More Big Dace.

 Not long left now, the season is nearly done. It's been quite a season with many quality fish caught and finishing off armed with a lot more knowledge to hopefully aide me in having another great season. I for one always wish the season was longer, but one simply can't complain with the amount of time spent on the bank, any spare time not spent with the missus has been spent on the banks of canals, rivers or lakes.

 Yesterday I snuck out for a little while even though I'm trying to shake off the flu, maybe not everyone's first choice but I simply couldn't sit and what another second of the drivel on television nowadays, so the Dace were my port of call and although it wasn't easy I managed three weighing 13.06oz, 13.03oz & 11.01oz, again these were big Dace and from yet another new swim but on the same mile beat that I've narrowed the fish down to.

13.06oz best of yesterday.

 Now to today, again maybe I should have been curled up in bed feeling sorry for myself but that simply isn't in my repertoire, so under the weather I still wanted to get out for a little while before retreating to the warmth of my bed. Dreadful I know but the small amount of time I spent out was anything but dreadful, a pristine Barbel and solid Chub fell to normal trotting tactics. This though was not the pinnacle as I have mentioned in the past, I have really wanted to really amongst the Dace numbers and build a decent bag, I know I can not complain, it has been a revelation in regards to what has been caught from what was nothing more than a hunch.

Looker or what.

A thick set Chub, taken on trotted bread flake.

 I can only imagine what the real numbers are in these nomadic shoals, one thing I'm sure of is that the surface is only just being scratched, swims aren't swims but mere holes in the vegetation, even at this time of year the briars and various other shrubs make access pretty difficult, where there are Dace though and I'll be close. Not for long now though, as of next season I will concentrate on different species which I didn't focus on this season. So close to the end of the season and I got my wish to catch quite a few, I finished up with seven Dace and lost/bumped another six fish.

14oz bang on, awesome.

Love it!!! six in the bed.....

Monster Dace, going to miss these. 14.06oz

 The size of these fish have been mind-bending, I hoped I'd find a couple specimen fish but in reality 90-95% of the Dace have been in excess of 11ozs, just one that size is brilliant but spoilt is a word that springs to mind. My three largest today were all over 14oz, infact the biggest went 14.06oz and the other two bang on 14ozs, the others were between 8oz and 12oz. It's been pretty darn good. I will at some point try to compile a list of trips including amount of Dace caught and weights of fish caught during those visits, in the next couple of years I honestly think that the shoal present may have a healthy population of pound plus fish, a British Record is a distinct possibility, out of what I had caught I had the one monster over 1lb and lost one that was clearly in the same league but others that have been lost haven't been that close to think there's a few around, but they are largely in pristine condition with only a couple with knicks and scrapes.