2015 - My Highlights - Part 1: Trotting for Barbel on the Derwent

In April last year my life was changed forever by the birth of my daughter!  So whilst I've been experiencing the highs and challenges of fatherhood, finding time to fish has become even more difficult.  Time to blog about it has inevitably proved yet trickier to find!  I have, however, sneaked in a short evening session most weeks since June and I've really enjoyed the fishing I've done this season.  More than I have in quite some time!

So I thought I would write about my 3 angling highlights from last summer; a blog post for each.  They include a first, a PB and an exhilarating spot of close-quarters, clear water fishing.  If you like the sound of those, read on...

First barbel on the stick float

A couple of seasons ago I decided that I really wanted to catch a barbel on the float.  With almost all of my barbel fishing consisting of summer & autumn evening sessions, I only managed 4 or 5 hours of trotting for them last season, with only a few small silver fish and minnows to show for my efforts.  This year I decided to put some effort in at the beginning of the season when, arriving at the river between 7pm and 7.30, I would still have a good couple of hours of decent daylight available to me.

Although I was hoping for a barbel, so early on in the season I would be thankful to catch anything bigger than a minnow!  So, I got cracking from on my first session of the season, which was to the Derbyshire Derwent.  I had a spot in mind with a good steady flow and depth of around 5 feet when the water is low, which it has been all season on the DD.  My rig was pretty simple; 8lb mainline with a large, wire-stemmed Avon float through to a size 16 specimen hook on a 6lb hooklength.  I started off using a bulk-shotting pattern, but I wasn't happy with how this was fishing so I soon moved to shotting in a shirt-button style.

Last season I trotted maggots and was plagued by minnows but I also landed a few roach on legered pellets.  Interested to see if the Derwent could produce a real specimen roach, I decided that feeding mixed-size pellets and then trotting a 6 or 8mm banded pellet should give me a decent chance of hooking barbel, chub, bream or even a decent roach.

The first session went pretty well.  I used my first few casts to learn the exact contours of the swim and after half an hour or so of steady feeding I had my first bite.  The fish charged around the swim, convincing me that I'd hooked a small barbel or even a carp, but when it tired and neared the surface, the fish which appeared was a chub of around four pounds.  A good fish on the float to kick-off the season with!

After the chub I had no further action on the float, but spurred on by this success I went for similar tactics next session, but I put in a few casters, pellets and some hemp in with a baitdropper before I started.

Within half an hour I was beginning to get bites on the banded pellet, which to begin with where from small roach and then a surprise grayling.  This gave me a bit of confidence, but I was longing for a real tussle.  

Occasionally I flicked out the float slightly further upstream, giving the bait chance to settle near the bottom earlier in the trot.  Near the beginning of one such trot through, the float buried and as I struck, something pulled hard in the opposite direction.  A barbel was hooked and it soon dawned on me that all this time spent trying to tempt a barbel to take a float-fished bait was the easy part; now I had to try to control and land the thing!

So began a couple of minutes of what I can only describe as enjoyable panic!  I had a little chuckle to myself as I listened to the tinny 'pings' let out by the drag clicker on the aluminium spool as it spun and time seemed to stand still for a few seconds as I appreciated the way this barbel was pulling on the float gear.  At the same time I knew full well that it was pulling straight towards a big bed of ranunculus!  

The fish made it to the weedbed but with some internal words of encouragement to calmmy decision making, a bit of gentle persuasion soon had the barbel out and back into open water.  I was glad I hadn't gone for a lighter hooklength because this little episode would have been the end of my battle. 

Thankfully my hooklength - and my resolve - held out and a fit, chunky barbel of 8lb+ was in the net.  My first barbel hooked & landed on the float and a personal goal attained!  With a large ranunculus patch just in front of me I waded out to rest the fish on top of it for a couple of trophy shots before returning it.

A few minutes after I released this fish the light dropped sufficiently to make trotting impossible, but it held on just long enough for me to take my first grayling from this stretch.  Not a big one at all, but what it lacked in size it made up for in greed, as it also took a 6mm pellet!

 

One of the benefits of trotting during the last few hours of daylight is that - regardless of whether you catch on the float or not - the trickle of loosefeed going into the swim should draw fish in for if you want to fish static baits after dark.  This is exactly what I intended to do, so as the float rod was put into the rod bag a couple of quivertip rods came out.

A couple of biteless hours passed by, but I was confident that some barbel would show up at some point thanks to the bait that went in earlier.  The water was low & clear and with the commotion caused by landing the earlier barbel, I suspected any others were making the most of the sanctuary offered by the streamer weed.

I was using 1oz open-end swimfeeders with long hooklinks down to heavy-gauge size 14 hooks.  To match what I'd been feeding earlier in the session, I fished with a cluster of mixed-size pellets on the hair which I then dunked in some Gloop from The Hookbait Company and finally dusted the whole lot with groundbait for maximum appeal.

The tip on my upstream rod (cast just in front of the ranunculus bed which supported my earlier barbel for the photos) twitched promisingly a couple of times and my hand was on it in a flash.  As it started to wrap around I lifted into a fish which plodded purposely around.  We had a couple of stalemates and it took a few minutes before I could really get the better of it; conscious all the time of the volume of weed it could reach quickly in almost every direction!

Finally I worked the fish upstream of where I was stood.  By this point I'd realised it was a very decent fish I was attached to, which is why it was plodding steadily rather than charging around like the fish on the float had.  As the fish surfaced I eased it towards the waiting landing net and it was mine!  At exactly 12lb it ended up being my largest barbel of 2015 and came as a huge bonus to what had already been a productive and enjoyable evening.

Short session summer barbel fishing article from Coarse Angling Today

If anyone missed my article on short session summer barbel fishing in last years "river special" edition of Coarse Angling Today magazine and you'd like to read it, I have been kindly sent the PDF version.  I've uploaded it to my website at the following link so you can download & read it for free:  Download my barbel fishing article from Coarse Angling Today here

I hope you enjoy it and get something from it and I'd love to hear any feedback.

Fishing on the Fast Show, Screaming Reels on 4oD and a few interesting links

The Fast Show goes Fishing

I still love the Fast Show.  A popular opinion is that it revived a genre - the sketch show - which many said was dead, but I think it defined the genre and set a high water mark which no other sketch show has ever reached.  Maybe I'm biased because this programme was on TV during my early teens and was duly lapped up and mimicked by me and my peer group at school.  In fact I specifically remember a golden TV scheduling season, when The Fast Show and Nick Fisher's Screaming Reels (which you can now watch on 4oD here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/screaming-reels/episode-guide and on YouTube!) were both broadcast on the very same night!

Comedian Paul Whitehouse is famously an angler in his spare time, as well as an Angling Trust Ambassador.  He often allows his passion to influence his comedy writing, whether it's Ted's futile attempts at teaching Ralph how to fly fish, to convincing Aviva to let him create an angling character, Ollie the Fisherman, for a nationwide advertising campaign!

My personal favourite example of Whitehouse writing angling into comedy has to be the following sketch, with Simon Day playing the brilliantly obnoxious "Competitive Dad", who takes his son Peter fishing for the first time... 

"Don't get cocky Peter.  You're not an American!"  Brilliant clip!

 

 

Watching this it's obvious that Whitehouse is an angler.  The tackle and many of the terms & references are authentic; he's obviously had some major input in the writing of this scene.  The angling anoraks ("angloraks"?) amongst us will notice that Simon Day is set-up with a spinner which he just casts out and leaves, rather than retrieving.  No wonder he doesn't catch!

Pike chokes to death on Zander in Netherlands:

We've all heard the bulls*t stories of how gluttonous pike can be, "A pike ate my bull mastif/4x4/mother-in-law...", but this article shows one which really did bite off more than it could chew.  The zander's dorsal spikes failed to put off it's aggressor and this was the result:

You can read the full story on the BBC News website here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20971848

There's also another related story on the Daily Mail website, about a pike found choked to death on a carp in Suffolk.  I've seen various fishing-related stories on there over the years and they're usually made cringeworthy by the ropey photographs and quotes from their subjects and "experts" (although in this case with Bruno Broughton they at least found an actual expert!), but I had to chuckle at the final sentence, referring to taxidermy costs:  "'So after a couple of days I had to bury it,' said Mr Walker." 

Human sedative drugs making fish greedy?:

Fat Perch!

According to this online article citing the journal "Science", a study carried out on the feeding activities of perch suggests that residues of benzodiazepine passed in human urine may be present in watercourses, in such concentrations that it can "turn fish into greedy, risk-taking loners"!  Maybe that explains why there are so many big perch around nowadays!
http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/sedatives-making-fish-greedy

These findings suggest that there is a need to improve sewage treatment so that the chemicals from medications we take don't find their way into rivers, where - as this study suggests - their effects on the natural world can't be predicted.

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!

Spring Tench & Carp Overnighter

I managed to pick a couple of days break in the early-May rain, to fit in a 24-hour session with Shane Calton.  We visited Derbyshire's Higham Farm Lakes and tackled up primarily for tench, but with the head of carp, bream and other species in there, we knew it would be difficult to target them solely.  

Higham is pretty local to me, so I used to fish this place quite regularly for the carp when I was 15 to 18, but I worked out that I have only been there once in the last 12 years!

I was field testing a fair bit of Cyprinus night fishing gear, including a bivvy, a memory foam bedchair, a 3-5 season sleeping bag and a tackle barrow, which all performed superbly (Reviews on FishingMagic.com here).

Before I arrived Shane had already landed a few bream in the 4-5lb bracket and as I was setting up he landed a tench of exactly 5lb, which was a very promising start.

It was to be the last tench we had between us, but we each notched up carp overnight and I also had a bream and a strange fantail brown goldfish-cross thing, which I should have really taken a photograph of, though I have caught similar fish from Higham in the distant past too.  I had one breakage and two hook-pulls in the night, which were either the mothers of all tench, or more likely carp.

 

Overnight I was setup on both rods with 6lb mainline through to 5lb fluorocarbon hooklengths to size 14 Drennan Power Hair Rig hooks.  One rod had a helicopter rig above an open-end feeder and I alternated between corn and meat on this rod whilst on the other rod I rigged up a small method feeder and baited this with a 10mm pineapple & banana pop-up which Shane kindly provided!

 

Just as I was settling into my sleeping bag to get some sleep, the alarm on my margin rod - which had its bait placed just in front of a small bush - screamed out as a fish tried its best to swim between every root before I could lift up the rod.  As soon as I felt the rod I knew I was connected to a decent fish which was a huge worry, what with my 6lb mainline being dragged through the roots!  Thankfully I kept my calm, kept the rod tip underwater and applied steady sideways pressure.  I think the fish had run out of ideas, as one-by-one I felt the line 'ping' off each root, my heart fluttering a little each time as I though it was the hook dislodging.  I gradually felt more in contact with the fish and was able to coax it out into open water where I could tire it without fear of it finding more snags.  Shane did the honours with the net and we both gasped as we realised this fish was a little bigger than either of us expected.  It was a beautiful mirror of exactly 18lb.  My biggest carp for quite some time, although I rarely target them these days.

The following day I alternated between taking photos of the gear I was reviewing and fishing on the surface with this floater rig.  I ended up taking another 3 carp off the top and lost a couple too.

After a pretty terrible winter campaign it felt great to be on the bank catching, in fairly pleasant surroundings (I saw a few buzzards, jays & a treecreeper and had a field mouse visiting my groundbait bowl).  Surface fishing got my juices flowing big-time!  And when I latched into this 14lb common on my last cast, I actually caught myself smiling as the drag slowly "ticked" as the fish took line several minutes into the fight.  This year, for probably the first time ever, I was really glad that the river coarse fishing season was over. There's no hiding from it; since the beginning of November I'd had a real stinker of a season and smiles have been sadly lacking from my fishing for longer than I'm happy to accept.  But if this session was anything to go by, the spark is back and I'm loving my fishing again; at last!

A few new bits and bobs

This little newsflash post is soon to be followed by a fishing update, but I just have a few things of interest I thought I should share...

Firstly, Carl Allman of Rio Ebro Angling, who we chose to fish the Ebro with - for zander, roach, carp and catfish - last September, acheived second place in IGFA's World Record Acheivement Awards, as acknowledgement of him guiding anglers to a total of 18 line class World Records during 2011 alone!  I'd like to say I was one of those anglers... but I'd be lying!


Rio Ebro Angling also have a newly redesigned website http://www.rioebroangling.com/ and I urge you to check it out if you're thinking of venturing to foreign shores in search of fish this Summer.  There is a limit to how many bookings a single guide can take and I assure you Carl is among the best, so make your enquiries sooner rather than later.

I wrote an article a little while ago, about storing and keeping worms, including lobworms and denbrobaenas ("dendras").  I've put it up on my website.  If you want good, plump, fresh worms whenever you need them, without spending a fortune keeping them, it's worth taking a look:  http://www.just-fish.co.uk/articles/41-keeping-worms-fishing-bait.html

I also have three more features up on FishingMagic.com, the first is a step-by-step photo guide on how to make your own buoyant leger stems which are both cheap and robust:  Make your own Leger Stems

The other features are two reviews of Cyprinus products.  The first of which is an oval brolly/shelter called the V3.  It's ideal for spring & summer overnighters or for really windy and wet day sessions; just the job for an all-round specialist like I try to be! 

Cyprinus V3 Oval Brolly Review

The second Cyprinus review is of their flagship "Whole Hog" fishing accessory chair, which comes complete with all the rod support kit and a little side table too.  It even has arm-rests and a reclining back - both luxuries I've never been used to in fishing chairs in the past.  The review is here:  Cyprinus Whole Hog Fishing Chair Review and also, I noticed there were no instructions with this chair when I opened the box.  There are quite a few parts and to put them together for the first time is a bit confusing unless you have diagrams or instructions.  I've since found out that there is a PDF instruction leaflet available on request from Cyprinus, so I've also stuck it on my website for convenience, here:  Cyprinus Whole Hog Chair Setup Instructions.

Lastly, I came across this video yesterday which shows a novel and quick way of removing a barbed hook from your body, should you be unfortunate enough to hook yourself.  It does require another person to assist and it's not for the feint-hearted, but it's a pretty impressive technique:

My Back needed some Muscle Mend-ing!

To follow on from the end of my last post, I was in agony with my back.  It turned out I'd pulled some muscles down either side of my spine, around the lumbar region and for a pulled muscle, boy has it given me some grief!  It was playing havoc with all parts of my life, at work, at home, sleeping... I couldn't even put a pair of socks on!  Worst of all it was preventing me going fishing, so something had to be done

After trying various forms of pain relief, such as Voltarol, nothing was doing the trick and after all, killing the pain isn't really getting to the source of the problem.  A friend suggested I visit a sports massage therapist for treatment and recommended Nigel Mallender's Muscle Mend service.

After the first 45 minute session last week, I felt a gradual improvement in the level of pain I felt and the range of movement in my back. Nigel showed me a routine of stretching and strengthening exercises to do each morning, which also seemed to help.  Today I had my second session and now feel no pain from my injury.  Having said that, I can feel it's still there and I'm very wary of aggravating it again, so I'm still going to be taking things easy with my back for the next few weeks.

I'm keeping up with the exercises and if things continue to improve, I'll risk going fishing again soon when hopefully I can end this blank spell!

I can wholeheartedly recommend Nigel for anyone living in the Chesterfield/Dronfield/Sheffield area and if anyone is reading this from farther afield, who has a similar condition, get yourself off to your local sports massage therapist!  As a bit of a bonus, the massage covered my whole back, shoulders and neck and Nigel was able to find & treat some pretty serious knots which had built up in my shoulders through a combination of my terrible natural posture, being hunched over a computer for way too long and my dislocated clavicle injury I picked up when snowboarding 3 years ago, as mentioned here:  http://www.andrewkennedy.info/2010/02/its-been-another-lean-few-weeks-angling.html

For those interested, Nigel's website can be found here: 
www.muscle-mend.co.uk



Fingers crossed my next post will be (soon!) about blowing off the cobwebs and catching some fish!

Charity Predator Match @ Celtic Lakes

One session which I was hoping to have, but with work and other commitments it seems unlikely I'll be able to attend is a Charity Predator Match at Celtic Lakes, Frisby, which has been organised by Peter Hill, in aid of Leicester Royal Infirmary's Children's Ward.  The match is on Saturday 28th Jan and I believe there's still time to book a place if you're interested, you can contact Peter on 01162 313201 or 07598 339841.

Pike, Perch and Zander all count in the match, which is £20 to enter.  There are various prizes up for grabs including a week fishing on the Ebro and all proceeds will benefit the above, very worthy cause.

2011 - That was the year that was

I haven't posted a "true" blog post for a while now, I seem to have been abusing this blog and using it mainly as an interactive advertising board for other things I've been up to.  My own fishing has been very disappointing lately (more on that later), and I turn 30 in a couple of weeks, so I'm in quite a reflective mood and thought this was an opportune time to fill in on how 2011 was for me in fishing...


2011 started off very slowly for me.  A multitude of reasons have left me spending far less hours on the bank than I would have liked to, but thankfully most sessions I've made the most of the time I had and caught some reasonable fish.  I only had chance to fit in one session before March, but then managed a couple more river sessions before the season ended.  The only fish I landed during this period were a few pike, topped off by an 18lb 13oz beauty, which I blogged about here:  http://www.andrewkennedy.info/2011/03/river-pike-not-much-beats-em.html


Once the rivers closed, my fishing mainly went on a self-induced hiatus.  Buying my first home became the priority and despite ours being a relatively straight-forward purchase (so we were assured by the estate agents!), it took a couple of months to complete and another few weeks to get it how we wanted.  Just before the whole house purchase started, I headed to the beautiful Errwood Reservoir in the hills above Buxton, to do a spot of fly fishing.  I met up with Ian, who was the club secretary and resident Errwood maestro, and he showed me, with my very rusty fly fishing skills, how it was done.  I managed to break my rainbow trout PB twice in the day, despite the most sunny & hot April conditions I have ever seen in the UK.  It was also the start of a new fishing friendship which I'm sure will see us fishing together many times in the future.

A couple of "muck-about" sessions were all I had to keep me sane for the rest of spring & early summer.  A couple of short, unremarkable trips to some local lakes caught me a few small fish but did little to satisfy my angling hunger.  From the end of July, I started to get a few free evenings, so I could finally start my river campaign in earnest.  I didn't have to endure many blanks throughout the summer and caught a fair number of barbel, most of which were high "8s" or nine pounders.

I had a couple of flirtations with surface fishing for carp, which caught me a lot of fish.  Though none of them were monsters, I had some real fun fishing for them and I felt the electricity through my veins that only comes when casting to fish you can see (or by shoving your fingers in a socket!).  I definitely want to get back into surface fishing in spring 2012, maybe I'll latch into some bigger carp too.

An obvious highlight of the year was always going to be my first visit to the Ebro with Shane and Dave, in early September.  It did not disappoint, especially because we'd gone with an open mind towards the species we wanted to catch.  We didn't just want to sit it out for a monster catfish (though one of those would have been nice!), but rather sample a range of what the river had to offer.  With some carp fishing, a few zander, loads of roach to over 2lb, along with the cats; I think we ended up with more than just a sample!  I wrote a two-part article about the trip for Angling Star and FishingMagic, which you can still read online here: Part 1 - Zander, Roach, Barbel & Carp and Part 2 - Catfish

After returning from Spain, I continued to barbel fish on average one evening a week, up until late October.  The fish kept coming and again I didn't have to endure many blanks.  The average size was again between 8lb and just shy of 10lb, but my best evening brace came from the Derwent in mid-October, when I landed a fish of just shy of double figures and another of 11lb 2oz within an hour of each other.

Shortly after this, I targeted zander on the Trent for a couple of sessions and had quite a result in catching a couple of good zander, but also 3 pike including a couple of doubles to 16lb 14oz and a surprise 2lb 5oz eel, detailed in an article on FishingMagic here.
 

Also, during one of these sessions I managed to capture a strange shot on the self timer.  It's a trace of the light from my headlamp as I bent down in front of the camera, but it came out more like a ghostly-looking cobra ready to strike!

Since that run of form in the unseasonably mild Autumn, I've really struggled.  A pike session with my mate Titch had us on a venue with striking pike all over the place, but we could not tempt them on deadbaits.  We drove a long way to change venue, which saved a blank, but only in the form of a small jack for me and a lost potential PB for Titch.


My next two after-work sessions, in early December, didn't yield me a single bite.  Firstly fishing for barbel, then a zander session.  I'd been busy with domestic things for the remainder of December, but after Christmas I had the chance for a full day session.  Strangely, I hadn't caught a single chub on any of my barbel sessions throughout the summer or autumn, which I don't think has ever happened before. This gave me a bit of a chub itch to scratch, to save me going through a whole calendar year without catching one (I'd caught my last chub on new years eve 2010), so I decided to set this session aside to target chub. When the day came around the conditions were perfect on paper; warm rain the previous week had brought the levels and colour up, but no rainfall in a few days meant the colour was slowly being lost as the rivers fined down.  The weather was overcast with patchy clouds and when I arrived on the riverbank, the river looked in absolute peak winter condition.  The problem was, I was far from in peak condition; completely knackered from Christmas excess and nursing a back injury sustained whilst fitting a cooker hood on Christmas Eve!  Despite painkillers and strong coffee, I just couldn't get in the zone.


I'd wanted to trot with the centrepin and a new Cralusso Surf float I'd bought but hadn't used.  Unfortunately the wind was so strong I didn't even try to set the rod up; it wouldn't have been worth the hassle.  My backup plan took the form of a pair of quivertip rods and a variety of baits, from maggots to cheese-paste, bread to mackerel chunks.  The pain from my back made me really not want to walk too far with my tackle, on what I'd hoped would be a roving session, taking in plenty of swims on a really feature-rich stretch of river.  I ended up fishing a couple of swims with overhanging trees, quite close to the car park.  In three hours I had two half-hearted bites, one on mackerel chunk and one on cheese paste.  I connected with neither bite and eventually I decided I'd fished out both features and there was no chance of any resident fish which I'd not spooked by recasting, so I trudged back to the van and headed to a different stretch where I knew there was a huge sunken tree within an easy walk of the car park, where I'd caught chub from in the past.


I'd set up the first rod with a mackerel chunk attached on a lasso hair rig and cast it just below the rod tip while I baited the second rod.  Almost instantly the tip wrenched round, but being distracted with the other rod, I missed the bite and reeled in an empty mackerel skin, a chub bite for sure.  From then on I tried every bait and fished the swim to death well into dark, but I couldn't get another bite.  Eventually, cold and in a fair bit of pain, I accepted the inevitable and packed up, so for the first time in well over a decade, I've gone a whole calendar year without catching a single chub; bizarre!


On Monday I had planned to go barbel fishing for the last couple of hours of daylight/first couple of hours of darkness, but again my back has put paid to that idea.  I'm booked in at a sports phsyio tomorrow to hopefully get my back sorted out, which will allow me to go fishing again.  I hadn't realised how debilitating a minor back injury could be, but it's bad enough to keep me from fishing, which very little has done before!


Before the season ends, I'm hoping to get in as many sessions as possible, though at the moment I'm struggling for confidence so I've no idea what I'll be fishing for.  One major thing I have to look forward to is a jaunt down onto the Royalty in February, with a day on the Parlour Pool followed by a general day ticket, which we'll most likely be roving.  Considering the quality of fish available across a range of species on the fishery, I'm planning to go prepared to fish for anything and will let the river conditions dictate what I target, so we'll see how that goes!



I wish everyone the best of luck for 2012, wherever you fish and whatever you fish for!

Ebro Article Part 1 - Alternative Ebro on FishingMagic Now! Zander, Roach & Carp

Part 1 of my writings about my recent trip to the River Ebro in Spain is now live on FishingMagic.com!

Alternative Ebro Part 1 Article on FishingMagic.com

You can see some of the "sneak peek" photos from my previous post in all their glory, such as this one:

Alternative Ebro Part 1 Article on FishingMagic.com

A slightly different version of this article should be featuring in December's Angling Star magazine too.

Keep an eye out for the concluding part 2, which details all of the catfish fishing we did, in the near future.  I'll be posting that link here as soon as it's live.

I hope you enjoy the article, please feel free to come back here and post any comments.  If you're a member of FishingMagic (if not, why not sign up?), then please post any comments or questions below the article, I'd be delighted to read & reply to them.

Andrew.

Catfish, Zander and Roach Fishing on the River Ebro at Riba Roja d'Ebre

So, you knew I was going, but how did I get on, over on the Ebro?  Well, I'm going to keep a little bit back for articles (which I'll post the links to as soon as they're online), but we had a brilliant week with Carl of Rio Ebro Angling and we did catch plenty of fish!  Although the catfish took a lot of convincing to feed though and the "Charlie Boorman" tactics were almost resorted to!  But, as with all the best stories, it all came good in the end...

Between us we caught 11 catfish, several zander and - in just one afternoon - over 50 quality roach to specimen proportions.  We fished for 6 days using baits & lures from boat & bank, so all in all there's a lot for me to write about! 

The related articles will be in two parts, the first covering the zander, roach and carp fishing and the second covering all things catfish-related.  The articles should be appearing in the December 2011 & January 2012 issues of Angling Star, with "director's cut" extended versions appearing on FishingMagic soon.  We also took a bit of video footage, including some underwater video, which I still need to edit together before putting it on my YouTube channel.  Once they're up I'll post the links on here. 

For now, below are a few "teaser" photos of the action and the fish, just to prove we didn't blank! ;)

One last thing, I happened to notice last week that the total visitors to this blog had topped 15,000 in less than two years, which I think is pretty good going considering I don't have anything even approaching profound to say!  Good work folks, I hope you enjoy what you see here.

 

You can find out further information about fishing the River Ebro at Riba Roja on the Riba Roja Tourism Agency website: http://www.riba-rojatourismagency.com/

Odds, sods and a quick rant...

This is another quick post from an internet café.  I'm on holiday, you see, until tomorrow, so burglars you've got one last chance!  The house is actually the reason for both my blog-slackness and my wider angling-slackness for almost the entirity of the river closed season and beyond.  I finally took the plunge and bought my first place with my girlfriend, Jen.  Needless to say, there was a lot more to the whole process than I'd anticipated...

Still, I've finally started to get a few sessions in, which I'm pleased to say have yielded very few blanks.  So far I've had barbel to around 9lb off the rivers and a good few carp off the surface on some local lakes too.  I also took my 13 year-old cousin Fraser for his first-ever river session a week or so ago, where under my guidance he managed to land a clonking new PB chub of 4lb 5oz to simple groundbait feeder techniques. Not a bad first river fish at all; I reckon I was 19 before I'd caught a chub of that size.  The only thing was the pesky chub was very lively on the bank and every time I pressed the trigger for a photo, it jumped out of Fraser's hands onto the unhooking mat!  Below is the best shot; I wish I'd managed to get him a better trophy shot, but in the interests of the fish we returned it after a couple of far-from-satisfactory efforts.

In a very uncharacteristic way, that - along with the Fishing Magic news from my previous post - brings you all quite up-to-date with what I've been up to, in remarkably few words!  So, I've a little bit of time left to share a couple of thingsa I thought you should see.  The first is an item I could have done with during my unintentional angling hiatus, when I was being driven potty by not having the time to fish.  It's available from those always-enthusiastic geeks over at iwantoneofthose.com (or "IWOOT"), it's called the "Potty Fisher, the game for the avid fisherman". ...I'm sure you can figure out the rest!

If you're so addicted to fishing that you can't resist any opportunity, you can buy one ofor about a tenner from http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/10427363.html

The next object is a very handy-looking gadget for any angler.  I know I've come home from sessions with pockets full of coiled, discarded line which I've either had to cut from my own rigs or found thrown on the bank near a peg.  It generally tries top climb back out of your pocket, as if a living organism whose natural habitat does not extend to the inside of a pocket.  Well now there is a very simple, but at the same time ingenious solution called the "Litter Buggy".  It's a small repository which fits in a pocket, but it has built-in brushes at the top which prevents anything shoved inside from "climbing" back out again. 

You can buy them direct from Litter Buggy Website and I've ordered a pair, one for my tackle box and one for my fishing van.  I also have a tip for disposing of line in a manner which poses least threat to wildlife (all sorts of anaimals from seagulls to swans to foxes to fish can become snared in knotted loops of line) and that is to first wrap the line around four of your fingers, so it is wound into about 5" circumference loops.  Then cut the loops in half with some good scissors or braid blades, them trim the now straight bunch of line into 1-2cm lengths and throw in the bin.  This will pose minimal threat to all and any animals, except those with a penchant for eating 1cm nylon spaghetti.

Lastly my mini rant/idea for the fishing tackle industry.   Every year thousands of us spool up with new line which comes on rather over-engineered, heavy plastic spools which are only used once and then have to be sent to landfill.  As far as I'm aware they cannot be recycled (and if they can, no fishing line packaging I've ever seen states so) and they're made from a grade of plastic which would easily withstand repeated use.  This to me seems a massive waste of resources.  Why then, do the line manufacturers not operate a spool-return service through tackle retailers, where you can drop-off or post-back your empty spools once you've filled your reels, much like the battery recycling boxes at all battery retailers?  If cost or user-participation was an issue, why not operate a deposit system, where there is an additional charge of maybe 50p to a pound for each spool of line sold, but when you take your used spool back in you get that amount refunded?  All manufacturers of goods which are highly damaging to the environment, such as electrical appliances and motor vehicles are legally bound to take the goods off your hands and recycle all possible components when their serviceable life comes to an end; surely in this day and age we should expect more responsibility from our tackle manufacturers?

New British Perch Record - 6lb 2oz!!!

Just a quick one, but I've literally just found out that Neill Stephen has caught Britain's first authenticated 6lb+ perch and set a new British record weight of 6lb 2oz.  I don't know the guy, and I've never fished the venue, but this is a landmark fish and from how the article reads, Neill applied real specialist tactics to land this fish, so kudos.  Well done that man.

The full Angling Times exclusive article is here: http://www.gofishing.co.uk/Angling-Times/Section/News--Catches/Catch-Reports/March-2011/6lb-2oz-monster-perch-smashes-current-British-record/

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!