Getting down to it!

Well, it's that time of year when the water temperatures have increased and the fish have started to get down to what they only get to do once a year, spawn. The warmer weather also means that taking a few fish off the top is becoming a bit more reliable, lately the temperatures have been a bit erratic but Barry has had some great success already catching a few on the fly earlier on this year.

We were at Jubilee last Friday and I met Barry just as he was leaving the pool, he was on his way home to pick up a spare rod after standing on his favourite, not a good start. I had a fairly productive session with five fish on the bank and Barry and a couple of doubles, one close to twenty. Bad luck comes in three's, Barry also snapped the elastic on his catapult and locked his keys in the car!

 

Sunday afternoon/evening was spent at a rather busy college pool. It took a good couple of hours to find some fish willing to take a few snacks off the top and after tempting them with a hook bait they proceeded to smash me up, they are 'animals' in this pool. I was broken off four times when using a controller close to some snags, even 15lb straight through to the hook was snapped like sewing thread. the wind was drifting my free offerings down the pool and I found a few fish that had braved the open water so the fly rod was deployed and it didn't take to long to get a couple of nice mirror's on the bank.



Hard fighting beasty.

One Slice!

They fight like stink in the deep water and kept pulling for the snags, I don't know how that little fly rod copes with the punishment it gets from the Carp it catches but it works brilliantly and they soon give in.

 

Barry caught three fish which means the Duck is back in my hands, quack quack!

Nick Nick!

The local constabulary were interested in a recent capture from Ryton. Shame it was the same fish, from the same swim and as many weeks.

Police approved twenty!

Canal Lump.

I've never really thought of fishing the canal's for Carp but it's really starting to appeal to me. There are some very good fish in these little waters but you do have to put the time and effort into finding them and it's not easy.

 

The particular spot I fished last week is one I've fished a few times and had smaller Carp from but after speaking to local passers by the bigger ones are often seen.

 

I currently have real confidence in my Ryton3 baits and spread a good quantity along the far margin which is where the Carp tend to hang out along this stretch. My usual 'Donkey Choker's' were the bait and all I could do was sit back and wait for a take. I waited for around an hour before I got the only run of the day, but it was well worth the effort.

 

Almost as deep as the swim it came from.

It's my first canal twenty.

Those Dirty Rat's!

I did an evening session at Ryton last Friday, lovely and sunny and the Carp were all over the place basking in the late afternoon sunshine, some were looking rather 'frisky' in the warmer sheltered corners so it won't be long till they start to spawn.

 

I only managed the one Carp as well as one very good Tench. I had loads of takes, they were probably smaller Tench but I'm using proper 'donkey choker' sized boilies as hook baits to try and deter them and it seems to be working as I've had hardly any Tench this year.

Hard fight in the shallows.

 

The Rat population appears to be on the rise around the lake and I must warn everyone that they are stealing baits. Midway through the session, I went to my rucksack to get my boilie bag out to re-bait my spots with a couple of dozen boilies, but, ended up turning everything over looking for the baits, they weren't there? I walked up and down the bank thinking I'd left them where I'd been sitting earlier but nothing, I even thought that Barry had pulled a stunt and hidden them but just as was about to shout out to him I caught a glimpse of one corner of the bag right in amongst the brambles at the back of the peg, the little boilie munching ba****ds had only lifted it out of my bag and dragged it under the bushes, chewed holes in the mesh and devoured about half a kilo of my Ryton three's.

 

I will be hanging the bag up from now on!