Passing it back!

Had a nice session at Ryton last week, just a float rod and a sleeper some bread, sweetcorn and a few borrowed, two week old, maggots. We were on the road bank, what used to be pegs one and two and fishing a rod length out, I was still setting up when Barry pulled in his first Perch and he had another two before I put a bait in the water. It didn't take too long to catch up and we were level pegging for a while, Barry had a good take on his sleeper which he said felt like a Tench but it shook the hook, not too long after I had a nice Tench on my sleeper followed by another one on the float which put me ahead, it's been a while since my float rod bent into a nice Tench.

 

Classic Ryton Tench

We kept experiencing quiet spells which was due to a Grebe swimming in close and scaring off the fish, he kept coming back, disturbing the swim and sending up plumes of bubbles making it look like a mass of Tench were feeding in front of us, at one point I had a lovely slide away take and struck into what I thought was a good fish but the Grebe had caught my line. Visions of being stabbed to death went through my mind as I wound the bird in but it broke free.

 

We both carried on catching and I had a couple of nice surprises, a skimmer Bream which I'd heard of a few coming out but I'd never seen myself, Bream at Ryton are a bit of a rarity. Then I had a lovely slow take on the float that left me puzzled, I didn't know what it was then a lovely Perch broke the surface, it was only around a pound but my favourite fish of the session.

Nice Perch.

Just as we started to pack up, Barry was joking whilst putting a jumper on over his head, "I'll just pull in this twenty pounder" he said at which point his reel went into melt down, It was quite funny seeing him pick up the rod with a jumper half on and scratching around looking for his glasses. It was a good Carp and it broke surface several times as it tore around in front of us, Barry still had his reels clutch locked up from a previous session so the fish pulled the rod into an alarming curve, I felt victory slip away until he shouted "it's off".

 

The duck is now on it's second camping holiday in north Wales, this time, with Barry! (Lucky Duck!!)

Travels with a Duck!

Yes, it's summer jolly holibob time again, this time camping in North Wales, something we haven't done since before Cerys arrived. I forgot how much stuff you have to take on one of these trips, a few extra bits now there's three of us, I had to invest in a trailer to get all the gear to the site.



Duck on the dash!

Only had a few fishing trips and the first was a flop, it was one of those 'I know I shouldn't do this' but did it sessions, I ended up buying bait instead of digging it, did this four years ago and didn't catch anything, did it again and didn't catch anything! Did get very wet though, chose to fish on the only wet day of the whole trip.

Lovely Welsh weather

I took my fly rod out on the next trip as the last time I fished here I caught my first Bass on the fly, I had to try and do it again. I followed the tide in as it filled the harbour and found a cluster of schoolies held up in a back eddie, the first fly I stripped through the shoal got a follow but no take, I tried again and another bow wave chased the fly, I kept at it and cast after cast I could not get a take, I swapped flies over to try different colours they just would not 'ave it'! took to long casting to these fish and being as I was on the opposite bank to the campsite I had to take the long walk around the marsh to get back to the tent. Nice walk though, saw loads of small schoolies and big Mullet working their way up some of the muddy channels, going to bring the inflatable next year and motor up after these Mullet.

Time to do things properly, went out at low tide and dug a load of the small harbour ragworm, they're really small but they work, the lure I was going to use is a modified Mepp's I worked on a few years back and it worked well, the body a mix of beads and weights with sequins between to add a flash of colour, behind this a short length of Amnesia with a size six fine wire Aberdeen hook on the end, a bunch of worms are threaded on the hook and cast out. I started in the harbour allowing the lure to touch bottom and then reeling in at a steady pace.



A tiddler on my special lure

Small Roach sized Bass

I had schoolies almost instantly but they were small, Roach sized. The odd flattie followed the lure and I had two Bass that were 'Tesco' sized, big enough for the pan but they went back, it was the best trip of the holiday and I lost count how many Bass I caught.