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.

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.

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.

National Fishing Week - Event @ Barlow Lakes this Sunday

With National Fishing Week/Month (heck, why don't they go the whole hog and make it last all year, every year and maybe re-brand the country Great National Fishing Britain or United Fishing Kingdom!) upon us, I shall be once again lending a hand at an event being held at Barlow Lakes near Chesterfield.  The day is being organised by my friend - and qualified NFA angling coach - Kevin Miles.  In the past these events have featured tackle stands, taster sessions for novice anglers, fun matches and displays by the Environment Agency.  This year I am not so sure about the setup (I'll post more details once I know them), but I know that a local floatmaker is coming down, there are demonstrations of various floats and methods - including the unveiling of a new design of self-hooking controller float - and I'll be in attendance from 10am 'til around 1pm (the event is open until 3pm), so if you want to chew the fat, discuss tactics or ask me questions on any aspect of fishing then pop down.  there's no entry fee and the lakes are open all day for fishing if you want to combine the trip with your usual Sunday fishing trip.  I'll hopefully see you there...


Barlow Lakes is a lovely little complex set in a mature wooded valley.  There are 4 coarse ponds to go at and I believe 4 or 5 trout (fly only) ponds to fish too.  There are plenty of carp up to mid-twenties and some HUGE grass carp to catch, besides bream, tench, chub, crucians, roach, perch and gudgeon.  A true "mixed fishery" in every sense!  Most of the fishery is very wheelchair-friedly, including disabled toilets, and there's also a snack bar cooking hot food all day, every day.

If you fancy coming along and don't know how to find Barlow, take a look at this page of their website:  http://www.barlowlakes.co.uk/maps.htm


Other News

I've been fishing 4 evenings in the last fortnight with very mixed results; the first night I managed to land a pike of around 5lb on a Halibut Pellet, hooked clean in the lower jaw!

The very next night I fished the Tidal Trent for the first time this season and managed a barbel of around 5lb and my friend Crofty notched up his first barbel of the season too.  This week I lost 2 barbel in 2 nights through breakages (I'm pretty sure I was to blame through not changing hooklength regularly enough), which meant I blanked one night but managed to salvage the night with an 8lb 5oz barbel from the same spot, on the same bait as the fish I lost 15 minutes before.

Check out the size of its MOUTH!  This could be a very big fish in the future...


National Fishing Month runs from July 17 until August 15, 2010

http://www.nationalfishingmonth.com/
http://www.nationalfishingweek.co.uk/events/
http://www.anglingtrust.net/

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...

Happy New Year!

Happy 2010 everyone.  Let's hope that this year's a productive one, whatever we're fishing for.

As I write, the snow is falling and we already have at least 4 inches piled up outside that has fallen today on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border.  This really has been an exceptional cold snap and while short cold spells can mean good fishing for some species, prolonged cold weather such as this tends to slow down pretty much everything that swims.  With all of the snow falling into our rivers and lakes and the continued cold temperatures (with many parts of the UK struggling to break above 0 C, even in daytime!) the water temperature will be extremely low and lower than most species require to enable them to feed and digest what they eat.  When we eventually do get a thaw, be prepared to head out and fish as you could be in for a red letter day.  There will be some very hungry pike, chub, roach, grayling and perch out there just waiting for a warm spell to trigger a feeding frenzy.  Location will be paramount to a good day's sport, but get this right and these species will be crawling up your line to get to your bait box! 

I ventured out into the cold for a couple of slow sessions just before new year.  First I fished for grayling; I started out trotting but bites were not forthcoming.  A switch to a crumb feeder did eventually bring me 5 or 6 bites, which resulted in two grayling landed - both around the pound mark - and a couple of fish lost on the way to the net.  Matt who I was fishing with also managed a good grayling and a couple of trout, but got smashed by something very powerful - possibly a barbel or a huge trout - on a big lump of bread flake.

One of my favourite species in both looks and fighting spirit departments, a grayling of just over a pound

The following day I fished the Trent for pike, and with the snow melt going in the river was very coloured and rose by almost a foot while I was there!  These were some of the worst conditions for river pike fishing, but I did manage one fish and had a few dropped runs which I'm pretty sure were chub, as I didn't connect with them and my deadbaits came back in sucked rather than chewed! 

This low double was my only reward on a tough day.  As you can see by the water on the lense, it was a damp old day!

I also found the complete skeleton and remnants of fur of a large, canine-toothed mammal.  I've brought the skull back to clean and identify but I'm 99% sure it's either an otter or a mink.  I've seen mink on the Trent before and whilst they're tremendous creatures to watch, I'm uneasy about this alien (very agile, adept, versatile & efficient - both in the water and on land) predator rampaging in the wild in this country, so I'm hoping it's not one.  If it's an otter on the other hand, I'll be quite impressed; I've never seen a wild one in the UK and whilst I know they're hardly an angler's best friend, I for one am in favour of their re-introduction and I'd love to see one up close.  They're one of our natural freshwater predators and whilst we may not like them eating "our" fish, they belong in our waterways just as much as kingfishers, pike and perch do.  If it wasn't for human persecution, protecting trout and salmon stocks, they'd still be abundant in the wild anyway.  I think the fact that they've been virtually extinct for a few generations, means that it's now quite a shock when we witness a large dead fish killed by an otter because it's not something we're used to.  I think this has caused a bit of a panic amongst some anglers and fishery owners but I seriously do not think that a rise in otter numbers will lead to any drastic decline in average or largest fish sizes nationwide.  Izaac Walton didn't seem to struggle and back then otters would have been a common sight in most of the country's waterways!  Being mainly a predator angler myself, I have explained on multiple occasions to other anglers the importance of the natural predator vs. prey balance, especially when condemning the short-sighted "anglers" who feel the need to kill/cull pike.  Well, suprise surprise, although they're furry rather than scaly, otters are also part of Britain's natural predator/prey balance!  I can think of one well known angler who has previously stressed the importance of predators, yet has also condemned the re-introduction of otters!  Cormorants (another can o' worms completely!) are a slightly different story because they now feed and breed much further inland than they naturally should, BUT it's still our fault as humans, for we have removed all their food from the seas surrounding us, so they have a simple choice:  Die on the British coast or adapt and find food elsewhere.  It's a natural survival instinct and much as I dislike the things (I've personally had cormorants completely wipe-out a lake more than once and have had to take extraordinary measures to prevent future gluttonous attacks), I can't knock 'em for their ability to thrive in adversity!

I did brave the cold waters of the river Derwent on Boxing Day to enter the annual raft race, which was even more of a laugh than last year although I'm glad we only found out about the dead body after we'd finished!  Here's our monstrosity of a raft in action, I'm in the fetching red cowboy hat!

Angling Star Magazine - December 2009 Cover Shot

Guess who's on the cover of this month's "Angling Star"...!

Available in all good (mainly Northern!) newsagents now!

Hello blogsville!

Hi, this is not a proper blog post - I intend to post one of those very soon - it's just a test to see how my profile's looking.

Once properly up and running this is going to be a blog about fishing in the UK and abroad, updated whenever I've got something to say in between writing my Fishing Articles.  If you like to fish for specimen Barbel, Pike, Perch, Zander, Chub, Roach, Rudd, Grayling and occasionally Carp, then head over to my website to check out some of my instructional articles & videos, then check back here soon for new blog posts.  Thanks for checking my stuff out!