really neglected so a lot of fallen trees had gone into the river and had not been removed but the whole area screamed fish and had some really nice glides.  Getting the gear to the swims was going to be a nightmare so we made our way back the car and vowed to return another time to hack a route through and fish the swims we found and we headed off to another area we had explored the previous week with a view to seeing if it held any fish at all such was its remote location.

Armed with a shovel we began digging in some foot holes and a place to sit on the steep banks.

We fished the swim for a hour or so in the blistering heat, not the best time to be wetting a line on a shallow river but we knew these fish would not have seen a bait so we where confident of getting an idea of species present.  My uncle set up just upstream and we took it in turns to trot the swim.  Early trots down saw us catching bottom as the swim gradually got shallow but eventually we found a line and to our surprise some stinking dace came to the net!!

By the end of the hour or so on the bank we had caught a few nice dace that showed us this area does have some potential and is worth us dedicating time to this area.

We left again a little frustrated with the days action and we are yet to find an area that can sustain a day session and produce a decent net of fish.  Moving and picking around is not how we fish and its really becoming a problem.  Hopefully this coming weekend my rod will be here and we can make some moves to other rivers.

Till next week i wish you all tight lines

Danny

Big Chub Nets And Piking On Ice....

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your new year nets wetter than 2014.  The sessions mentioned in this blog will round up the fishing action for 2014.  Introduction wise we discuss how the festive period has been for myself with the new family member,  I look back on my best session of 2014 and although i still have a few pike sessions to cover i begin to look at what the next month holds as we move into the best time of year for a big predator.

Festive Times The Best Ever....

So its safe to say Christmas 2014 has been a Christmas like no other in our household as we welcomed our little man to the world on the 19th and eventually got out of hospital on the 22nd December right in time for manic preparations for Christmas (and a cheeky Christmas eve fishing trip ha-ha).  The festive period being my little girls first where she knew about Father Christmas really brought the magic back to what had been quite a sad occasion since my mums passing and just seeing her face on Christmas Day really put a new light and brought the magic of Christmas back again for me and i cant wait for the years of Christmas days to come.

Speaking of our little girl she is really coming on now and shocking us all with her development and i certainly think a short trip to the canal or local pond to catch her fist ever fish might be on the cards this spring.  A session i can not wait to get out and experience and then blog about as it will be such a special occasion for me.  She will of course in time choose her own path and if angling is top be part of that then i will be happy to teach her the little i know but if not then i am surely going to enjoy the enforced fishing trips till she makes her mind up.

Christmas always gets you thinking about family and this year i am determined to get my dad out on the bank more with us again.  I am hoping to do a few sessions on the canal we used to fish all those years ago to see how it has changed and see if those big bronze slabs are still around.  Fishing is always a family affair with myself any how what with most of my trips being trips with my uncle its safe to say I'm hoping 2015 is going to be a year around family.

The Session Of 2014.....

I mentioned in a recent blog update that i had been asked about writing a recap of 2014 by a blog follower and that i was apprehensive to do so as i feel my year runs march to march with the closing of the river seasons.   What i have decided to do is pick out one session that stood out for me in 2014.

The year of 2014 was really good to me and if it was a wine it would certainly be classed as a vintage year.  It was a year where all our hard work paid off, all these trips to flooded rivers blanking and all those times travelling to a different area of a flooded river and catching all come good, all those hours searching on google earth for new areas of river and then walking farmers fields to wet a line in their unexplored depths.  This year was certainly good to us and i do feel those trips put us in a situation where we could pick and choose each week from 4-5 areas on different rivers to trot a float through with confidence but it was a new exploration into the world of dead baiting for pike that bought about me session of 2014.

I had dipped my foot in the water of dead baiting for pike from January to February of 2014 and under the tuition of Garry learnt some of the fundamentals of dead baiting for pike.  October and i was ready to cut my teeth and the early session in October saw me break my Pike Pb with a 15lb pike but it was the very next session that will live forever in my memory.  Sat on the banks of the river i noticed my right hand float twitch and then again and then slowly move along the surface, i struck and the rest is in the following update if you want to read about the session.

link: My First 20lb Pike 

Planning for January and February....

At the beginning of the pike season i set my self a target of catching 100 pike.  This total seemed large at the time and knew it was going to be a huge achievement if i got there.  With this total in mind and two serious fish under my belt in October my mindset since then has been more about numbers of fish than size of fish.  That has meant me concentrating on one location on a consistent basis, a place that of course could throw up a big fish, but in reality i was settling for the fact most of the fish i was going to catch were going to be between 4lb-7lb with the odd rare upper single or double.

early season nice fish

This proved a very good tactic with at least one or two fish coming on most trips to this location.  This of course led to the odd recapture but that's pike fishing and at the time of writing this (SPOILER ALERT) i am on a total of 56 fish caught.  I will be returning to work next week so the chances of me getting close to 100 pike is very slim indeed.  The whole challenge started of with plenty of momentum but in reality work and family commitments has seen fishing time for two of the people doing the challenge hard to come by and for myself and Ste changeable conditions has made the piking really difficult as the prey fish are not yet shoaled hard in their winter spots and as a consequence the pike are still quite spread out.

With this in mind i have made a conscious decision from now on to concentrate on areas that might produce less fish but the fish will be of better quality and also give me a serious chance of ending the session with a special capture.  There will be a full round up of the challenge at the end of the season on how i feel it has gone and the pros and cons of chasing such a total.  So to this point i feel i have done all i can to get to 56 pike, i have hit the bank every time i could and fished as good as my angling ability will let me i can honestly say i have not left the bank thinking i didn't do everything i could on the session.

So fingers crossed in the next one or two months we can put a few nice fish in the bank and also get some where near the total.

On to this weeks fishing....

Piking on the Off Chance of a Bite....

With a number of jobs completed in the morning and my partners mother coming round for a few hours i jumped at the opportunity of a few hours on the bank.  It was already gone 1pm when i loaded the car and left for the bank  I was a little unsure as to whether it was worth going after a sharp overnight frost but i knew the spot i was going to there was always a chance of a bite.  My confidence was hit a little as i received a phone call on the way from Ste saying he had struggled on the same waterway with his mate and not had a touch all morning.

I cast in a Herring tail on one rod and a smelt on the other, both loaded with oil, and hoped for the best.  It was early on during my vigil waiting for one of the floats to go that i got speaking to another angler lure fishing.  I did not get his name but we spent a good hour chatting about angling and some of the perils on being in Warrington Anglers and it seemed we shared the same view on a number of subject around silver fishing and the excessive amount being ploughed into carp.

I was quite honest with the man about the location and what to expect from fishing the stretch and i remember saying that most fish will be small singles with the outside chance of a double.  No sooner had the words left my mouth than he said "your floats moving there" a sharp glance round and the tentative bobs had turned into a solid run and the float slowly began to move off as i picked up the rod.  A few seconds as it was a nice piece of herring as bait and i struck into the fish.  The rod hooped over and stayed over as the fish kept deep and i instantly knew i was into a nice fish.

Eventually the fish came up to the surface and the good gentleman netted the fish for me.  Its sods law that fish come along that make a liar out of you as this was comfortably a double figure pike.  It went 13lb on the scales and i again thank the guy for taking the time to take a picture.

This was it for fish for this short session and i left around 3.45pm happy with the result of the session and another double added to the list.  Pike fishing can be a funny old game some days you spend all day without a sniff and other a hour or so produces a decent fish.

Stick Float Fishing For Chub...

The stick float rod had been a rare addition to the boot of my car before this session with its space taken firmly by two pike dead bait rods.  The ease of these pike sessions just fitting in perfectly with my the arrival of our second child but there certainly was an itch that needed scratching and it was with great excitement we headed out for a days stick float fishing on the river.

The river does contain a mixed selection of species including dace, gudgeon, roach, perch, trout and chub and it was really exiting setting up on the peg not knowing what lay i your swim.  The set up for the session was my 17ft trotting rod and a reel loaded with 4,4oz line down to a 6 number 4 float a hook length of 2lb line down to a tiny size 18 hook.  Situated in a swim i had fished before and with a river fining off after recent rain i was confident of a fish or two it all depended on whether the fish had migrated away from this area.

I had been feeding the swim from the off with maggot and hemp so it came as no surprise that the float buried on the first trot down and at first i thought i was into a small chub but as the fish hit the surface it soon became clear as the fish jumped and flapped about that it was a brown trout.   i was not surprised by this as these fish are hungry and greedy fish at the best of times never mind in winter when competition for food is high and these fish with their extra size will easily muscle out dace and roach.  I carried on trotting the float through with no activity more often than not and i remember getting a hour and a half into to session with 3 trout under my belt thinking maybe its time to get mobile and find some fish.

It was just as this thought was in my mind i struck into an altogether different animal that held station in the current in a defiant stand as only chub do and i knew there and then that i had a chub on the other end.  The fish fought well in the current and it was a struggle to land it with the flow in front of my peg but i did manage in the end to slide the net under the brassy flanks of a chub.

The swim i was fishing was shallow in front of me, probably only two feet, but it then fell into a deeper hole and then below that lies a big fish holding feature so in my mind i had eventually drawn one chub up from the feature into my trot.  As soon as this chub was in the keep net my confidence rocketed as where there was one chub there was certainly more in this swim so i almost began to concentrate more and of course upped the feed slightly and also experimented with hook baits.

This chub came at 10.17am and it was another half an hour of trotting the float through before the next fish came at 10.37 and again another chub.  What was noticeable with these fish was the fact the trout completely where removed from the equation in the periods between the chub almost as if the chub where there and it was a case of getting presentation right to catch them.  The theme of fish every 20-30 minutes kept true with more fish coming at 10.50, 11.27 and when my uncle visited i had four chub in the onion sack, my uncle had also done well with 6 chub to show for his mornings efforts.

My uncle left to return to his peg and as he did my peg took off as i landed 10 chub in the next two hours to 2pm, i can only guess the steady feeding of hemp and maggot mixed with the colder conditions brought a shoal of the chub up the swim and they got their heads down.  The crazy thing about this period was i lost just as many fish in this period which showed just how hard they were on the feed.

As always with these sessions the end comes too quick although i have to admit for the last hour the bites tailed off completely and the odd trout moved into the swim again almost as if the absence of the chub allowed them to feed and goes to show in the feeding order the chub is king.

With me doing a lot of piking of late i had been taking my weigh scales in my pike box so unfortunately on this session i could not put a weight to the net but with around 12-16 chub and chublets in the net all between i would say 1/2 a pound and probably 3lb i must have been over the 20lb mark.

my final net

My uncle had also got into a good number of chub on his peg.

All in all it was a session like i had never experienced before with chub.  I had done well before for chub with my best net of proper chub containing around 6 fish but this was a net like i had only seen my uncle catch in recent weeks.  A few years ago when me and my uncle started going fishing he used to tell me stories of chub nets from years ago where he would struggle to lift the net and that we would find them and one day i would see.  Well Azza we found them mate and i was over the moon.


 Piking on Ice....

The temperature read a bone chilling -1 as i left my house and started the car and this temperature only plummeted further as i left the confines of my town.  I had set up to fish the local waterway and as i drove to the first venue i walked along the track to find it covered in a thick layer of ice all the way across the water and the full length of the stretch, there was no way i was wetting a line here today.

I got back in the car and drove around for what seemed an age as i searched out areas that might not had frozen overnight and i eventually did find what was a little short bit of ice free water.  I say ice free water it literally was a short 10 yard bit of water blocked either end by ice and my rubbish first cast showed just how thick the ice was either side of me.

The baits in position i had to constantly edge the flows of ice back and i have to say it was the first time i have ever been happy to see ducks in the area as their gentle milling on the far bank certainly helped my cause.

Some say anglers are mad to even go fishing in the first place to out wit a fish and then you get the ones who say to go out in such conditions fishing you must be puddled and i must say on this session i was beginning to see their point.  Although the cold and wind is never ever something that decides if i go fishing or not as in my opinion you never know what fishing is like in certain conditions unless you go and sometimes you can be surprised.

I must say a quick word at this point for anyone reading this thinking about going fishing in these conditions you do need to be prepared clothes wise ideally with thermal boots and a thermal under layer at the bare minimum and of course a flask of something hot.  This session i was only out for the morning and after all the driving round it was gone 9am by the time i cast in.

After a hour of inactivity i was beginning to wonder if i was wasting my time and my mind wandered to those chub on the river and maybe i should have gone for another dabble at those.  Fishing the gaps in the ice meant the water i was fishing was like a mill pond and flat calm and it meant the slight flicks of the float as a pike showed interest where picked up straight away.  I quickly marched to the rod full of excitement as the float gently cocked and moved along the water towards the ice before in true jaws style it hit the corned and submerged below the ice flow.

It was a hard one to balance as i knew i didn't have much of a run for the fish to take the bait but i also had to leave it long enough for the bait to be taken as on a day like this it was a fish i didn't want to lose.  A short hard side strike saw the fish come straight back at me from under the ice flow as a small jack came up to the top.  The rod i was using made little of the fight but i was happy for it on the fish as i might have been in trouble had it been a double.

The next activity did not come round till almost packing in time and this time some of the ice had moved on and i could tell from the run that this was a solid take as the float moved solidly through the water and under the float went.  Sometimes you know its a small 2-3lb jack just by the jagged float pulls as the fish tries to eat the bait.  I will always remember this fish as it put up one hell of a scrap and i mist say as i slid it under the net i thought it was a better fish as it was so long.

The fish on the mat was as skinny a pike as i have ever seen it has loads of length and a big head but it looked like it needed a good meal.  The pike went 6lb on the scales and marked an end to the session for me.  A freezing cold day and two fish on the bank i was a happy camper as i have been on days where conditions have looked better and not had a sniff.  Two fish well earned and shows if you get past the mindset of the weather is bad and get a bait in the water you never know, not massive fish but certainly better than being at home tuning into Discovery Shed seeing Matt hayes circa 1990 repeats.

All in all the session proved to be a success, i head out to the bank piking hoping for one chance of a fish and if i take it then great and anything more is a bonus.

Thank you for checking out my angling blog and i hope you have enjoyed following my fishing in this weeks update.  I am still quite a bit behind on the blogs so there is plenty more fishing still to see the open pages of this blog.

Till next time i wish you tight lines

Danny

November Carp, big perch and Wobbling for pike....

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you all well and your nets wet.  Its been all go for myself and my partner of late as we prepare for our little boys arrival next month.  The last scan revealed the baby had not yet moved into position so we were booked in for another scan this week and although its not ideally what you want to hear during a pregnancy it gave us both another chance to see our little man before he arrives and thankfully after this scan we received the good news that all is fine and baby is doing well and he even decided to give us a little wave on the machine, o the future fishing trips to come, i can't wait.

on to the update...

Never Checked By the EA, waste of time.....

This comment above is probably the most commonly made statement when the subject of the Environment Agency comes up in anglers conversations and although it is always sad when we read or see instances where we feel the EA could do better its always worth baring in mind just how much waterway there is just in the North West and how few officers there are patrolling them.

That said it was great this week to have my EA licence checked again, third time this season on three separate waterways, what was also great was the time they took speaking to my mate Garry about fish being taken early mornings from the locations we fish.  It is a sight i know only too well from my days fishing the Dee where carrier bags of pike would be hauled up into a car before first light and those who say a few fish does little damage only have to look at the decline in pike on this river to see first hand the damage that has been done.  

Keeping on with the good news theme around the EA it was also great to see the EA officers check many anglers licences and not see the sight of a single angler packing in as they did not have a licence.  Its a great feeling knowing you are sharing the waters with similar law abiding anglers who are paying their way and putting back into our lovely sport and countryside.

The only sad part about seeing the EA was seeing just how bad the decline in human natures has become that these officers now more resemble police offices than water bailiffs as they now walk the bank with a stab proof vest and I'm sure they had a baton.   Has society really declined that much that these officers when asking for a licence are met with weapons being wielded and violence? sad sad times if this is the case, just pack in and go home or better still why not pay the small amount of £27.00 and not spend the time watching your back and enjoy your fishing.

So Mild....

With pike playing such a big part in my fishing of late i have been keeping a close eye on the temperature gauge on my car and although we have now dropped down from the barmy 20+oC temperatures of a few weeks ago we are still regularly into double figures during the day and even sometimes in the morning i will get into my car and the temp will read 9-12oc, if we have some cloud cover.

When i imagined pike fishing i always imagined rock hard frosty ground and my thermal boots crashing through ice capped puddles.  So far this season there has been none of that and we are quickly approaching December.  Long term readers of my blog will remember a couple of years ago when the angling mags where full of reports of fish not surviving the torrential floods that seemed to last the whole of autumn and winter and i said then that mother nature works in cycles and we will get really mild winters, like this one, where the fry survival rates are high and the natural food larders remain well stocked, just look at how many midges we are still seeing of an evening hatching.

On the fishing front it may well mean that dead baits continue to be sparsely taken and wobbling may be the method for the whole of the season as the pike remain active in the warmer temperatures chasing the roach shoals.  It may also mean shoaling fish like dace and roach on rivers don't migrate in as many numbers to their normal winter haunts and may choose to spawn in areas of the river more local to them as they don't feel that drop in temperature that triggers them to move.

Personally i hope the frosts are not too far away and we get a consistent drop in the temperature to just above freezing.  It is by far my favourite time of year and the once busy banks become desolate of the fair weather dog walkers, ramblers and of course anglers, proper peace and quiet.

River Fest Final......

This weekend just passed saw the RiverFest Final take place on the River Wye,  marking the culmination of many weeks matches along the length and breadth of the country the actual final going ahead lay in the balance on Friday evening as the heavy rains leading up to the competition took their toll.  I follow dave harrell on Facebook and its great to see how a seasoned river angler plans their trips to the river and also over the year you see just how much money he puts into the competition by entering a lot of the matches.

The river was high and coloured on Friday evening and after many discussions with the EA, who apparently where great and provided predicted levels for the competitors, the decision was made by the match referee for the competition to go ahead.  The final was a two day competition with the winner being the highest weight of fish over the two days.  It is testament to the work the Angling Trust and Dave Harell has done that this competition now attracts the Sky Sports Camera's and will feature on tight lines but also the prize money on offer was now £12,000 for the winner.

The winner over the two days was Steve Sadler who fished a stormer over the two days and was the deserved winner of the competition that saw one angler capture a 20lb carp on the second day.  The match over and people packing away take a look at this for a pike caught after the match had finished.

All in all a great competition and one that is doing wonders to put river angling back on the map and maybe one day we will see the days my uncle and dad talk about where the Dee is lined with anglers and a River Fest competition.

Wide Hole'y Mess....

One of the trips this week was a social trip with myself, Garry, Ryan and Ste, the afternoon of it is featured further in the update, where we decided to visit Wide Hole on the Macclesfield canal.  This place was said to be a well maintained and well bailiffed water by Warrington Anglers.  Unfortunately what we found resembled more and overgrown landfill sight with mountains of litter strewn all over the place, inflatable bed boxes and signs of open fires and barbeque's. 

The fishing was poor but is that really a surprise given how the place is being abused? The banks looked like they had never seen any type of attention in years with most of the swims down the far end completely reclaimed by nature and literally enough rubbish to fill 3 skips.  Maybe its time for this club to employ a team of dedicated bailiffs instead of buying carp.  Yet again another example of a water on the card in disrepair as many of you will remember the feature i wrote on Rixton Clay pits being in a complete state.

In essence you can have as many clean up a water work parties as you want but until you deal with the problem, i.e the anglers your club is attracting, then you will never solve this issue.

on to this weeks fishing...

Wobblin Jacks and One Very Hungry/Silly Pike...

Saturday morning and i was sat in my car at the front of my house with the wind blowing in the trees all around me thinking of what direction to point my car in.  My dead baiting to this point has taken in so many different venues across so many different types of fishing that i honestly did not know where to head for the best.  I eventually settled on a venue all four of us had fished not long ago that had thrown up a double for myself and a few jacks for Ryan and Ste.  With a trip to the river dane planned the next day i had only relaxation in mind and i had packed all but the kitchen sink for this pike trip, chair, holdall, flask the lot, which is quite unusual for me and my piking.

Walking the banks to my peg i set up my base for the day, a nice comfy chair and 2 dead bait rods out fishing hoping the pike where hungry, i sat back and awaited events and hoped my floats would sink below the late Autumn leaves.

A hour or so passed and the leaves where becoming a nightmare, the wind dropped and left the whole swim covered in a thick layer of leaves that was not moving at all and was making keeping the bait nailed down on the bottom impossible. A quick moan on facey was met with a text from Garry that changed my whole session

"Get off your chair, put your gear away in the car and just take a dead bait rod and wobbling rod and cover the whole venue and MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN they wont always come to you"

He was right i was getting lazy with my piking and sitting in one spot was not how i had fished to this point but i was slowly session on session falling into a lazy approach of waiting for the pike to find me.  A quick walk to the car to drop off my holdall and chair i was armed with a landing net, ruck sack with my tackle and bait in and two rods and i marched to another peg a good 200-300m away from where i had set up.   My first job was to set up the dead bait rod and my chosen bait was a nice joey mackerel that i placed just over the drop off in the margin, madly enough whilst doing this i felt a tug on the line, then another and another and the float slid away.  I gave it a few seconds as in knew i had a decent bait on and struck, up to the top came a small jack which i was surprised wasn't being strangled by the bait it was so small.  More importantly i could see the pike had just mouthed the bait and i knew it was going to let go at any moment and no sooner had the thought left my head than it did the very think, still fish in the area and active, confidence was high.

The rod set in place i mounted up a smelt for a bit of wobbling and it didn't take long for it to get noticed, second cast in fact, twitching it back in i could see the bait working in the water and then a mouth come in and completely nail the bait.  The adrenalin of the bang and then the feeling of, "gotya!", as you let the fish take some line before striking to see what you have lured into taking is a rush indeed and like i said last week, what have i been missing!  The fish was only a jack but the venue i was fishing i knew it was a case of mainly jacks with possibly a double being the icing on a days fishing.

No sooner had i released this fish than the next fish was doing its best to make an appearance as again the float fished mackerel rod began to show some signs of attention and slowly move away, i again gave it a few seconds and struck but again the fish came off, my god i thought you are blowing some chances here Danny.  Returning to my wobbling rod i cast back in and very next cast there was a swirl right at my feet as a pike shot out from no where to claim its mid morning snack.  This time i showed no mercy and on the first opportunity the pike was scooped up.

At this point the move was paying off big time and things only got better when a short move to the next peg saw a hard solid thud mid water that there was no missing, letting the line go loose saw it zipping from the reel as the fish moved confidently off with the bait.  As i had not seen this fish i gave it a bit of time before winding down and setting the hooks and on my small wobbling rod i was met with the feeling of a solid fish on the end.  This rod i use is really old, i am sure its got to be getting on for 15 years old now but boy what fun it is.  Its had fish to 14lb on the river so i am always confident using it and i have to admit since getting my proper pike/carp rods i had forgotten what fun it was.  The fish in the net and another fish for the wobbling rod, she went just over 4lb but it was another one off the total and three for the day so far.

The next pike took an age in coming and i have to admit to suffering four missed fish, one came off on the dead bait and 3 either spat the hooks or just followed the bait in without taking and it was into the afternoon till i connected with my fourth pike of the session, again only a jack but great fun.

I mentioned earlier on about having a fish follow in and not take, what i forgot to say was it was quite a nice fish.  In the same swim, and i think the same fish, i had a pike come out and swirl at the bait without taking.  I had tried a few times to tempt a bite and even the old letting it die in the edge trick but nothing was forthcoming so i decided to pop a smelt right in the margins on my dead bait rod in the hope the free lunch would prove too resisting to refuse.   The rod was in a hour or so before i caught a glimpse of a dip on the float before the float zoomed off and i mean zoomed it was easily the fastest run i have ever had from a pike.  It was so fast my rod that was laying flat on the bank was in danger of not being able to let line off quickly enough so the rod started to move.  I quickly grabbed the rod and let the fish continue to move off.

When pike do this its normally a jack rushing off to eat its prize away from the other predators that may want to take its meal or even turn itself into their dinner but striking i knew this was no jack and it zooomed off on big long hard runs and kept really deep.  The fight was a good one and i remember thinking if i get this one in then it would be a lovely way to end the session.  Thankfully i did and the hooks where in a nice place just in the top of the mouth and it was time to take a picture.

She went over 12lb in the net but subtracting the net we was looking at a fish just over 11lb.

That fish marked the end of the session and i left with 5 pike for the session, 4 on the wobble and one on dead baits and it proved what Garry said was true, sometimes you have to find the fish and simply waiting with a dead bait wont work, he was right.   Garry also keeps gill pictures of all the fish he catches and he recognised this fish, it was a fish i had caught in February and again in the social last week and just to prove how much these fish move i had again caught it on this session a good 300-400m away from where i caught it last.

Chocolate River and November Carp....

Sunday and it was time to wet a line on the river Dane hopefully trotting for a dace and chub.  I arrived at my uncles to find the river the previous day was a eye watering 1.78m but it had dropped on the day to 0.78 so we travelled through hopeful of finding a river in favourable condition.  The swim i was in had a fast run on the far side and a slack on the inside and in normal conditions you catch well all the way across, today though she was bombing through and like chocolate and even the slack was pushing through.  I set up to fish the slower slack but i was far from confident and i even set a wager with Ste who was pike fishing on a water that he would catch more individual fish than me.

A hour and half in and i had not had so much as a knock on the float despite my best efforts and i could hear my uncles foot steps approaching my swim, a sure sign he was having the same experience.  While speaking about moving i hit my first bit of the day in a nice silver dace which prompted us to give it another hour.  In the next painful hour i took one more small dace and a daddy ruffe and my uncle in a terrible boiling and fast swim had found every snag, it was time to make a decision.  We first took a look at the lower reaches but it was still boiling through at a huge speed so we then had a look at the weaver but with matches on its length it was a no go.  We eventually decided to stop off on Curlston mere, what a decision that turned out to be.

We both set up side by side and decided to fish the waggler out in the middle of the pool hoping to catch some nice roach.  The warm temperatures where clearly shown by the sheer amount of fish topping on the water, barmy when you think this is a water that really does close down in winter.  We only had a few hours but we both enjoyed catching a roach a chuck on maggot and to show what a fertile water this is we caught roach of all year classes.

We knew this water contained a good head of wild carp but we didnt think we would encounter any on this trip, that was until azza struck and line started zipping from his reel as the carp made for the sanctuary of the trees.  The fish came off mid water but what a fight to that point and it gave us both a lift that the carp where feeding as you can normally put a few together.  I was next to hit a carp and again i had an epic battle on my hands, to this point i had only ever fished the pole on this water and boy had i been missing out and come summer i will certainly be hitting this pool with my 13 ft waggler rod.  The fight was immense from the turbo charged carp and eventually i slid the net under her buttery flanks.

The pool was alive with roach and we did notice from time to time the schools of fry being spread far and wide and as i had never caught a pike on this water and i had caught some perch i could only imagine it was perch chasing the fry.  I quickly set about making a rig and presented a small roach fry live bait out and it didnt take long for the float to slide away.  As i expected it was a perch but what i wasnt ready for was the sheer size of the fish and when i eventually landed it and placed it on the scales it went a crazy 2lb 10oz and has really opened my eyes to the potential of this water for these stripey predators.

the final net was one that made up for a horrible morning on the river.

Wide Hole Blank But Ryan comes Good...

As mentioned above our trip to the wide hole was a complete disaster both from a fishing and location point of view with neglected banks and rubbish to rival any landfill.  The morning was spent on the banks of this canal back water but we decided to move location for the afternoon.  I endured a frustrating afternoon with one pike following my wobbled roach in time and time again without taking and when i did trick it into taking under my feet the fish had just mouthed the bait and spat the hooks before netting.

Ryan was the star man of this trip taking two jack pike in quick succession with one on the humble sprat and another on the monster mackerel tails that are his trade mark.

fantastic effort mate

Well that sums up another few trips i have had on the bank.  I have two more trips saved up to blog and you wont believe when i blog next who turns up on my next trip. Till then i leave you with a beautiful fish caught by Garry on a recent trip over 11lb,lovely fish mate.

till next time

tight lines

Danny

River Dee Fishing and First Pondip Article Published

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update I hope i find you well and your nets full.  In this weeks update we travel to the banks of the River Dee hoping to find the shoals of dace we found on our previous trips but things don't always go to plan so with a big decision to stick or move to be made will our choice pay off?? 

First Pondip Blog Published!!

Link to Article: http://blog.pondiptacklebox.com/2014/tips-and-tricks/5-top-tips-canal-fishing/

This week marked a huge milestone in my angling life away from the bank as my first ever piece of writing for another site apart from my own went live.  The long term sufferers of my blog know my stlye on here is very much a "as i would say it to your face" style with very little in the way of the normal This is how to catch fish or this is how you should be fishing information in there.  This is on purpose as I like my blog to be something that  comes across as relaxed and a blog people can read that is reflects myself as one everyday angler who likes to go fishing and share his experiences of the day and the fishing. 

The brief for some of the blogs i am going to be writing for Pondip is very different as they blogs are going to be more around my techniques and tips for actually catching fish and for me this presented a huge step away from my normal blog.   I decided to write the article on a type of fishing i have done all my life and where it all began for me, my local canal. I nervously submitted the piece last month and at the time i was unsure if the piece would be of a standard for them to publish so i have kept quiet about it on the blog and Social Media through fear it would fall flat on its face but early last week i received an email saying the piece had been published on their blog and they were really happy with it, i was over the moon and the day it went live was a really proud day for myself, i was over the moon and hopefully there will be more to come.

Royal Mail Problems!!

With the Pike fishing fast approaching my evenings when not fishing or writing my blog have been spent bidding on Pike terminal tackle on EBay and i have managed to snare the odd bargain.  Last week i mentioned that some of the tackle i have been ordering had arrived but the most important parcel had still not arrived in my possession and it was quite possibly the most important parcel of the lot as it contained the Crimps, Crimp Pliers and hooks to construct my pike rigs.  The Parcel reference entered into the Royal Mail order tracker revealed it had been posted fine and dandy on the 28th August and was in the Royal Mails possession.  Tuesday the 10th September i received the phone call the package had arrived at my home and about time it was too and although it was being delivered from Ireland in the past i have ordered stuff from China that has arrived in 2 days!! 

At this point i was just glad it has arrived and its contents where all as should be..

The Pike Trace Building Begins.....

All the component's ready and waiting I was like a kid in a sweet shop as late on Tuesday night after publishing the midweek blog update i say down at the table and laid all the different items of tackle purchased over the past few weeks out on the table.

Two items of the tackle have nothing to do with the construction of the rigs and are born from watching how a fellow piker, Garry, went about his piking last year and little tips picked up to make life easier.  Firstly a Rig Bin to store all my traces in, my god the amount of times i cut myself on rigs in those plastic packaging's or put my hand inside my tackle box for my forceps to be met with the tip of a stray treble!  Lesson leaned all my traces will now being stored in a spacious Fox Rig bin.  The next is the quick change swivels, a huge part of the appeal with pike fishing is how quick you can be fishing and i am an angler that loves leaving as much of the rod set up as possible and last year that included the trebles placed on an eye and the rod split in two, again loose trebles find everything especially when unloading from a car boot at home so this quick change link means i can easily unclip the treble at the end of the session and fold the rod up happy there are not hooks to catch anything and also on the plus side when setting up its a quick put together of the rod, attach trace and bait and I'm away.

 On a really short evening session after work that may only be a hour or hour and half this can make a huge difference.

My second ever attempt at a pike trace as i din one last year on the bank but this is my first on my own and apart form the trebles being just a bit too far apart i am happy with that as a first attempt and certainly a solid base to build from.

Mid-week Blog Goes Live...

The past few months i have been really fortunate to have not only got out on the bank quite a bit but also been lucky enough to have some really memorable trips along the way.  As such i have been in a situation where i have a lot of trips to write about but to put them all on a Fridays blog and it not be pages long would be difficult and as these trips where so different i wanted to try and capture the sesisons in full by writing an update for each.

These updates going live midweek some times go under the radar as they are only live for two or three days so i thought from now on i would include a link in the following Friday.  This midweek one was a trip to the River Dane where we hoped for a nice net of silvers, what we found was very different and more sinister........but great fun!!!

Link: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/first-river-dane-pike-as-fish-go-crazy.html

And with that its on to this weeks fishing.........

River Dee: Being Prepared to move...

Heading out to the river we had a fair idea of where we wanted to fish and arrived well before sunrise to make sure we were all ready for setting up in the headlamps of the car.  We had travelled to the same are i had fished recently and done well for a double figure net of dace.  My uncle set up in a swim i had fished in the evening a few weeks ago and had trouble with line across the river and i set up in the swim below a bridge on a fast bend where i knew i would find it difficult but if the fish where around i could get a few.  

My uncle fishes a stick different to myself and also feeds his swim differently so he was confident of not having to risk snagging on the line as he hoped to get the fish where he wanted them under his feet.  The dawn breaking i made my first cast of the session and almost as to fit with the beautiful scenery a kingfisher shimmered upstream just as my float came to rest. 

The light barely enough to make out a float i under shot the float so i could see quite a bit of the tip and began trotting hoping that the fast flow would induce a violent bite that would see the float bury.  The first few trots down all that came back was a snotted maggot and not a sign of a bite.  As the light improved i shot the float right down to a mere pimple and i began to see the bites and they where like lightning a swift dip on the float and that was all you got, reeling in revealed a bait with just the tip taken, a sure sign of small fish.

I did hit the odd bite and was proved right with really small dace coming to the net and in the space of 2 hours of a bite a chuck trotting i had converted it to around 10 fish in the keep net with one proper dace.

net of fish

The nature of river fishing means that you can sometimes be out of sight of the person you are fishing with and only see them two or three times during a session as you visit each others peg for a brew.  The first trip to each others pegs is always a litmus test for how the session is going for the other person, if the fishing is going well it can be a few hours as the with trotting you never want to leave a feeding peg.  It also works the other way and looking up the river form my peg i noticed my uncles peg was vacant ans i could hear the swishing of his waterproof pants as he approached my peg, i knew then he was having the same poor start as me.

My uncle had hit the snag twice and was also getting the same fast bites and hitting the odd small dace like myself.  It was decision time, do we stay and hope the better fish come or do we move to a new area of river all together?  A quick look in the margins at the hoards of fry answered the question for us as they devoured maggots, if that was going on in the river and we had a big head of fry in front of us we were going to struggle and neither of us had enough bait to feed them off so we decided on a a change of venue. 

A quick chat in the car and we set off for a new venue on the River Dee and settled for some crazy mad idea we settled on Eccleston Ferry.  It may sound silly me saying its a mad idea but i have to say before this session here it was certainly mine and my uncles bogey venue where i think we could count the amount if fish caught on one hand between the pair of us. 

We left the car in the car park and walked the bank and the first thing that we noticed was the fact the pegs had been taken out, a walker told us and i don't know how true it is but an angler slipped on them in the ice and sued the land owner!if true the so called angler needs his or her head testing this is fishing and you are not on a commercial now you are at your own risk, so thank you for ruining some very rare comfortable river fishing, idiot., you cant blame the land owner for taking that action and a classic case of the minority ruining it for the majority, a common theme on the dee it seems with the loss of almere being linked to idiots being abusive. 

Walking the bank we finally found a few signs of fish topping and they were in a tight 100 yard length it seemed.  I set up in the margins with my box in the water while my uncle set up down stream on a small tuft.  I had just folded my 13ft rod in half when leaving the previous area but plumbing up i instantly hit a problem as with my float as deep as it would do i still could not fish on the bottom, a very deep area. 

After all the messing around in the morning the last thing i felt like doing was setting up from scratch but it had to be done so it was away with the 13ft rod and out with the 17ft rod.  I also changed floats at this point from a 8 number 4 to a 3 gram bolo float simply due to the depth.  Around a hour and half into the fishing my uncle popped a long and he had been doing quite well with around 2o dace in his net with steady bites to boot.  I at this point had around 4 fish in the net but what i was catching was roach and nice ones to boot but just not as prolifically as my uncle was catching.

while my uncle was at my peg i connected with a better fish and my uncle clocked me playing it up straight away but it was certainly pulling back and although i made it look bigger than it was we were both happy to see a nice chublet grace the landing net.

After discussing the choice to set up in the main boating channel on the River dee we returned to the fishing and after messing around with my shotting to get the float to settle so just the tip of the bristle was showing i began to put together a few fish in succession and it was obvious that there was a decent shoal of roach in the swim and it must have been a shoal of just roach as this was the only fish i was connecting with.

The general stamp of roach i was catching was quite impressive, not massive fish but put up a great fight in the depth of water.

At around noon to 12.30 my uncle nipped along for another brew and at this point i had gone a hour without a bite and so had my uncle.  The normal reason on the Dee for this is a pike moving in your swim but in such a depth of water presenting a bait to them down deep was something i was not tackled up for so i continued to persevere with the feeding and slow trot through the swim.  The odd cast further out did bring one or two fish but it was a good two hours till i connected with my next flurry of bites as three fish came in three casts.  The magic and wonder of river fishing is how quickly you go from nothing to catching it can be like turning a light switch one.

Again the fish were roach but with the fourth fish in as many casts splashing on the surface there was a swirl over the bait and there was extra weight on the line, a pike had taken the fish, as the fish was up on top i could quite clearly see the pike and it was only slightly bigger than the roach it had taken and had in its mouth.  I continued to reel in but at the last moment it spat out the roach. 

The picture below shows what damage even a small pike can do to a fish and looking at the bigger picture it could have been this pike in hunting mode in the swim why the swim dies for 2 hours.  The damage done by this small pike to this roach was terminal and shows just how veracious pike can be and more than likely the pike would have returned to claim the fish after it has died.

Nature in its most raw and brutal form.

I mentioned above that it might have been the pike that killed the swim and the rest of the session went to prove it as no sooner had i cast back out the swim was alive with roach and i got into a rhythm of catching steadily and thoroughly enjoyed a good hour and half's fantastic roach fishing culminating in this plump yet oddly shaped roach that put up a great fight.

On our fishing session me and my uncle normally pack in at the same time but on this occasion i admit to indulging in some roach fishing as i fished on for another 20 minutes.

my net

The final net was one of the best nets of fish i have had from the dee of 10lb 5oz, i say its one of the best as for me fishing the river my nets are normally made up entirely of dace with the odd roach.  This entire net was roach apart from one dace and one chub and maybe the odd gudgeon.

My uncles net was the opposite and was entirely dace with a few roach and a small chub and just shows how one stretch of river can have such different results.

uncle net

till next time i hope you enjoyed my write up of my fishing and let me know if you like the new layout with the introduction and how its more broken up.

tight lines

Danny