Back on the River

Tue June 16th 2009

Opening day arrived and I decided to go back to the Trent to my "lucky " peg in the hope of a confidence booster to kick the River season off with. However after fishing from about 9pm through till 1am I came away with just a solitary Bream. This was only caught late on in the session when I decided to move the left hand rod in to the near side margin in about 8ft of water.


Within a few minutes I had a vicious rattle, then finally the tip twanged round a few times again and I struck into what I assumed would be a Chub. The initial fight was quite a battle and I thought I must be into quite a good Chub. Soon the broad flank of a Bream rose to the surface and I was a little surprised to see it at first. The river here is quite slow and deep so I shouldn't have been, I'm just not used to catching river Bream I suppose.






















I can't remember if I have ever caught a decent Bream from a river before and with this one being a respectable 5lb 10oz male in full spawning armour, (it was as rough as a tree trunk to touch and sporting loads of white tubercles on it's snout)it's definitely my largest river Bream to date. I had one more cast and had another tap but I couldn't continue much longer being tired by now and in desperate need of some kip. I had already wound in the RH rod as I'd slowly started to pack away before the Bream showed up to save me a blank.

The middle rod just kept getting plagued with weed all evening. My only regret was not trying the near margin sooner, or I might have tempted any Barbel that were feeding alongside the Bream had I built up the swim with some bait? Earlier there had been fish rolling out in the middle channel at dusk where I had the RH rod, but like I said before the weed catching on the line kept moving it out of position after a few minutes on each cast.


I didn't get this problem in the winter as most of the weed had already been stripped away by floods, so the lead was easily able to hold station out in the middle channel.

I reckon the Barbel could still be finishing off spawning and so are not yet switched onto anglers baits too much yet? Still there's plenty of time .... !

"Reservoir ..blogs"

Tue 9th June 2009


As planned I fished at Staunton Harold Reservoir but after spending all day trying two areas on the water, I blanked.

 It was really hard going and I failed to spot any fish on this massive sheet of water. The first area I chose on a point, had lots of weed around and a strong cross wind making casting difficult,  so in the afternoon I moved into a quiter bay on the south west arm.

It's like fishing an inland sea and locating the fish is the biggest problem. To attempt this water effectively I will need to do a bit more investigation and maybe try to speak to some other anglers etc... I don't think I will spend much more time on it anyway this season, as my focus will move back onto the rivers in a weeks time, and of course there's still more sessions on the Tench lake to fit in this summer yet.

A pattern emergies ?

Tue 2nd June 2009

Once again I fished the Tench Lake and this time in the peg next to last weeks.  This is where Steve had fished at the weekend and another chap I had spoken to had blanked on the previous week.  Suprisingly there were still no captures from this peg despite it producing some of the biggest fish to have come out of the lake in recent seasons, that I know of anyway!  I blanked spectacularly with out a single touch all day.


The weather was hot and sunny with little or no breeze.  The fish were probably other wise occupied with spawning activities.  I didn't see any fish all day and it makes me wonder if they have moved to another part of the lake, where it is shallower perhaps?

I will be back again in a week or two as I plan to fish a reservoir on my club ticket for my next Tench trip.