A couple of quick ones!

Another busy weekend but there's always room for a quick session or two. We'd been busy preparing everything ready for Cerys's christening on Sunday and the knees-up afterwards, the rest of the family and friends weren't due to arrive from wales until Saturday so when an offer to go Zandering on Friday landed on my table I snatched at the chance.
Yes, we know, it was rather wet on Friday and only nutters go fishing in the rain but it had actually eased off when we got to the canal and was very pleasant. Several boats were moving through the locks but within the first hour I managed a run which resulted in a bit of a tussle with a head shaking Zed.

A very useful 3lb 6oz

The rain returned and I started to theorize with Barry about why the rain put fish off feeding and the fact that as soon as it stopped they would start to feed heavily again, I've witnessed this at Ryton and used it to my advantage, getting wet whilst setting traps then sitting back praying it would stop raining.
After a biteless two hours of rain had passed we had a break in the weather with a small patch of blue sky, this was quickly being followed by another patch of black stuff but at least the rain had stopped and no sooner than fresh baits were in place, Barry's rod was away. It wasn't too long before the jammy git had a very good Zed on the bank and then agreed with my theories.

5lb 9ozs, Jammy git!

That evening, Barry had a chat with a passing angler and was told about a place that neither of us had heard of or even knew existed, time to get the map out. 

Over the next couple of days between all the babysitting, cooking, sorting out family and friends, attending church and eating a belly full of cake, I managed a few sneak peeks at the internet searching for this place that I will now refer to as 'Area 51' because Google Earth doesn't even show this pool!. When Monday afternoon arrived and the last of my friends set off on their drive back to North Wales, we had a chance to search for this mystery pool. We'd both been looking at maps and had both come up with the same area to search and headed off on a recce, rods and some basic kit was put in the boot just in case.
To cut a long story short, we found the spot and gave it a go, within a couple of hours we'd banked three species, saw a fourth and seeing the wounds on the flanks of one of the fish we caught, there's a possible fifth.

A very useful half pounder.

The next visit will see some proper bait going in, not just worm and luncheon meat.

What's fishing?

Fishing is continuing to be a bit of a non starter, other than a few trips to local waters scratching for tiddlers under a float even the annual jolly to north wales only saw me fish a couple of times. 

A good few weeks ago I went to Parker's pool, well I think it was Parker's, it's the pool in the middle of the old golf coarse, the one with the half submerged wheelie bin and several tyres visible on the bottom in the few clear spots between all the pads. I had a really good bag of Rudd and I honestly lost count at around the 25 fish mark. I was hoping for one of the Cruician's.

Parker's Rudd

I was promised a Crucian from a small stillwater near the blue lias. I've always looked through the tree's on the bend just before reaching the canal but never fished the pool. It looked good but as with most waters in the area it could have done with a foot of extra water.

On the edge of the pads

There were plenty of Carp eager to smash up the light float gear and after a couple of takes from two brutes they left my corner of the pads alone which allowed the smaller stuff to tuck into the free food. After several Rudd, Roach and Perch I hooked a sizable fish which turned out to be my quarry but sods law took over just before I could get a net under it. 

The day before our holiday saw me on the local river which is now really choked with weed the level being so low. All the likely spots were devoid of anything fishy but a couple of Chublets saved me from a blank session.

I was hoping to have some much better luck whilst on holiday in North Wales but my plan to fish one lakes for Eel's was abandoned when I saw the colour of the water, bright turquoise, apparently there are several waters around the country experiencing the same algae blooms and having blanked on waters with blooms in the past I didn't fancy blanking again. As I had a skeleton coarse kit with me and an Avon rod, I decided to pay a visit to day ticket lake Llyn y gors, I remember this place opening the year before I went to university and it was just the one lake, it's now a whole complex of lakes with everything on offer and if I had the time and the money I think it would be worth a lengthy trip to notch up a few for the board. After a recce the day before fishing I chose one pool that was supposed to be stocked with just Tench, Rudd and Crucians. 

Can you guess what the target was?

Blanking at Llyn Y Gors

Should have tried the other lake, I blanked!!

Cerys on her first family fishing trip.

Cerys wasn't impressed.

Sunrise at Pwllfanogl

After the failure the day before, I got my arse out of bed early to do a morning session on the Menai Straits at Pwllfanogl, one of my old haunts. The session was a 'dig and fish' as I hadn't been out to collect any bait during the week but you can't get any fresher than this. After a good half hours dig I had some cracking bait, fresh lug and king rag which really took some digging.

Spot the King Rag.

It was a bite a chuck as the tide turned but it took a few casts before I hooked the first fish, I just couldn't hook them, I'd started off on a size two hook to give the small flatties in the area a chance but I ended up using the largest hook in the box, a 5/0, before I connected with the tip rattlers.

Bearded Tip Rattler.

Codling, loads of them and all small, at least I was catching something.

Small River Adventures - Part Two

That big Perch had me thinking all the way home and it was the first thing I thought about when sorting through my gear the next morning. Getting a pass to go fishing was tough but I managed to swing it and I was back on the river again for and afternoon session. 

Different plan today, choose a swim and fish it for a good few hours, I chose a spot on a bend that looked particularly fishy and started to feed maggots to try and tempt a few larger residents out from the far bank cover, it was deep, almost six foot but the fish were there. I started to catch small Dace and Roach as well as a few Chublets and then bingo, I hooked into something much bigger, I had visions of a huge striped beast rolling into my net but it turned out to be a Chub of three pound and four ounces.

Chub with scars from a previous encounter

It was a good start, so the maggots kept being fed and the fish kept coming but I was hoping for one big stripey, I had a few smaller Perch but the big ones kept themselves hidden. Before I made a move I had a new species, I don't ever recall catching a Ruffe before and was rather pleased to have met one, looked very similar to the sea scorpions I used to catch in the Menai Straits.

Spiky beast

I moved back upstream a few pools to where I'd lost the Perch the day before and saved all my best worms for this pool, it only took a couple of trots through to connect with the first Perch and after a good high speed thrash around the swim it was safely in the net. It wasn't anywhere near as big as the fish I saw yesterday but it was an improvement on what I have at the moment at one ounce over the pound. 

A pound and one ounce

I gave the swim a rest and just fed maggots for around ten minutes before trotting a worm through again, I was sure that the thrashing from the first Perch would have spooked the swim but I kept getting bites and it was a few trots later that I connected with another good stripey of exactly the same size, it may have been the same fish!

Small River Adventures - Part One

I like fishing new stretches of water, it's that element of the unknown that brings excitement into fishing a new venue with only reports and pictures to go on and a Google Earth view to look at and ponder over. In reality, each swim was worthy of a dangle with a bait, there were a few well worn spots giving an impression that this place was well fished but it looked mostly untouched as I walked through the knee high grass.

I looked for a swim with deeper water, a bit of a flow and plenty of cover, with the water level being so low I felt this was the best approach. We'd had some rain through the night and into the morning, I was in two minds whether to take the brolly but I put my trust in the weather forecasters predictions and went with the waterproofs, I was expecting the river to have plenty of colour but it was surprisingly clear.

I started with red maggot on a float to see what I could tempt and brought a couple of other baits as a reserve, as usual I was over gunned for such a small venue fishing with two rods, there was no need for the second rod, however, fished as a sleeper on the bottom with a big lobworm on the hook this rod did take a bite from a very good Perch which threw the hook at the net. This was a kick in the teeth for this session and just to rub salt into the open wound, I witnessed the capture of a much bigger Perch later in the day.

On a plus point, I doubled my Dace weight for the challenge, it's now two ounces!

A Whopper of a Dace!

It was a good day with plenty of fish, Roach, Dace, Gudgeon, Chublets and Perch, I even caught a small Pike on red maggot! 

Spot the maggot.

On my next visit I'll stick with the one rod and just float fish.

Jolly Time!

First week in July and time for the first summer jolly of 2011. Westward Ho! with the intention of kicking back and relaxing, spending some time with Cerys and maybe a spot of fishing to hopefully bag a few Smoothies. 

The holiday went basically like this:

Most of the time was spent doing a lot of this.

Out on a recce

After spending several hours collecting enough bait for the week I managed to spend some time doing what we all love, wetting a line.

Back on hound alley

Sadly, this year I didn't catch any of these.

2010 Hound

After a couple of good days, the wind swung round making rock fishing for Smoothhounds a bit tricky.

Rock to beach panorama

So I headed for the gulley's at the entrance to the estuary to fish for these.

Well below legal size

When the tide was out it looked like this

Where's the water gone?

But as the water level rose, the 'south gutt' filled up and in moved the shoals of Bass.

Ah, there it is!

It looks lovely and sunny in most of these pictures but a fair bit of time was spent with my back to the wind and heavy rain showers. 

Go on, rattle it again and I'll av ya!

Even though I fished hard, the Bass didn't get much bigger than this.

Bass like worm down here!

Roll on the next holiday.

An early start.

Little Cerys is becoming more and more active and demanding now and even though I'm finding time to squeeze in a few sessions I'm finding even less time to sit in front of the computer to write about them, the next few are a bit of a catch-up.

Three weeks ago I was having one of those sleepless nights, Cerys had settled down and was asleep but we kept being disturbed by intermittent barking from the dogs next door, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't block it out, when half past three rolled around onto the clock face I went for another pace around the house and noticed the sky starting to turn blue, there was some fishing planned for the next day and I had bait ready to go, so, what was going to be an evening session turned into an early morning stint and by half past four I had my first fish on the bank.

The venue was the Sowe just down the road (10 minute walk) and the first spot I fished was in the park just down from the Chase Hotel, it's usually filled with people playing football or walking their dogs but at this time of the morning everything was still and quiet. I fancied the run just down from a pipe that crosses the river and when I peered over the bank side overgrowth I saw a couple of silver flashes in the deeper run, I was using my trotting rod with red maggot as bait and on the second run through I had my first fish on, a lovely Roach. It only made five ounces but the condition was immaculate. 

First fish of the day

I moved around a fair bit and could have done with a machete to get to some of the parts I'd fished earlier in the year, this stretch isn't fished much. As soon as the dog walkers started to appear I headed back for breakfast, I lost count of how many Roach I'd caught but as the morning got lighter and warmer they disappeared and I started to catch more and more Minnow's and Gudgeon.

Trotting for tiddlers

First day on the river for the new season, I stayed local and was itching to give trotting a go with my newly refurbished float rod. Barry accompanied me and it turned into a bit of a tiddler bash with Minnows snatching every germ that was thrown into any swim we fished.

Barry was feeling a bit down after loosing a close fishing buddy and I listened to several tales about him and Alan Lewis's fishing adventures. I'd met Alan several times at Ryton and he was very knowledgeable when it came to both Pike and Carp fishing, I've also enjoyed reading some of the articles he'd written for 'Pike and Predator'. Get him and Barry on the bank together and they would rip the piss out of each other all day, he'll be sadly missed.

One good thing to come out of this trip to the river was another species to put on the challenge list, a Dace. I had several in one stretch where I had to allow the float to drift behind a clump of bullrushes my thumb hovering over the rim of the Trudex waiting for the float to bury, the biggest I could tempt out went just over one ounce (Only just making the board) something that must be improved on. 

Barely making the board

Fin shape confirms a Dace

I lost count of how many Minnows we caught, we both had Dace and plenty of small Chub which were good to see after all the Cormorants and Otters I saw on this stretch last winter.

I only fished Maggot as bait, might take bread, worm and sweetcorn next time to try and tempt something a bit better.