A mixture of fortunes

Listening to the traffic report as I got in the car to leave work meant a quick change of plans had me heading down the A46 towards the River Avon at Stratford, instead of heading up to the Trent on the M1, that had now ground to a halt on the section where I would have been travelling along it.  

The river looked low and clear, lower than my last visit a few weeks ago and the vast beds of weed could be seen clearly from my view crossing the foot bridge.  The swim I fished last time was occupied with a couple of hapless noddys, all plastic bags and cheap folding chairs, but luckily the other swim I had in mind was free, so I set up there.  Roach was the first target, so the feeder rod was quickly set up and cast in, bread on the hook and a crumb groundbait mix in the small cage feeder.

The action was pretty slack in fact I struggled to get any bites in the vastly reduced flow of the weir. The fish were there though, they were topping left, right and centre of me but they just couldn't be induced to take the bait.  I switched over to a smaller hook to try maggot and redworm and this gave instant results from the shoals of small perch.  Soon though I hit something that felt a bit better and I quite expected to see a 4lb bream rise up through the top layers and into my net.  I was surprised and then quite pleased to see a small eel wiggling its way towards me instead. Just a shame it was one of the smallest eels I've ever caught, not many points for that ! I contemplated using it as bait for my zander fishing later but decided to do my bit for eel conservation and let it go back.

A whole 7oz of wriggly slime !

Darkness was now drawing in fast so I thought about getting the zander rods ready. I realised that I'd left the deadbaits in the car ! not to worry though as the noddys had now vacated the other swim where I thought I'd have a better chance at some zander. I packed up the tackle and made my way all the way back to the car, dumped the gear I didn't need to lighten the load on the way back, remembered to collect the deadbaits then headed back to the zander swim.

I set up the rests for my preferred long drop bobbin indicators and cast the rods in both together. Just as I was just settling the second bobbin the first rod was away already. The rod hooped round into a satisfying fish and I was into my first river zander. The fish was hooked right in the front of its mouth, the whole rudd engulfed down its throat, thanks to the suggestion from merv to try hair rigged baits - it works, and no deep hooking!

4lb 10oz

After the first fish it was a hectic next half hour that saw me miss the next take on the second rod, then I connected to what I thought was another small zed. It was only when I peeled back the folds of the net that I realised this second fish was very spotty and brown, my first ever brown trout was banked. Not by conventional methods I know but it still counts to me.  Shame it's not worth any challenge points though,  maybe we should include all the game fish next time eh!

1lb 11oz Brown Trout

That was the last of my fish for the night, apart from one more aborted run that didn't hook up. I think the hair was too long on the second rod, the hook  just a little too far from the bait to be as effective - note to self, check length of hair next time.

Your time is never wasted...

I'm aware that some of us bloggers have been slowing down with the frequency of our posts lately. I don't know whether it's down to us all struggling or just that were running out of fresh ideas and interesting stuff to write about ? I've still been fishing here and there but admittedly haven't had much to report, a few more canal zeds, a roach and chub from the avon, and some more failed attempts at sea fishing have kept me busy over the recent weeks through August and into this current month.

Chub

Roach

Micro Zed !

On the subject of canal zeds, I've been wondering about the effects of the fish culling that BW have carried out during their electrofishing campaigns in recent years on  stretches of the midlands canals.  If they are taking out numbers of the larger zander and also pike to appease the match anglers  then this may explain the numbers of small zeds that we encounter on these systems.
I just wonder if they were to leave nature alone to do her thing there might be less of these smaller zander, as their numbers would be kept in check by these larger fish, giving a chance for the smaller roach,  gudgeon and other small canal species numbers to recover?


On to the Sea Fishing in Lincolnshire...

Blow lugg territory

lets pump it !

I also spent some time on the Lincolnshire coast trying in vain to catch firstly smoothhound, then when I couldn't get any peeler crabs I fished for anything that would take my bait. The bait in question now being freshly dug lugg worm.  Well I say dug I actually bought a bait pump and used that to pump out some blow lugg on the low tide, with some limited success. The locals round these parts all seem to pump for worms, but as I learned they go for the larger Black lugg that will only appear on the lowest tides of the cycle and will bury themselves in vertical holes. This is where the pump comes in, the pump is placed over the black lugg cast and the worm sucked out of its lair before it knows what's happening. 

blow lugg cast and blow hole

The blow lugg however lives in shallower tunnels that loop round in a U shape from cast to blow hole, so the most effective method is to dig them out with a fork to avoid breaking them.  I didn't have a fork with me only a kids plastic beach spade and after some considerable effort I failed to find any worms with it. So, instead I tried angling the pump at 45 deg to the hole to try to get some worms out intact.  I as able to extract a few as well, enough for the session and without ripping too many to pieces.

it's a fish delacacy round these parts

 This was not the right tide for black lugg so the blow luggs were the only option I had anyway. I 'd bought my bait pump from a local man who also happens to sell frozen baits to the tackle shops and anyone who managed to find out abot him. His frozen baits would always be my back up option, but I was determined to find my own bait.  He told me how to go about it and where to find the beds of black lugg ( on the right tide). Alhough this didn't help me on this visit, I am all set for my next visit in the Autumn when the bass and codling will be in, along with hordes of whiting. Shame there were no fish about during my 4 days there ! Appently there had been little caught for the past weekor so.  And it was also noticable by the lack of other anglers on all the popular marks - which says it all really.

One thing I realised whilst spending most of  my available fishing time (early mornings) hunting for bait rather than fishing, is that despite blanking during this trip,  time is never wasted especially while your learning about  new styles and techniques of fishing and even new bait gathering methods. In fact lugg worm digging could be a pastime in it's own right !

A few summer Zander sessions...

Since the last post I've been out a few times and although I've caught fish, there has been nothing too exciting to report.  I'm also finding it difficult keeping a focus on the challenge points.  I still have a few species to attempt yet which should not be a problem in catching them but I'm strugling to get motivated for them.  I'm also conscious that time's slipping away for a some of the summer species especially eels and catfish also crucians and big rudd. I will have to get my act together if I'm going to try to claw a few more points back on the board.

I'm still itching to catch a river zander and my recent attempts on the trent have been fruitless although I did seem to have a fish pick up the bait on my last river session. Winding down  to feel for the fish,  I felt nothing!  This is an area of the river where they are more of a rumour than a fact, and hence not exactly prolific, so I shall probably try some more likely areas as we head towards the Autumn to give myself a fighting chance at least.

I have also been trotting for roach and bleak, which kept me occupied for a couple of hours building up a fresh stock of deadbaits and quietly hoping for a bigger sample of roach - although one never came I was really enjoying trotting a line in the upper layers of a deep 10 ft stretch just before dusk, watching fish topping all around and competing for my regular introduction of casters. Some of the roach I saw were certainly pushing the pound mark, however I could only manage a string of their smaller brethren like this one above. There were some monster bleak too.

A specimen bleak?

Friday 12 Aug 2011

A canal side Damsel fly

Having not caught a zed for a while I popped down the Birmingham Fazeley canal for some easy gratification.   I found some moored boats in my first choice of swim and from my position near the bow end of the furthest boat, I was still able to cast to the far bank trees where there would certainly be some zander lurking,

My home made bobbins are set to sit just on the waters surface to help stop them swaying in the wind, I find it so much easier watching two of these together, rather than two floats along the far bank.  I can get straight onto the bites, sometimes setting the hook as the bobbin is still rising towards the rod blank.  With a float set up I have had more deep hooking issues than with this method, although it is very important to keep a taught line when using a ledger rig so that the take is registered straight away. The bobbin doesn't always rise up very far, in fact any movement can be a taking fish. It's harder to explain than to see in real life, but you soon learn to tell the difference between a gust of wind moving them and movement by a fish. The bobbin may only jerk or vibrate which in my experience will be a fish picking up the bait. You should treat it as a take and don't wait for it to develop further, but wind down and feel for the fish then strike it.  If the bobbin is moved by the wind it will just sway from side to side and settle back to it's starting position. Of course on most takes the bobbin will rise straight up to the rod confidenltly, making these pretty unmissable.

I usually give it no more than half an hour before moving to the next area as the fish will generally take the bait within 10 minutes or so if they are there or in feeding mode.  It was soon time to move on so I decided to head for the next patch of trees about a 100 yards down the tow path.  Gathering up my gear, as I pulled in the second rod I noticed that the roach dead bait had some tell tale slash marks in its flank.  Oh well at least I could come back and try here later if I had no success further down.

The rods were straight out in the second swim, it took literally 10 minutes before the left hand rod was away the bobbin dancing a jittery dance towards the rod.  I hooked into a solid feeling fish, zander tend to have about 30 seconds of strong fight in em before giving up and surfacing before reverting to some hectic head shaking in an attempt to shed the hook. Sometimes  it works too -  as I found out when this one shed the hook as I drew it towards the net !

about 2lb or so

I soon had another take on the same rod in the same spot, again this one shed the hook.  It was third time lucky before I got one in, although it fought harder than the previous two  even taking a little line before I netted it.  I checked the single hook which was still sharp the fish being hooked clean in the scissors, so I was happy to re bait and cast back out to the spot.

I had fish number two on the bank shortly after,  the biggest of the night but still only about the 3lb bracket.  It was interesting that all the fish came from a small gap at the end of the trees, any cast made by the other rod was ignored.  This might be explained by the theory about these fish packing into a tight shoals all huddled together. A cast made anywhere else nearby, and you would think there were no zander to be found !

bigger at about 3lb

The final take of the night came about 11 o'clock from the same spot again, this fish slipped the hook again, such is the fate of a zander angler sometimes.  I don't like to use trebles as they just make life too difficult especially with these smaller canal fish. You could argue that I would land more fish with them maybe, but when I started out zander fishing a few seasons back  I still lost fish on trebles anyway, and got in some right old trouble with deep hooking and trebles getting caught up in the net.  You get none of that problem with a single hook.  There must be the perfect single hook out there for my style of fishing I'm sure, one that will never lose me a fish, but as yet I haven't found it.  For now I will have to hope my luck holds out if I ever hook into that monster zed I'm waiting for !