Not something you'll see often!

This posting is about something that you won't catch me doing very often, but last weekend I fished a MATCH at Glebe Fishery (part of Ray Marlow's Mallory Fisheries) and managed to come second out of 11 entrants.

It wasn't what I'd class as "proper" fishing - just lobbing a bait at a bunch of far-too-enthusiastic water pigs and reeling them in - but it was quite enjoyable to get a decent bend in the rod a few times.  I mainly caught bream and carp, although there were a few roach and the odd perch amongst them, but others also caught crucians, rudd and barbel.  I ended up with 72lb 6oz, with my largest fish being a 9lb 6oz mirror carp. 

Part of my 72lb Glebe Fishery bag

The Environment Agency has released an extremely handy feature on its website, for checking river levels.  I believe it's based on the same data they use for their "rivercall" telephone service, but it's more up-to-date and it's free to access!  The interactive map isn't the greatest unless you have the length and course of your favourite river permanently etched into your brain, it can be difficult to pick the right one out but with practice it's a decent system.


EA River Levels

The only problem is, for some reason the service has been "unavailable" this week!  Maybe the website boffins got caught in an unexpected flash flood... 

Speaking of rivers, they're back on the agenda for my next blog!

River Season Starts with a Bang!

How great it's been to sit by a river in this glorious heat to while away an evening or two!  After such a cold, long, snowy winter I'm not really surprised that the extremes of weather have gone full circle and now some of the reservoirs are dangerously empty!  Normally with such dry and bright conditions the fishing is difficult but I've either been doing something really right (granted, I have changed a lot of my setup) or I've been extremely lucky (or more probably a bit of both) in my first couple of sessions of the season. 

I fished last Tuesday & Wednesday evenings on the River Dove for my first sessions of the new season and unusually, I managed to hit the ground running!  The first evening I only had a couple of hours fishing because I was so disorganised, I didn't cast a line until half past 9!  The very first cast I had some tip rattles on my upstream rod which seemed like a bite given by a chub mouthing the bait.  After the bite continuing for a good few seconds I struck but failed to connect.  Next cast, a similar but more forceful bite resulted in a bizarre scrap on the surface, which I struggled to win.  The fish turned out to be a PB 2lb 12oz rainbow trout!  Not what I was expecting, but my season was officially underway and a blank was thankfully off the cards...

Officially my first fish of the 2010/11 coarse season - a surprise Rainbow Trout!

With my next three casts I hooked & lost a barbel (hook pull), landed a chub, then lost another barbel (another hook-pull!).  I thought that was it, my chances of a barbel were done for the evening, when a last-gasp screaming run turned out to be a really special fish for me; after 7 years fishing the Dove, I landed my first "double", at 10lb 5oz!

The pinnacle of 7 Summers on the Dove 

The next evening I fished the same stretch, but arrived around 19.45 so I fed the swim for an hour by removing my hooklengths and casting & re-casting my swimfeeders.  An hour and a half passed with not even a twitch on the rod tip.  After my instant success the previous night, I thought I must have over-done the baiting and was starting to accept that the session would be more of an experience-builder rather than a fish-catcher, but I still held some hope of a bite from the swim I was fishing.  At almost dead-on 11 o'clock my only bite of the session came.  What a battle it was too!  Four times I thought I had the fish beaten, but each time it came anywhere near the net, it swung out into the white water down the middle of the river and bolted back downstream.  At least six or seven minutes passed and when I finally saw the long white belly flop over the net rim, I knew I'd landed another big fish.  The scales proved me right; I'd not only beaten the previous evening, I beat my Personal Best too!  This specimen weighed 10lb 10oz, was completely spawned-out and had a humungous mouth!

The Dove snatches my PB back from the Trent!

I'm saving the full story for the Angling Star, but this is a brief description of how things unfolded.  I'm now setting myself a target of a double from my 3 nearest rivers in the same season.  Given that my barbel fishing is limited to after-work evening sessions in the summer, I think this would be a huge acheivement.  Just the Trent and Derwent to go...

A Couple of Closed-Season Gems

Well, I didn't get fishing too much over the closed season, but two of the more notable sessions were fishing for Crucian carp at Carr Vale Pond near Bolsover and Tench fishing with my friend and erstwhile www.anglerstoday.co.uk editor, Kevin Miles.

I tried fishing light for the crucians, as is normally required to hook one, but for some reason couldn't connect with the bites.  When I eventually swapped to fishing the lift method (which is one of my favourites for close-range fishing) and swimfeeder, I did start hooking fish.  The first came to the lift method on a single grain of corn and it went 1lb 4oz.  Later on, my "sleeper" feeder rod, which I'd loaded with a big hook, a whole lobworm and a grain of corn in the hope of a big tench, was nearly dragged in by an absolute screaming run, which I assumed must be a tench or carp.  After a good scrap for 30 seconds or so, the fish seemed to give up, almost like a bream would.  I brought the fish to the net wondering what on earth I'd hooked.  it turned out to be another, bigger crucian at a PB weight of 1lb 14oz.  It's no Marsh Farm fish, but heck it's not a bad 'un for North Derbyshire!

My two crucians which preferred crude over refined!

On June 2nd I was joined by Kev Miles on a private Midlands reservoir which I'd been lucky enough to secure access to for a day.  It holds some monster tench and with my PB for this species being pretty meagre, I went all-out to try for a big one.  A 5lb+ fish would have been brilliant, but the potential was there for fish up to 9lb!

What a view!  How can an angler fail to be impressed by this!

What a water it was; reed and tree-fringed, weedy, clear and holding big tench - what more could we have asked for?!  It was a baking hot day with clear skies so we spent most of the day sheltering from the sun beneath a brolly.  With the weather so bright and the water so clear, I'm guessing that the tench were similarly seeking refuge deep within the weed cover.  We only had one run during the day, which came to Kev who was using a method feeder over a big bed of groundbait with imitation sweetcorn as hookbait.  The fish managed to embed itself in the weed a couple of times, but without too many nerves wrenched, the fish was landed and weighed 6lb 12oz.  I'd never seen a tench bigger than 5lb before, so I was thrilled to see such a beautiful specimen, which seemed to be spawned out, so may well have been even heavier just a few days before.

The business-end of Kev's Tench

Being late June and being a fan of river fishing, naturally I've been out on the rivers already and I'm pleased to say I've been catching!  I'll be posting news of my best-ever brace of barbel soon...

See, I can still catch perch!

Sorry everyone, this post is almost 2 months late!  I started typing it shortly after the session and then never got the time to finish it!  So for now, here's a slightly rushed post, but I've a fair bit of fishing planned in the near future so expect a flurry of activity on here very soon!

A couple of weeks after the rivers closed I headed to local fishery, Tibshelf Ponds, to target the resident perch which are numerous (It used to be my local water and I would catch several every time I fished there as a child), but I had an incling that there were some really large ones there to be caught too.

I set up with a combination of a swimfeeder rod (switching between a groundbait feeder & maggot feeder) and a heavy pole float fished on a new bolognese rod that I'd bought and was keen to try out.  Bolognese rods have never really taken off in the UK, they are designed to fish the deep canals & slow rivers of mainland Europe, and they're basically a telescopic whip (mine's 6 metres long) with a reel seat and a rod ring on every section.  They're not very good for casting, but I bought mine to allow me to fish very light with the sensitivity and precision of a pole, but with the playing abilities of a rod and reel, especially beneficial when a large fish is hooked.  In reality, it's not quite as good as a pole or rod & reel, but I don't like relying on a piece of elastic to "play" my fish for me, so it's a useable substitute for a pole that caters to my own desires and stupid prejudices!

Over the course of the day I landed most of my perch on the float and was amazed at the fights on the bolognese.  Even modest 6oz fish would feel like 1lb+ brutes as they fought against the huge rod; it made catching small perch so much more fun and then when a 1lb 3oz fish finally took a liking to my worms, it gave me a proper tussle!

The bites dried up around the middle part of the day, as they so often do with perch, but eventually my air-injected lobworm started receiving some serious fishy attention.  I missed bite after bite - probably small perch - whether I struck immediately or let the run develop made no difference, I just couldn't connect!  Then I managed to connect with the next three consecutive bites!  The first fish kept me guessing all the way to the net.  It was fighting hard but didn't feel like a perch and I couldn't decide between perch, tench or carp.  A flash of green gave me a moment of hope, but as it surfaced properly a rubbery yellow mouth gave it away; it was a tench.  Next cast I struck at a very perch-like sharp, stuttering run, which turned into a head-thrashing, hectic, perch-like fight.  After a close encounter with some submerged Norfolk reeds a perch looking easily 2lbs graced the net.  Unfortunately, this pot-bellied, thuggish-looking perch (check out its protruding bottom lip!) had recently spawned, so that pot-belly was empty and she weighed 2 ounces shy of 2lbs, making it my biggest bait-caught perch to date (for some reason, all my biggies take lures!) and a personal best for that water. 

Darkness was fast approaching and the fish were hard on the feed, so I quickly re-cast.  About 10 minutes later I got another run which turned out to be yet another species, a chub of around 3lb.  It wasn't what I came for but it was a lovely fish and would be one of the fish I used to catch in my teens, which were stocked at about 4oz, 15 or so years ago.  I still have photos of my beaming face behind a tiny chub at Tibby ponds!

Anyway, here is the photo of the perch.  A bit more writing to follow soon I promise!

"The End of the Line" - Free DVD in The Sunday Times this Sunday

Are there people you know who have not yet seen "The End of the Line" yet but you think they should? Well they've come up with a clever way of helping you spread the word this weekend.  If you pick up a copy of The Sunday Times this Sunday (11th April) you will find a clever little voucher for The End of the Line DVD.  All you need to do is take that voucher to a Waitrose store and you will be given the DVD in exchange.  Nice and simple!  You can either keep it or give it to someone you want to see the film.

The End of the Line trailer on YouTube

The Kennet (and my last trip of the river season 2009/10)

As day was breaking I arrived at the Reading & District AA car park and was sorting through my worms as Will pulled up. Will not only has a string of massive perch to his name, he is also the angling development officer for Reading, a bailiff and coach for RDAA and is a founding member of a small specimen group based around Reading called SAS Angling! Over the past year, you may have also seen him feature in one or two of Ian Welch's articles in Anglers Mail too...  Right from the off I got on really well with Will, who's a genuine, amiable chap, not to mention knowledgeable!
 My first glimpses of the Kennet gave me instant optimism and I couldn't wait to get set-up.  It was slightly couloured and with plenty of perchy features.   We set up in a shady area of overhanging near-bank trees, which provided the margins with some shade as the sun rose behind us. The roots were quite terrifying to offer a bait towards, but they were blatant perch (and chub!) holding features. 

Before long, Will was getting bites which he was suspicious of.  Eventually after an aggressive tap on the rod tip, he found the culprit to be a signal crayfish, which apparently plague the Kennet (and many Southern rivers), but the species was completely new to me.  Obviously I've read and heard about them, but never actually seen a live one.  They are aggressive wee beasties with pretty formidable claws loaded with sensory hairs, which allow them to accurately grab at prey in extremely low light levels, while small barbs on the claws help them cling on to their prey once captured.  These crayfish are far larger than I expected and besides the fungus they carry (detrimental to our native white-claws), it's easy to see how these creatures have just taken over in so many rivers.  The signal was duly despatched and removed from the vicinity of the river, and so were the others which followed.  It didn't take too long until I'd caught one myself, which gave me a savage take!  Have a look for yourself at these close-ups I took, paying special attention to the size of the cray in comparison to Will's hand!

Eventually Will got a bite which was definitely not a crayfish, but within seconds his rig had been pulled into the tangled mass of tree roots and the fish was lost.  Apart from crayfish, the swims went dead and we decided upon a move onto the nearby Kennet & Avon canal, to pass the early afternoon before returning to these tree-lined swims later on.  It was quite a hike with all the tackle, but after about 20 minutes walking we ended up at a "Perch paradise"!  This place was straight out of the textbook; if someone sketched an example swim with features to look for, this place would have more features!  On the near-bank there was a mixture of overhanging bushes, trees & brambles and moorings; on the far bank there were these, plus a resident barge; downstream the water shallowed and upstream a small stream flowed in. 

The banks were high and steep and the water was really clear, so we set up well-back from the water and crept up to our pegs to cast.  After the slow morning (and previous day!), seeing this place was an inspiration and I began to get quite excited at the prospect of what perch lurked within this stretch.  Will also said he had a good feeling about the place, so we decided to stay put for the rest of the day and see what happened.  Will had a bush in front of him, growing well out into the water and sheltering around this were thousands of minute, freshly hatched fry.  Something had been spawning recently, but we couldn't tell exactly what species they were.  Could they possibly be perch fry, meaning any perch we caught would be a fair bit leaner and lighter?

I was first to get a bite here, as the bobbin on my right-hand rod jerked and lifted a few times promisingly.  On this rod I'd cast an air-injected lobworm fished in conjunction with a maggot feeder, under the barge on the far bank.  The bite never progressed into a proper run, so I twitched the bait back a few inches towards me.  A few minutes later the same bait was taken again, but I failed to connect with the culprit.  We managed to catch a single gudgeon, which we hoped would be enough to tempt one of the large fish - which was no doubt lurking beneath the barge - out of its lair for an easy meal.  It wasn't to be though, and as it happened we probably caught this gudgeon half an hour too early.  As the light began to disappear, the perch finally came out to play, but by this time the gudgeon had seen better days.  Five or six sprays of fry from all around our swims signalled that the perch were actively chasing the fry we'd spotted earlier.  They had been there all along!  How big perch manage to keep a check on there natural urges for hours until the time is just right (it had been overcast for most of the afternoon, yet still they waited for dusk!), I'll never know.  All of a sudden our worms started attracting attention.  First, Will hooked into his first positive bite from the peg and landed a fish of just below a pound.  We knew there were larger ones lurking and Will's next bite turned up a completely different beast.  This one was fighting hard, trying its best to snag Will's line on one of the many snags/sanctuaries (depending on the angler/fish viewpoint!).  Luckily we both had extending landing net handles and I managed to coax this fat, round perch off the overhanging grass it had snagged in, and into the net.

Finally, a very good perch lay subdued in front of us.  How good exactly we shall never know; we both thought it looked over 3lb and a couple of days later, Will's scales were shown to be weighing 7oz light at 3lb.  On the day they weighed this fish at 2lb 13oz and I think we could conservatively call it 3lb.  Here's the photo, what a beauty!...

There was still enough time for me to have what seemed to be a promising run on the near-margin rod, but it turned out to be very violent but too quick for me to strike.  I stood poised, waiting for it to go again, but unfortunately it didn't.  We fished on slightly into dark, but I managed to end the second river season in a row with a blank session!

Will is soon to be offering guided perch trips on the Kennet and K & A canal, which I'd recommend if you want to be in with a chance of latching into a real beast of a stripey.  With his vast knowledge of this species in particular, you're bound to learn some key tactics to help you in the future too.  When his guiding is in operation, I'll post more details on here but meanwhile if you'd like to arrange a day fishing with Will, email me and I'll put him in touch with you.

The final two sessions of the 2009/10 season!

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


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


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


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

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

To be continued...

Finishing with a flurry?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally! (But was it worth the wait?)

Well, I finally got myself out fishing last Thursday! 

After hearing of a few pike starting to be caught around the country, I gave into my urges and decided I'd target them.  After speaking to the bailiff on a stretch of the tidal Trent, I opted to try there.  I haven't really done much fishing in general on the tidal, let alone pike fishing, but I made my decision based on the water clarity being better than the non-tidal stretches, and the changing tides forcing fish to alter their positions, which would hopefully result in them spotting my bait in the process.  With such cold conditions being set in for so long this winter, every species of fish will be lethargic - even those more associated with winter - so the fish will need a reason to move, be it hunger or the changing tide.  By doubling the possibilities, I'd double my chances ...I thought!

S..   L..   O..   W..  was the general pace of the day.  I arrived, just after dawn (Hit the "snooze" button a couple of times too many!), to find I had the entire stretch to myself.  Awesome; a whole stretch of prime-condition river filled with undisturbed specimen pike just queueing up to take my bait.  I settled on a swim with a deep slack and thought to myself that if I hadn't landed a fish by 8am there was something wrong for sure.  Well, 8am came around, so did 10am, then mid-day and I hadn't had as much as a dropped run!  I'd tried different baits, fished them hard on the bottom and paternostered mid-water and had a good cast around, all to no avail.  I had seen cormorants catching fish upstream, but it was inaccessible so I tried to cast as close as I could, which only resulted in my rigs getting dragged into snags which were stronger than my mainline.  I was having a stinker! 

There was the odd bait fish showing near the slack and I had some worms with me, just in case, so to save my sanity I set up a feeder rod to try for a perch.  Apart from the odd slight movement on my light bobbin, which I put down to tide/flow, I still sat bite-less and fish-less until I finally decided to reel in the feeder rig to check my bait.  Initially this was snagged, but after much tugging, the hooklength parted but I felt the weight of my swimfeeder was still there.  A few turns of the reel handle later, the rod tip jerked into action and it soon became clear I was battling a fish!  A few seconds later, I wasn't any more.  When I reeled in, there was my feeder, there wasn't my hook, just as I'd expected.  I'd had deadbaits in the area all day, which the predators ignored but now they were striking at my - seemingly more appealing - swimfeeder!  A lure was hastily deployed to the same area and first cast, BANG!  I was finally into a fish!  At four pounds in weight, it won't be breaking any records but it did provide a rare highlight during a less than remarkable day!

I'm out making the most of what's left of the season on Thursday & Friday, then next Wednesday & Thursday too, probably concentrating on predators but maybe I'll fit in a chub session somewhere too...

Can you troll for pike on a snowboard?

It's been another lean few weeks, angling-wise, for me.  I haven't fished for over a month now, but not out of choice.  I've been a little short on time, the weather's not been great (not that I'm a fine weather fisherman - not in the slightest - but during one of the warmest worldwide Januaries on record, we had one of the coldest on record!), etc. and I've also just returned from a week snowboarding at Les Arcs in the French Alps.  Plenty of snow, plenty of raclette cheese, plenty of overpriced beer and this year no injuries!  Unlike last years trip which left me with a permanently dislocated clavicle (collar bone) on my left shoulder, which (still) looks like this:

I also saw one of the best skiing/snowboarding shirts I've ever seen, which simply said on the front "Snow, Sex and Tartiflette"!

Back to fishing, I've been sent a few tackle bits & bobs to review, so expect to see those appearing on the website soon, and possibly on here too.  I've also just received a Korum latex spoon net, which on first impressions is absolutely brilliant for everything from bream, tench & carp fishing, right through to a roving net for barbel, pike & zander.  I can't believe how many leagues ahead of the pack the latex range of nets by Korum are!  It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago too, so I'm now the proud owner of a pair of the new Shimano 2500FA front-drag baitrunner reels, which I'm planning to use for fishing the lift method for tench & carp, and probably for the odd bit of close-range leger & feeder work come spring...

I'm hoping to get at least 3 full-day sessions in before the end of the river season in 6 weeks time.  I've been invited on a guided perch fishing trip on the River Kennet, with the goal of a fish over 3lb in weight.  I've never fished the Kennet, and it has great big perch pedigree, so it will be an honour to have a go for them.  Conditions permitting, this should happen in early March, so I'm really looking forward to (hopefully) finishing the season in style with a few Southern perch!

I see Robson Green's back for another series of lessons in what not to do to fish (if you have a humane bone in your body).  Great.  Although there's a part of me that's happy just to a fishing programme on a prime-time terrestrial slot.  According to a story I read in Anglers Mail a few weeks ago, the full-length versions of Jeremy Wade's River Monsters will be shown early this year on an ITV channel (the shows featured on ITV1 in late 2009 were condensed down from about 45 minutes to 30 minutes) and also Catching The Impossible (which I also got episodes 4-6 DVD for my birthday) should finally get a TV airing early this year.  So maybe there's a Robson Green knock-on effect which has opened the door for some "proper" fishing programmes featuring commited, talented anglers and (in the case of "...Impossible") directed by one of the finest in his field.

I happened upon a couple of fish-related stories on the BBC news website, which may be of interest to anyone who's into fish as much as I am.  The first is the discovery of how and why fish may have evolved gills (sorry creationists!), the second is some evidence to the intelligence of the humble stickleback!

Light shed on fish gill mystery
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8454592.stm

'Genius' claim for sticklebacks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8104759.stm