Two nil to the tench

I was a little pessimistic about today's trip as it was to a water I have not fished for a good number of years. It is also very large, not heavily stocked and is often solid with weed. On the plus side it has been throwing a few up over the last couple of weeks and my friend JD had a pb tench of just over 4lb last week.
 To be honest I was actually quite looking forward to fishing the old mature lake with more traditional baits and methods, too many places these days respond well to some kind of fishmeal groundbait and or pellets. You can't hide the fact that fish do have a liking for it but I felt this place did not require it.
 So, at around 7.30am I loaded the gear onto the barrow and headed to the field side on the upper lake at Nostell Priory, once I had my self comfy I set about mixing my all time favourite groundbait up, sensas lake, sensas magic and brown crumb mixed in equal parts. This stuff just smells so good I could eat it my self! into the mix went a good helping each of dead maggots, hemp, corn and casters. I had a few chucks around and found a nice clear spot in the remains of last years weed which seems not to have fully died off and chucked ten big feeder loads out to try and entice the fish to come and dine. I knew that I could be in for a long wait and just got my self into a rhythm of changing hook baits and re-casting every 15 minuets or so.
 After what seemed like forever but was actually around two hours the tip slammed round and stayed put. two red worms and a rubber caster had enticed a fish to bits, I lifted into it and the rod hooped over. I managed to gain a few turns of the reel to give me some leeway as I was fishing clipped up, it felt a very good fish but one big shake of its head and it was gone. All that remained was the tell tale rubbery slime of a tench on my hook link. I was gutted, sat two hours for what could very easily be my only bite of the day and I lost it to a hook pull. I was also ruing my choice of hook as when tackling up I couldn't decide weather to go for a 16 or 14 hook and with it still been on the cool side I had opted for the smaller. I made the decision then to put on a bigger hook, at least I knew there were fish about and feeding.
So back into a rhythm of casting and changing baits again. At around 11am I was out  again with a worm hook bait but this time tipped with two dead red maggots when the tip twitched and steadily pulled around, again the rod hooped over but this fish was not as big and I was slowly gaining line from the off as it kited to my left. It was coming right into the bank so I grabbed the net and waded out to the edge of the near side weeds and regained control of the fish, it rolled on the surface and I saw it was a good tench of around 4lb's, it woke up then and went on a couple of short runs before I turned it towards the net. That's when disaster struck, as soon as it saw the net it turned away and shook its head leaving me feeling sick as a dog. I wound in only to find the curly whirly bit of line on my hook link where my hook used to be. It was my own incompetence that led to the fish escaping and I was angry with my self for allowing it to happen.
 I carried on for a few more hours without look before coming to the conclusion the tench, like usual had shut up shop for the day by dinner time. As i was about to start packing up JD appeared on the bank with his gear and decided he would jump into the swim I was vacating. No doubt he will empty it this evening!

**Edit**
make that two nil to JD too!
He's not only gone and bagged a good 5 but also an absolute cracker of 7lb 4oz. Well done mate. I will be back for revenge

Pond life

As its that time year again when we have to stick to still water I thought I would get my tench fishing season off to a start. Think what you may of the nice weather, it was far from good. Red hot by day but still cold enough to be frosty by night, trust me I was up for work most of the week at half past four.
 Friday morning saw me heading to an old neglected club water for a few tinca's, I arrived early but less than impressed to find two Eastern Europeans in my fancied swim, the jibber jabber in their voices giving it away and my second choice swim was also occupied although by the look of his attire and equipment he was English. There was also a chilly wind blowing down the lake that saw me heading for a more sheltered spot. I got settled into a peg between two large over hanging trees and got just a single rod out, my Grey's specimen float rod to be exact and a trusty reel loaded with 4lb Maxima, onto this I slid an 8in long hand made swan quill float and a size 16 hook to 4.4lb hook link, a single swan shot 3in from the hook finished things off.
I introduced a good hand full each of small mixed pellets, hemp, casters, dead maggots and a few bits of corn and baited up with a fresh red worm from my allotment and two red maggots.

 It looked good for a bite

 I dropped the float in, sat back and got the flask out and waited for things to happen. Half an hour or so passed before I decided to try a bit of corn and a caster, and about the same again before I tried double maggot. The float never even twitched so I made a change to the rig and removed the swan shot down by the hook and made a more usual waggler type rig in the hope they were just been a bit finicky. Two more hours of steady loose feeding maggots and casters failed to see the float move so when the chilly breeze swung into my face I called it a day.
One thing I will point out is that this lake is rather deep, a good 8ft where I was fishing but anything from 12 to 14ft deep a couple of rod lengths out around the other side and more in the middle. My thinking is that the up and down day and night temperature had not put the fish off but the fact that the lake is so deep they have not yet fully woken up, so I'll give it a few more weeks and see what the weather is like before I return for another try.


Today gave me an opportunity to get back on the bank and use up the bait I had left from yesterdays session. I only had a few hours to spare this afternoon so I headed back to Sally Walsh's Dam as its close by.
When I arrived it was quite busy but i could see most of the anglers had opted to fish from the dam wall with the now strong wind coming from behind them or the first few pegs up either side. I was having none of that, with bream and skimmers on my mind I didn't mind sitting it out in the rough as fishing a tip rod I could have the wind over my shoulder anyway. So with that in mind I headed half way up the field side to a peg in the mid 40's a few pegs up from two guys carp fishing with 3 rods each leaving plenty of room for them.
Firstly I knocked some ground bait up before anything else so as it had time to soak up the water fully before i was ready to fish. Next I set my trusty old Kamazan feeder rod out, more known for their hooks in the early 90's the brought out a range of just 3 rods and I acquired the medium feeder as a birthday present from my parents. You could compare it to some of the old Tricast rods that were about in the same era, a real nice still water rod and a joy to use. I added a simple running feeder rig and a size 16 hook. I gave the ground bait a quick riddle to get rid of any lumps, a 50/50 mix of plain brown crumb and fish meal(you can buy this in shops for about 4 quid a bag, its called Ringer's mine cost about £2.50 for twice as much!) and added dead maggots, casters, hemp and half a pint of 4mm skrettings pellets. 10 quick chucks with a large feeder and i was ready to go.
I put on two dead red maggots and cast out, now why when your doing something do you always get a bite??? i had just lit a cig and was taking my first sip of tea when the tip flew round, yup missed it, second cast and it went again but I struck too early. Third time lucky and I was in, the first skimmer of day slid over the net. Great I thought were going to get a few. For some reason it went very quiet and I missed two bites over the next half an hour before I added two more and the missed bites started again. I shortened the hook link and got one right away only for it to go quiet again, I tried a little further out past my baited spot and also a bit shorter but for a couple of hours it was miss two hit one, the now stronger wind making it a bit hard to see the bites clearly and I was striking too late for some of themand thought to my self I would give it an hour. The fish did come onto the feed and over the then hour and half I added around 10 decent skimmers before calling it a day as the cold wind was now cutting straight through me. The walk back to the car warmed me up and I was happy with the nice net of fish I had put together in just a few hours and the swans were impressed with my bait.

Dad and Lad time

As the weather has now turned some what warmer I thought it time I took my 7 year old son for his first session of the year. After a word in my ear last week that a local venue was producing a few fish I thought it was about time I showed him something other than chucking a pole around, as for the past two years all he has really done(quite well though I must add) is catch ide and small carp on a local puddle and I think even he was getting a bit tired of catching a fish every put in at ten meters. So we headed down to Sally Walsh's dam for a lesson in feeder fishing. Nice banks with no features as such to get hung up in whilst casting and lots of open water to go at makes it a good water for improving casting skills.
We arrived to find a fair few people fishing so jumped into the third peg up from the dam wall, mainly because he was moaning by now about carrying his seat box after walking all of 30 yards from the car! I got us sat comfy and set about explaining how the feeder works and why we had no float, he did comment that he would like it as he didn't have to keep his eyes on a tiny dot out in the middle, next for a bit of casting practise. It went...................... erm lets just say he'll do better once his arms and fingers stretch but I have seen far worse on the banks. Once I had him in position I set about sorting a light float rod for my self.

Within a few minuets Kyle was into his first fish, a skimmer of around 6-8oz and I had a small roach first chuck. I was expecting a few more to follow but it was a bit slow to get going really with the warm spring sun and almost flat surface not helping much. Kyle had no more fish in the next hour and I kept plugging away picking up the odd small roach. he was getting a bit bored now so I altered the hook length and made it a fair bit longer and also un-clipped the spool and cast a rod length or two further and clipped back up, this improved things slightly as did the bit of breeze and he started to miss 3 hit one and net a few small skimmers and roach whilst I kept picking a few roach up loose feeding maggots. He kept having a few goes at casting him self and was getting the hang of it right until his feeder almost landed right on top of my float! Cheater I muttered to him just as the tip flew round. The little bugger only bagged him self a skimmer of around a pound right from under my nose! He was rather confused by the next bite as the tip, as he put it 'went the wrong way' before I told him a fish had swam towards him and he should strike. The sun stayed out and the wind dropped and the fishing got harder so we called it a day. I managed just a few small roach in between helping Kyle out. I chucked all mine back but for Kyle it was the fist time he has been able to use a keep net and was nice for him to see what he had at the end of the day.

Last chance saloon

Its that time of year again when we look forward (or not) to three months of pond fishing, and we make that one last trip of the season onto a river. Today was my last river trip and I headed up to the River Nidd at Pool bridge farm hoping for a bit of fun catching silvers on the float before switching tactics and hopefully bagging a few good chub later in the day. Things didn't go quite to plan (hey at least I'm getting to be consistent this year) as the wind was a night mare!
I arrived around 10.30 and was actually delighted that the rather annoying cows on this section of river were not in residence for once, however on stepping out of the car and wandering along the banks it was clear the wind was going to make trotting hard work. I found a likely looking spot and started to feed a few maggots while I rigged the rod up. More in hope that anticipation I waited for the float to disappear and waited and waited some more for around 30 minuets before I convinced my self that actually I didn't even like the look of the spot I was in and was only there to get out of the wind. I quickly shifted down stream and got settled into a nice looking peg on the outside of where a bend started, an hour quickly passed before I thought to my self that float fishing was just not going to work today and I was flogging a dead horse.
Away went the float gear and out came a tip rod and bag of bread. I filled the small cage feeder with mash bread and squeezed a lump of bread flake onto the size ten hook and dropped it along the crease, I sat back to roll a cig and pour a cup of tea when the tip started to knock then pull and drop back before a steady pull resulted in me connecting with thin air, bugger missed it. cast back out and after a few minuets it went again this time I left it a bit longer and connected with nothing! the fish were clearly playing games with me so I fought back, this time a nice lump of cheese paste went out and I sat patiently with my eyes glued to the tip, this time it was a proper pull although not exactly a '3ft twitch' but I connected and after a short fight a nice chub not quite 4lb graced my net. I chucked back out but the tip never mover for for 30 mins on both cheese and bread so I decided to wander up stream and try a few likely looking places. The wind was still a nightmare and each spot I tried resulted in the same motionless tip apart from the battering from the wind. I walked most of the length before deciding to settle back into the peg I had had the chub from earlier and stick it out till dusk. I dropped back in with a lump of flake on the hook and after not ten minuets the tip twitched a few times before pulling round and I was into another fish, a bit smaller this time just scraping 3lb but made a good account of its self in the water.
No more fish followed and I packed up a little disappointed with the lack of fish particularly on the float but also pleased with a couple of nice chub. So that's it for another season work next week so no chance of sneaking one in although I do have an early season tench fishing trip planned for next weekend so lets hope this warm weather keeps up.

Maggot drowning exersise

As the title suggest, that is what today's session became!
I had been stuck in house for over two weeks just itching to get out on the bank and with a week off work and a substantial rise in air temp i was off, but not without a bit of careful thought first. As we all know we have just froze and had the usual yearly light dusting of snow that grinds the whole country to a halt, despite the roads been clear for a week there was still a fair bit of snow laid down on the ground of the hills that feed most of the Yorkshire rivers. This rise in temperature would soon see them filling up with freezing cold snow melt, the worst thing for any river FACT. So through Sunday and Monday i checked the EA river level web site morning and night and felt sure i could get onto the Calder for the first time since October before the cold water made its way down to where  I was heading. One final check this morning before I left the house had me thinking I had made the right  decision to get on the bank today rather than later in the week. WRONG!!!

I made my way to the very bottom of the length I had fished previously as I knew it would be deeper down there and felt sure the fish would move down here in the winter months. I soon found a very nice looking swim that some kind person had spent a long time creating, three steps made of small paving flags made the usual climb down the bank very easy for once and a  larger one just above the water made for a nice comfy day sat right by the waters edge. I tackled up with a new Team Woody's 8x 4no stick float in 8 to 9 feet of water and started to flick half a dozen maggots in every minute or so, i also set a light feeder rig up too and started on a small maggot feeder 2/3rds of the way over the river but after 30 or 40 minute without so much as a twitch I decided to see if anything had moved onto the float line.
Eeerrrmmmmmm nope. Despite my best efforts of dancing a stick float down the swim, bait changes, shotting pattern changes, depth changes and a switch back onto the feeder, three hours passed without so much as a burst maggot. Then the cold breeze picked up and blew straight at me instantly making my decision to move for me. I quickly bundled the gear into the car that was conveniently parked right behind my peg and headed a couple of mile down stream to another deeper area.
Now I have only fished this stretch of the river further up just below a large weir so i left the gear in the car and walked downstream to the deeper, slower water away from the weir pool. This part of the river doesn't see many anglers but i soon found a low part of the relatively steep high bank that some kind sole had made a half decent effort of making a peg. As it was pretty featureless and it was now mid afternoon a decided to just plop a maggot feeder out for an hour or two and see what came along. Well after a hour and half of drowning maggots I decided to call it a day, a little disappointed but better than been stuck in the house.

I will be out servicing for my mate on the Riponian Stages Rally at the weekend and then family life resumes for a couple of weeks before I can get back out on the bank, that gives me just one last chance to catch a few fish from a river before the season ends once again. I'm thinking of heading back up to Pool on the Wharfe for one more crack at them grayling but if anyone knows of  a stretch of river that's good for a days sport on the stick then I'm open to suggestions.

Dave

Exploritry trip down the drain

this weekends trip went down the drain, well a drain literally!

there is a small, call it what you will stream/river/drain that cuts through the eastern part of our area that a few years ago was a half decent place to catch a few fish and its been bugging me for a couple of years now to go and explore this once well fished place.my pb pike of just under 20lbs came from this very place around 8 years ago, in parts you could jump across it but if you walk around the next bend it looks just like one of the great chalk streams of the south, this swaps and changes for a few miles before turning into something more like a fenland drain which to all intents and purpose is what it is now used as, a drain, which in my opinion is what has led to the demise of the fishing and lack of anglers. it still sees a few die hard fans during the year but the main problem is access, you see in its whole 15 or so mile length there is only maybe 3 points where it is crossed by public access with enough depth of water to fish, be it a main road or footpath and these areas are far from been the best of the place to fish, there is 3 other access points however they involve the use of strictly private roads through farm yards and between the fields where I'm told the place is solid with fish and big ones to boot, there are tales of near 30lb carp and pike spotted around the biggest structure on the water way but they are seen once then never again. well i have it on good authority that these creatures along with some massive chub and shoals of bream and roach are happily swimming around well away from prying eyes. and how can i be so sure you may ask? read on and let me explain.
the river(i shall call it that as that's what its know as to the EA) runs through low laying farm land which is very susceptible to flooding, over the last maybe 15 years lots of work has been done to clear the main channel of silt and debris, trees along the bank have been cut back,existing drains that feed it have been cleared and new ones dug, add to this a series of very large powerful pumps been installed which drain the surrounding fields and control the flow of the river its self and you have one very efficient drainage system, this is all well and good for the local farmers but not so good for you and me the fishermen as all that has meant the fish have now shifted into deeper areas which are tucked away down private farm tracks and roads. so if that is the case then you are probably wandering why I'm writing about what now seems to be a waste of time.
well the job of keeping this system running, clearing the pumps of debris and general up keep of the field drains as well as grass and weed cutting along and in the water way is down to two men that work for the local drainage board and one of those just so happens to be my dad! and after pestering him for a while he has spoken to a couple of farmers and got me permission to drive down one or two lanes to the river. hopefully next month when they start weed cutting and he moves a couple of farms down he will be able to get me onto the stretch where he has seen the biggest fish, fingers crossed.

so then, about this weeks trip. whilst waiting for the go ahead on the mid to lower river i went and explored the upper river down onto the start of the mid part where a couple of main roads cross and we used to fish as kids. i took just a single rod and a few bits of hooks and floats and a half pint of maggots hoping to snare a few small chub and dace but it would seem the installation of the pumps and other work down stream has left the upper part too shallow to hold any amount of fish, it is also now very over grown and crystal clear, i walked maybe 3 to 4 miles covering various parts of the river with the trusty polaroids on but all i saw were one small group of chub all around 2lb and a couple of small shoals of roach and dace, i didn't even bother to set the rod up but i did enjoy the nice long walk with the sun out on a nice frosty morning.

Social session with a new friend

Over the years I have made friends and met up with a few people on the bank that I have become aqauainted with via various fishing web sites and last year was no exception. I have exchanged posts with Martin a few times over the last two or three years whilst discussing venues on yorkshire fishing but it is my new found interest in the River Calder that has led to us finaly meeting up. We exchanged messages and phone numbers and agreed to meet up last summer, however due to work commitments from both of us, me having my son Kyle two weekends out of every three and my keen interest in motorsport and add into that a house move! it has taken us untill today to finaly be able to get on the bank together.
Martin had kindly offered to show me a tiny river he fishes that is stuffed with grayling and a few brown trout but with the heavy rain at the start of the week that quickly went out of the window so, it was to be a barbel fishing trip to the River Don in Doncaster. Now up untill around 2 years back I used to fish this stretch a lot and my PB barbel came from here, but for one reason or another the fish are just not there in the numbers they used to be hence the reason I stopped going. It was nice to get back there after a long break and the river looked perfect, surley we should see a fish or two? well, it seems that the fish have not returned and despite our best efforts we just had one chub around 1.5lb which took a liking to my lob worm.
Despite the lack of fish we had an enjoyable day discussing various venues and generaly putting the fishing world to rights. As we packed the gear back into the cars we agreed to meet up again but this time im sure it won't take half as long.