Into some fish again .... tench, crucians, barbel

I felt like I'd not been out fishing much at all recently, I had of course but only for a few short little sessions here and there for an hour or two in between domestic commitments and work. These little bankside visits have not really produced the fish I'm after but they have been a good way of learning new swims and sussing out ideas for future sessions. I know that some of these ideas may not come into fruition for a while,  even a year or two, but they will always lie dormant in my mind just waiting for their opportunity to germinate and burst into life.

Back to the present day though, and it occurred to me that getting a bend in my rod was getting a bit overdue, so last weekend I headed out to a club pool to fish for crucians on the pin and float for the afternoon. It was a great little session with quite a few fish caught and a nice afternoon was spent waiting for the float tip to rise or sink. It's not what you can call a relaxing time in the sense that you can sit back and chill out. No, you must be on full alert at all times poised and waiting for the slightest movement up, down or sideways and then let your instincts decide whether to stick or twist. The decision won't always be they right one but as long as the sport is consistent the averages will generally fall in you favour the more that time passes.

A mixed brace on the pin & float

I found that the crucians were not willing to take a maggot this time  but there were plenty of small to medium roach and rudd coming one a chuck that were ! When I switched to corn I immediately landed a small tench of about 2lb, then followed this up with a fat goldfish, before my intended quarry, a crucian, finally succumbed to a neat little punch of luncheon meat. This was quickly followed by another tench while the crucian was still waiting in the net for its photo shoot.  Staying on the punched meat in the hope of more crucians  I then proceeded to get hammered by tench after tench all around the 2 - 3lb mark. No further crucians were forthcoming but then I had to pack up soon after at 5:00pm.  With more time I may have fed the tench off eventually, allowing more of the crucians to get a look in?

A "Gold" Goldfish  (why stock goldfish when you have a good stock of true crucians that will get spoiled by hybridisation???)

How a Crucian should look - to my eyes

Thursday 5th July

For tonights session I headed to the River Dove in hope of a nice fat floodwater barbel before the expected deluge of a months worth of rain will hit tomorrow (Friday).  I have been keeping an eye on the forums and other blogs and  noticed that there are quite a few fish coming out due to these perfect conditions, so never to look a gift horse and all that I got over there to see if I could join the party.

I'm pleased to say that I on my first cast after baiting up I was straight into a fish and soon had a fine summer barbel on the bank. This is the second smallest fish I've landed from the river so my average is still not looking too bad. It was just past ten pm now and I had planned to stay till midnight. I could  have fished on but it had started to rain quite heavily and looked pretty ominous overhead. The intense muggy heat made my natural barometer suspect another thunder storm brewing. I'm not much a fan of being out in the open holding a carbon lightning conductor in my hand so my uneasiness got the better of me and I quickly called time and trudged back to the car satisfied that at least I'd caught a reasonable fish for my trouble. Only halfway back across the fields and I was regretting my decision but it was too late now to go back and set up again what with work beckoning next morning.  Half an hour later loading up the car ready to head home the skies had cleared nicely again and the threat of storms had not developed - typical. In hindsight I should have stayed on till midnight as I'm sure more fish would have come - especially judging by the results others have been reporting over the last week or so. C'est la vie !

Look at the paddle on that !!

Crucian match .. pipped at the post

Arriving on the car park at the lakeside it was still dark at 6:30am, I switched off the lights and cut the engine so I didn't wake up all the bivvy boys sleeping around the lake.  Andy and Danny were already set up on the dam wall, saving me a swim alongside them.  The lake, misty and dark still in the slowly emerging dawn, looked the same as I remembered from about 3 years before. Would I be lucky enough to catch a nice 2lb crucian, I would soon find out.

Danny challenged me to a little friendly match with the honour of the pound trophy at stake. Rules were easy, biggest crucian wins, no problem then!

After setting up my crowquill float I was soon into the first fish, a skimmer. Soon to be followed by another, and another, and another, and another .................. and another, and ...

Plenty o' Skimmers

.... another

The other lads were reporting the same problem with a never ending stream of skimmers coming to any bait that was put in front of them, from pellets,corn, caster and worm etc etc, until eventually TFFT I landed a crucian !

1lb 6oz (moving up a whole percent point!)

With this single fish caught I was in the lead, and so it remained until I had to pack up and go at around 11:30am (family commitments beckoned).  I kept in touch with the other two by text to see how they were fairing.  Andy said he'd eventually had one by 1:30 but not bigger than mine.  Then just as I thought the prestigous trophy was in the bag ... Andy declared himself victorious with a 1lb 12oz fish..............denied !

We probably had over ten pounds of skimmers each, which was a little bit annoying to say the least. They would  have been preventing the crucians getting to our baits in time. Still it was nice to know there are some crucians around.  The lake could do with some of the skimmers being cut back a bit though, which I'm sure the carp lads would welcome judging by the couple of runs I saw one lad have, both were from skimmers.

Better late than never ...

Crucian fishing is a summer sport I know, so leaving it till the leaves have started to turn was always going to be a little risky. This wasn't the plan earlier in the year of course, in fact I had trips to Marsh farm and other known crucian waters planned for this summer, but for some reason I haven't been able to get motivated enough to go for it until now.
The plan for this morning was to try a well known local lake where I've fished in the past for a morning stint bagging a few 2lbers and with an outside chance of something bigger.  For the challenge I also need to catch a king carp  of some kind, so a sleeper rod complete with pop up would have been lobbed out in hope of a nice bonus fish.  Unfortunately when I arrived there was a match on, bugger !

So onto Plan B - head to a club ticket lake to fish for cru's of a smaller stamp, but they'd be crucians at least. After waisting over an hour driving round the Midlands I was finally set up and ready to fish for about 9:30am.  Using a float rod and pin with one of my own crowquill float efforts ( they're actually rook quills), crude but as I found out,  perfectly functional and sensitive enough for these shy biting scallys.

A swim on the deepest side of the pool along the dam wall was chosen, in a quiet corner next to an overhanging bush. A few balls of some old method mix I had knocking around in the shed with some added green betaine swim stim combined to make a nice seedy, crunchy ground bait that would get any fish in the area picking over the tasty morsels it contained, hopefully they'd home in on my hookbaits too. 
A few roach and rudd, no more than bait size, were first to the table taking caster on the hook, which was pleasing as I knew the float was doing the job it was designed for.  After a while though, I started to think that I would go home with out landing any crucians.  I changed the size 16 hook for a small red drennan size 20 maggot hook and stuck on a red maggot.  It wasn't long before I was hitting a sudden sharp bite, the float disappearing and the rod bending into a thumping fish that circled round and round in a familiar motion. Was it a tench, was it a crucian ? the first boil on the surface didn't give away its identity until a sudden flop on the surface as it gave up and I quickly slipped the net under my first buttery bar of gold of the summer.

1lb 5oz

A badly over exposed shot, rescued slightly by a bit of grey scalling ! 

After a little trouble with the scales during the weighing, the battery running out at a crucial moment,  I swapped it for a spare and was able to give the fish a number.  Shame it wasn't the prettiest crucian I've ever seen, with an old injury or deformed tail and a bit of a manky mouth !

A small tench came to the net next, one that also took a red maggot.

The sun finally came out about 12 noon and it was almost as good as a summers day, it didn't seem to affect the fishing as I managed four crucians in total and a few more roach and rudd.

It was interesting when the bites started to get more and more finicky as time wore on - as if they were learning that something was up.  Changing the bait to corn or caster didn't help either as I could only hook any fish using red maggot. They did play about with other baits at times, but the bites were so miniscule it was near impossible to decearn them as bites. Proves the point that it's always a good idea to have a selection of baits to see what works best on the day.

The average stamp seems to be about a 1lb in this pool now with me landing three at a pound or more and just one under that mark.  This is a nice improvement since I last fished for the crucians here about 3 years ago. Who knows, if they are still on an upward trend and keep packing on the weight they could be averaging 2lb plus in the coming years.

Crafty crucians...!

Napton Reservoir has some nice crucians in it, they appear to have a slightly rounder shaped body to the strain you usually see. Whether there is any impurity in them I have no idea and to be honest I don't care.  I like the look of them and as they're reasonably local they are on my target list.  So, prompted by a forum entry I saw recently, they were in my mind throughout the working week.
When the chance came I set off  for a quick couple of hours after work with the hope of tempting one or two of these elusive Napton inhabitants.

The conditions were not great, being a hot day with very bright clear conditions. Although the water seemed to have a bit a colour in it.  I fished for about three hours up to sunset building up a swim by baiting with white crumb, caster and maggots.  Over this I float fished various hook baits on an size18 hook to 2lb hook length.   I had to wait probably 2 hours for the first bite, that when it came, I failed to react in time due to the torpid state my mind had fallen into.   I find there is a certain amount of "tuning in" you need to do when float fishing.    This is ok when you get lots of bites, as you can afford to miss a few.   If however (as it turned out for me) you are fishing for only one or two bites there can be no errors.   After the first missed bite I was determined not to make the same mistake if I got another chance. 

 Waiting for that pimple to move

By now there were bubbles appearing near the float, not pinprick small Tench bubbles as you might suspect on this water but they larger and were definitely from fish feeding on my bait.  I then saw a crucian roll a foot or so from my float.  My concentration was now honed like a cat waiting to leap on a bird and I don't even know if I was still breathing in and out !
Then the float tip vibrated, wobbled a bit and started to move to the side, I struck and felt the fish bump off the hook - arggggh !  The redworm i'd had on was gone and so was my last chance of the evening. The light soon faded and I conceded defeat - this time !

Maybe next time ...

The Pre-baiting begins....

Tue 19th May 2009

I visited the Tench Lake again but unfortunatly blanked this time. All was not lost though as I started off a Pre-baiting campaign on a new peg Steve and myself will be fishing over a few sessions. The swim has a deep margin of 8 ft that gradually slopes up to about 5 or 6 ft by 30 yards out, after this it levels out to a bar of a couple of feet deep, before dropping off again on the other side at 40 yards plus.
I baited two spots, one with a cast to my left at around 75 deg near to some clumps of weed 30 yards out. The second spot in the near margin to my right just an under arm chuck away, near the bottom of the shelf in about 8ft of water.

The weather was cool with a strong southerly wind blowing straight in my face which caused a chop on the surface. There were no bites forthcoming for the first few hours and then only some liners later on. These I assume were fish moving across the swim at a point probably half way between me and the baited area, because the line coming from the feeder back to the rod would be well sunk until about that point I'm sure. I also recieved a liner on the margin rod, all of these coming during the last hour of daylight.

Darkness finally fell at around 9:30pm and I packed away a bit disappointed but never the less optimistic for the coming sessions on here. The recent cold spell of weather has possibly slowed down the feeding activity of the fish on the lake? I never saw any Tench rolling anywhere on the lake all session and only saw two fish splash, one of which was a Roach or Rudd. The other fish surfaced over the baited area in the margin and seemed quite large. I didn't see what it was and only heard it splash but I saw the large ring pools it left in its wake. It could quite well have been a Pike harassing some Roach or small Tench feeding on the bait I had thrown in? Usually when a large Bream or Tench rolls you don't hear any sound, it is more like a dolphin porpoising unless, like you sometimes witness with Tench and especially Carp, the fish breaches half out the water and splashes down onto their side.

I will also be baiting a gravel bar that I have located in another peg about 100 yards down the lake. At the moment I think the plan Steve and myself have made will be to concentrate on these two areas over the next few sessions, all depending on the results we get over the next couple of weeks.
Steve has already been out to continue with the baiting of this swim, and I will be out over the next day or two to start pre-baiting the gravel bar I found in the other peg.


Note: Sun 24th May Steve fished the same peg but blanked, he said he had fish bubbling on the gravel bar and saw Tench rolling there at dusk over the bait. He had nothing from the margin swim, however When I was there in the morning prebaiting the other gravel bar, we saw a (possible) Crucian jump over the bait at about 8:00am (hmmm...interesting). It looked a good fish at least 2lb +

Marsh Farm (The Theatre of Dreams) Crucian Bonanza

PB's were a plenty at Marsh Farm on this session.  They are considered as pure, undiluted, pedigree, BRFC approved Crucians from this venue with a few going to 4lb plus. 

Just knowing we would be fishing amongst these standard of fish was exciting enough in itself, and although my aim of a 3lb + Crucian was not achieved I still did OK with a lovely 2.8lb specimen.

Arriving at bang on 07:30am, Steve and myself paid for our £5 dayticket and headed for Harris Lake, choosing a peg each, as recommended by the bailiff, between no's 2 and 10.  I selected peg 8 and Steve peg 5.
I excitedly rigged up my pole and baited up with some groundbait, a mix of brown and white crumb with some crushed hemp and a touch of swim stim betaine (we later realised that groundbait was banned - oops).  I chose to fish to the length of my margin pole halfway down the near shelf at about 6 - 7 m out.

With the depth being around 5ft, I tried to let my bait just hover slightly off bottom, but later found this impossible due the wind coming across from left to right creating a fair amount of drift. This made delicate crucian fishing quite difficult, if not impossible at times.

                           2.8lb Golden Beauty

However despite the tricky side wind, I caught the first fish landing a nice Roach of about 1/2 lb, this was followed by the obligatory rudd or two.   Steve was first to score in terms of crucians, landing a nice 2.6lb specimen.   I quickly retaliated with what was to be my best and almost only crucian of the day, with an immaculate 2.8lb cracker.

Things soon got more difficult in my swim with the wind conditions worsening, I was struggling to get my float to stay in one place and could not hope to have seen any of the lightest bites unless the float tip completely buried.   This is not accurate enough in this style of fishing.  I like to have my float shotted to just a mearest blip on the surface and I quickly became very frustrated.  Steve on the other hand was in full red letter day territory, fishing a more shelterd swim, he upped his PB with almost every successive fish.

        Three -  that's the magic number ! (3.1 lb)

                   The 3.6 lb summer stunner

He then went on to catch a 3.1 only to  follow it up with a 3.6 ! The only fish to spoil the average was his last of the session, a fish that probably only scraped 2lb and wasn't even weighed !

(its funny how blase you become so quickly).

 It was just fish of a life time after fish of a lifetime, and to think at the time I was actually a bit disappointed that I had only managed a 2.8!! This venue really is the theatre of dreams in Crucian fishing and they are no more difficult to catch than any other crucians I have fished for really. I am sure, and this isn't an excuse, if the wind had not caused such adverse float fishing conditions for me, I would have caught more during the morning feeding slot.

Afternoon arrived and I decided to move pegs nearer to Steve where it seemed calmer and out of the teeth of the wind.   I dropped into peg 4 and re set my float to the depth, laying on a bit this time to avoid drift. Steve by now had caught 4 crucians and a Tench of 4lb plus (that looked like it should have weighed more - it was very long but slender).  
I tried my float rod first and managed a few bites but never connected to anything. 
By now Steve was running out of luck too, he was still getting occasional bites but not able to hit them?


The wind had dropped right down now ironically, but this didn't really help matters as it only made the fish more finicky.  They must have felt more vulnerable without the broken water over their heads.
Bites came and went for both of us but soon hours passed without a catch between us.  I did manage to connect, then lose a Tench on the pole as it powered off up the lake at one stage.   The pole length ran out before I could stop the fish when I did react quickly enough and add another section on (something I need to work on!).

Finally around 7:20pm I hooked a crucian on the float rod that dived down to the bottom staying low.  I tried desperately to adjust the clutch to give some line but it somehow jammed and the hook pulled. I know it was definitely a crucian by the way it fought in that familar circular jag jag motion unique to these wonderfull fish. Next cast I hooked a 4lb Tench and landed it this time.  A few casts later and I managed another of 5.9oz.



Steve decided to pack up as light was fading after the sun sank below the horizon but I couldn't resist another cast I just had to land one more little golden wonder before I left the place.  I landed one fish, a smaller one of under 2lb but didn't bother to weight it.   I knew the 3lber would have to wait for another time.
So that concluded the trip and to say it was worth it is an understatement.  It's a great experience, I wouldn't say I would want to fish it too often as it would ruin the novelty, but it is nice to have been and tried it.  Saying that, I will probably want to go again in a season or two and catch a that eusive 3lber.

It is worth mentioning that hitting the bites in the evening became even difficult, and without meaning to contradict my earlier comment about these fish being no more difficult than anywhere else, I just couldn't hit any bites on the pole rig missing up to maybe 10 or 15 at least in concession.  Sometimes on the strike, the corn would be gone from the hook and other times not, whichever outcome, I never once felt the pull of a fish even slightly during this very frustrating spell.    As soon as I swapped back over to my float rod I connected with the very next bite easily!  although I lost this fish crucian as described earlier, when the clutch locked up and I completely messed it up.  I wonder if this was down to perhaps more amateurish pole fishing technique in terms of striking at bites, compared with my stronger and more honed ability and experience with a float rod?  Or whether subtle differences in the rig itself led to the fish being able to continually get away with it ? That's what attracts me to crucians - intriguing little buggers they are !

Catching Crucians at Kingstanding

Fished Kingstanding Pool again on my margin pole. I used a different rig this time and managed to shot and balance it quite quickly. First cast brought a scrappy 1lb tench on corn, I was then pestered by some roach for a while until the first crucian of the session arrived a few casts later.


A rain shower past over and things went dead for a while until I decided to fish closer in. This started to produce some bites again and soon a couple more roach followed. I then experienced a frustrating period of missing bites that were either too finicky or lightning fast. The crucians here are particularly light feeders meaning it was sometimes difficult to tell whether that float had actually moved or my eyes had imagined it. My float had been dotted right down so it was just the merest pin prick showing on the surface, but still the crucians were able to get away with it !! On retrieval the bait had been snaffled each time leaving me another empty hook and missed chance.

I was determined to beat my tally from last visit which meant I needed to catch more than one crucian, and this was eventually achieved just before the light was fading when I finally connected with another bite and a nice hard fighting crucian was netted.
















On my last cast of the session I managed to hook another (mudpig) carp that tore off across the shallow end a the pool, snapping the hook length with little effort. It was now almost dark and definatly a good cue to pack up and go home. It had been a good taster session in preperation for the visit to Marsh Farm in Surrey that Steve and myself have planned for next week.

Kingstanding Top Pool - Crucian on the margin pole

Thursday 31 July 2008

Fished Kinstanding pools near Needwood, Burton on trent. The object of this session was to refresh my technique using a pole. I have just bought a 6m margin pole for use when I'm crucian, Tench and Perch fishing.

I chose a peg along the dam wall, where the club guide book suggests the crucians like to frequent and baited it with some expo groundbait and a few hand fulls of pellet and corn. The corner swim I selected seemed to be alive with fish that were topping and sending plenty of bubbles up from the obvious feeding activity in the silt. A number of tail patterns on the surface suggested there were some carp in the swim which was pretty much confirmed by my first bite I had to a small cube of meat. The fish dived straight under a tree to my right and I was powerless to do anything on my light pole tactics. It was a fish probably at least 4 or 5lb minimum as it woke up a moment after I hooked it realised what was happening to it, and shot straight under the tree to my right, and when I had the audacity to pull back stretching to elastic and bending the pole round it smashed my 2lb hook length like coton.

I soon set up another hook length and was then landing my first fish, a small roach. A Rudd followed then a few more roach until I caught my main target in the shape of a nice palm sized beautifully formed crucian.
After this fish I struggled to catch although I was still getting occasional bites they had dropped right off. I was really annoyed at losing another crucian to a hook pull. Finally it was too dark to see so I packed up and went home a little disappointed that there had not been more fish caught but also feeling I had achieved the objective. It is apparent that I will need a bit more practice getting used to a pole again as I had not done so for a few years now although it shouldn't be long before I am in tune with the method again as I know I have been in the past. I aim to have one more practice session before Steve and myself embark on our summer adventure to Marsh Farm in Surrey in the hope of catching a PB (true) Crucian each.

Catching in a Summer Gale - more like surf fishing !

I met up with Steve to fish at Lakeside near Hinckley today. The target species and reason for choosing the venue was to fish for Crucians on the float rod, with corn and hookable pellet as bait. In what was very difficult conditions caused by the strong NW wind blowing diagnolly at 45 deg across from right to left, I was just able to set up a float and plumb the depth. After about 1/2an hour enough was enough though and even though I had managed a nice Roach on the corn, I had to move to a more sheltered spot as my float kept dissapearing beneath the waves, not ideal for delicate crucian fishing !




First cast in this calmer swim brought me a lovely Golden Rudd, that glowed with an almost flourescent metallic tangerine orange, mixed with red & brown colours.








I then caught a 2lb bream followed by some more small roach, another larger bream about 5lb that gave an amazing fight for a bream.











Finally I managed my first crucian of the season weighing in at a respectable 1lb 10oz.

I had a small common straight after. It took a while longer for the next crucian to come, and only after I had an inspired thought run through my head about trying further out as the fish may have fallen back there. Sure enough soon after I had my second crucian in the net another fine fish of 1lb 8oz













A good short session capped by achieving the target species - in quite difficult conditions.