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.

Fun with germs!

Half a pint of germs were purchased and with tackle in hand and a short session pass in my pocket I headed off to Ryton for a few hours float fishing. I went armed with both a float rod and an eight metre pole, the pole was to fish as close to some overhanging trees as I could without getting every other cast snagged in the branches, it worked as the first two Perch came to this method but I found I could tease them out by moving the baited area away from the safe haven of the branches, this allowed me to swap to the much preferred float rod. 

Barry was in the same swim as Saturday and was struggling, the wind had changed direction overnight and was blowing across our swims and the tow was in the opposite direction, he still managed to bag a couple of Orfe, Perch, a small Tench and a Roach.

Barry's bag.

I felt a bit of a cheat after using someone else's tackle to up the weight of a fish for the challenge so I was hoping to bag a bigger Perch on this session and it didn't take long to amass a group of likely candidates.

Fifteen ounce Perch

In the space of a few hours (time flies when your having fun) my keepnet contained eight Perch, biggest fifteen ounces beating yesterdays nine oncer, one Rudd and a small Roach.

Good scrap on light tackle

Before the big weigh in I had my tackle and fish playing skills really tested by a good Tench of five pounds which gave an excellent scrap on light gear.

Target species.

Saturday, an early session at Ryton with a Tench in mind. I was fishing with my normal Carp set-up, one rod cast to the island as a sleeper the second having scaled down end tackle and an alternative to boilies as bait with the intentions of catching a Tench, I had a take on the first chuck with this rod, shame I missed it. The rod was freshly baited and back out onto the same spot, after about twenty minutes I had a couple of unusual slow lifts on the bobbin, this continued for a while so I decided to hit it, it was a fish but it's fight wasn't the same as a Tench, when It came to the net it wasn't my target species at all but a Bream, rare for Ryton but they are in there.

Unusual for Ryton.

It wasn't what I'd set out to catch but it was more than welcome at 4lb 6ozs.

Immaculate condition

A few hours later the sleeper rod that was on the island margins sprang into life with a screamer of a run, I was sure it was a Carp the way that it took off. The fish gave a good account for itself and I was convinced it was a Carp until I saw the paintbrush tail of a Tench and a good one at that. It rolled into the net and when weighed, pulled the scales round to a very satisfying five pound and eight ounces, with my fishing time so short, if this is the only Tench I catch this year, I'll be very happy.

Things went quiet mid morning, I had a few dropped takes with one smaller Tench failing to drop the bait quick enough, I lost another good fish on the sleeper rod which felt like a Carp, I was gutted as I haven't had a Ryton Carp this year.

Barry was in the swim next door float fishing with maggots and having a great time. He'd had a huge bag of Perch, Roach, Rudd and a couple of Golden Orfe, 

Goldfish anyone!

I've not seen these in here before, possibly a new addition from someones pond?

 

I was talking to Barry about upping my two ounce Perch weight for the challenge and he handed me his float rod and told me to catch one. I gave it a go and ended up with three Perch to nine ounces and a small Roach.

Nine ounces has got to be better than two!

I had such a good time I thought I'd go out and get some maggot's and return on Sunday.

Trying to make them count.

Fishing has almost been unheard of since Cerys arrived, even the fishing related jobs I'd planned to do have been shelved but I have been able to squeeze in a few short sessions, it's a shame the fish haven't played along. 

The first session I was granted a pass for was four weeks ago at Jubilee, I'd been reliably informed that the fish were on the top and a couple had come out on the fly so I went armed with my favourite fly patterns with the hope of banking my first carp of the season, the session remained fishless and was cut short by torrential rain, hail, thunder and lightning, was somebody trying to tell me something?

The second session was more relaxed, sat behind bobbins at Ryton, there were a few Carp around but all I managed was a single Tench that spat my boilie back at me just as I reached for it with the net, this was not good.

Third time lucky, Barry had been having plenty of luck catching Carp on most of his fly fishing trips to Jubilee so I accompanied him for an afternoon session on Easter Sunday. The weather had been scorching all week so it was a change to feel a cool breeze and have the cover of some cloud, the fish were on top but not in great numbers and it took a while to find some fish willing to feed and the action was soon to follow.

I'd been targeting one group of fish watching their feeding pattern as the biscuits drifted in the breeze and had just started casting to them when I saw a larger fish drift past between me and my quarry, I reached down for a few baits and as soon as they hit the water the fish turned and slurped one down. the moment it turned away I flicked a short cast in amongst the baits and it went for it, I missed the first take but with a quick flick my fly was out again and this time it found a good hold. The carp exploded on the surface and dived into the depths, it felt heavy but with all the loose line back on the reel and the drag tightened I had it under control. The fight was unusually heavy, normally the smaller fish run all over the place but this one stayed deep and thumped around as I slowly coaxed it to the net. It was when it slipped into the mesh that it's size became apparent, as soon as I saw the width across it's back and the depth of it's body I knew it was going to be a new personal best Carp on the fly before I'd even lifted it out of the water to weighed it, 

 

Eighteen pound on the dot.

I'd have been more than happy to pack up and go home after that but decided to have a little fun for the rest of the afternoon catching a couple of smaller fish, 

A possible double.

An arm aching scrap from this one.

one of them looked a double and lost another good fish, I had a satisfying ache in my rod arm at the end of the session. 

Barry had done really well with a total of nine carp, outstanding.

She's here!

After much pushing and shoving baby Cerys arrived at ten on Wednesday night and what a gorgeous little girl she is.

Cerys Mair Booth

A forced close season, for all waters, has just been imposed on any chances of some decent fish catching exploits for at least the next couple months, this little one should keep me fully occupied for that period of time.
I am hoping to get out but it won't be until Sharon has fully recovered and Cerys has got into some sort of routine, best laid plans and all that!