Spinning for Predators

With my impending trip to the Royalty tomorrow I wanted to get maybe one last session in on the Thames, but instead of going for Bream, I thought of just taking my spinning rod down to Twickenham with my youngest bro Chris catching wind of my plan he couldn't resist the temptation and joined me, so we set out at about 3am and arrived about an hour later, because we was both using light gear we could try a couple different lures/spinners each and draw it through different swims in search of a hungry predator regardless of species.

 Recently I have fished this stretch and it has been very difficult for myself and in truth I have struggled in my search for Pike, Zander and Perch over 8oz this season and I do hope that the colder weather will induce them into feeding more. For once the session did start off quite quickly when I hooked a small Perch about 3oz on one of my first casts and with a further few knocks in my subsequent casts which come to nothing, almost 2 hours of roving with only partial hits I finally managed to hook something some 2 mile or so from our start point and it was fighting back and pretty powerfully to!, darting runs deep in the river giving my 6ft spinning rod a right run for its money, but as the fight progressed the fish started to loose it power and quickly headed to the net thinking it was a small Pike, a quality sized Perch rose to the surface and straight in.

 A pristine Perch that looked close to beating my personal best of 2.7, so without hesitation I weighed it at 1.15 just 8oz short of equally my PB, which considering its frame was pretty empty but a good Perch nevertheless.

( I hate flashes)

 

Landing that stripey at around 6am we had both decided to just push on a bit as we was going to pack up by around 6.30 and by that time had come 2 more Perch had been landed but again they were from the kindergarten shoal, at least one of the parents wanted to play ball.

 

 

 



Roving Barbel

 As the title suggests this afternoon I decided to kill a couple of spare hours and relax on the bank with the chance of bagging a Barbel whilst soaking up some sun, I travelled very light with my waistcoat packed with most of my odd and ends and the rest in my short roving gear in a shoulder bag.

 On the way down I met up with Stu who also had some time to dispose of, so we set up in a deeper stretch of river and rolled a variety of baits through the swim with one of the first casts getting an enquiry in the form of ripping take with my rod bending right over and a Barbel on the other end charging around trying to ditch me on the far bank vegetation, but after a couple of minutes I had won the dual and landed my desired target, a lovely 7lb 7oz whisker.

With a professional job of netting and taking the photographs by Stu it was my turn to do the ghilling, whilst creeping around the swim cleaning up litter left by idiots that call themselves anglers, I wasn't paying attention to Stu who was having a roll through and latched into a fish, I just happened to glance up and see Stu's rod hooped over, so with my brilliant skills of observation I asked, "Stu you in?", with the reply being a decent size Barbel roll on the surface as it headed back down to riverbed, a fight for a couple of minutes followed and it was my turn on netting duties.

 

Stu with his prize at 8lb 1oz.

 

The day was all square and we both got what we came out for, but even if we didn't catch it's simply being out in the midst of nature and relaxing whilst socialising is why we do it, with many of my friends asking me why I do it, but if your not an angler they will just never understand the concept.

 

 I wasn't finished though as I knew that more fish remained in the swim, so I changed my bait again and cast out which must have gone straight in front of a fish as my finger nearly got cut off by a vicious pull on the drop, definitely a Barbel on and today we really must have got it right as I haven't done that well for Barbel in such a short space of time for quite a while.

 

 Barbel number 2 for me was on it's way in but it had other idea's as they usually do but again as regular as clockwork once they are overcome it's just about keeping their head up out the water and slipping the net under before they realise and bolt off again as normally that's when you lose them.

 

 

A stocky 7lb 2oz Barbel.

 

After reviving her it was time for a stroll and find somewhere else and leave the rest of the Barbel in the swim to get on with some feeding and put on weight, autumn is fast coming upon us and it is nearly prime time for some quality Barbel fishing.

 





Operation Redfin Part 2

This afternoon I fancied going out to do some fishing owing to the fact I didn't get selected for my football match, so Roach fishing was on the agenda and my swim was to be the same spot that I fished towards the back end of august that I had been very successful in, with the sun out and 25c + it was a tad warm and that was good news as it was the weather that we had when I had the 2 brilliant hauls.

I arrived at the swim, set up, cast out and waited......... for around 3 hours before I got my first real bite and I had a fish on which turned out to be a Chub very annoyingly, as I didn't want the Roach spooked off by the Chub storming around the swim, after releasing that fish it took another hour and a half to get another take the day certainly was not going the way I expected it to, it just goes to highlight how right I was over the 2 last sessions in everything from tactics to bait and time of day.

The next bite that I got did turn out to be my target species that shot across the swim in typical big Roach fashion using the river to it's advantage, after a couple of short powerful runs I had it in the net and quickly weighed, 1lb 10oz, my Roach was landed.

That fish was shortly followed by an even bigger Roach of 1lb 14oz, nearly another 2lb Roach for the collection but it fell just short of that magical mark but after a hugely slow start I did manage 2 Roach both of which were of a fantastic standard anything over the 1lb mark is a fantastic sized Roach and I've been lucky enough to find a piece of redfin heaven even if occasionally they don't want to participate in my game and become famous.

Just 8 days until I get my long awaited visit to the Hampshire Avon, can not wait.

Another magnificent Roach 1.14.

Silly O'clock Barbel stalking

This morning I was out in search of stalking and landing a Barbel as I haven't targeted them recently because of the brilliant Roach shoal that I had discovered, armed with my centre-pin and trotting rod I was ready for action.

 First blood was a 3.13 Chub caught on my 1st cast of the day at 5.15am, which did put up quite a scrap for a Chub but the excitement was soon over, I have to wait until 7.28 until I got my next take, with the rod hooping over immediately I knew it was a Barbel, on the light gear it did fight really well with it ripping line off of the pin. A couple of minutes of battling and she was in the net.

 

6.6 Barbel

 

It's been a couple of weeks so it was nice to catch one on my first trip out for 3 weeks in search on them, I did have one other fish in the shape of a 4.2 Chub that looked like a pig, I can't believe it didn't go much bigger but the winter feeding will sure change that.

 

 



Tiddler Bashing Part 2

 After unfortunately having to work today as I owed a favour my day had been severely cut down in regards to fishing time, so on the way home I decided to go for a short session on one of my local lakes with my youngest brother Chris.

 After a short period of waiting and building the swim, the takes started to come think and fast with an array of small Carp coming to the bank and a few Gudgeon thrown into the mix but nothing big as illustrated.

 Over the next week I'll try to get out and do some Barbel fishing as I am starting to miss trotting for them and getting bullied by my favourite species of fish.

 

Chris with a little Common.

 

 

One of my pristine Gudgeon.



August 2012 Barbel stats.

02.08.2012
6lb 8oz

11.08.2012
6lb 4oz, 5lb 13oz

Total weight of Barbel caught in August was at 18lb 9oz.

Roach Fishing Figures

A chart for Redfin sessions 18^th and 23^th august 2012

Date:	Roach	Rudd
18.08.12	1 lb 6 oz
	1 lb 11 oz
	1 lb 7 oz
	15 oz
	1 lb 5 oz
	1 lb 9 oz
		1 lb 14 oz
	1 lb 7 oz
	1 lb 6 oz
	2 lb 1 oz
	14 oz
	1 lb 10 oz
	1 lb 15 oz
	1 lb 9 oz
	1 lb 9 oz
23.08.12	1 lb 10 oz
	13 oz
	1 lb 13 oz
	1 lb 7 oz
	1 lb 9 oz
	2 lb 2 oz
	2 lb 0 oz
	1 lb 9 oz

Also had another 8 Roach around the 10oz mark that were not counted.

Roach Fishing Re-visited.

 After my enjoyable day of Roach fishing last Saturday I couldn't resist in going back, so with a day off of work and having been selected for a match on saturday, today was my only chance to do some fishing.

 With that in mind last night I packed everything and headed out this morning hoping for just a glimmer of what I experienced 5 days ago, when I got to the river I took my time in setting up and also getting some groundbait out to get the fish feeding and build up their confidence.

 The session looked to have got off to a good start when after just 5 minutes I had already had a Roach bite and latched into, very quickly it was in my net but not a monster at 13oz, but after that fish the day took a nosedive in action and I tryed everything in my tackle bag to get the fish feeding again but it wasn't to be, I was thinking that I must have just turned when they finished breakfast, so I stuck around for about 2 hours when I got another take which again I connected to and it was a better Roach which weighed 1.10 (one of the bigger Roach).

 4 hours of fishing had passed with 2 Roach in the keepnet, not the session that imagined but I guess I just expected more, but looking on the face of things the 3 trips before that one on saturday over a year period I only caught 1 Roach about a pound, so I was already doing better than those previous outings. But up came the Roach dinner party that I did hang around for and glad I did as the action really started to pick up with takes coming thick and fast, the sort of action I was hoping for.

 The first Roach that came in was a 1.7 quickly followed by a 1.9 and a 3.1 Chub within 3 casts, 10 minutes later I had another Roach on which put a real good fight up and ducking and weaving in the weed so I knew it was a good fish and when it came over the lip of the net it was a definite 2lb + Roach with the scales confirming at 2.2, target aquired and enjoy the fishing as the more evening drew in the more feeding that was happening, that 2.2 was swiftly followed by Roach weighing at 1.13, 1.9 and just to put a gloss on it I caught another Roach at 2lb on the button, there was a slightly annoying situation that arose at the end when I hooked a lovely Rudd between 1.4 and 1.8, I did the hard work in navigating the weed and then lost it about 2 foot from the net!

My brace of 2lb Roach.

The biggest of the day at 2lb 2oz.

Happy days only 3 weeks until the Hampshire Avon gets a visit from me.

A Redfin Letter Day

Saturday I had a good day planned which consisted of packing my feeder rod and feeder fishing gear, the plan was to sit up in a swim out of the sun as it was very hot weather to be sitting out in and at 30c the fish would probably feed better in the shaded, cooler water where they might be a little more indusive in feeding.

 My tackle comprised of an 12ft quiver tip rod with a 1oz tip, with 6lb line through to a 15g cage feeder and then a small swivel connected to a 1 foot leader of 3lb line with a size 12 barbless hook.

 First off the session didn't really go as planned because the Chub were just getting to the bait before anything else could get to it and not before long I had a bag of Chub in the keepnet weighing at 26lb 9oz with the biggest at 4lb 7oz.

 So with the Chub reigning supreme in the first swim after about 90 minutes I had decided that the best option was to move and try a different swim about 500yrds downtream and see if I could fish through the Chub and maybe get a Roach. The spot that I had choose to fish was very extremely weeded up and the only bit I could fish was a gully about a foot wide between the 2 banks of weed which was pure gravel in the clear so that was where i cast my feeder which was crammed with white crumb and the hookbait was a small piece of brown bread.

 Within 10 minutes I had a solid take on the feeder rod and latched into a good fish and because it was quite strong I thought straight away it was a Chub, but after about a minute I saw a redfin cut through the water where I started to play it alot more carefully I didn't want to lose it, but after a brief fight I had it in the net.

1.6 a proper Roach.

 Biggest Roach for a long time and it makes me wonder why I don't fish for them more often as they are a fantastic species and to catch them wild in a river like this is great stuff but it got even better as the session progressed and the feed increased with the intense feeding of the fish, my next Roach went 14oz and then quickly followed by one at 15oz and then after just a short period of time the swim started to really come alive with takes on the drop, 2 hours later my keepnet started to fill up with some absolutely quality Roach but then out of the blue a big Roach took my bait and immediately surfaced, it was a lump of a fish and fought very hard with every dive it aimed for the weed beds but I managed to persuade it to not come off, a two-pounder! the first one for a while and a pb on this river aswell, 2lb 1oz.

 Another 4 hours of fishing and a lovely bag of Roach later I had decided to pack up with the Roach still feeding after I had packed up and my Dad had come down to take some pictures for me.

Roach - 1.14 and 1.10

2.1 and 1.15



          A pick of the best 8 Roach between 1.11 and 1.15 on the mat and holding a 2.1.

 Another nice duo of Roach 1.14 and 1.10 with the top one which at some point in time had been attacked by a cormorant but had survived albeit with a lump missing out of its back.

 A total of the days fishing was 13 Roach over 1lb and 1 Roach over 2lb, also I had a massive Rudd at 1.14 that in the excitement of it all I forgot to photograph, along with 2 chub and an 11oz Dace.

 A redfin letter day!, absolutely amazing day out on the bank, I can't wait to catch some more Roach that size.

Back on the river

After a week off of the river it was time to get back on in search of some Barbel, early doors it has to be said as I had prior engagements later on during the day so the session was not to be long either. With the sun out very strongly it was lovely weather expected to hit 29c in London, normally when I come back from holiday or travelling the rain follows me into the country, but this year it has been very good and not to mention the topping up on my already tanned skin and the Barbel even in the early morning were already sun batheing and it wasn't long before I stalked one out of a deep gravel run on my first cast which in the deep water fought really well.

6.4 usual stamp of fish.

The day did produce one more Barbel later on in the session with the company of Stu who very kindly landed the fish for me whilst we nattered about all things fishing and football also of the same stamp of fish that have made up a majority of this seasons captures so far with a double still eluding me.

5.13 second Barbel of the day.

Someone with a sense of humour.