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 ...

Summer small river Perch and Chub

I managed to sneak in a couple of hours on a local river this morning for a spot of Chub and Perch fishing.

I arrived 'early-ish'  about 7:30am after stopping on the way to buy a loaf of bread for Chub bait.

Getting to the swim was a challenge in itself as there doesn't seem to have been many anglers down here so far this season.

Across the endless Jungle !

I set up a simple paternoster rig with 2 SSGs on 6lb mainline and a size 4 hook on 12" of 4lb hooklength coming off the mainline 18" above the shot,  fixed by float stops either side of the swivel (rather like a long  helicopter rig).  A nice juicy lob worm, collected from my lawn back in April, was placed on the hook and the rig was swung out adjacent to the nearside vegetation into a small pool on a bend in the river.

Within a minute the tip bounced and pulled down.  I struck but got  'bare hooked'.  The second worm was swung in, with the same results!  Contestant number three was hoisted into position but this time I cut it in half to see if I could get both bait and hook in the mouth of whatever was managing to 'do me' every time. 
Less than a minute later and the tip pulled down, I struck and the rod hooped round as a reasonable fish was hooked.  The chub headed for the nearest bunch of streamer weed but I stopped it snagging me up and forced it to the surface through the waving strands and into the waiting net.

 

I carried on fishing the swim after releasing the fish 30 yards downstream away from the shoal, but only caught small perch.  I saw a large fish grab something from the surface on the opposite side of the pool  but the shoal were now proving more difficult to tempt.   I had one more significant pull on the tip but the strike was met with another bare hook.  Finally, I decided to move on after an hour in this first swim having only given myself limited time to try other spots on the stretch.  It was obvious the fish were getting spooked in the first pool swim by now.   I tried two more areas but only caught one more small perch.

The final swim produces another greedy small Perch

Fishing these small rivers can be a challenge, and fishable swims are usually limited but there are some real surprises lurking in these waters if your brave enough to give it a go.

There's lots of unfishable parts at this time of year

There have been some great pics of Damsel and Dragon flies appearing on some blogs recently , here's my effort a male Calopteryx splendens - Banded Demoiselle.

This third and final swim failed to produce any chub, I think the bright late morning sunlight was forcing them well under cover by now, so I packed up and was back home by 11:00 am, ready for my family duties.  As for them, well,  they were still getting ready for the day ahead!

Closing the chapter ...

It was to be my final Tench session for a while today and, like Ghana in the world cup, it ended so close but so far !

I started out in the swim I had caught from a couple of weeks ago but found the weed had now sprung up so much that it encroached nearly all the way across the width of the lake at this end.  I was starting to think I should be in another peg, when two other anglers turned up in the next peg and started arranging their kit and tackle.  I'm too used to having most of, if not all of the lake to myself , so was not happy about these two pitched in the next swim 20 yards away when the rest of the lake looked to be free! 
I decided to move and finding a usual hot peg near the car park free, I dropped in there to check the weed situation with the marker float. 

After a good few casts I was convinced I had found a dining table size gravel patch amongst some loosely growing Canadian pond weed.  With the spod  I baited the spot with hemp maggots and a few pellets and set up the rods.

Both rods were set up as helicopter rigs to try to avoid the weed growth, then cast in either side of the baited area.  I didn't have to wait long before the left hand rod was off !   I watched the bobbin rattled against the rod blank as the fish took line, I lifted the rod and disengaged the baitrunner and bent the rod in a swift upwards sweep to feel for the fish but it was only the disappointing resistance from the returning feeder that I was to feel.

I tried to shake off the deflated feeling with a new hope that there might be more chances to come, but this was not to be and the session ended at about 10:30pm with another blank.

The sky paints a picture in pink

I will be back on the Rivers for my next session after Barbel or Chub and hopefully I can get into some more consistent catches this season.