What a Blanker!

I have not posted for a long time because I have not caught a fish for what seems like an eternity. With the change of season I decided to break the British Zander record and started a campaign on the river Severn near Tewkesbury. However after three straight blanks it need not be a record, any Zander will do, or a Pike I am not fussed! Just something pulling my line. I get really frustrated blanking. I have been trying everything, low resistance rigs, treble hooks, single hooks, fishing into darkness, baiting the swim etc. If anyone has any ideas can they please let me know.
I need a (confidence restoring) break so will be fishing for something different next week but will be back for another record attempt soon.

PIW Friday

This would be a brilliant place to film a horror movie. A misty spooky start to a days Grayling fishing in the heart of the beautiful Welsh countryside. This church is on the banks of the river Irfon, a tributary of the Wye, just a couple of miles from Builth Wells. From the church you can see three houses so I am guessing that there is not a huge congregation attending on a Sunday morning.

The Irfon is a stunning natural, barely fished river that is full of wild Brown Trout and Grayling and I had a brilliant time trotting maggots and landing a fish every other cast. I explored several swims, from long glides to rapids and ended up catching Grayling to 1lb 

and Trout to 1lb 6oz, nothing massive but a super days sport. 

Once the sun came out the church did not look half as scary.

See what I mean, middle of nowhere!

Piscatorial Indulgence Week, Wednesday and Thursday.

Wednesday

Took a break from fishing yesterday but I did introduce my 20 month old little boy to the wonders of the local fishing shop. He did not seem that impressed until I ordered a load of maggots. They are probably pretty fascinating to someone so small, he made lots of noise at them anyway.
Today I headed down to Hardwick lake, part of the Linear complex in search of one of their big Bream. I made up a typical Bream ground bait with Halibut pellet, sweetcorn and chopped worm and balled in a nice carpet to hopefully grab their attention. As hook bait I tried plain old worm on one and a worm sweetcorn cocktail on the other. I felt quietly confident as I have landed them to 10lb 10oz in the past from the very swim I found myself in and those were accidental captures when targeting Tench. How could I fail when I was actually trying for them?
Yes, you guessed it, I failed. I had fish in the swim, they rolled every now and again but the alarms remained silent.

However I did manage to avoid the blank. Early after lunch I had a tentative bite and hooked into a fish that did not put up much of a scrap. That led me to believe it was the target species but then as it came close I could see it was old Tinca. I was disappointed and relieved at the same time, not a Bream but at least it saved an otherwise blank day. I packed up late afternoon to go back to the drawing board.

5lb 3oz

Thursday

A short morning session due to family commitments, I was looking after the kids while 'er indoors went shopping for clothes and to have an afternoon to herself. I couldn't say no as I will be fishing hard over the next three days. Therefore I decided to stay local and popped down to Willow Farm fishery with some worms in an effort to nail a decent Silver Bream.

Same as yesterday I struggled to get hittable bites in a frustrating couple of hours. Yet again a Tench came to my rescue and saved me from a blank.

A frustrating few days fishing but it could all come good tomorrow, I hope so!

Piscatorial Indulgence Week, Monday

I am off work this week purely for fishing but could only manage a short lure session this morning due to family commitments. I spotted this boat moored up on the far bank and I thought it might be an omen but sadly it wasn't. I blanked with not a touch or a follow to show for three hours spinning. I tried every lure in my bag along about a mile stretch, still at least I stayed dry this time!

I did however spend ten minutes watching a dirty great Cormorant trying to fit a large skimmer Bream down it's throat. It failed and moved on, just would not fit in it's throat but the fish still perished. Got some good photos though.

What you looking at!

A Bad Days Fishing.......

..........is better than a good day in the office. I agree with the tacky signs that can be found in equally tacky shops but today I almost disproved it. 

It has been a long time since I have fished due to two weddings in the space of four days, and one of them in Switzerland. I found a couple of spots over there but...

River Vispa, Switzerland

Mountain lake in the shadow of the Matterhorn.

both these waters are pure snow melt, nothing piscatorial can live in either. There may have been a couple of objections if I had gone fishing anyway.

The anticipation for todays trip was therefore quite high. I set off early and managed to get three miles down the road when the Landie started to make a sound like a helicopter was behind me, a blow out on the rear off side. I managed to pull in to a petrol station forecourt and surveyed the damage.

Thats not gonna inflate back up I thought (plus other unprintable comments). The spare is on the back door and the jack is under the front seats so at least I did not have to unload the fishing gear to change the wheel. I put the jack together and went for the wheel nuts. The alloys might look good but they are not made for removal by a standard nut remover. I realised the job was beyond my tools so I had to ring our local garage for assistance. This was beginning to hurt and not the start to the day I needed. 

The bloke from the garage arrived, got the nuts off, went to jack it up to the right height and the whole thing rocked back and fell off the jack. The standard supplied jack is as crap as the nut remover. In one way it was good that it took garage monkey over an hour to change the tyre, It meant I did not look as much as a girl as you are probably thinking. I finally got to the river at about 10.30am.

My plan was to head for the Barbel banker swim, nail a couple and then move on in search of a big Dace. I did get a Barbel but not as quick as I had hoped, but it was a great battle in the fast water and weighed 7lb 5oz. Rolling meat had done the trick again. 

Half a mile downstream there is a swim that is fairly fast flowing and never fished due to its distance from the car park but this means it is very overgrown. I scrambled my way down the bank through the thick nettles and took a step too far, it was so over grown I stepped too far and into two foot of water, lost my footing and got a soaking. I scrambled out of the river, calmed myself down and checked my stuff. My phone and camera were dry and it appeared that I had not lost anything. At least that went my way.
I was soaked through from the waist downwards but it was warm enough so I found the peg and carried on fishing. When I was rolling meat I had noticed a bit of weed coming down stream but did not realise quite how much there was. Within a minute of casting out the feeder was dragged out of position and I was reeling in masses of the stuff.

I managed to keep the chop worm feeder in long enough for two Perch, one not a bad size at over half a pound but the wet feet and the weed started to really get me down and I headed off mid-afternoon.
I got back to the van and squeezed out my socks, 

emptied my wellies,

and went home. Not the happiest day fishing I have ever had!

Dace chase

A misty sunrise greeted me as I made my way across the field at Barton, on the way to the weir peg where I felt I had unfinished business due to being kicked off last week for a Brummie match. Again I was fishing for Dace, not something I have done a lot of since I used to catch them twenty years ago from the fast flowing water of the river Ure. I had reasonable success with them in my youth, catching them to the pound mark so my hopes were high for a big one today. Eight or Nine ounces seemed an acceptable target from the Avon.
I had no problem finding the Dace, a massive shoal of them, and managed  to catch about 40/50, but they were all of virtually the same year group and weighed around an ounce apiece. I would have caught more but the Jack Pike kept picking off an easy meal. Five times they snatched my fish and bit through the 3lb mono every time. I did get one close to my bank but he disappeared as soon as he saw me.

Late in the day when I was running low on maggots I had my biggest Dace of the session, weighing a whole five ounces.

It bettered last weeks effort of four ounces but it will take me a long time to get a good 'un at this rate.
I also caught Gudgeon, Roach and Perch, one of which was the biggest fish of the day.

An enjoyable day angling.

Tiddler Bashing

Badsey Brook

Take 1:

My brother and I started out the day on the Avon at Barton. We had just nicely got settled in, started catching a few Dace and Perch when a couple of Brummies turned up. "Ow mate we got a mutch on ere tuday". Bugger! My fault, I should have checked the BAA website first but there has been so few matches on the stretch this year I did not bother. So we upped sticks and left. I gave them a parting shot about Barbel in keepnets on the way to the van. They assured me they weighed them in as and when they were caught, Bollox. 

Take 2:

My mate Cockney Steve has been going on about a Mr Crabtree-esque little waterway called Badsey brook, where he goes for livebait but has been catching some Dace that are too big to use so we headed there. At the moment the best swims are choked with weed but give it a frost and a decent run through of rain and I reckon we could be on a winner.

 I dropped some maggots in the best swim I could find and within seconds I struck into the closest I have ever come to a British record. I have never weighed a Gudgeon before but this one went on the scales as it was way bigger than any of it's predecessors. Three and a half Ounces!

My brother thought I was mad but never mind. I struggled after that but did manage a four once Dace, points on the board. 

Take 3:

After an hour or so of no action we decided to move to our third venue, Willow Farm and try to better our Silver Bream efforts. We caught them but small ones, along with Roach, F1s, Goldfish, Tench and Perch. Best of that lot was a Perch well over a pound but we decided not to put it through the photo trauma. 

Shark Trip

The weather forecast at the start of this week did not look promising. There were hurricanesque winds forecast for every single day along the Devon coast and I was sure that our shark trip would be called off. Friday, the day we were going was about the best but still too breezy for our skipper to risk taking us out. However as the week wore on the Friday forecast improved until it was obvious that it was going to be a break in the weather. My excitement kept building as I checked the forecast on an hourly basis.
In the end it was flat calm as we set off from Plymouth harbour on board Sea Angler2, just misty and drizzling, 'sticky rain' our skipper Malcolm calls it.
We got to the Mackerel fishing mark and for the first time in ages there were loads of them. Full strings all the time and it took no time at all for us to have plenty for bait and to make rubby-dubby.

A smelly mixture of mashed Mackerel, fish oil and bran, sharks love it!

 We then steamed out to the shark drift, 21 miles out to sea. It is fascinating how the skipper finds these places to fish because it all looks the same to me.
Dave and I drew straws for rods and thankfully only an hour in to the drift, mine was the first to take off. After about ten minutes I had the fish alongside but Malcolm let her run again because they are never beaten first time and if not played out they become a real handful on the boat. They are not a Great White but they have teeth to make a mess of human skin. I asked the skipper how many times he had heard 'we're gonna need a bigger boat' and he said 'every f'ing time'. I changed my mind about singing the theme tune. A couple of minutes later and we brought a 50lb Blue on to the boat.
She thrashed a bit but was good for the photo shoot.

As I went to put her over the side she bit through the rubby-dubby bag, and left it with a great big hole in it, a toothy reminder.
I then let Dave have use of all the rods and another hour later he landed his first ever Blue, slightly smaller at about 40lb. He then followed this up with a twenty pounder and I finished off with a 30. Four sharks on the boat was a good result and we went home happy, but still with an itch for a 'ton'!

Meaty Eel

I headed down to the Barton stretch of the Avon this morning for a short session chasing Barbel. Started rolling meat down the run and after a biteless couple of hours I changed tactics and ledgered in the fast flow. First cast I missed a bite and second chuck I had the three foot twitch and fish on, sadly it found one of the many snags and I lost it. It felt like a good fish.

The bites started to get twitchy and I suspected Chub but then a short while later I found out the culprits.

The hook was in the corner of it's mouth and so I managed to unhook, weigh and return without touching. At this point I should claim to be respecting them because of diminishing numbers, endangered species, minimal handling etc but I won't. I did not want to be covered in slime and then smelling it for the rest of the week. 

Bonus points for the challenge- 1lb 2oz. That was the only fish landed of the session so no blank and I went home contented.

Barbel, Warks Avon

A fairly uneventful session yesterday taking a Barbel first cast and a Chub about an hour later and nothing else happened. Managed to get soaked for the second time running.

She weighed 9lb 8oz and took rolled luncheon meat.

Bullocks to Zander

11 foot of carbon feeder rod is probably not the most obvious choice of weapon for fending off a herd of inquisitive Bullocks but Steve thought it was. It worked for a while anyway. 

The rain properly arrived this week and we had a difficult session on the Avon. The river was a few inches up and with that came a constant barrage of weed through the swim making delicate presentation an impossibility. We had decided to cover all the bases and I had a small Roach dead bait cast out for Zander on one rod, a lump of luncheon meat on another for Barbel and Steve also tried for the Zeds plus a maggot feeder for anything else that came along.

We arrived mid afternoon and it took quite a while for us to get the first fish, a Jack Pike of about 7lb to my Roach rod. Steve followed this up with a cracking Perch of about 12oz and then another a bit smaller. The heavens opened around 5pm and that seemed to slow the fishing down.  Just as it was getting dark Steve had a big Dace at least half a pound. 

It was my turn next and I landed a 4lb 6oz Zander which had ignored the deadbait, preferring the Luncheon meat instead, fishing is a funny old game!

As you can probably tell from my jacket that by this time we were soaked through. The thunder and lightning had started and we know bolts of electricity and lengths of carbon are not good bedfellows so it was time to call it a night.

The trek back to the van is across three fields, two of which now had skittish Bullocks in them due to the storm. The first field we gave our bovine friends a wide berth and they ignored us. The next field was darker and we did not see them until we were virtually upon them. This spooked them and they set off for a run. They ran across and behind us which was a tad scary with the lightning flashes to illuminate them. They then turned and followed us but thankfully slowly and at a distance. We reached the stile in record quick time, I leapt over it and just as Steve was about to follow a Deer jumped out of the trees and ran for it. He nearly died, one more shock would have finished him off. We then drove home in a spectacular storm, via the Oddfellows for a nerve calming ale of course.

Blanks, Struggles and Freebies

Avon sunset

All good things must come to an end and my recent run of success did just that. The last two weeks have been a real battle, firstly two blanks and then a couple of sessions with fish caught but not the species or the size that I wanted. Still if it was easy and we always got what we wanted we would not come back for more.

10.08.11

The first session was an evening Barbel foray and the successful tactic of rolling meat finally let me down, two bites, no hook ups therefore no fish.

14.08.11

The following weekend my brother and I headed for linear as confident as ever and we were sent away with our tails between our legs. A bite apiece, mine came off, my brother's hook link failed.

17.08.11

A short evening session chasing Zander. I avoided the blank by landing a pair of Jack Pike, both around the 5lb mark, one of them in the pitch black which is unusual and I was sure was a Zed til I shone the head torch on it. Better result but still not that satisfying.

18.08.11

Today I decided to go for the confidence building session we all need some time so the local commercial chasing Silver Bream was my plan. I still struggled for the first hour as I targeted the margins. Once I realised all the fish were in the middle of the pool I caught and fairly regularly. Despite the torrential down pours I enjoyed the session and ended with a very varied mixed bag.

The only fish I weighed was the biggest Silver Bream which was a new personal best at 10oz! 

One bit of good fortune was the new Land Rover arrived last weekend with a pretty awesome number plate absolutely free. The chap selling it is an angler but did not twig that to the right person it would be worth good money and he just left it on!

 It is pretty unmissable so say hello if you see it on the bank somewhere.

Feeling Blue in Plymouth

The first of two shark trips I have booked in this year. I hope the second one is more productive than this one. Not one single beast landed, not even a dropped run either. We drifted the exact same area as our skipper did Thursday and that day the lads landed 10! I still thoroughly enjoyed it though.

This time I had decided to bring my travel spinning rod along and play around with other species whilst waiting for the shark action. I did not expect any success with it but it had to be worth a try. Just after lunch I tied on a sidewinder and chucked it out as far as I could behind the boat, into the rubby dubby slick. Within a couple of turns it got nailed, I could not believe my luck.A cracking fight ensued on the light gear and I landed a 4lb 12oz Bass. 

My first ever Bass so a new personal best and another species crossed off the bucket list. 

I carried on playing with the lure rod but no more Bass were forthcoming. Mid afternoon I changed to a spinner and a garfish followed it in. They get attracted by the slick. On the skipper's advice a freelined strip of Mackerel on a size 6 hook was chucked out. Within minutes I had one of these fascinating little creatures on board. 

First time I have ever caught one so another pb but I did not bother weighing it. I fished on and caught a couple more of about the same size before we headed back to shore. 

All in all a disappointing day in terms of sharks but I was well pleased with what I did manage.

More summer Barbelling, Warks Avon.

My last Freshwater session for a couple of weeks (shark trip) and no surprise, I went Barbelling. Similar result as last week I had eight Barbel to 8lb 11oz. All on rolled meat.

And three Chub to a very pleasing 4lb 14oz

My wife and kids popped along for a few minutes and I tried as hard as I could to show them a fish but they did not play ball as I hoped, Sod's law.

Roll me a fat one

Another summers day spent chasing Barbel on the Warwickshire Avon. Today was a real red letter day as I landed eight Barbel and a solitary Chub. The first two fish were around the 5/6lb mark and were not put through the weighing and photo rigmarole. Next one along weighed 8lb 6oz.

The rolling meat was doing the trick again but it had to be in exactly the right spot each time to get a bite, a foot away from the shade of the willow and it was left untouched. Four more fish followed including a couple of 'sevens' and then I hooked something that snagged me up before I could get a grip on it. I released the line to see if it would swim out. It didn't. I could still feel it wagging so tried putting some steady pressure on it, suddenly I felt it kick and we were back in. I could see the fish battling in the shallow crystal clear water quite a distance away and she looked decent which did nothing for my heart rate. It seemed to take forever to get the fish into the net but it was probably only a few minutes and I knew that I had nailed my biggest of the season so far. I let her have a rest in the net while I had a breather myself and then did the weigh in and photos. 

10lb 14oz of pristine Avon Barbel. A super way to round off my best ever Barbel session-so far!