Been for a trip back to the Calder today and decided to take Kyle on his first ever river trip in less than perfect conditions as it was carrying around 2 to 3 feet of extra water. Now safety is paramount when fishing with kids and if I thought he would be in any danger at all we would not have gone but I know of a swim that is on a small gravel out crop with good access from the bank and a gentle slope right the way down to the waters edge which continues out into the river, and with a large slack on the inside he was as safe as could be.
The idea had been to teach him how to trot a float but the extra water had made most swims too dangerous for him to fish from so we opted for a days feeder fishing, Kyle fishing with maggot and worms for anything that swims and my self trying my hand for a Calder barbel although in all honesty I wasn't holding much hope, it was more of lazy excuse for me as I could cast out and leave the rod in view with the baitrunner on allowing me to pay plenty of attention to Kyle. That and also the fact my gear was still rigged up from the Trent trip at the weekend and I had some bait left to use up.
Despite the conditions looking good for a few fish it was hard going with Kyle only picking a couple of perch and roach up in the first couple of hours until a wayward cast went way past where he had been fishing out into the faster water. I was surprised to see the feeder actually hold station and the tip nodded away in no time with a nice roach on the end. While I sat behind a motionless rod he kept picking a few nice roach and perch up until something a little larger pulled back. The jammy little sod managed to land a cracking looking trout of around 12oz! This is a first for me, I know there are plenty in there but as yet I have not landed any and Kyle was most impressed that he had caught something I had not. I tried to get a picture of the two of them but he decided to let it go whilst doing his best fish juggling impression.
We carried on for another hour or so and continued to catch a few more perch and roach on mainly sections of worm. Kyle said he was getting a bit bored now but I think he was feeling sorry for me as he kept asking if I wanted to fish with his rod for a bit seen as though mine had not moved all day.
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Monday, 27 August 2012
Trent trip
Yesterday saw me heading down to the tidal Trent with my mate Martin for a bit of a social and some barbel fishing. Neither of us have done much fishing down that end of the river and as such we had both had to stock up on appropriate gear before hand.
With the high tide due around 4pm we set off after dinner to give our self's plenty of time to get there, find some swims and get set up ready to fish into dark before it started to run off. As we made our way along the bank we were met with a group of lads who had just finished a match, a couple of the lads gave us some info on the pegs that normally produce the barbel so we opted to fish a couple of them but to be honest I would have picked one very close to those anyway going by the info I had been given prior to our journey down.
We were both fishing by the time the river had backed up although we decided against putting much bait in just yet other than what was in the feeder. As it just started to move downstream again Martin decided to fill it in whilst I was a little more reserved figuring that as I was on the downstream swim fish would have to pass me and my bait anyway. We were both getting plenty of small taps and knocks and it wasn't long after the tide had started to run properly that Martin was into a fish only for it to cut him off on something shortly after hooking into it. Soon after I was into a fish which turned out to be bream.
Martin was next to hook a fish and this time succeeded in landing a new PB of 8lb 14oz
It then went a bit quiet for a while before I landed a bream all of 12oz. As darkness fell the river came alive and barbel were rolling regularly, only trouble was they seemed to be a little further out than we were fishing and mostly two or three swims further up. Soon after full darkness had fallen my downstream rod hooped over and I bent into some weight only for it to snag me, I quickly made my way downstream to get below and soon had the fishing moving. It made a couple of short runs and did put a good bend in my rod but once I slid it into the net I found it was a bream of around 4lb with a mass of weed around is head.
Despite the fish continuing to roll and splosh around we had no more fish and packed up around 10pm.
I cant wait to go again and even though I didn't manage any barbel the only thing to spoil it was the 15 quids worth of new feeders I lost trying to get them back up over a large shelf that must have been like a shear rock face the way it dropped straight down off the edge of it!
Well done to Martin on the PB.
With the high tide due around 4pm we set off after dinner to give our self's plenty of time to get there, find some swims and get set up ready to fish into dark before it started to run off. As we made our way along the bank we were met with a group of lads who had just finished a match, a couple of the lads gave us some info on the pegs that normally produce the barbel so we opted to fish a couple of them but to be honest I would have picked one very close to those anyway going by the info I had been given prior to our journey down.
We were both fishing by the time the river had backed up although we decided against putting much bait in just yet other than what was in the feeder. As it just started to move downstream again Martin decided to fill it in whilst I was a little more reserved figuring that as I was on the downstream swim fish would have to pass me and my bait anyway. We were both getting plenty of small taps and knocks and it wasn't long after the tide had started to run properly that Martin was into a fish only for it to cut him off on something shortly after hooking into it. Soon after I was into a fish which turned out to be bream.
Martin was next to hook a fish and this time succeeded in landing a new PB of 8lb 14oz
It then went a bit quiet for a while before I landed a bream all of 12oz. As darkness fell the river came alive and barbel were rolling regularly, only trouble was they seemed to be a little further out than we were fishing and mostly two or three swims further up. Soon after full darkness had fallen my downstream rod hooped over and I bent into some weight only for it to snag me, I quickly made my way downstream to get below and soon had the fishing moving. It made a couple of short runs and did put a good bend in my rod but once I slid it into the net I found it was a bream of around 4lb with a mass of weed around is head.
Despite the fish continuing to roll and splosh around we had no more fish and packed up around 10pm.
I cant wait to go again and even though I didn't manage any barbel the only thing to spoil it was the 15 quids worth of new feeders I lost trying to get them back up over a large shelf that must have been like a shear rock face the way it dropped straight down off the edge of it!
Well done to Martin on the PB.
Saturday, 4 August 2012
Practice session
Following my rather successful exploits on the Calder after a near 10 year break I have decide to sample a bit of local match fishing again, specifically on my local rivers. Only I don't do things by half's and have jumped in at the deep end and booked my self onto the lower Aire championships match in 3 weeks time! I thought I best get some practise in so today saw me heading to the River Aire at Beal.
I knew the Aire to be deeper than the Calder but didn't bank on just how deep. I did a bit of enquiring mid week and readied some pole rigs to fish up to 40ft, yes that's right 40 foot deep in places! With an average depth of around 20ft. Trotting on a long rod is possible is a small number of pegs and the feeder will catch on any and no doubt provide the top weights with bream and skimmers making these up. The feeder and float rod is no problem but what I needed to work out was how the hell I was going to pole fish in such a depth of water.
It would seem as I was given some duff info as my first peg that had been suggested to me turned out to be just a few feet deep with little if any flow, so after a couple of hours of catching fish on only the feeder I decided that I wasn't going to learn anything and opted for a move down stream. I got settled into the new peg and plumbed up to find around 16ft of water and a nice steady flow in front of me. However one thing I didn't bank on was the undulating river bed, along the length of my peg it was up and down by as much as 12in making running any sort of rig through with the flow impossible unless I fished well off bottom. (I'm now told this is common on a lot of the river)
I rigged up with a 2 gram pole float and cupped in 3 balls of Van Den Eynde world champion with a few maggots, casters and chopped worms added, I slipped on a single maggot and lowered the rig in. First run through and the float dipped under and the first roach of around 3oz went in the net. I started to get into a rhythm then and fish were coming regularly before it went quiet, another ball of groundbait saw the fish return before moving off again in search of more food. That's another issue that I need to resolve as loose feeding in that depth is out of the question. I did put another ball in and caught some more fish including a couple of nice bonus perch knocking on for 12oz on sections of worm before calling it a day after around 3 hours with the onset of a heavy thunder storm, again!
I knew the Aire to be deeper than the Calder but didn't bank on just how deep. I did a bit of enquiring mid week and readied some pole rigs to fish up to 40ft, yes that's right 40 foot deep in places! With an average depth of around 20ft. Trotting on a long rod is possible is a small number of pegs and the feeder will catch on any and no doubt provide the top weights with bream and skimmers making these up. The feeder and float rod is no problem but what I needed to work out was how the hell I was going to pole fish in such a depth of water.
It would seem as I was given some duff info as my first peg that had been suggested to me turned out to be just a few feet deep with little if any flow, so after a couple of hours of catching fish on only the feeder I decided that I wasn't going to learn anything and opted for a move down stream. I got settled into the new peg and plumbed up to find around 16ft of water and a nice steady flow in front of me. However one thing I didn't bank on was the undulating river bed, along the length of my peg it was up and down by as much as 12in making running any sort of rig through with the flow impossible unless I fished well off bottom. (I'm now told this is common on a lot of the river)
I rigged up with a 2 gram pole float and cupped in 3 balls of Van Den Eynde world champion with a few maggots, casters and chopped worms added, I slipped on a single maggot and lowered the rig in. First run through and the float dipped under and the first roach of around 3oz went in the net. I started to get into a rhythm then and fish were coming regularly before it went quiet, another ball of groundbait saw the fish return before moving off again in search of more food. That's another issue that I need to resolve as loose feeding in that depth is out of the question. I did put another ball in and caught some more fish including a couple of nice bonus perch knocking on for 12oz on sections of worm before calling it a day after around 3 hours with the onset of a heavy thunder storm, again!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)