Blanking Equals Success...The Second Instalment.

 Since my last post in regards to the Barbel I have been out on the bank a couple more times and I had spent hours leapfrogging swims in the hope of finding a shoal, for which I never did. At night it is a totally different ball game, day time is great when you can see Barbel but during the night you have to be either very clever and do your homework or just be lucky, I like to think I do my homework.

 So Thursday evening I made the journey out and packed as light as possible, nothing worse than lunking shed loads of gear around, my first swim that I had got into was very tight and steep too, but the swim looked perfect for it but at night everything looks the same, so I'd cast out a 16mm Dynamite Baits halibut pellet on a hair rig and the waiting game had begun. The plan was to throw out some handfuls of little pellets and fish the larger one over the top and fish for about 30-40 minutes and then move swim, three swims later after having done this I was starting to think about heading off home but I thought about fishing a swim further down which I had also baited.

 10 minutes or so after casting out my quiver-tip started to shudder a little bit followed by a vicious wrap which happened so quickly the centre-pin screeched as the line was torn off at an alarming rate, immediately I knew it was a good Barbel simply by the take and also the manner of the fight, for around 2-3 minutes I kept feeling the line grating on something downstream and thought the fish had gone through the snag but all of a sudden the fish appeared about 15 yrds out in front of me, at night it is tough to gauge much so I reached for the net and reached out to it as she glided across the surface, at first glimpse it looked about 6-7lb but I could only see the white stomach at a distance.

Biggest of the season so far. 10.10

 Not quite 6-7lbs......after resting her in the net she weighed 10lb 10ozs, a pristine and magnificent Barbel, after three blanks and numerous swims fished I got my reward in the shape of this pukka fish, well worth the wait for sure. This week's homework.....A*.

Second double of the season. Spot on.

Cov' Hoodoo.

Canal Zander fishing, not easy going.

 On Sunday a group of angling writers/blogger's made the journey to Coventry for a meet up to celebrate Jeff Hatt's birthday, a Zander fish in was decided on and I travelled up with Brian and Richard to have a go at those pesky feeder's. After missing our train at Euston and another £20 odd quid later we made our way to Coventry.

 The day planned was to fish until 6pm roughly and then retire to the warm pub - hopefully after catching a hat full or Z's, Richy and I were only fishing for ten minutes when he had already latched into a fish which turned out to be a jack Pike of roughly 3.8 when Jeff & Brian arrived, after meeting up with a few anglers whose blog's I have read for years we all split off into pods and fished a range of spots in search of Zander, I didn't have any joy throughout the day fishing wise and just watched on as a couple of Zander made it to the bank, Brian managed a couple 3.8 and Jeff had a 4lber, also a couple of others were landed by Danny who'd also hooked and lost a Perch in front of me which looked to be a good fish whilst drop-shotting.

Rick's Esox.

Jeff's birthday fish.

 Drop-shotting is something that I do need to take up as it looked to be the dog's bollocks in regards to presentation and life like movement whether it's a lure, jig or so on, I did pick up some tips that will surely be used at a later date, as dusk came and went the temperature dropped fairly quickly and as my ledgered Roach section lay dormant for over an hour the call of the cosy warm pub and a pint of Cider was to strong, I packed up and that was that, a tough day but no different from when I last visited the Cov', it seems to be my hoodoo and it's one I hope to crack soon.

A stunning sunset over the Coventry countryside.

A car outside my house after Monday night's frost.

Blanking Equals Success.

 During the week I had spent an evening on the banks fishing a tactic rarely deployed by myself (static), I find being mobile is the best approach to Barbel fishing, I have covered this topic many times in the past and a session during the week followed by a trip made yesterday morning were in stark contrast of each other, the evening session was spent in a couple of swims fishing pellet over a bed of small micro pellets in the vein hope of catching a Barbel but after 4 hours of fishing nothing materialized and I headed home without a touch. It made me think alot about what I was doing and I also re-evaluated my tactics and setup with the view to improving my static fishing catch rate, this blank will certainly bring further success and it was my first blank for Barbel all season which is astonishing to think, 19 Barbel in 11 trips, I think that's great going - I hope it carries on.

The selection.

My rig, which has been successful but not on that occasion.

 Fast forward to Friday morning and originally a dawn Perch session was planned but the heavy leaf fall has littered my chosen venue so fishing with a spinner was practically impossible so I bailed out on the trip and changed my gear over at home, swapping spinner for rolling gear, going light with basic gear I could cover a maximum amount of water. Spotted: What is great about sight seeing is the thrill of watching the Barbel swimming or holding position in swift current, then flicking or placing a bait upstream of my target and angling it towards them, as my bait came roughly 4ft from the two Barbel one left it's position and went straight for the bait, heart in mouth the bait disappeared and the line tightened up on my finger and struck immediately, a lovely fish of 7-8lb charged around in the pacy water, showing off its raw power, turning, flashing it's gold flanks and watching the pectoral fins and anal fin constantly changing angles to alter it's course through the water and using the flow to it's absolute maximum, such a great sight to see and after a good 5 minute scrap I finally got the chance to net the Barbel, good stuff.

 10 minutes later after allowing the swim to calm down I rolled a bait back down the swim to the remaining Barbel and it was almost as if the second one didn't know what was happening as the Barbel took my bait so confidently and I was locked into a battle slightly stronger than the first, fantastic stuff!. My first Barbel was weighed at 7lb 10oz and the second was weighed in at 7lb 12oz (pictured below), both were two peas in a pod, surely from the same batch of eggs, I was tempted to do a brace shot but the net would have struggled to hold both Barbel in so I released the first and the netted the second one.

At 7.12 this was the biggest of the two, identical to the first one.

 Then I had walked over a mile and a half before I had another positive take and this was in the form of a larger fish that made no mistake in nailing my rolled bait but the fight was rather disappointing as a large but short framed Barbel cruised to the surface after a brief bit of resistance, weighing at 8lb 14oz it was the best of the day and after another hour's rolling I didn't have anymore joy but rolling over static on any river, any day, any condition.

A chunky 8.14, 3 Barbel in 90 minutes is not bad at all.

 But over the winter my confidence in static fishing at night will surely improve as I start to bank a few Barbel, my target will be a 12lb plus Barbel but session's will be few and far between as my predator's campaign remains my primary target and as the flooded rivers drop and the colour disappears I will head back out for Pike and Perch but before then I will be off to fish the Coventry canal with Jeff Hatt & Co for Zander - for which better be playing ball tomorrow!!

Wrong Conditions.

 I woke up on Saturday with the view to go out for some specimen Roach and at this time of year they will be starting to feed up in preparation for winter, so I packed a very light tackle bag and some back up bait in case things didn't go to plan......and how glad I am that smelly baits were bought along, I got to the river and it was up a foot or so but had dropped considerably plus it was carrying a lot of colour due to the clay banks being torn away by the heavy rain of late.

 Straight away I knew the Roach would be very difficult to locate and with the heavily coloured water they probably wouldn't feed until it started to fine down, but for over two hours I did try a couple of swims where I thought they might be but I didn't have a touch, I had admitted defeat and I feel no matter how long I spent trying it was never going to happen. A mile and half upstream I knew of a couple areas where decent shoals of Chub congregate and in these "wrong conditions" Chub would be the only fish feeding, so the smelly bait was a block Wensleydale and it came to my rescue.

 First cast under the pin and my 7BB Avon trotter buried itself very confidently, I just love Chub for this reason, a certain blank for my intended target could be reversed into a successful morning's trotting, the take was met with a decent amount of force by Chub standards, the skelly charged upstream and struggled to get the line back on the pin with out any slack but I needn't have worried as it turned out to be well hooked in the top lip, first blood 4lb 12oz, not too shabby at all.

A good Chub nearly ready to surrender,

Base camp set and ready to go.

Got ya!, Chub do fight contrary to most anglers belief.

 For the next two hours the trotting ebbed and flowed as I would catch two in as many casts then nothing for 15 minutes then another brace would become attached and banked, the average size was great at more than 4lb with two over the 5lb barrier and when the swim died down and the remaining Chevin's cottoned on to the imminent threat of being caught - I finished knowing I had done well considering everything, after an exciting two hours of fishing I ended up with 14 Chub for a total bag weight of 51 lbs 2 ozs.

 Here are some photos of my backup piece of fishing, not to bad at all.

The larger fish of the haul between 4.2 & 5.5.

A brace of  "fives", 5lb and 5lb 5oz.

My biggest of the day at 5.5.

My second "five" of the day. 5lb 0oz.

My Autumn & Winter Pike Challenge For 2014-15.

 Last season was my first real attempt at catching some Pike and I have to say that I had some fantastic trips in search of them which culminated in my PB Pike of 19.5, this lovely specimen was caught on the Royalty in October 2013, since then I have made a string of appearances on the magnificent fishery but not been as successful but more trips will be made to the Hampshire Avon as the weather gets much cooler.

 So far so good for the predators as a whole this Autumn, a new PB Zander of 4lb 7oz from Old Bury Hill and a PB Perch earlier in the season of 2lb 13oz, but a new PB Pike hasn't yet been found with my personal goal this winter is to find a 20lb plus Esox, I'm sure my want of a large Pike will take me across the country to many different fisheries - running & still in search of a fish that is still I believe the most exciting fish in our waters, over the last 2 months I have already been on the Wye, Thames, Avon ( Christchurch & Salisbury ) and a couple of other smaller rivers with varying success. Here is my current list of Pike so far.

    This list will be updated after every session that a Pike is successfully caught.

    Current total is at = 105lbs 14oz of 250lb being the challenge weight.

    Also 3 double figure Pike so far, target is 10 doubles and a twenty.

    Oct 18th - 11.9 ( Below ) & 15.1 ( Immediately Below )

Oct 11th - 4.8

Sept 12th-14th - 3lb, 2lb, 1lb 10oz & 14lb 12oz ( Below )












    Aug 23rd - 5 Pike to 3lbs

    Aug 17th - 2lb 8oz & 5lb 12oz

Blown Away.

On Saturday morning I had planned an early morning trip out for some predators and maintain my focus on a 20lb Pike and maybe a bonus 3lb + Thames Perch, so in order to embark on this trip all I had to do was wake up at 4:30am on a brisk autumn morning and go fishing, but unfortunately my body had other ideas and after an exhausting football match the evening before the alarm sounded and was switched off. 8:45am and I awoke without the aide of the alarm and by which time I had missed the best time to go out in search of my Esox so I had to re-buff my plans and decided on going out with the trotting rod armed with maggots to have a go at a few shoals of Dace & Roach.

It took a lot longer to get fishing than usual as the weather tried it's best to curtail the session before it had even began, but I'm no fair weather angler and this sort of blustery wet weather is what I like as not many other anglers would have the patience to withstand the barrage of leaves and constant attempts at mending the line as I trotted downstream to catch my intended target, the wind never eased once in the time I spent out but the rain did abate at times making fishing a little more bearable, when the fishing did take place bites weren't very forth coming with the occasional out of season Trout being banked and although most of the Trout were small to about 5oz, I did catch a couple of larger ones and the biggest being around 2.8/2.12 and in pristine condition, just a shame they are 2 months late but they were ravenous and getting to the bait before the awaiting Roach and Dace could, this scenario played out through a stretch of as much as 2 miles.

13 Trout later I finally caught something without an adipose fin, a Chub it was but not big at 2lbs or so, then I spotted what looked like a monster Barbel of 11lbs or so, with the tackle I had attempting to catch it would have been foolish but my head was saying go for it (I've caught bigger on lighter gear), so I cast out a bunch of maggots and bulked my shot down to keep the bait from moving too fast, then a hard tug followed very soon after casting but that Barbel still remained in position, so whatever I caught was not seen, a fiery scrap was being put up but it was short lived as the culprit came up to the net and a nice Chub of 3.10 lay on the bank, not a Barbel but who cares, by Chub standards it was a strong fight and normally those two statements aren't used in the same sentences, normally a wet plastic bag is more akin to a Chub fight.

Pristine condition.

A lovely weir pool but not much happening.

 As I pressed on downstream I did finally manage to catch some Dace but whatever I was doing they kept escaping my size 16 barbless hook as they approached the net, I lost six on the spin before I landed one and then it turned out to be a Chub......(sigh).......well I landed it, it wasn't really going to plan and my day was just about to get a little wetter as the heavens opened and I was soaked through within a couple of minutes of it starting, by which time I had decided to call it a day as the rain was so fierce it was penetrating my bag and the camera was getting wet, a trip not to forget but not one of my best, but after another good week of work it was nice to be out walking the banks surrounded by nature, a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning and with so many young Trout caught and seen it is very encouraging for the future after all without them there is no future and what a shame it would be.

Back In Time For Crumpets & Tea.

 6:30 am on a lovely 18c morning in November......yup it's almost like summer is rearing it's head or so you'd believe, normally by this time of the year I'm wrapped up in layer of clothes complete with gloves and my rusky hat but instead I was donning a light pair of trousers and a T-shirt, my ideal target was a Barbel but anything would do, just to get out of bed on a lovely morning and go for a wander with a rod would have be suffice, I arrived with a window of a couple of hours max so I got set and headed off into the woods.

 I walked for roughly half a mile before I spotted a few fish which turned out to be Chub but they were almost impossible to fish for so I aimed a bait past them into clearer water and hoped they would follow it out, the following four casts down nothing happened and the Chub stayed locked up in their little fortress, regardless of what I did they were not coming out but I continued to roll to a bait around in a deeper slack further downstream as it would certainly be a place to hold a fish or two whether it be Barbel or Chub, a second roll through this pool would prove absolutely pivotal as my fairly stout rod was shown up, 2.5lb T/C rod was bent more than what a twenty pound Carp has done previously and the culprit for this brutal take was never in a million years a Chub so it could only be a Barbus and by the take a Barbus maximus, it took me couple of minutes to retrieve the line it had stripped off my pin and when it became visible I could see she was a cracker, first guess was that of a double and when she finally cruised closer I was certain of it, or certain its frame was warranted that estimate, then disaster struck......as I lent over to net the Barbel I felt my foot slip slightly and my whole body tried to compensate and I lost all balance and headed straight for the river...........a boot full and soaking wet trousers were the price I had to pay in order to bank my catch, then if my day wasn't going to plan then the lack of camera turned out to be the last straw , I weighed the Barbel at 10.6 which is my first double of the season which I was very happy for but unfortunately the pics I did get were only my phone so watch this space for a snap.

 My session would have finished there and then but as I was now wet I had a better shot at those Chub ,10 minutes later and roughly 6 casts, three Chub had been caught to roughly 3.8 and with that it was time to finish and head home for some tea and crumpets.

Predators Part Eight. Fish With Fangs.

 After all it is Halloween but we embarked on our session to deepest Dorking for my first trip out for some Zander, we being myself and Brian who has had varying success already at Bury Hill and after so many years of reading about it in the press (angling) I thought it was high time I got involved, an early start was required as we wanted to get the early morning feeders before daylight kicked in.

 Within an hour I had my target on the bank albeit a miniature, but regardless of size it was a Zander and Brain didn't have to wait long either as the kindergarten were on the prowl, but now we had caught it was time for something a little larger. 10 hours later...........and a dozen or so touches had kept us remotely concentrated, oh and Brian had another Zander around 2.8, it is a stunning fishery and it is easy to see why it is much loved by many anglers and as we had purchased night tickets we had the benefit of staying until 9pm and as time wore on a hefty Badger came to within about 5ft of me - that incidentally is the second alive one I have seen, the rest have been roadkill.

First blood.

 Cue 8pm and the penny literally dropped as my inside rod started to have line peeled off of it, a confident run at last was met with a solid strike, as soon as I could feel the Zed on my mind immediately went to fish god's prayer mode, after so many hours of idle angling I had finally connected with a better fish and I wasted no time in getting, my net lay in wait as a decent but probably average Zed cruised in, I was elated it has to be said and a new PB to boot on what turned out to be the last action of the evening. So here it is my new personal best of 4lb 7oz, something to build upon but it's not a trip I will be making every week that's for sure!!.

My new PB of 4.7.

Autumn Barbel.

 This morning I was torn between a dawn session for Pike or Barbel, but with a quick look at the weather forecast and cloudless skies predicted the latter was the only choice and the Pike can have a week off, so I packed light and headed off at dawn to hopefully catch a Barbel, trotting for Barbel I find is so effective and allows myself to cover so much water.

 Yet another busy week just gone and another approaching I just wanted to get out for a couple of hours but I do have Thursday to look forward to as I will be attempting to catch a Zander with only one previously caught which was on the Thames many years ago. But back to the Barbel and I was amongst the action fairly quickly as I connected with a small but powerful Barbel which was around the 4 1/2lb mark maybe a little over, great fun on such light tackle and it wasn't long before my 5BB float sailed away again but this time I was met with a considerable amount of force, more than that of a small one hammering around, after an initial scare when the fish went solid as it went under the far bank I managed to play out the rest of fight in relative comfort, I slipped my net under decent a specimen of what looked to be around 9lbs.

Between 4.8 and 5.0.

Biggest of the morning at 8.15.

 My first call turned out to be just one ounce out as she settled on 8lb 15oz but she could go bigger for sure come the cold depths of winter when they lay dormant between feeds.

 The action didn't stop there either as I headed down stream further with one more Barbel to add to my morning's tally to take it to 3 which is good going with the latest addition around 3.8 which wasn't weighed as I sought a larger specimen which caught my eye during the scrap, but for as much as I tried to keep the little one from thundering around the swim unfortunately it put the remaining fish on high alert and no more interest was shown and although it wasn't the end of the session it was curtailed as I clambered out of the river to head further down when I lost my footing on the slippery tree roots and slipped thus losing my balance and the rod in my right hand slammed the deck which smashed the top section of my rod into two more sections, the session finished there and then, but it was a good short mornings fishing and I went home fairly happy and its only a rod, I can just buy a new one, Bury Hill are you ready to show me a surprise??. 

Predators Part Seven. Night Shift.

 Night fishing isn't something I do very often and the reason for this is the amount of the next day I end up wasting catching up with sleep, but after a hard but good week a trip fter training was planned and Ricky joined me for a night's fishing after Pike primarily but Rich had Zander and Perch also in mind but I myself was in tunnel-vision mode and only Pike were on the menu, after arriving at the river we quickly discovered that after the rains over the last couple of weeks it was carrying a fair amount of colour but as we were using dead bait Roach and Sprat we felt that a catch was on the card's even still.

 Even with the colour I felt confident and there was a feeling nagging in the back of my mind that  something was going to happen but we'd have to fast-forward 2hrs before the first indication of the night came about and it was myself who's pike bob started to slither away and vanish from sight as a fish made off, no invitation needed as I lent into a sizeable but slow fish, Pike it was and the fight was pretty mute and I don't know if that was down to the colour in the water or what but it's not what I expect from a top predator, a couple minutes passed and just as it came to the net in submission a last gasp tail walk threatened to spoil the fun but when it did cruise in - the tail walk felt much more spectacular, a certain double in the bag.

11lb 9oz first double of the night.

 These are the Pike I was after and then once one of those were on board then it was hoping for something bigger, but with this sort of fishing you never know what's coming next, could be a twenty or a little jack, lottery is the only word I can think to describe it. 3:20am nearly two hours after the first fish was caught my Pike rod was back into action with Richard looking on as a spectator, a firm take was met by a larger Pike which fought much harder than the first although it didn't have to do much, four or five minutes past before I saw the Pike and in the dull light it was hard to gauge how big it was but when Rich did the honours of landing it we saw it was a better fish around the mid-double range.

 On the scales at 15lb 1oz I was chuffed and two doubles in two hours for me is good going but hoping it will only get better as I gain more knowledge and the fish feed more as it gets colder, until my next foray out, tight lines and bag a biggy.

A pristine Thames Pike at 15lb 1oz.

 

Immaculate condition but has plenty of room to grow.