Mostly Zedding!

What have I been up to the past few weeks? Mostly Zedding, that's what. As well as fishing some of my usual Zander holes I've also tried a few new stretches of canal where I've heard of a few good fish coming out. Luck has been on my side and I've banked several fish, mostly small, I'm trying hard for a double and my best so far this year is a lovely conditioned six pound six ounce fish which is the largest I've had for a while.

 

Six pound six.

I fished an old haunt last week, a stretch of canal that has been very kind to me in the past and I was hoping to hook up with an old friend. I'd seen some swims that screamed 'Zander' on a walk along this stretch a few weeks ago and after having a rove around to check a few out I decided on one spot to settle down on and fish for a couple of hours into darkness. I thought it was going to be a quiet session but I wasn't alone for long, within the space of half an hour a stretch of bank to my left as long as a nine second sprint by Usain Bolt became occupied by five other anglers and by the look of things we were all after the same target. It became so uncomfortable with dead fish flying all over the place as anglers tried to hit their spots in the dark, with all the noise and commotion any decent sized Zed in the area would have packed their bags done a runner up Beduff. Something else that I'm never comfortable fishing around are overhead electric cables, they just happen to cross this stretch of canal at the best fishing spot in the area, whether that has anything to do with how well it fishes is another question to ask.
The drizzle filled air made the cables fizz and buzz overhead adding to the uncomfortable feeling I had about fishing this spot especially as now I wasn't alone. This feeling was soon forgotten when one of my glowing bobbins twitched and rose up towards  the rod gently and slowly, it was like a Zander take but in slow motion, I picked up the rod and waited for things to move, nothing, I tightened up and felt some resistance but it wasn't a fish of the variety I was after, it was a crayfish.

Zed bait?

Through the rest of the session I kept getting tugs on the bait which got rather annoying as I'd never come across this many Cray's in one area but having seen the amount of dead fish being thrown in the water in this stretch I'm not surprised there's so many. As soon as the bait settled on the bottom they were on it, might have to bring Cerys down here for a spot of 'crabbing'. I stuck it out for the rest of the session in the hope that a Zed would find the remains of my bait but ended up blanking.

I wonder if Crayfish would make a good Zed bait?

Rationed Luck and Junk!

My big Pike last week has put a dent in my run of luck; On Friday I was rationed to a single Zed on a visit to one of my favourite stretches of canal. I'd walked a fair distance to the spot that is usually a dead cert for a fish on the bank and it didn't disappoint. After this spot I made my way back giving each likely looking fish hold a good twenty minutes before moving on, I realised that it's been a while since I fished like this, cutting the gear down to the bare essentials making it easier to move around, I had a bag on my back, a stool, two rods and a net, a great way to fish.

Just the one.

I stopped at another spot that's been very good to me in the past and two baits were chucked to where I usually catch, a cross wind was moving my rigs downstream and with the floats nodding away I could see that the baits were just dragging bottom. I noticed one of them stop but it remained motionless for far too long for it to be a fish, I tightened down only to find that I was fastened solid to some bottom debris, "Not the mattress" I thought and walked up the bank to give a different angle to the pressure I was applying to the tackle, it worked, a big heavy weight was slowly dragged in to the bank, I lifted it out of the water and my first thoughts were that it was the part of a car as I could see the red lamp lenses and a few electrical cables but when I put it down on the grass all became obvious, it was the rear cover from an electric buggy.

What the!

Bait!

It was nice to see a few Zebra Mussels stuck fast to the plastic and it’s a good indication as to what bait to try for the Carp along here, the whole thing went back into the near margin but I think I should have tried to put it back in the main run where it came from as it was probably one of the fish holding features that made this spot so good. A couple of seasons ago I moved something similar to this in the canal near to the Foleshill Road, it was a big plastic shop sign, before hauling it in off the bottom this swim was another of my 'hot spots', I dropped the sign into the near margin as it was too big to lift out, since then I've never caught a Zed from that spot.

Despite the lack of bites I continued fish along this stretch until I couldn't see the floats anymore, might have to give these sliders a spray with some glow in the dark paint I’ve picked up.

What's the weirdest piece of junk you've hauled in from the depths?

Has it had an affect on the fishing there?

Something Alarming - Part 2.

My new Pike alarm has altered slightly and I think it looks much better, it's been fitted with a new and much louder buzzer, red LED's and it now screws onto buzz bar on my pod, it's also had it's first proper outing for Pike.

Now very loud.

I'm not going to make a big story out of this as I only had the one take all day and Barry fared better with two Pike and a bag of Zander. It was only the second chuck on this rod and the bait had only been on the spot for a few minutes, the take I had was vicious with line being snatched from the clip, the alarm worked great and was certainly startling as I wasn't expecting such a quick take but the scrap that followed was even greater. As soon as I lifted into the fish, the rod took on a curve and I could feel that this was going to be a good one. Several line stripping powerful runs followed with the fish almost tail walking at times, it took a while before it was safely in the net and on seeing it's size the numbers started rolling in my head.

 

It's a bit of an anti climax when you catch the biggest fish in the lake on the second cast of the first outing of the new season but I couldn't help smiling as I'd upped my PB, only by two ounces but I'd upped it.

 

My biggest Pike is now eighteen and a half pounds, next target has to be a twenty!

 

Something Alarming! - Part 1

The official Pike season is only a few weeks away so my thoughts have drifted in the direction of the toothy ones in preparation.

For a couple of years I've been using bobbins fastened to the back rest as drop back indicators but I've been thinking about an electronic version of the same. I've had a quick look around the Internet but with cash being as bit short I couldn't find anything cheap except for the 999 alarm from Zandavan. It works on the principle of a tilt switch as the break in a simple circuit, when the bobbin drops the tilt switch makes contact, completes the circuit and a siren sounds until it's switched off, simple.

(isn't it always the best)

I've always dabbled in electronics, taking things apart and re-soldering to fix something that was broken or finding a way for modifying a circuit to do another job.
(http://website.lineone.net/~daworldofdoj/pages/vlogic.html)

 

I thought I'd have a go at making my own electronic drop back indicator. I had a good grasp of how this circuit works and set about building one, A few simple parts were sorted from my electronics box and purchased from Maplin. After a bit of planning and testing the circuit was ready and put into a project box, I doubled up parts of the circuit so I was able to use two bobbins off the same sounder and save on parts, I ended up just using the one battery and one buzzer.

The cobbled alarm, version one.

The bobbins were the hardest to work out as I didn't want them to be fastened permanently to the box, this would cause a weak point in the cable where it exits the case and could cause problems later should the cable fail at this point, I opted for a connection more commonly found on the back of your hifi, a phono connection. The tilt switch was housed in a section of plastic from a pen with some old line clips glued into the end.

Hi fidelity connections!

Now, where did I put that pen?

I used a couple of Sharon's hair elastics to temporarily fasten the alarm to a bank stick for testing down the canal, it seemed to work fine although I think the alarm could be mounted slightly higher. With regards to detecting bites, they work a treat.

Fastened with hair elastics.

The Zed's I had nibbling the baits gave the bobbins a good shake and after a little adjustment they detached from the line and dropped to the floor with the alarm screaming.

The smaller of the alarm testers.

I missed a couple of takes adjusting the clips and concentrating on the alarms performance and not the fish.

 

Slightly bigger but not much.

I'm thinking of adding a vibration sensor to the bobbin with an LED that lights up when the bobbin is moved however the wind factor could make this a problem.

Boilie or Fly?

The mornings are getting a tad chilly now so in theory the Carp should have their heads down bulking up ready for the winter cold spell, but no, they don't play by the rules. After a lousy day sat behind bite alarms at Ryton, spending the whole day willing one of the alarms to sound or at least the line to twitch, the session turned into a blank. we felt we had to change to fly fishing for them. The boilies will have to wait a few more weeks.

Sunday morning we went to Jubilee for a couple of hours of fly fishing, a match was being held on the horseshoe pool so we settled on the Island pool at set about feeding a few swims to bring the fish up in the water. I had a couple of fish show including one fish with a head like a horse, when this fish started picking off the biscuits I thought I was going to connect with a new PB as this fish was huge, there was no slurping the biscuits down like the usual suspects, this thing just opened it's mouth and engulfed them, if the biscuits were the size of a satsuma it would have swallowed them, no problem. I had two refusals off this fish which really got my heart pounding, I'm sure Barry could have heard it the other side of the lake. Barry managed one Carp but it was tough going, all I could manage was a nice Roach.
 

A nice Roach to the fly.

We returned in the afternoon/evening and I was hoping to have another go for the horse but someone was in that swim, one for next time me thinks. Horseshoe pool it was and it wasn't long before we had several fish up on top feeding away but they were being so cautious, I lost count how many flies I changed before I connected with a half descent fish that gave me a 'stripped back to the backing' scrap, this fish had loads of energy but I didn't think it was that big when I saw it rise for the fly. On the matt, I could see that it was one of the usual suspects, one I've had before with the kink in it's back but it looks like it's put on a bit of weight.

 

Wonky Donkey!

I completely missed the second bite of the evening, I was too busy taking a picture of the sunset in front of my swim and felt the line pull through my fingers, I dropped the camera into it's bag and pulled up the line and lifted into the fish, it wasn't big but it still pulled the string hard.

The Sunset!
 



The Fish!

Barry had a fair bit of action with plenty of takes and several lost fish but he did get his net wet.

Barry applies some pressure.

Blog Drought.

There's been a bit of a blog drought on these pages of late, this isn't from not having time to write about my fishing adventures, I either haven't been fishing or just plain blanked.

The summer jolly trip to North Wales with plenty of planned fishing trips didn't quite go to plan, with a death in the family the week before, the trip turned out to be a rather sad affair. Eventhough the chances to go and wet a line were plenty I just didn't feel like going.

The Snowdonia mountain range, a perfect backdrop.

We had one sunny day which was spent on the beach where we used to go camping a few years earlier, the big Mullet were still taunting anglers inside the harbour and the tide was just perfect at the estuary entrance for a spot of Bass fishing, I put a rod out whilst playing and crabbing with Cerys on the sand but forgot about the wind this stretch of coast had had the week before, this stirs up the weed for a week at a time and my rigs were being wiped out by the stuff within a few minutes of being cast out, needless to say, I blanked.

I'm sure my nanna would have wanted me to go fishing more that week as it was my grandad that got me into fishing as a kid, I can't believe he's been gone for thirty two years.



College Animals.

I've never come across so fierce a fight from a small fish as the tussles with the Carp at College Pool, the takes are lightning quick and before you have time to react their gone, smashing your end gear in the process.

The first time I fished the pool was only a month ago as I've always headed across the fields to the nearby Avon instead of stopping at this small puddle to angle for it's inhabitants. Barry had heard of a few accounts of tackle smashing takes and suggested we give the place a go. True to the tales we heard from anglers fishing the far end of the pool our first few casts were smashed to bits before a single Carp graced the bottom of the net, when they did we could see that these fish weren't big at all, what is that lake feeding them?

Basking in the sun, no relaxing here!

I was under gunned on the first trip fishing a standard float set-up and a quiver tip feeder rod as a sleeper, it was leaving this rod alone that lost me two fish. The third take was lightning quick, the gear was stepped up for this cast and I held on with as much side strain as I dared to apply to keep this beast away from the tree's and lily pads, once out in the open it still fought with the strength and speed never experienced from any other Carp of the same size, a clump of weed helped things out and it was soon in the bottom of the net.

An amazing scrap from a single.

Barry managed to get some fish to feed off the top and we cobbled some gear together to give it a go, he'd been told that you can't catch them off the top here but it's so quick when it happens that some people just miss it, you don't see the take their that quick.

The next trip found me better prepared, tackle wise, the weather could have been a little kinder with thunder bolts and lightning arriving within an hour of starting the session. Barry had tried a fly rod earlier in the week as the pool offers the chance to fish in this way with plenty of room for back casts behind some of the pegs and the willingness for the Carp to venture up into the surface layers to feed. He'd been smashed to pieces fishing this way and fancied a good laugh when I told him I was bringing the fly rod on this session. I still got smashed up fishing on the bottom and after feeding some floaters and seeing a few taken, out came the imitation biscuits. There was no order to the movement of the fish like they are at Jubilee, it's just random takes all over the feeding area until your fly is nailed and that happens so quick, at jubilee I seem to have the time to lift into a fish as it takes the fly, at College there's a splash and the fish tightens up to you.

A couple of takes were spat out before I managed to connect, I then had my knuckles rapped as line was stripped from the reel at lightning speed, the Jubilee fish are usually subdued by the drag on the reel but even with this wound down tight I still had to palm the rim to slow this animal. Luck was on my side and I eventually found this fish in the bottom of my net.



Testing the gear to the max.



One of my all time favourite fly caught Carp scraps ever.