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.

In The Lanes (Never Published)

Just found this in my blog list, I'd forgotten to publish it, it was my 200'th Blog!

Bit late but I'll publish anyway

In the wind lanes is where I found the fish last weekend. We'd settled on Jubilee's horseshoe pool for the next leg in our duck challenge. Weather was a typical British summer day, grey with a forecast for rain later in the session. I had a batch of boilies that were ready to go so decided to fish on the bottom for a change, the fly gear taken just in case.

I was very quiet for the first hour or so and the weather was closing in, as usual there was plenty of fish activity with several showing out in the middle of the pool and a glimpse of the odd one or two in the margins which is where both rods were placed. I had biscuits with me and decided to 'cat' a few out and see if anything came up and sure enough, they did.

One rod was quickly brought in and changed over to a controller and whittled down boilie to see if I could tempt a take, the overhanging tree's made sure there was no room for the fly rod in this swim. After several casts and a few bait colour changes I had a fish on, a smallish common was the first on the bank.

When fly fishing I notice that he fish like to stay back just out of casting range which is exactly what these fish seemed to be doing, they were hanging back in a wind lane running across my swim, any biscuits thrown or drifting into this patch of water were being picked off by fish so I concentrated my efforts in casting beyond these and drawing the bait back into the glassy water of the wind lane. I had several missed takes but the fish kept coming back and I managed to bank three others Carp including a mirror that was a good double.

My sleeper rod in the margins kept fishing and after several dropped takes I hooked one of the culprits, Bream, I had two in total one of them bristling all over with tubercles ready for spawning.

Jolly Holibob's

Yes, it's that time of the year we we go off on our annual trip to North Devon only this time it was a little different, the sun was out for the whole week! When it came to the fishing I'm not sure if I can say it was or wasn't a successful trip as I would have preferred the tides to be morning/evening rather than middle of the day and middle of the night like they were, also, because of the lack of wind, the water was crystal clear causing the hounds to move off shore, I didn't see any get caught for the whole week I was there.

 

 

On a plus note, I fished a spot just on the inside of the estuary entrance which I've caught Bass from before, and they were still there and still the same size. (Small)

 

Big bait, small fish!

 

I did catch a Flounder which was a nice change, haven't caught one of those for ages.

 

Nice change.

 

The best fish of the whole trip was a lovely surprise as the last time I caught these was on the Menai Straits back in 1988 the summer before I went off to university.

Whilst fishing the one of my favourite rock marks for hounds I got chatting to a local angler who mentioned that a few Black Bream were coming off these same rock marks to worm baits, now I had lugworm baits back at the caravan ready for a session the next day, the Friday before we came home but didn't have time to get these before the tide covered the spot I was fishing.

The next day I had to make a tough decision, it's the last fishing trip of the holiday, do I try on the rocks for one of these Black Bream or do I go for the Bass in the estuary, I went for the dead cert, Bass but the first bite I received turned out to be something I wasn't expecting to catch.

 

A tip rattling 'Blackey'

 

I dropped several Bream after hooking this one and I thought the 3/0 hook was a bit on the big side for the breams small mouth, I dropped hook size down to a two and it was a bite a chuck, this lasted for only a few casts, the tide was nearing the top and as the current eased off, the fish to moved away.

 

Still a great session though.

Apologies!

I just thought I'd try and squeeze this one in so the June section of my blog list isn't a blank, the apology is for the lack of blogging, there's not a lot going on, I've only been out a couple of times since my last blog and there's only so many fly fishing trips I can talk about and blanks are not even worth wasting keyboard time over.

 

However, on my last blanking trip, after Zander, I had a little experiment with something a little different as bait. Sea baits are not commonly used for Zander however I have caught several Zander using both Sprat and Mackerel, on this trip I was giving Squid a go as I had some left over after a bit of a cooking session the night before, I love squid.

 

I didn't think things were going to work as we remained bite less for a good two hours, a local passer by informed us that the short stretch of canal we were fishing had been drained for maintenance over the winter and the fish moved, after wasting a couple of hours here we made a move to another short stretch which we'd both not fished before. It looked promising, very fishy with plenty of features, Barry made a B-line for an area he liked the look of and I did the same. My first chuck in with the squid resulted in a good pull and a fish on but it threw the hook before I could confirm it's identity, the Squid seemed to be working.

 

I had a couple more dropped takes during the session so the slimy white stuff looks as though it'll be on my list of Zed baits for future sessions, I'll be definitely giving it a go again.

 

That'll be one bag of frozen squid for me and one for the freezer bait drawer.

Just needs fish.

Something I have been working on is another garden DIY project, a raised pond. More on that later.

Anyone for 'T' ?

It was at the last fishing show at the Ricoh Arena that a brief discussion was had about the association not having any merchandise to sell at such events, well, we now have merchandise.

 

Working in the fashion industry it seemed the right time to put my design skills to use and drew up a few ideas, these were presented to the committee and two designs were selected to take through to production, the first small test batch are now ready for association members to buy and wear.

The first design is fairly traditional based around one of the old enamel badges the association produced several years ago, it was given a bit of an 'on trend' twist and kept fairly conservative with black graphics on an olive shirt.

'Splat'

I'm no model but you get the idea.

The second design is aimed at the younger angler, It has a shortened club title and a snappy street style 'graffiti' font, the bright orange on olive looks striking and could quite easily be worm off the bank as well as on.

Graffiti 1

Again, you get the idea.

Keep an eye on the association's Facebook page for details on how to buy.

Going Quackers!

I've had a break from Ryton, the sun was out (for a change) and it was time for some action off the top, so, it was over to Jubilee for a bit of fluff chucking. My first fly flinging session was a bit of a non starter, I lost a good sized 'ghostie' at the net, my leader parted and it wasn't a knot failure, just sheer bad luck. Another spot of bad luck almost saw me land a very good sized goose, you take your eye off them for a split second and....

 

The next day was much better weather wise with hot sunshine and the surface of the pool was peppered with big dark shapes cruising around. A scattering of biscuits started the slurping and out went the first of several casts but these fish were wary of everything that looked like a biscuit, the trouble with sunny weather, everyone fishes on the top. It took a while but I hollered out "Yes" when I hooked the first Carp much to the frustration of Barry fishing the swim next door and it wasn't long till I had a lovely sized mirror in the net.

A zip fourteen.

 

The second fish was hard work, a couple of lads had started spodding biscuits to the middle of the pool and the Carp followed the sound of the dinner bell and out of our swims. The odd fish drifted back and it was one of these that I managed to pick off, it was a lovely common and a little smaller at twelve pound four ounces.

A nice scrappy common.

I had a quick walk around the pool to see if I could find another pocket of fish willing to feed but it was hard to find any, fish just dispersed as biscuits landed on their heads and it took ages to get any to feed, it's a good job I take plenty of biccy's.

 

Barry eventually got a fish on the bank but it was almost the end of the session when he did, this also meant that the little quackers got passed back to Barry again.