One little fish

So we're away for the weekend and Jacob asks if I will take him fishing. This was a bit of a shock as he's always been a bit reluctant to go with me in the past. Next morning we were out on the caravan park lake nice and early-ish at around 7:30am.

I set up two rods, one a waggler rod and second utilizing my medium lure rod as a crude sliding bomb set up. A few missed bites on whole worm to the bomb started the session off before I decided to abandon it and concentrate on helping Jacob land his first fish. I did the casting as i just wanted him to enjoy catching and not confuse him with too many of the technicalities.

The first fish came in  soon after casting out, much to Jacobs surprise and obvious delight. Next cast and it was his turn on the rod. The float dipped again and Jacob struck well, wound in the fish and lifted it out swinging it gently to my hand with good control for his first go.

A series of fish came until he'd reached 10 to my 2. Mind you it was difficult to get a look in on the rod once he'd realised he was catching all the fish with minimal help from me. Every fish had to be photgraphed with him holding it up (like father like son). That was until he got a handfull of roach milt on one occasion. I told him it was just milk - easier than trying to explain the truth. (Don't worry he went staight to the toilet block to wash his hands). Eventually the stiff breeze and hunger got the better of him and he toddled off back to get breakfast in the warm. I carried on and managed one more fish on the worm rod, a nice 10 oz roach before the smell of bacon butties cooking had me also retreating out of the wind for breakfast.

A pair of gold and a bit of bully

Not much of a fishing post this one, but I thought this was worth sharing, especially as most of us anglers also have a love of the fauna and flora surrounding us whilst out fishing and in general too.

When I take my lunch break at work I sometimes pull up the car at the edge of some waste ground in between a busy trunk rd, a housing estate and some industrial units an scoff my sandwiches whilst watching the world around me.  It's a beautiful slice of wilderness slap bang in the middle of the stark contrast and bland uniformity of the constructed environment encircling it. There are people walking past usually on there way to work or into town but they don't seem to ever look up  to see what is around them, more fool them !

On this occasion I was talking to my wife on the phone when I happened to look up to see a pair of goldfinches feeding right in front of me.  I love to see gold finches as we don't get many varieties of birds in our garden except the standard house sparrow, blackbird and woodpidgeon etc. So it's always special to see some of our more colourful and rarer species.

When I looked up again I definitely wasn't expecting to see what was in front of me this time. No more than 10 feet from my windscreen were a pair of bullfinches, male and female, happily feeding on the wild flowers that were growing at the edge of the "waste ground".   I don't know what the yellow flowers were I'm afraid as I'm not too clued up on British wild flowers. Anyway I sat there slack jawed in disbelief as these beautiful birds busied themselves feeding on the white wispy seed husk of the flowers, chewing it down like candyfloss.  I've only ever been lucky enough to see one bullfinch in my life before, and that was a good 30 yards away and for only a split second or two. So, here I was treated to at least 10 minutes of this pair feeding feet away from me before they'd had their fill and flew off in search of a some other early summers bounty.

With today's modern technology at our disposal 24 hours a day in the form of camera phones I was able to take a few grainy photos and some movie footage of the birds. The photos were not too good as any minimal quality the camera possesed was lost by having the zoom at full extent.  The movie clip didn't come out too badly I don't think though.

( best viewed in full screen -click the little square icon thingy bottom right on the youtube tool bar )

The female bullfinch was hiding down in the vegetation but she flies away across the screen near the end of the clip, soon to be followed by the male (well the women always call the shots don't they) . It certainly made my lunchtime to see these birds so near, I doubt I'll ever be lucky enough to see them that close up again.

Next post it's back to the fishing hopefully .?.....with a couple of recent blanks endured, I'm looking forward to getting a good bend in the carbon and now the rivers are open I hope it won't be too long!

I did catch a nice little rudd about 6 oz recently from the tench lake and also a perch of about 12 oz which is a promising sign and a good reason to get the float rod out a bit more on there I think !

Autumn Zander pt 2

Thur 3rd Dec

At 3:30 pm after an unsuccsesful day trying to finish my surveying assignment for my Uni course the wife suggested I go fishing, not one to pass up an oppurtunity I was walking up the Cov canal tow path by 4:00pm.

I fished an old clay pit near the canal first to try for some live baits (namely small Rudd) but couldn't temp any fish despite them topping all around the lake. Soon after as the light failed and I struggled to see the pole float's tip any longer, I gave up and went back up the track to the canal again and started fishing for Zander in earnest.
It was fully dark by the time both rods were in. The water temp was hovering around 5.5 to 6 C and this may have put the fish down a bit as there was no sign of fish topping or moving anywhere. I tried three or four different areas including the nearby marina but never had a touch all session. By 7:30pm I'd had enough and tea was calling me, so I packed up and went home empty handed again. I think I might try for Perch or Roach next if the weather stays this cold. Of course depending on the river levels Grayling might also feature in my targets again with the weather getting into full winter mode now.

This blog is two years old this week and there have been a few decent fish and PB 's reported during that time, hopefully I can improve on these results and maybe add new species to the list in the coming months .. fingers crossed.

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.