Forget the football let's fish !!!

Sunday 27th June

England played Germany in Bloemfontein and lost 4-1 after a completely lac lustre and disappointing campaign.  The Germans were a class above us and showed us up in a completely deserved win, despite our disallowed goal.   I wrote a slightly drunken rant on here when I got back from the pub but today in sober reality, I've since removed it,  it just wasn't in keeping with our gentile sport of angling. (hem hem ..... embarrased cough) so let's forget football shall we and get back to the fishing.....

Lots of fry topping in the margins - an encouraging sign

Prior to the match,  I fished the tench lake and suffered another blank !

Fishing from 7:00am till 12:00pm not even a line bite was attracted this time.  The weather was hot and there was little or no wind to ripple the surface. The fish were probbly not on the feed, never mind I will be back for an evening sesh in the week as I am determined to get another good  fish from this lake before I get my river head on.   Fair play to those that are already targeting the less obvious species hopefully I will be able to overt my attention likewise in the coming weeks, then again..?

Watching the water for signs

While I was happily sat  fishing,  there were the occasional dog walker and people out for a Sunday morning stroll passing by, some stopping and asking the usual questions.   I had to laugh when a lady said "I bet it's good to sit and relax and think about nothing" I smiled and nodded thinking "relaxing,  think about nothing ! you must be joking", you don't really relax and before you know it 5 hours have slipped by and you haven't stopped thinking the whole time, I'm totally knackered usually.

 A morning flat calm

A usual start ......

I managed to sneak in a couple of hours on the Warwickshire Avon on Tuesday evening to start my river campaign.  I headed for a stretch nearest to my work and found I had the banks to myself which was a surprise. The stretch is quite deep and slow moving with lots of lilies, reeds and rushes interspersed with groups of overhanging trees.

Can yer tell where it is yet ?

 Plenty to go at I thought but couldn't help that feeling of not knowing where the hell to start!  With many of the swims looking quite similar I had to decide, so chose a swim on a slight bend with some streamer weed  and cabbage to my near bank left, and some bull rushes on the far bank leading to overhanging trees downstream.  I figured I would feed pellets and hemp to draw any fish lying under the trees up to my bait.
On the near swim I fed hemp and maggots in the dropper and put in a small feeder with maggot to temp whatever I could.  Despite this ploy I only managed a couple of chub knocks on either rod before the light faded a couple of short hours later. 
I had spent too long looking at potential swims again ! This is usually the way for me when I start off on a new stretch of river.  So no fish to report yet unfortunately but I will be coming back again soon, as It's a nice length of river and I can be here within half an hour from work, rods cast in and fishing.

Up, up and away ....

I'm planning on a return to the mighty Severn next week after a break from it since the summer of 2007.   I want to see if I can get a few splashers under my belt and re-hone my techniques a bit, which will serve to boost the confidence (always important).  I really struggled last season, so need a few fish to start me off in case I suffer another string of blanks like last year on the less prolific rivers I tend to fish (hopefully not).

 Before that however, I will be back on the Tench trail again on Sunday morning for a few hours, before packing up in time to be in the pub for a certain pressing engagement at 3:00pm sharp!

Slimed at last !

After returning from my holiday last week, I was itching to be back on the bank but I had to wait until today to finally get an opportunity.    I was undecided on either the tench lake again or to start my river campaign for the new season. 

After speaking to a mate, who was updating me on the news from the Tench lake, I decided to have another go there myself.    I arrived at about 7:00am and set up the swim and rods, then sat back to sip a well earned coffee.   The lake was gin clear but there was a nice ripple on the water, and I was pleased to see a bit of cloud gather to shade out the intensity of the sun. 

I sat back to contemplate my chances and had a strange feeling that I might blank once again but this didn't seem to bother me.  I decided to tie rigs and tidy the swivels, beads and loose shot in my tackle box. Whilst keeping busy my mind was relaxed and not fretting about bait position or weed on the hook etc.  Not long after the alarm on the right hand rod gave a short burst that didn't develop (must have been a line bite ?).

Later in the morning and I had been continually casting each rod at half  hourly intervals to build up the swim and hopefully get some fish searching for more maggots, none had shown an interest so far.   I was just packing away the non essential items, such as marker rod etc, when the left hand rod ripped off at speed the alarm singing pretty much a one toner.  I bent into the fish steadily and felt a pleasingly smooth and solid force coursing through the water in front of me.  The fish came in quite quickly but stayed deep to my right at about 4 ft - 5ft.    I readied the net but on the first attempt the fish turned and shot back down at incredible speed.  Luckily my clutch setting was good and the reel gave line perfectly.   I coaxed the fish carefully back to a netting position and guided her over the cord.   She was just a smidge under 6 lb and after several attempts on this lake since May, this is my first Tench of the year, which  made the catch even more memorable.

It's off to the rivers for me now, however I may just have to try for another of these golden green beauties before the end of summer.

Holiday Fishing

I've been away on holiday in Cornwall for the last week, but only managed to fit in a bit of fishing.  For the first outing I spent a frustrating morning trying to catch mullet from a lagoon in Looe know as the mill pool. I fished from early morning before the rest of the family were ready to go out for the day.   As I got the the water the river estuary was almost empty at low tide, so I decided to try the lagoon next to the car park as there were plenty of mullet in there.

 I fished a feeder to start with and then swapped over to a float,  spending two hours trying to hook one of these tricky little customers, but to no avail.   They managed to avoid getting hooked on every strike somehow -  it's worse than crucian fishing in that sense.   It didn't help that my bread had dried out a bit, this made it difficult to get a good presentation on the size 10 hook I was using.

The feeder never registered a discernible take but when I tried the float the mullet could be seen competing for the bread as soon as the float landed.  I only saw the float move from a fish taking the bait about three times in over 20 casts, each time the strike only resulted in a bare hook !
Later around 9:30 am when the dog walkers started to appear, the fish went off the feed suddenly, which was my cue to pack up and go, ensuring I would be back in good time for a day out with the family.  A very frustrating morning in all, after trying so hard to hook one I was determined to trip one of them up but it wasn't to be and I never got the chance to return the next day as I had planned in my head, as we were only in Looe for a couple of days.  There will be another time though.

I did manage to get a bit of sport however, when I took my daughter on her first mackerel fishing trip.  While the wife took my 2 year old son round the shops, we headed out on one of the boats in the harbour for a two hour trip.  We caught more than 20 fish between us sharing one rod (which kept us both busy enough !) and had a great time, taking some of our catch back to cook for supper.

Keeping with tradition the biggest fish went to the beginner !

The river estuary in Looe is packed full of life, from fish and birds to shellfish and crabs. It just screams out for a bass to be taken on a lure on the right tide. I would have loved to have had a go for them a early morning rising tide. Unfortunately it was only low receeding tides when I was able to fish.

We have made plans to visit the area again in the near future, so hopefully the tides will be in my favour for then.

Plenty of shoals of Sandeel were showing as we left Looe harbour to head home -  prime Bass fodder