A Very Welcome Highlight to End the River Season

It's a now a month since the rivers closed and I'm just getting around to typing up my 'end of season round-up' post.  I don't think I've fully grasped the concept of a blog!  Well, better late than never, I suppose...

Somehow I've managed to once again have a poor end to the season.  What's made this one different to previous seasons is that it followed a poor middle of the season and a disappointing start to the season too!

Okay, so I haven't had as many hours on the bank since November as I wanted, but the efforts I did make had brought me 0 fish on the bank since November too!  A few evening sessions fishing for zander, a few of the same after barbel (in seemingly ideal conditions, too) and an all-day chub session all resulted in a single half-hearted bite and no fish hooked or landed. 

In February I escaped the horrendous floods by heading to a canal which manages to remain clear no matter what the conditions.  It was a slow day during which I fished static deadbaits, wobbled deadbaits and lures, which all generated very little interest.  Finally a float-legered sardine I'd cast tight to a reedbed was picked up and line was being taken fast.  In my eagerness I rushed to set the hooks.  If I'd taken a second to look and think, I would have seen that my float was disappearing behind a clump of reeds, causing an angle between the rod and the hooks.  A few strides up the bank before striking would have alleviated this, but I had a momentary lapse of angling intuition and instead struck from where I stood.  The water erupted beside the reeds as a very large fish pulled back.  

No sooner had my rod hooped over than the fish buried deep in the reeds, a few more kicks as I scrambled to get a better angle of pull and the fish was gone, leaving my hooks embedded in the Norfolk reeds, which eventually defeated my mainline.  Bloody Norfolk reeds, over the years I've lost more tackle in them than in trees, or any other snag for that matter.  Despite their thin, hollow construction they are remarkably strong and even 15lb mainline is no match for them if the hook has a firm hold.

After that, I tried all sorts, went to see how other stretches of the canal were fishing and it became apparent that with one run, I was faring better than most.  I decided to return to my original stretch and hope there were more fish around, or that the fish I lost might get over its inevitable sulk quick enough to be tempted by a different type of bait (if ever I lose a pike on a certain bait, or have a follow on a certain lure, my default response is to try a different bait/lure, which they may not view with as much suspicion as they would seeing the same one again).  Despite a free-roving float - which I was drifting around the canal with the wind - bobbing encouragingly a few times as dusk approached, it wasn't to be my day and I left cursing the fact that I really f***ed up when it mattered most and lost what I think was a very decent pike.

Before I could get out again, the final week of the river season was upon me.  I only had time to go fishing once after work that week.  Conditions seemed perfect for barbel and I had some new boilies I wanted to try out, so I headed to the Derwent.

The weather was mild for the time of year so instead of heading to the deeper holes and runs that I'm usually tempted to try in February and March, I tried a swim which had shallows immediately upstream of it, and dropped to a maximum depth of around 6 feet mid-river.  The water pace is pretty fast here, so it's not the kind of place I'd expect to find barbel when it's really cold, but with night-time temperatures hovering around double figures, there was every chance the fish could be hard on the feed in somewhere just like this.

Having lost a bit of faith in the baits I'd been using (I started to question the freshness of the shelf-life baits which seemed to have a more sour aroma than when I'd bought them previously) and only landing a couple of chub on luncheon meat all season, I was eager to try something new.  I'd heard good things about The Hook Bait Company, so I ordered a few different flavours of their freezer baits in 14mm & 16mm dumbbells.

I also opted to switch from a large swimfeeder to a small lead, just enough to hold bottom.  The main reason for this is that with the heavy floods many anglers had stayed at home.  Any rigs that were cast into the rivers would have landed in several extra feet of coloured floodwater, so as they landed they would probably go unnoticed by the barbel.  Therefore the barbel would have had a very quiet few weeks of getting used to not being bombarded with heavy feeders and leads.  Now the rivers had fined down and the water was quite clear, any large splashes would most likely be viewed with suspicion, possibly putting the barbel off the feed or causing them to move out of the swim altogether.

I still wanted a bit of scent going into the water, so I made up some small PVA stockings of groundbait, a few pellets and a couple of crumbled boilies then attached them to my rig with the very handy Avid Carp PVA metal link.

I baited each rod with a 3-B boilie and a Big Squid boilie and put them out mid-river, one in the deeper part and one at the bottom of the rapids, where it just started to deepen off.  It was 8pm by the time I got both rigs into the water, which was disappointing as I knew this would be my last session of the season and I may have already missed the main feeding spell.  I doubted whether I could face another blank and where it would leave me if the season ended without me banking a fish during the first 3 months of 2014.  Still, I knew I could do nothing more so I sat back in wait, enjoying the mild late winter evening.

Twenty minutes later the downstream rod tip careened towards the water.  Unmistakably a barbel bite!  It had been a while since I'd hooked anything, let alone a barbel, so it was a fantastic but slightly unnerving sensation to feel something take line at speed.  I couldn't do anything with it at first, the clutch was already as tight as I dared have it, but as far as I knew there was open water in front of me (Although anything could have been deposited by the floods.).

It took at least a minute, but it felt much longer, before I could get the fish under control enough to regain any line.  I started making headway and got the fish halfway back to me when I felt a bump and everything went solid.  My worst nightmare!  I didn't know what snag the fish had found, but it didn't feel like I was going to be able to move it (It was probably a submerged clump of Norfolk reeds!).  I started shaking, knowing that I had hooked something decent which could save the end of my season, but I was now within one wrong move of losing it.  I tried to remain calm so I didn't do anything rash, like I'd done on the pike session, and after maintaining contact and pulling from as many different angles as I could I decided my best chance would be to slacken off for a few seconds and hope the fish moved off.

To my relief after trying this a couple of times the rig came free of the snag and lo and behold, it was still attached to the fish!  I didn't want to take anything for granted now and tried to play the fish in as quickly as possible.  After a few near-misses close to the landing net, the fish was safely nestled within it.  First cast with the new baits and I'd landed what was clearly my best barbel of the season and it looked like it should definitely make double figures.

The weighing confirmed I'd landed my first double figure barbel of a disappointing barbel season, at 10lb 9oz.  I cannot tell you the relief to catch a decent fish on my final attempt and to make it all the more special, it gave me such a memorable scrap.  Hopefully next season the rivers will be kinder to me, but when I look back at last season it won't seem quite so bleak as I it might.

My first fish of 2014 and my last of the 2013/14 season also ended up being my first 10lb+ barbel of the season

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/

The final two sessions of the 2009/10 season!

Firstly, I have to say it was great to just get a few days out on the bank at last!  For me, 4 full days fishing out of 14 is quite rare (if only it wasn't!), and I managed to actually relax into the fishing; not so-much-so that I wasn't thinking about what I could do to improve my chances (which, incidentally, I mainly concluded was very little!), but enough to actually enjoy just being there.


So, on to what I actually did...  I had two days fishing for perch on the rivers before they closed which - I suppose due to a combination of the size prospects at this time of year, the fact that most of my winter fishing revolves around toothier predators and also because perch are one of my favourite species - has become a bit of a tradition for me over the last few years.  So far and unsuccesful tradition, but this year had to be different.  For starters, last season I baited up a swim to return to later only to find upon my return that another angler had taken that peg (which there is nothing wrong with, it was only through satisfying my own stupid intrigue that I left the peg in the first place!) and proceeded to extract a 3lb+ perch, a 4lb+ perch and a 6lb+ chub from the exact spot I'd baited up, using the most basic tactics and double maggot!  So, now I knew exactly where to find these fish at this time of year (it is close to shallow water, vegitation and a side-stream, so it's the ideal pre-spawn hangout), I would make my triumphant return to catch at least one new PB.  Then the second day I had planned was a visit to the river Kennett between Newbury and Reading, escorted by a true local perch expert - Will Barnard - who not so long ago caught 10 different 3lb+ perch from 10 different stretches of the river in a SINGLE season!  Now that's some going!  But you know what they say about the best laid plans...


In reflection, I'm quite disappointed in the decisions I made on the first day.  I arrived at the peg which I knew had personal record-breaking potential, to find the water a bit on the shallow and clear side.  The main feature was a near-bank bush in a small eddy and my first impression was that it was too shallow for much to be sheltering beneath it, with at least 6 inches less water in the river than the previous year.  Still, I'd done a fair bit of roving the previous two years and it didn't result in any big perch, so I decided to keep a low-profile, keep feeding the swim and sit it out, hoping a perch would at least visit the bush at some point during the day.  When one did, I would be ready!  I didn't cast a line for the best part of an hour, instead deciding to feed small amounts of chopped worm, groundbait and molehill soil and a spray of maggots on a regular basis.  My visions of the gathering shoals of hungry bait fish flanked by even hungrier perch were maybe a tad optmistic, as when I eventually made my first cast the plump lobworm generated no attention.  I fished on, undeterred, and explored the rest of my swim by alternating with a float and a second, scaled-down feeder rod baited with maggots.  Still I got no bites and I eventually decided to feed the swim up and rest it for a while.  I had a lure rod with me and I couldn't resist a wander.


With my bait rods out of the water I took off with a few lures and tried some swims which have been productive for me in warmer weather.  At least if I could get a take from a perch somewhere it would let me know they were feeding, and also help me figure out where they were holed up.  Despite my best efforts fishing various lures in all manner of swims I couldn't find a perch keen enough to even follow a lure.  Before long I reached the upstream limit of the stretch, and a very under-fished peg with loads of natural features.  Casting from a high bank above an eddie, I watched my lure for the whole retrieve and just as I lifted it from the water, a pike launched itself from the shadow of a bush and didn't just swipe at the lure, it breached the water completely and took a snap at it mid-air!  Of course it missed, but provided me with quite a spectacle.  I chanced another cast, clinging to the slim hope that the fish would have another go and watched as it really aggressively pounced, paused and inhaled the lure!  What beautiful condition this fish was in; completely un-marked.  The condition and location this fish came from leads me to believe it was previously uncaught and I'm pretty sure in future it will treat curly-tailed lures with just a bit more cynicism!

I had to revel in this capture slightly more than I would have liked, because the perch never switched on and it ended up being the only fish I landed all day!  As soon as I'd packed up, I jumped in the van and headed towards Reading, to stay in a hotel close to the Kennet so that I could meet up with Will bright and early next morning.

To be continued...

Finishing with a flurry?

Well, the end of the traditional close season (which, in it's current form, I agree with 100%) is almost upon us.  I had the rare chance to go fishing twice last week and for the first trip I decided to follow my own yearning for a return to the Lincs drains (they can be frustrating at times and I hear many reports of fish thefts and that they're not what they once were, but I just love fishing them!) for a final try for a pike before the rivers & drains close on the 14th.  I made the 70 mile trip East and checked a few of my favourite places out, before settling on a very shallow drain, carrying only 18 inches of water down the centre.  The weather had turned and was much sunnier than we've experienced for months.  This wasn't ideal because bright weather can put fish off the feed, but on the other hand, the water was in need of warming up, so surely the sun couldn't do too much harm for my day fishing.  Plus, there were clouds dotted around and I have noticed pike and perch launch attacks on sunny days, just seconds after the sun goes behind a cloud, as if they have been patiently poised, waiting for anything which swung the odds slightly in their favour.

There were a few sporadic strikes up and down the drain, and the fish seemed to be striking in pairs.  There would be two strikes almost instantaneously, within feet of each other, then nothing for maybe half an hour.  That's the thing with fishing a shallow water; when a pike strikes, it has to create a bow-wave or break the surface.  In a deep water, the fish could be striking mid-depth and showing no signs on the surface that they're feeding at all.  So now it was my turn to be poised.  And frustrated.  The strikes would happen and each time I would have to sit on my hands to stop myself picking up the rods and charging upstream to cast there, because chances were that the next strike would be right in front of me!  I ended up mixing things up.  I fished two static rods and cast them either side of where I'd seen fish strike, give them half an hour, then move.  Other times I travelled up & down the drain with a roving float set-up, trotting a bait in the steady flow.  This turned out to be the winning method when, after several hours trying with no joy, my float darted under at speed.  With such a positive take I wasted no time in winding down to the fish and immediately caught sight of it, as it turned in the shallow water.  I could see the fish was easily into double figures so I took my time, but the fish put up little resistance and was soon in the net.  Then the battle began!  The battle between me and the muddy banks.  The banks on this particular drain are akin to a WWI trench and despite wearing boots with some serious grips, I found myself on my back, sliding towards the water, trying not to snap my rod, hurt the pike or let it jump back into the drain!  I eventually managed to claw my way out and found a slightly less precarious part of the bank to lower the net into the water to let the fish recover while I tried to pull myself together and sort out my forceps, camera & scales.

Often drains fish have taken some hammer from previous captures, but I was pleasantly surprised by the condition of my fish.  She had no wounds from hooks or lesions on her sides and all fins seemed in good nick too.  Either I'd done well to outwit this master of bait evasion or she'd recently moved in for a feast, from a more remote area.  Despite the time of year, this fish didn't appear to be carrying any spawn, and wasn't particularly bloated with food either, but she was thick set, with a large head and a broad back.  The scales told me she weighed 16lb 3oz so this fish was by far my largest of an altogether disappointing winter pike campaign, which had started with so much promise.  Still, a 16 is a very good pike and I'm really happy with it as a way to finish! 

I think the toll which the "unorthodox" pre-photo procedures had taken on me, showed on my face!...

I did go on to catch another fish of around 7lb using the same tactics, but when the action slowed I ventured off to find other drains with pike in feeding frenzies, but I'd have probably been better off staying put!  Except for seeing two Barn Owls, at two different drains a few miles apart.  I just managed a snap of one of them before it flew off...

A friend of mine tipped me off that after a lean winter, the tidal Trent barbel were on the feed and people were catching up to 4 fish during the day.  I've never targetted barbel in the winter - other species have always taken my fancy a bit more - but knowing where the fish were feeding was half the battle won, so I fancied getting myself amongst this late-season barbel action!  So, the following day I dug out my barbel kit and headed to the area these fish were reported from.  I spent a whole day doing... well, pretty much nothing!  I didn't have anything resembling a bite and nor did the chap on the next peg upstream, who specialised in winter barbel fishing.  So somehow in two days of the weather not changing much, the fish had either gone right off the feed or buggered off elsewhere to get their fill!  Roll on the summer, that's my kind of barbel fishing...

This week I've got two perch fishing sessions planned, on two different rivers in two different counties, in two days!  If I could land a decent perch on each session I will end this season smiling like you wouldn't believe!  I'll post the, no doubt disappointing results on here next week!

I've uploaded a new pike fishing article to my website.  It originally appeared as the front page feature article in December 2009 issue of Angling Star magazine.  I discuss the merits of chumming up when pike fishing and describe how to make a cheap and effective chum feeder to deposit the fishy mush near your hookbait.  Either visit the homepage or click on the link from the Article Archive or go Straight to it