Something to Chew on

I'm never going to fish that place!

I decided a few weeks ago that after putting off the idea for a few years - for various reasons:  ("It's not real pike fishing"... "It's far too easy to catch a huge pike on there"... "Results will drop off before I get there, like at Llandegfedd, Blithfield"... "I don't want to join the rat race in the fight for tickets and then rejoin it in the fight for best spots", etc.)  - I would finally this year try for some winter tickets to pike fish at Chew Valley Lake.

I love fishing rivers, drains and canals for pike.  The looks and fight of a double-figure river pike are hard to beat, but occasionally I get the urge to seek out larger fish.  Visits to reservoirs in the past haven't been too productive for me, but I have the tackle and - thanks to these previous trips - a bit of experience of reservoir fishing.  So what if reservoirs are man-made?  The pike in these venues are as wild as any from a river.  They may have an easy, protein-rich food source of naive stocked trout, but this all adds to the challenge of reservoir pike fishing.  Finding pike and then convincing them to feed on your offerings when the vast water is full of spotty easy meals is a feat in itself and at the larger waters such as Ladybower I get this magical feeling of being pitched against the elements, exposed in a boat or on a barren bankside, knowing that it only takes one run to latch into what could be the fish of your dreams.

My views on Chew used to be quite strong, which is a bit odd to say I've never set eyes on the place, let alone fished it!  Whether it was envy or desensitisation at seeing a seemingly endless stream of pictures of "yet more huge pike from Chew" I don't know, but I convinced myself that almost everyone who turns up at Chew ended up with a fish beyond the dreams of most.  That these "artificially bulked-up" pike would just throw themselves at anything dangled in front of them.

It's actually the blogging community who have changed my mind about fishing there; reading blogs and articles about fishing Chew, written by anglers I respect, from Rob Thompson and Leo Heathcote's exploits to Paul Garner, Phil Smith and Tony Gibson's accounts of their own sessions at Chew.  It became clear that there is much more involved in catching a big fish from Chew than the reports in the weeklies would have you believe.  My fishing time is limited and I seem to spend less time each season fishing for pike, so I want to spend some of that time challenging myself and having the chance of landing an immense fish.  With the pike fishing at Ladybower now consigned to a winter syndicate which I could not fish often enough to get value from, I really fancy trying my hand at Chew, but with a limited number of tickets available, all of which are sold over the phone, even getting a ticket to fish the place is not for the feint hearted.

Hotline in Meltdown

Tickets for next winter went on sale on Saturday Jan 4th this year, so this first day saw me redialling as often as I could (I was at work but it was easy to keep hitting redial on the hands-free desk phone) for the majority of the 9am until 3pm booking window.  Over 700 calls later I still hadn't got through!  The Bristol Water Fisheries Facebook page was kept fairly up-to-date though and each evening after close of business they would announce how many tickets were remaining out of the total of 3,200-odd boat & bank tickets.  I was disheartened after Saturdays efforts, but there were still plenty of spaces left on Sunday & Monday so I tried periodically maybe 30 more times on each of those days and resigned myself to having missed out.  Then on Wednesday I saw there were still about 100 spaces remaining so I gave it one last shot at a sustained redialling effort.  Several hundred calls later I almost fell off my chair as I heard the phone actually ring!  How I didn't clumsily hang up in the excitement, I don't know!

A few minutes later, after a brief conversation with a thoroughly pleasant and remarkably calm-sounding (considering the chaos of the past 4 days) bloke, I managed to book a boat for two consecutive days in late November.  I didn't have any choice on dates by this point, but just to have a shot at fishing this legendary venue is enough for me!

Down with the System?

I was conscious of the fact that every minute I was on the line, several hundred other frustrated anglers would be punching the redial button in vain, so I tried to keep it as brief as possible by avoiding moaning about the system, asking unnecessary questions or ranting on about how unbelievable it was to actually get through (though all of these things were just bubbling under the surface!).  I wonder how many others failed to bite their tongue and selfishly babbled on to the tackle shop staff, causing further delay and anguish to their fellow anglers who were trying to get through?

I did, however, take the opportunity whilst my payment card was processing to ask how many lines in there actually were.  The answer I got, straight from the horses mouth, is that there are two telephones manned by three people, which allows one person to take a break and/or fill out the necessary paperwork whilst the other two deal with telephone calls.  This seems sensible to me, but many have been vocal on social networking, etc. condemning the booking system.

Why would a tackle shop which has four extremely busy days a year pay for more than two lines?  Or outsource their ticket sales to a call centre or something?  That would only mean tickets sold out quicker but cost more to cover the added costs of the extra phone lines/call centre!  Maybe there is a better solution, but by my reckoning to sell 1640 pairs of tickets (as most are sold either as 2-man boats or two anglers in pairs) in four 6 hour shifts, they still manage to process 68 pairs of tickets per hour!

After a while of hearing nothing but the repeated sound of the engaged tone, it becomes the most annoying noise on earth and I'd given up hope of ever getting through.  It was like trying to get Glastonbury tickets in the late '90s and early 2000s, when the event had become so popular that it could sell out without even trying, but the vast majority of tickets were still sold over the phone.  The thing is, as punters we accepted the telephone ordeal as part of what you had to suffer if you wanted tickets for such a rare and special event!  

Nowadays, the huge music promo companies have invested millions into massive call centres and rock-solid web ordering platforms and as a result the ticket buying public have come to expect being able to have a quick, easy crack at getting tickets to pretty much anything.  We've lost sight of there being any value in being one of the lucky few who've battled it out fairly and managed to get through a congested booking system.  A boyband on tour or a major music festival is always going to be vastly more lucrative than a successful and sustainable pike fishing venue, so the amount invested in the booking system (which will be used week-in, week-out, taking bookings for hundreds of tours a year) is going to be gargantuan by comparison.  

We can't expect this level of investment or service from a fishery.  It's a bloody lake with a hut that sells a few bits of tackle, so rather than moaning that they don't have state of the art booking systems, we should instead be thankful that the general public have the chance to buy tickets for such a rare and special place.  Many venues with the quality of specimen fish which Chew has restrict ticket access to an exclusive few.

Even with these huge booking systems, popular music events still sell out in minutes, people still have to queue on phones hitting redial or pressing refresh on their internet browsers.  It just happens over a shorter period of time because these companies have so much order processing capability.  If such a thing happened with the booking of Chew it would be sold out in a matter of seconds, which would actually be less fair than the current system because if anyone had a problem (e.g. loss of phone signal/internet connection/dead battery...) they wouldn't have a chance to try again later on.

Before I even had tickets I couldn't honestly think of another, fair way of allocating them which wouldn't cost an insane amount to set up or be a nightmare to administer.  When my call was eventually answered, my experience couldn't have been better; which considering the strain they were under and the abuse they no doubt received, was pretty damned professional!  Bristol Water Fisheries even issued a statement on Sunday regarding the number of emails they were receiving about the booking process from aggrieved anglers!

I almost feel like I deserve a fish now, just for going through the ordeal of making 1500 engaged calls!  It was the same for everyone lucky enough to have got through though, and there will be many hundreds of disappointed pikers who weren't so lucky, so this will be in the back of my mind in the run up to actually fishing the venue.  I have already been very lucky.  

The reality is that the majority of anglers with tickets for next winter will blank, just as happens every year.  The vast majority will not catch a monster, but having now got lucky in this first lottery of Chew, there are many more lotteries standing between me & the other anglers and the pike of a lifetime.  With so much demand to fish here, who knows whether I'll ever fish it again?  So here's hoping my luck holds out.

Caught In The Act Parts 3 & 4 DVD Review

Caught In The Act - Parts 3 & 4 (Autumn & Winter) DVD review

I recently reviewed the second 2 x DVD set of the excellent "Caught In The Act" by Bob Roberts & Stuart Walker, for FishingMagic.  The two DVDs in this installment cover the seasons of autumn and winter  You can read the full review at the following link, but I've also included a few snippets below: Caught In The Act parts 3 & 4 FishingMagic.com Review

 

"From the very moment you set eyes on the package the atmosphere is already building...  Press play and the atmosphere further builds with the epic, soaring classical title music which seems to audibly frame the stunning intro visuals perfectly. By this point I was already sucked in and couldn’t wait to see what came next." 

"Both anglers exude enthusiasm and confidence alongside a genuine belief and interest in what they’re doing whenever they are on screen."

"There are no fancy rigs or ‘You must use this specific tackle item or you won’t catch’ and the rigs that are used are well explained, with a few bonus tips...  The mixture of short but well-articulated rig and tackle talks in each act blend effortlessly into the film between scenic wide-angle shots, close-ups of the anglers in action and of course, the quality underwater footage." 

"Caught in the Act is essential viewing for all anglers, especially those looking to reconnect with the simple pleasures of the pursuit of specimen fish, in all seasons."

You can find out more information about CITA on the Caught In The Act Facebook Page:  http://www.facebook.com/CITAFILM

If you're already convinced you can order CITA at the following page on on Bob Roberts' Website:  http://www.bobrobertsonline.co.uk/sales/

Or if you still need some convincing, you can view more clips from Caught In The Act on Stu's YouTube page:  http://www.youtube.com/Stubarbel

Don't forget you can read my full review on FM here:  www.fishingmagic.com Caught In The Act parts 3 & 4 DVD review

Winter Blues - Pike and Barbel Fishing

I only had time to get out fishing once between Christmas and new year.  I'd had a pike fishing itch to scratch for a while and despite conditions which were far from ideal after the bout of mild weather and heavy rain, I decided to pike fish on the Dove, which is a spate river and therefore it's notorious for the speed at which the level rises and colour increases.  So it was to my dismay, but no surprise, that I arrived to find the river coloured and rising!  I should have been barbel fishing but my heart was set on piking, so I had taken my barbel rods out of the van before I left home!

I sat it out regardless and fished to the conditions as best I could, but I only got a single dropped run all day.  A run I didn't even notice at the time because my float, cast to the far bank, would only stay in the slack water if I let out a big bow of line.  However, It was an extremely blustery day and the combination of wind and the flow meant my float was constantly dancing around all over the place, the drop-off was forever rising and falling and my alarm was sounding every few seconds.  That was frustrating enough, but when I reeled in and found my decent-sized roach was badly slashed but the teeth marks were all between the hooks, needless to say I was gutted!  From the size of the marks on the bait, the pike was probably a good one.  It must have picked the bait up sideways but failed to turn it around head-first before it moved off.  Maybe the movement of the line going down from the float spooked it or something.  I'm 99% sure that if I'd had a proper take I would have known straight away because the drop-off did ping off in the wind the odd time, just not on that cast!  Regardless of that, I decided to try and find somewhere more sheltered where I could fish without fear of unwittingly deep-hooking a fish.

I gambled on a move to the Pride of Derby complex, to try on one of the lakes there for the last couple of hours.  However, when I arrived at the gates, this was the sight that greeted me:

The heavy rain had pushed so much water into the Trent that it had flooded the entire adjacent lake complex.  This seemed like a bad thing until I considered that the floodwater would probably mean I was the only angler there.  I was in a van, and thought I might have the height to drive through the water to get to some high ground that I could fish from.  So, not one to be put off from a fishing trip easily, I unlocked the gates and gingerly inched the van into the water, hanging my head out of the window to both monitor the depth and spot the edge of the track; one place I definitely didn't want to end up was on the surrounding underwater grass, or I'd be stuck there until the waters receded!  Unfortunately my pluckiness didn't pay off, the water got so deep that I feared I might damage my van, so I had to slowly reverse back out of the venue.  Had I had my thigh waders with me I could have walked to a peg, but they aren't part of my usual winter kit so they were at home!  I thought about driving back to the Dove, but the combination of the poor piking conditions and by now, falling light, meant I decided to call it a day.  Sometimes you have to know when it's time to quit.

I did bump into James Gould and Stu Walker (who's been filming "Caught In The Act" and previously "Barbel Days & Ways" with Bob Roberts) during the day.  They were barbel fishing and I conceded that this was where the smart money was on such a day.  Why the hell had I taken those barbel rods out!  Both chaps were really friendly and I even got a flattering "It's Andrew, isn't it?  I've read some of your stuff..." from Stu, but I then felt pretty stupid because I recognised him too, but I couldn't quite remember where from, or what his name was.  D'oh!

Despite my feeling that the conditions had been ideal for barbel, I got in touch with Stu & James later and found that they had just the one fish between them all day, which didn't show until after dark.

Before that mild & wet spell ended, I got in an after-work session myself and this time set my stall out for barbel.  I'd soaked some boilies in a spicy, fishy mix and done similar with some luncheon meat in preparation.  There wasn't a fish within a mile that could have avoided smelling my baits!  It was pleasant to sit out in, despite not casting out until 8pm, and despite seeing the odd fish rolling and conditions seemingly perfect, I didn't get as much as a twitch on the rod tip.  So, maybe there just wasn't a fish within a mile!

Royalty Fishery - Article Online now at FishingMagic

On the ball as always, I thought I'd better mention my latest article, which has been published on FishingMagic for, errrrm, 5 or 6 weeks already!  It details my trip down to the famous Royalty Fishery at Christchurch, Dorset, on the Hampshire Avon.  It was my first time fishing the river and whilst I enjoyed the experience, it was certainly a trip of mixed emotions.  I headed down there for two days with my old friend Matt and we primarily pike fished, although there were a number of barbel anglers who were catching well.  We spent day 1 on the Parlour pool and bought a general day ticket for the second day.

It was a really difficult article to write, it took several drafts to get it to read right, but now it's finished I'm quite happy with the result.  I think it's worth a read if you've ever been to the Royalty, are planning to visit, or have ever considered or dreamed of a trip there.

http://www.fishingmagic.com/features/coarse_fishing/general_fishing/15918-river-fishing-a-right-royal-day-out.html

See what you think and then please let me know what you think of it.  If you're a FishingMagic member, you can post directly beneath the article.  Or if not, feel free to post your thoughts below here.

The End is Nigh! ...Final Days of the River Fishing Season 2010/11

For the first two or three years of this millennium I generally experienced some great fishing towards the back-end of the season.  For some reason, as my river experience has grown each year, my "final session" captures have dwindled.  For the last 4 or 5 "final sessions" I have targetted perch and failedd to catch anything of merit.  I was all set for my final session of the 2010/11 season and after my success piking the previous week, I decided to have a final blow-out session piking, back on the Dove.  With my confidence buoyed by my recent capture, I thought I'd try some different stretches to search out new swims for fishing in the future.  On my way from the freezer after grabbing some pike baits, I spotted my lobworm sack and - despite my previous "last session" experiences with perch - couldn't resist taking them along in case there was a rare, big Dove stripey out there with my name on it.

The original "final" session...
I arrived at the first new stretch before dawn and had a walk to find a few features before grabbing my gear.  The wind was absolutely horrendous and I can't think of a session when I've fished in stronger winds.  On the way down to the features I'd spotted and chummed-up, the wind was behind me, so it made the mile-plus trudge with all my gear (including so many layers that I was comfy when sat in the cold wind, but hot as hell once I started walking!) quite pleasant and easy.  I had so many features to choose from, straight out of the river pike textbook; with eddies, slack water, overhanging trees, faster shallows and steadier pools.  It was hard to know where to start but I managed to cast one rod into a slack below a high bank and the other bait went between some overhanging trees, both initially fishing in around 5 feet of water.  It seemed perfect, but the conditions were not that condusive to successful predator fishing.  The water was low and gin clear and the clouds were continually breaking, meaning the river was bathed in sunshine for most of the day.  At least there was a chop on the water, but that was only due to the gale force winds which pummelled me no matter where I sat! 

Over a period of around four hours I searched a couple of swims, casting the baits around and never leaving them in place for too long.  Both runs the previous week had come within 5 minutes or so of casting out, so I knew that if I landed a bait presented correctly in the right place, I was in with a good chance.  Not a touch came my way, so I decided to move to yet another new stretch.  My walk back to the van was completely against the wind and with the surface area created by me, my rod bag, tackle bag and worst of all, my unhooking mat, I had to battle to make every footstep!  I decided to break the journey up by dropping into another swim which I'd pre-baited with some chum earlier.  Again, nothing happened so I resumed my trek against the headwind and finally managed to drive to the new stretch.

I had a couple of swims in mind here, both a long walk from the car park, but this time I was walking into the wind to reach them.  At some points I couldn't physically walk against the gusts and had to wait for a slight drop in wind speed.  Progress was both slow and exhausting so as I passed swim number one (which I'd planned to fish later, after fishing the farthest one first), I decided I could go no further.  I attempted to chum up behind a far-bank tree, but the wind stopped me reaching beyond half-way!  Accurate casting (usually one of my stronger points) was also nigh-on impossible.  By now I was getting really frustrated, so decided that I'd set my float rod up and have a trot down the near-margin for a perch or two, and hope the wind died down later on.  You guessed it, the wind made trotting less of a precise art and more of a repeated untangling exercise, but I did stick with it for half an hour or so.  In this time I had no bites, but on my final trot, as I began to retrieve, I saw a long silver flash behind my float, before everything went quite solid.  After fishing all day with deadbaits, I had hooked a pike on a lobworm!  Fortunately it was not a big one and had been hooked right in the scissors, so I was able to land it after quite an impressive fight, but one I was never really in any danger of losing.

I moved back to piking after this, and another angler Ian, who I've since found out is a fellow blogger, moved into the "perch" swim and also caught a pike on a lobworm!  This has given me some food for thought regarding the diets of certain pike at certain times of the year.  These fish were surely after some quick, easy protein before spawning, so maybe their diets switch to such easily digestible food sources if the conditions are right.  How widespread or common this switch is, is open to debate and/or experimentation, but it's something I'm going to consider when fishing for back-end predators next season.  I had a good chat with Ian before he left and I fished on well into dark, but couldn't coax a bite on a deadbait.  I retired, drained, wind-battered and quite downbeat about a session I was hoping for much more from.

The actual "final" session

I couldn't really end what has actually been a pretty good season on such a low note, so when the weather settled over the weekend I decided to fish after work for the final few hours before the curtain finally fell.  It was mild but the rivers were still low.  In the daytime the skies were clear and the sun bright, so this would surely result in many species feeding nocturnally, I thought.  So I got out the barbel rods for a final flog in the hope that I could end the season the way I started it ...with a double figure barbel.

As I've mentioned before, the barbelling I enjoy most is on summer rivers which are low and clear, but if they're fished right (and also preferably in the dark), they can be productive.  Predators tend to take over as my main winter targets, so my winter barbel fishing experience is limited to literally 2 or 3 sessions ever.  This is completely against general barbel fishing principles, because not only are the fish at their largest toward the end of the season, if the conditions are right they're reputedly easier to catch too.  I spent two hours each in two different swims, using two varieties of super-stinky luncheon meat which I'd flavoured myself.  One batch with Dynamite "Red Fish" liquid and krill powder, the other with some paprika, cayenne and krill powder.  They were prepared a couple of days before, briefly frozen then defrosted and left to sweat for a few hours, so the flavours had really sunk in.  I used large chunks and relied solely on these for attraction, rather than any loosefeed, which may have fed-off any prospective barbel (or even chub!), rather than encouraged them to take my baits.  I had convinced myself that all of the necessary elements had come together at exactly the right time, so I could be in for an evening to remember.  I don't think I've been as excited about a session since my first of the season!

This fishless post has already gone on for far too long so I'm not going to draw it out for any longer.  Basically, I didn't get a bite, but the evening was a very pleasant one to be sat beside the river, which was notably very serene, slow and calm.  It seemed very poetic, almost as if the rivers had gone through so much over the past nine months that they'd finally given up and had begun their three month rest a few hours early.

Having no fish photos to post, I decided to pose for this one at 11.50 on March 14th.  There was still ten minutes of the season left, but already my optimism had faded and I knew my fate...

A massive shrug or holding a massive imaginary barbel?  I'll leave that for you to decide!

During the closed season I'll be trying to fit in a few after-work eel, zander and maybe even carp stalking sessions.  I'm also hoping to do a day or possibly 24-hour session tench fishing on a local estate lake, I've been invited for a day fly fishing for trout on a Derbyshire reservoir and I've also been invited onto an un-fished private pond which apparently has some perch potential, so I'll let you know how I get on with these...

Oh, and I've also booked for a week in September chasing the monster Zander and Catfish of the River Ebro!

River Pike - Not Much Beats 'Em!

It's been a while since I posted but the good news is that I did manage to notch up a session in February and I've already got one under my belt for March but the river closed season (which I back 100%) is looming ominously.  I am now faced with the dilemna of which river/stretch/swim/species to target for my final session of the 2010/11 season.  Not an easy one when I've got memberships of 5 clubs, all with their own merits, but I prefer to have plenty of options available (usually, but not when it's down to choosing one last session!).  Anyway, that's to come later this week, but for now I'll tell you about my last two sessions, during which I have been reminded just why and how much I love catching pike from a natural river.

The week or so preceeding the first session had started off with a lot of rain falling and relatively mild weather, but as my session grew nearer, the rain subsided, river levels dropped and clarity started to return to the water.  These developments had me changing my mind at the last minute; I'd originally decided to fish for barbel, but with the water dropping I had an urge to get out there pike fishing.  In the end, I went piking but had barbel tackle with me too, in case the river clarity wasn't as I was expecting.  To cut a long story short, I fished 4 or 5 feature swims over a few hours without a touch and decided to move to a different stretch of river, which could offer me the chance to fish for barbel later should I wish to.  Rain had fallen again overnight and by mid-day the river was rising fast and the colour was returning to the water.  Just when I thought my chances of a pike were completely gone, I had a frantic 15 minute period which gave me two runs from the same spot - both on smelt - resulting in one fish landed and one dropped run.  I was casting to a tiny slack behind a far-bank bush and thought I'd hooked a monster.  It surged into the fast mid-stream flow and ran downstream so far that I had to acrobatically pass my rod around some overhanging trees to follow it!  This is when I realised just how much the river had come up; for maybe 30 seconds I though the fish was snagged because we were completely at deadlock, but finally it surfaced and I was amazed but ever-so-slightly disappointed to see a pike of around 6lb surface!  I was out of breath, my arms were shaking and my heart was pumping hard... all from a pike of this size?!  It was only after I quickly unhooked and returned this fish that it hit me just how enjoyable the whole experience had been and that such a fish from a drain, canal or lake could not have possibly given such an account of itself.  It was a combination of the rivers ferocity and the pikes instincts to use this power to its own advantage which had given me this immense battle from less-than immense fish.  I was suddenly glad I'd chosen to come pike fishing on a river, despite the conditions.  As an added bonus, one of my new Shimano Purist Deadbait Classic rods was christened by this pike!

After missing the next run which came almost immediately after re-casting, I gave the swim another half-hour before cutting my losses and grabbing my barbel gear.  I spotted a peg which looked perfect, but I had another peg in mind which was quite a long trudge away, and I chose not to be lazy and walked to it.  I'd had some barbel from it in the Summer and I was sure it would have the ideal mixture of deep, slack water and fast water which would be the key to me finding some huge winter barbel.  When I got there I was disappointed to see that this swim was not behaving how I expected it to with the extra water, but I had walked a long way with far too much tackle, so I set up there anyway.  Four hours passed with the only things caught being hundreds of dead leaves gathering on the line (in February?!  Where've they come from?!).  I packed away dejected, but having not much experience of barbel fishing after early November, I suppose it was a small lesson learned.  On my way back to the van, I noticed a fishing umbrella reflect my torch light on the other peg I was going to fish.  The chap fishing there informed me this was a pretty good swim in these conditions (why oh why didn't I trust my instincts!!!) and he'd had a couple of chub on breadflake (which was more than I'd had), but he was now fishing boilies for barbel.  As I stood chatting to him, his upstream rod lurched over, and upon picking the rod up the guy pronounced "This is a Barbel...".  Before long it broke the surface and a beautiful, chunky specimen rolled into his small pan net.  It weighed 12lb 3oz!  That would've done me very nicely!  There wasn't a mark on this fish, it was one of the most scale-perfect big barbel I've ever seen.  I did offer to take a photo but the angler was intent on getting the fish back quickly, which I can't blame him for (although the unhooking and weighing was very routine, so the fish was hardly out of the water), but I know with a fish of that stamp and condition I would have been keen to get a trophy shot.

Fast forward to last Friday, the 4th of March.  Knowing that the clock was ticking before the end of the season, I really fancied giving the centrepin another run out, trotting for grayling and chub.  As a new challenge I decided to visit the Dove, rather than the Derwent, as I had never really fished the Dove in winter.  A small part of me was nagging to take a pike rod to fish as a "sleeper" while I trotted, so I packed a handful of deadbaits and my pike tackle and initially set-up in a deep-ish swim which shallowed off at the downstream end, above some rapids.  The pike rod was cast into the near margin as I tried to build up a swim, feeding a small sprinkle of maggots every couple of minutes.  After a couple of hours of trying different trotting speeds, depths, casting distances and baits, I'd had nothing to even suggest a bite, but I'd re-cast the pike bait into a small slack behind a tree.  Within a couple of minutes of the re-cast, my Billy's Backbiter alarm (which I was testing out for only the second time) hollered at me that the lead on my float-leger setup had been dislodged and I hurried to check that indeed the float was moving (still getting used to using a back-alarm rather than a front, roller-wheel one).  The bite was positive so I wound down straight away and watched the Purist take on a lovely curve.

If I hadn't been reminded quite enough on the last session why I loved river pike, I needed no reminding now!  This fish pulled hard to reach the tree, then as I turned its head it made for the main flow and accelerated!  What a fight I had on my hands and as I finally drew the fish toward the landing net, in true pike fashion, it opened its mouth and violently shook its head to try to shed the hooks.  Luckily, although only lightly hooked with one point of one treble, the hooks held firm (good old Owners!) and my prize rested safely in the mesh of my landing net.  Immediately I knew this was my largest pike from the Dove and the weighing ceremony confirmed this, with the fish registering 18lb 13oz, making her my second biggest from any venue this season.  As a small side-note to this, I've caught pike of every single weight (i.e. between 10lb & 11lb and between 16lb and 17lb) up to and including 21lb, but I've never had a fish wiegh between 19lb and 20lb.  I've had two fish just ounces short this season and it does make me wonder if I'd get more satisfaction from "completing the set" with a 19lb fish than I would from catching a 20lb+ fish!  So, if anyone knows of a water with a good head of 19lb 5oz pike in it, let me know!

I lost another fish later on, which felt big, but if I don't end up piking this week, I'll be happy with how my piking has gone this winter.  Not as many sessions as I'd like, but when I have gone, I've done well.  A not-so-grand tally of 5 individual pike landed from 5 sessions, but with 3 of the fish weighing over 17lb, I'm viewing it as a very successful campaign.  Maybe next winter I'll catch 100 tiny jacks!
So, now I'm left with a single very complex conundrum.  Where/how/what to fish for on my sole remaining session of the 2010/11 season.  It's supposed to be really windy for the rest of the week, so maybe trotting and quivertipping won't be the easiest methods to employ.  At least that's a couple of options discounted!  I'll report back next week...  Best of luck to anyone fishing on running water over the next few days.  If you're after low water, get out there quick because we're in for some serious rain...
Footnote:  I also had half an hour testing out some new lures which have just hit the UK, called "Laserlure".  There's a full range of styles available and they all feature a flickering laser, which is supposed to trigger interest from predators, especially in coloured or deep water.  I didn't have any takes on them but I fished on a very cold day, so not ideal for the fish to be chasing moving baits.  I was very impressed by their actions though and I've no doubt they'll catch pike, perch and zander.  They're well worth a look.  I'll be reviewing them soon, but for now here's a picture I took of them and for more info tak a look here:  http://www.fishingrevolution.co.uk/

Pike & Grayling Sessions - my last of 2010 and my chance to try out some new gear!

After more than a month of abstinence from fishing, I finally got myself back out on the bank between Christmas and New Year. I had a few new bits of tackle – mainly Christmas presents – to try out too. The first trip was an ill-advised, two hour drive to Boston with Craig and his mate Arran, only for us to find all of the drains were still completely frozen over with a good 3 to 4 inches of ice! After a brief bout of self-deprecation for not calling a local tackle shop to check, a swift re-think was required. We needed to find some flowing water to be guaranteed some ice-free fishing. The nearby Witham was an option, but as none of us had ever really pulled up any trees on there, so we opted to head back as far as Newark and try a stretch of the Trent which none of us had fished before. It was close to a boatyard and seemed a logical place for us to find some lethargic pike seeking food close to shelter. Craig quickly caught a small jack, probably less than a couple of pounds, and that was it as far as action was concerned between the three of us. A big fat blank for me, which was disappointing because I was fishing with a new gear combo of a Shimano Purist Deadbait Classic rod (Christmas present from my very thoughtful better half) and a backbiter alarm which I’d never used before.

I’m pretty sure that once the drains thaw, there will be some very hungry fish just waiting to be caught. The second major freeze-over in a year can’t be bad for the long-term future of the drains, as it will give the pike a rest and will hopefully even have stopped some of the unscrupulous bastards catching and killing fish using illegal deadlines, as the PAC reported on their blog last month here.

My second trip out, on New Years Eve, was thankfully much more successful and enjoyable. My mate Titch (of my Mahseer fishing article fame) had been given some fishing tackle for Christmas and understandably he wanted to test it out at the earliest opportunity. I also had another new piece of kit to try out, a Centrepin reel called the “Ikona”, which at £50 is a real bargain-basement ‘pin, but having never tried using a centrepin before, I didn’t want to spend £200+ on a good one. So, we headed to Matlock Bath on the Derbyshire Derwent for a bit of day ticket fishing. I showed Titch how to set up with a running maggot feeder rig whilst I paired my new 'pin with my 15 foot Fox stick float rod and a medium-sized wire stemmed stick float. We started off fishing in around 6 feet of steady-paced water but nothing here seemed interested in maggots or bread; we didn’t have a bite between us in two hours. A move was in order, so we headed to a couple of swims with fast, deep water on the far margin and a slowly sloping sandy bed heading away from the near bank.

After a few initial problems I had got to grips with trotting with a centrepin and I was really pleased with how the Ikona reel was working. Not being a centrepin connoisseur, I can’t give any in-depth critique, but the bearings seemed to turn extremely easily, the spool ran smooth and true and I really enjoyed using it. I got into the habit of flicking on the spool latch (or “clicker”) with my little finger each time I netted a fish or re-baited my hook, to prevent unwanted spool spinning/bird nests/expletive shouting. From my experience using this reel, I reckon it makes a great introductory reel for newcomers to 'pins and certainly opened my eyes to the joy of participating in the only true art form in coarse fishing.

Almost from the first cast in the new swim my float was dipping with bites I didn’t manage to connect to, then Titch hooked and lost a fish on the feeder. My very next trot through yielded us our first fish of the day in the shape of a grayling of around half a pound. A couple of casts later I landed my second grayling of the day, but this one was only maybe half the size of the first. Titch managed to get through 7 hooklengths and three feeders in the space of about an hour, through various altercations with trees, rocks and fish, but eventually whilst trotting a waggler through, he managed to land his first ever trout. It was a wild brownie and after a few eerie moments around the aforementioned snags, the new rod & reel was christened and Titch was very relieved!

 
Meanwhile, my swim had seemingly come alive.  I landed 4 wild brownies myself and missed plenty of bites.  The thing was, three of the trout were the exact same fish!  It had a small red ulcer on its left side so it was easily recognisable.  I have caught the same fish twice in a session before but never three times!  The second and third captures were within 3 casts of each other so it was getting a little ridiculous.  I decided a switch to feeder tactics would allow me to fish further across the river, away from this greedy, suicidal trout which had staked sole claim on my swim.  Within minutes of casting out the maggot feeder I had a good solid bite and connected with my biggest fish of the day.  I think it was a large trout, but it started swimming quickly upstream towards me and as I guided it towards the net it suddenly turned and bolted, straightening my size 20 barbless hook, so there’s also a chance it was a small barbel.  I’ll never know.  Another small grayling came from this swim before I decided we’d had the best of it and we moved further upstream to some of my favourite pegs.

Titch was into the action straight away and it wasn’t long before a couple of young, wild spotties had been caught and released and also his first ever grayling so he was now a very happy man.  I caught a couple of small trout but it was grayling I was really after.  I remembered having joy with bread on this peg a couple of years ago, so I pinched as big a piece as I dare around a size 20 and swung out the rig.  Any bites I’d been getting from trout had been coming early on in the trot and the float passed this area without any sign of interest; as it neared the end of the trot, my float gently disappeared.  I struck and instantly knew I had a good fish attached.  It was the first time I’d actually needed to play a fish with the centrepin and I now see the appeal of it.  Extremely direct, with no drag to help me out, it really was heart-in-mouth stuff.  Again, I assumed this fish was a good trout but as it surfaced halfway out, I saw it was actually a decent chub.  Thankfully the hook held and I netted what was a very battered old chevin, with a strange sky-blue hue to its body, a bulging-out eye, a rotted anal fin and a fairly fresh mouth wound, presumably from a previous hook tearing out.  I treated this and set the fish up for a photograph alongside my centrepin before returning it as quickly as possible.  I didn’t weigh the fish but it was a chunky old chap which I think would weigh around 3lb 12oz.  It was also the first chub I’ve ever caught from this stretch, though I’ve always known it held a few.  All in all, a pleasant end - to a day of education for both Titch and myself - and of course, to 2010.  the only disappointment of the day was that I still had a Christmas present I hadn't tried out - a Zippo hand warmer - but better to have it and not need it than vice versa!  Happy new year everyone and tight lines for 2011.

Piking before the snow came and a timely review of some warm fishing gear!

As I write this entry, Derbyshire – along with much of the UK - is in the midst of snowy weather so severe that even the most ardent Toyota Prius driver must be wishing they’d bought a “gas guzzling” 4x4 instead! I would be surprised if many anglers are venturing out at the moment because this kind of prolonged cold period can turn most fish completely off the feed. Get ready once it warms up though (after the cold snow melt water has flushed out of the system) and you could be in for some action with very hungry fish! Without expecting anything like this weather approaching us, I managed to time it right and fished just a few days before the snow fell.


I’d been lucky enough to receive a couple of products from outdoor gear manufacturer Sealskinz, to try out for fishing. I have owned their products before, which use a unique waterproof membrane to offer the wearer excellent resilience to the elements. My Sealskinz gloves have been used for everything from raft racing to caving and I’ve always been highly impressed by their function. The new products I was trying out for fishing were a winter Beanie Hat and a pair of Country Socks, both incorporating Sealskinz’ patented waterproof, breathable membrane.

 On first inspection, the country socks seemed a little on the thin side, but once I put them on I realised the benefits of their knee-height merino wool construction. They are surprisingly warm! They also feature an over-sized woolly cuff and are seamless all the way up to reduce blister-causing pressure points. At the end of a Winter session my feet are usually a damp mess, either from sweat or from water seeping in through my boots, but with these socks I can honestly say that my feet remained warm, dry and comfortable all day. Knowing that my legs were waterproof all the way up to the knee gave me confidence of trampling through long, wet grass, too. Perfect socks for fishing whether wearing wellies or boots.

The beanie hat is not only windproof but waterproof too. It has a micro-fleece lining, making it very warm on the head. Having longish hair, beanie hats tend to ride up my head as I wear them, but the Sealskinz hat really seemed to hug my head and stay put. There was no rain to speak of on the day I tested the gear out, so I can’t vouch first hand for the hat being waterproof, but I’m convinced it will be, having experienced how waterproof other Sealskinz gear is. I think all fishing headwear should be made waterproof because you never know when you might be stuck outside when a storm breaks out, so this really is an ingenious feature. I would highly recommend these hats for winter fishing; they should keep you comfortable no matter what nature throws at you, whether on the bank of a drain or a boat on a reservoir. The hat I tested was red but they’re also available in black and olive. I’m sure you’ll be seeing this red hat feature in many of my future catch photographs (including the one below!).

On the day it was great to be warm and comfortable because a cold wind was howling and the fishing was incredibly slow. I had arrived at dawn hoping to find some large shoals of bait fish that I could fish close to, but only the odd small fish made themselves visible, so I moved to an area I knew well, which had a few features to fish to. Initially I leapfrogged my rods, spending maybe half an hour in a swim before moving to the next, but gradually my confidence was slowly ebbing away; I had seen nothing to suggest there were any fish in the area, no bait fish activity and no pike striking either. Upon speaking to a bailiff, I decided to give another area a go, which I’d never seen before let alone fished. I was told no-one was down there and some pike had been showing of late, so it seemed the perfect chance for me to check it out. By the time I was packed up and headed the 4 miles or so to the new area, there was another pike angler set up and also guy after silver fish. It looked promising and the guy bit-bashing said that the odd pike had been showing in front of some far-bank features, which I could see were surrounded by submerged weed. I cast one bait as close as I could and cast around with my other rod, to see if I could find myself some action.


It was a chilly old day by this point and I was glad I’d taken an extra few layers, including the Sealskinz hat. I sat back, finished my sandwiches and flask of soup and contemplated what to do next. I was fishing with a roach deadbait on the rod cast close to where the pike had been showing; my theory being that if pike have been striking nearby, other pike may spot a natural coarse dead laid on the bottom and be less suspicious of it than a sea dead. On the other rod I alternated between smelt, mackerel and mini herring, hoping the added scent trail of an oil-injected sea dead might pull fish in from farther afield.

I had just rigged up a wobbling rig for my lure rod and was making my third cast with this when a solitary beep from the roach baited rod caught my attention. I switched rods immediately and felt the line in my fingers; a couple of strong twitches told me it was time to strike. Immediately I could tell the fish was heavy; it kited to my right before I managed to turn its head, at which point it sluggishly swam towards me. As soon as the fish spotted the net in the clear water, it bolted and gave me a brief moment of worry because I’d seen it was a good size and I inevitably worried if the hooks would hold. My worries were unjustified because soon after the specimen was gracing my net. Just one of the barbless trebles was hooked and was easily removed. When I saw the girth of the fish, I was convinced it would be close to, if not over 20lb but the scales registered 18lb 14oz. This is the largest pike I’ve landed since my PB, which when I checked the date of capture, was exactly 5 years to the day! Guess it must be my lucky date! Spooky.

 

WEBSITE - UPDATED DESIGN

I've also tweaked the layout of my website, www.just-fish.co.uk.  The navigation menu is now at the top of the page, rather down the left-hand side.  It looks a bit neater and dare I say, more "modern".  Hopefully because it no longer uses frames either, it will be easier for people to link to the page they want or save to their favourites.

Sloe Gin + Heavy Furniture + Heavy Music = No Fishing for Me!

Real life has been getting in the way of fishing recently.  Since my last post I've spent a single, fruitless evening sat behind a pair of motionless barbel rods.  I arrived on the river after dark, the air temperature was hovering around a balmy 3 to 4 degrees Celsius!  I knew it was futile before I started, but I gave it a go anyway, wrapped up in plenty of layers.  I stuck it out until about 23.30 and as I started to pack my gear away I noticed all of my bags were covered in frost!  That's very often happened when I've been piking before but never when I fish for barbel!

Since then I've been up to Blackpool illuminations for a couple of days with my girlfriend and family, and also helped her move house.  This left me with plenty of manly things to do, such as constructing beds & wardrobes, lugging boxes around in a Maun Motors Transit van, covering the bathroom (and probably a few bits of carpet) in silicone sealant and hacking various parts of the garden to bits with a machete ('twas a tad overgrown!), a strimmer and a long-reach petrol hedge trimmer; but left no time for fishing.

My one indulgence over the past two or three weeks has been the making of my first ever batch of sloe gin.  In recent years I've noticed an ever-increasing crop of the fruit of the blackthorn bush, lacing the hedgerows of some local fields.  Over the the same timescale my liking for the indulgent, sweet, burgundy-coloured tincture these fruits help produce has also been increasing; so this Autumn I decided to harvest my own sloes and see what kind of quality sloe gin I can come up with.  Somehow I managed to pick over 7lb of sloes (although to be fair, I didn't leave many unpicked!), half of which I froze overnight (a contentious subject, I found out when I discovered Sloebiz, a website and forum dedicated to the making of sloe gin!), the other half I left in a bucket of lightly-salted water (to both clean the sloes and weedle out any bugs hiding amongst them).  I gave the frozen ones a few good smashes with my fists as they were defrosting, which left the sloes a bit of a mulchy mess, but saved me having to split them.  The fresh ones were so ripe they split open within a couple of hours, so again this saved me a job!  These were I put half of each batch of sloes into 2 demijohns, along with a bucket load of sugar and a couple of secret ingredients (if it works, then I'll spill the beans on my secrets, but I'm in a bit of a light-hearted competition with my mate Matt and anyone else who wants to join in, with a blind taste test deciding the winner).  The demijohns have had a few good shakes now and the colour is really coming out of the sloes.  I have a few pictures below showing my progress so far.  The bottle on the right had just been shaken, the one on the left had not.  I'm hoping to use one demijohn from around Christmas time this year.  It should help warm the cockles on those Jan/Feb pike sessions!  The other one I'll leave until next Christmas by which time it should really blow your socks off!



Here are my two first attempts at making Sloe Gin.  The one on the left has settled, the one on the right has just been shaken to get some more of the lovely sloe-ness out of those fruits!



Sedementary my dear Watson  ...One of my Sloe Gin Demijohns after a good shake



...and before a shake

This week my ears are recovering from almost being ripped off my face when I watched the double bill of Rolo Tomassi (one of my favourite British bands) and The Dillinger Escape Plan (one of my favourite bands in the world) at the tiny sweatbox that is Nottingham Rescue Rooms.  Dillinger should be gracing the Rock City stage by now, surely?  At least then more than 20% of the audience would be able to see the stage.  And it wouldn't feel so full the walls were about to burst either!  I've seen Dillinger 6 times now I think and although I loved their chaotic Leeds Festival set a few years ago, I'm pretty sure this was my favourite show.  I don't know how they can play so fast and keep so tight when hurling around/off the stage like they're posessed!  Rolo Tomassi suffered from some terrible sound, which didn't give the crowd the full effect of their musical complexity and ever changing time sugnatures.  They seemed not quite so tight, but maybe this was exaggerated by just how well honed the onstage DEP machine is.

I'm going to be watching the weather and river levels over the next week or so, plotting my next session and figuring out the wheres and what fors to give me the best chance of landing a specimen.  Perch, pike, grayling and chub will all be on the radar, but as November is traditionally my best month for big pike (strange, as for most people it's Feb/March!), then I doubt I'll be able to resist a few casts for old Esox...

First Pike of the Season... (...and it's a proper one!)

Following a blank after-work zander fishing session last week I was keen to get back out on the bank predator fishing because the rivers were fining down nicely since the rains had stopped.  I headed to an old river haunt which I hadn't fished for four or five years.  A friend and I had some great results there between 2003 and 2005, with quite a few doubles gracing our nets.  These were seemingly uncaught fish in pristine condition, which gave me the best fights I've ever had from pike.  They were long, lean, huge-finned pike which really knew how to use the current to their advantage.  The reason we stopped fishing there is that when comparing photographs, we started to notice a few recaptures, so for the benefit of these prime breeding females, we decided to leave them alone.  A tip for checking if you've had any recaptures of pike is to compare the anal fin markings.  Like the rest of a pike's markings, these are unique to each fish and because the anal fin is relatively large and visible on most photographs, they make a perfect comparison tool.

Planning for an early start, I over-slept and didn't get on the bank until around 11am!  Still, the sky was grey and overcast, there was no-one else around and the river looked perfect.  There was enough of a tinge of colour to make barbel fishing a good prospect, but my heart was set on piking, so that was what I set up to do. 

The swims we used to fish have a variety of overhanging trees making perfect ambush points for pike to lie-up in, so I cast out the first rod with confidence.  When I came to cast the second rod I realised that the reel wouldn't turn; expecting the line to be wrapped around the tip, I went to untangle it but found everything to be in order.  I then checked the reel and to my utter dismay I found the spool on my trusty old Daiwa Bite 'N' Run reel had split almost in two and the skirt was jammed firmly on the reel.  I've no idea how this happened, but after hacking bits of the spool skirt with my Leatherman, I couldn't get the reel to work.  The only options were to fish one rod or reel the other bait in, chum up the swim and walk back to the van to rob a reel from a barbel rod...  So, twenty minutes or so later I returned to the swim with a working reel and set up the second rod.  By now, through one thing and another, I'd wasted half the day and the sun had burned through the clouds.  It was now quite warm with a blazing sun and a clear blue sky!  Not ideal condtitions, but I fished on regardless. 

After three biteless hours, I was thinking of moving swims when I noticed one of my rod tips shaking gently.  I had cast a float-legered herring into a slightly deeper hole, in the shadows cast by a large tree.  The flotsam my line had picked up had been holding my float underwater for the last half hour, so the float hadn't been much use to me, but suddenly it popped up!  I immediately picked up the rod, and struck.  As I struck the clutch on my reel spun, making me wonder if enough pressure would have been transmitted to set the hooks.  I tightened up a little and reeled what was obviously a heavy fish, straight in towards me!  I caught a glimpse of a wide, long head as it neared the surface and I reached for the net, thinking I would fluke the fish straight in.  The pike was to have other ideas though; it kited slowly away from the net, turned, then hit the nitro-boost button!  Even with the now tightened drag, the pike effortlessly thrust its way straight back across the river, almost back to the spot where I'd hooked it!

Luckily, I turned the fish and began to make ground on it, before it spotted a reed bed and headed directly towards it.  A bit of a stalemate around the reeds ended in my favour and this time I safely guided the fish over my waiting net.  I was right about the head on this fish, it was huge!  I rested the fish in the margins and for a a split-second I almost convinced myself this was a 20lb fish, but thankfully I snapped back to reality before unhooking and weighing it.  What a fish though!  Long, lean and a great fight; these fish had not changed one bit.

As I opened the pike's mouth to do the unhooking honours, I saw another, stray treble lodged in the "inner anus" (there's probably a scientific term for the digestive opening at the back of a pike's throat, but I don't know it!).  I removed this first and it came out surprisingly easily, due to having worked slightly loose over time.  Surprising because it was a fully barbed size 4 short-shank treble.  Why any pike anglers feel the need to use barbed trebles is beyond me.  It offers no benefit and only adds to the potential of something like this happening.  If I hadn't caught this fish, who knows, it could have been dead in a few weeks after slowly starving to death.  I'm sure the angler didn't mean to leave the hook in there, but the fact that it was still there backs up my argument.  There was no sign of any wire, so probably the crimp/twist attachment had parted.  We're all human, we all make mistakes, but I can't help but cringe when I see something like this.  Who knows, maybe a semi-barbed treble would have already worked loose.  Okay, so this blog is beginning to become a rant-fest, whatwith the litter rant last time and the barbed treble rant this time!  Still, I wouldn't rant about it if it wasn't something I passionately believe in and I do get a bit precious when it comes to pike welfare.  They're not in the slightest bit as tough as their appearance would suggest, so only fish for them if you know how (or ask to go with someone who does know) and if you can't find semi-barbed trebles (where only one hook point has a barb on it) please, please, please SQUASH THOSE BARBS.

Oops, fell off the soapbox there, rotten old thing...  Anyway, rant over, now for the pictures of this long, magnificent creature.  And the pike I caught! (how can I stoop so low)...


I'm well happy with this, my first pike caught by design this season (I've already caught them on perch sessions, zander sessions and even barbel sessions so far this season).  I'm guessing I won't be able to go piking as often as I'd like to this winter, so to kick it off with my biggest pike for almost 4 years is one hell of a treat.