So it goes

I've not been out fishing over Christmas as I've been feeling a bit under the weather, and the weather outside hasn't been encouraging enough to tempt me out into the cold. So I've stopped in reading and re-reading Gierach. I'm glad our winters don't last as long as the ones they get in Colorado. It's almost made me want to take up flyfishing with bamboo rods - but not quite... A little Googling has turned up a Gierach article on-line.

2009 wasn't a bad year, England beat the Aussies to regain the Ashes and I caught some nice fish. But my fishing was a bit up and down like the England cricketers' performances. The cold start to the year scuppered any chance of good barbel catches but I got a feel for chub fishing. Then the last week of the season panned out well when the weather changed for the better. Alas the good fortune didn't carry on into the spring tench campaign. I was hoping to really get to grips with my chosen venue this year but a combination of unfavourable conditions and a lack of time meant I caught just nine tench - although the ones I did catch were worth having.

Work restricted me to the one late spring bream session that went better than I could have hoped for. Then the rivers opened and I got sucked back into barbelling, because it was handy and fitted in round work, forgetting my other plans for the summer because I couldn't put a foot wrong with the barbel between July and November. When winter came back with a bang work piled up making me miss those narrow slots when the river was on form or a stillwater worth a visit.

Here's the highlights:

• Barbel - 12-12
  
• Bream - 14-06 [pb]
• Carp - dnw
  
• Chub - 6-09 [pb]
• Grayling - 1-05 [pb]
• Roach - dnw
• Tench - 9-09 (f) [pb]

[pb]= personal best, dnw = did not weigh (i.e. small!), (m) = male, (f) = female

Perhaps not as spectacular as last year when it comes to variety of personal bests, but the longer you fish the harder they get to beat and I have no complaints. The main thing is that I've enjoyed my fishing once again. New stillwaters and stretches of river have been explored and fished successfully. That's probably the greatest thing about fishing, there's always something to do that you haven't done before. When it pans out well in pleasant surroundings, which seem to become more important than the fish as I get older and grumpier, there's nothing better.

All the best for 2010.

---

Veni, vidi, blanki

Coincidentally Martha Reeves is in the UK - just as the radio weather forecasters say we're heading for a heatwave! The last few days have been pretty warm, but it's supposed to be getting hotter still. I managed to make my getaway on Thursday evening and was set up well before dark after a red hot sunny day. After a warm night, when I didn't need the bunny suit or sleeping bag, just lay under the bedchair cover, Friday dawned dull with tench rolling and tail slapping, both in my swim and well out of casting range. Hopes were high. Alas they were to no avail. When the afternoon grew sunny there were fish splashing about near the inaccessible reedbeds. Some were probably carp, but I have a feeling some were tench spawning. Whether they were spawning or not they certainly weren't picking up my baits.

I spent a fair amount of time watching a pair of grebes building a nest, diving down for weed and even twigs, dragging them quite some distance. I also gained a new friend in the shape of the mallard duck that had visited my swim on another occasion but now was much more bold. No messing about, straight on the bank to mop up my spilt hemp then waddling over to my bivvy with a greedy look in her beady eyes. After peering over the bedchair she ducked (cough!) underneath it for a look around, then a circuit of the outside of the bivvy and back again. I tore up a slice of bread and she had no qualms about taking pieces from my hand. I then placed a whole slice on the edge of my bedchair. This was soon snatched and taken away to be devoured.

Later in the day she returned. I hung on to my bread this time, but threw her a couple of dendrobena worms. These must have been a bit dry or spicy, because she had to go for a drink of water after devouring them before coming back hopefully for more.

Where's my lunch?

There was a little more visible tench activity in the evening, again failing to be matched with bobbin activity. Given that I had seen more tench during this session than the previous two I decided to stay put for a second night. There had been rain in the afternoon and the evening and night were muggy. A couple of bleeps to the margin boilie rod awoke me at three, but I managed to focus my eyes just in time to see the bobbin dropping back. Liner. Out with the last of the hemp, rebait the rigs and recast.

Saturday morning was quite still, the sky grey and a light mist blurred the distance. A couple of tench showed over the bait and even closer in. Still no pick ups. After breakfast I caught up on some sleep then packed up at eleven. As I hit the road rain arrived. With nothing better to do, and with thoughts of tench fishing starting to fade I set off to look at a couple of fisheries for a new challenge.

One was reputed to hold crucians and tench. It looked a bit of a hole in the ground to be honest, but it might be worth a chuck. The other was an ancient pool deep in the countryside holding a stock of wildies. I saw one carp caught, and another angler who had a load of carp (many small ones) cruising and crashing out in front of him. This was a much nicer place to be, especially on a damp midsummer afternoon with rain beginning to clear, warm drips falling from the trees and mist over the fields of wheat. I could see how carp fishing appealed to people when it was all carried out on waters such as this - but with fewer anglers about.

A vision of the past

My nostalgia isn't shared by everyone. I'd been prompted to seek out this pool by a conversation with a carp angler who had said it was a lovely place. He then went on to say that if it was his fishery he'd drain it, remove the numerous native carp and replace them with thirty big fish. Why do people want monoculture fishing? What's wrong with a bit of variety?

I've got a bit of work to get done this week, so I'll be playing it by ear dependent on the weather. I might have one more desperate try for a tench or two, or I might give those wildies a try, there's also a rudd pit that's come back on my radar. Then again a certain river I called in at looked rather enticing. If it does turn hot, with muggy nights I suppose the eel rods could get some use. Thank heavens all waters aren't chock full of twenty pound carp.

---

What on earth is that?

It's a float!

I like to think I'm nothing if not versatile... My efforts at float fishing didn't last long. The tench weren't showing, so I was on a loser to start with. What was interesting, however, was that setting the float revealed a depth of around eight feet, while using the plumbing rod suggested six. For the most part plumbing with a marker rod is done to find changes in depth, so accuracy isn't all that critical, but if it shows a depth of three feet when it's actually five it might affect swim selection. I might take the Smartcast next time and compare that to the plumbing set up.

---

Feathered friends

A few weeks ago I watched a pair of coots feeding their scruffy looking brood. I eventually counted there to be six chicks. At that time they were spending most of their time hidden under the trailing branches overhanging the margins. Occasionally one or two would venture out to greet mum or dad to get a beakful of food. Even at that size the adults would admonish a chick by harrying it and appearing to peck at it. As the day wore on they became braver, and sometimes five would come out into the open water. There always seemed to be one that hung back. I didn't expect all the chicks to survive.

Now they are considerably bigger and braver, and there are still six of them, and they still get told off by their parents. And there is still one that spends a lot of time on its own - which is why there are just five youngsters in the photo below. They must be half grown now. Still taking food from their parents in a noisy rush each time one pops to the surface, they follow them round the lake but have learned to dive and are discovering what boilies are!

Family life

Although the coots were entertaining, it was a pair of great crested grebes that provided me with the more interesting sight. Grebes eat fish, so it took me a while to realise that a pair which were some way off making upward stabbing motions, stretching their necks sharply in all directions, weren't doing it for exercise. They were taking advantage of an evening hatch of insects. Opportunistic feeding.

I also had a close encounter with a mallard. A particularly forward female that flew into my swim and mopped up every spilled hemp seed it could find while it's mate stood guard at the water's edge. This made me happy because it left next to nothing for the rats to feast on after dark and they pretty much left me alone.

Fishingwise it was pretty much like last time. I fished the same spots, with the same rigs and caught a few more tench to keep my hand in. The females I caught, however, were nowhere near as fat as the two I had last time out. Solid, but not podded up. I should have come home before the rain set in, the temperature dropped and the tench stopped showing themselves on the surface. I've caught tench in the rain, but it's been warm rain. One day I'll learn something and it will stick.

The in-line feeder scores again

---

Gotta get outta this place

Last week, being a short one following the Bank Holiday, saw me unable to get away tenching. Infuriating as the weather was warm and settled. The red eyed blighters must have woken up. The Saturday after my trip south for the bream I'd bought a pint and a half of red maggots which were residing in the fridge - on the off chance that I could have sneaked away. Last Saturday I bought another pint on the same premise. Sunday morning and I cracked. I had this week planned out, but I could stand no more thumb twiddling resulting from a lack of blanks to build on (Harrison's are short-staffed so are playing catch-up). The gear found itself getting readied.

I was expecting the first few hours of daylight to be the key time, so there was no rush to get set up well before dark. With dusk coming around ten, now summer is all but here, I had no need for a large food bag and set off after tea. Driving through the verdant late spring landscape in the early evening light, sillaging under way, the hawthorn blossom faded elder flowers taking its place, anticipation was high.

Just as the roads had been quiet so the lake was deserted. I had my pick of swims so headed to the south west corner which the warm north easterly was blowing in to. I took my time plumbing, then baited up two spots with some hemp cooked that very afternoon, laced with a light mix of pellets and old maggots. for the night I placed an in-line maggot feeder on the close in patch which had been baited by catapult, a method feeder with two grains of fake corn on the more distant patch and a 10mm Tutti with a bag of Hemp and Hali Crush to an unbaited clear patch.

Darkness was slow arriving as I lay back scanning the water from under my Aqua Rover Brolly - just big enough to cover the bedchair and fine for a warm dry night. The wind had dropped, but not died away so the brolly was welcome. Around eleven I was surprised to see tench rolling over my bait and in the general area. This went on for at least an hour, but the alarms didn't sound. Nor did they disturb my slumber.

I woke at three thirty to the sound of a coot chasing away a pair of grebes. There was a red glow low on the horizon and it was starting to slowly come light. A few birds were singing and as the day grew brighter as I drank the first brew of the morning so more joined in the chorus greeting the dawn. A tench rolled. I rebaited all the rods, the boilie on the helicopter rig being swapped over to a couple of plastic casters and the lead to a feeder. More tench rolled and tail-slapped. It was fully light. Having seen tench moving closer in than my closest baited spot I wound in the helicopter rig and added a small PVA bag with a few maggots in to mask the hook and beat the weed. A new trick for me, but one other tenchists have been using for a while.

PVA bag adds buoyancy and keeps the hook point clear of weed while providing added attraction

The bobbin on the helicopter rod lifted to a tight line, then dropped back as I got to the rod expecting the spool to commence spinning. As I was about to settle back on the bedchair it rose again. This time it stayed up and the rod top twitched. I lifted the rod and felt a fish on the end. Initially the fish came easily until it hit the margin when it woke up big time. I was convinced it would be a male, but it wasn't. It was a well filled out female.

Fit to burst

Had the bag done the trick? I wound in the in-line feeder and added a bag to that before recasting both rods. Two hours later, with the water sparkling in the sunlight, that rod was away. Another well filled out fish was soon landed. By now the rolling had abated. Three hours later I was on my way home after breaking this year's tench duck following another instance of that mysterious inspiration to fish an unplanned session.

April I could (just about!) live with being tench free, May shouldn't have been - but I suppose I didn't get the chance to put enough time in to find the fish (I blame the Bank Holidays - and bream!). Here's hoping I can make the most of June before the spawning urge overcomes the tench.

---

Tench memories

I've not seen a tench so much as roll this year, yet this time last year I was catching loads of them. Or that's how I remember it. Checking my diary I read a different story of blank after blank followed by a few fish then more blanks. We seem to remember the good days more than the bad - until the bad ones become the norm!

To remind myself what they look like I've dug out some tench snaps from my Sywell seasons when I'm sure I never blanked... They were enjoyable days in good company with easy fishing - cast two boilies out and wait for the alarm to sound!

My first eight pounder - 1990(?)

A summer seven - 1991

7lb 10oz - 13/03/92

I didn't visit Sywell again until 2006 when I fished a 24+ hour session having been told boilies were no longer any good and maggot feeder was the method for success. I didn't have a run until I put a 14mm Tutti on one rod for the last couple of hours when I almost immediately hooked and lost a fish, then caught the rather tatty fish below. I should have started out with a Tutti on one rod, a few fish had rolled in front of me so who knows?

8lb 7oz - June 2006

---

Planning ahead

The tenching has been more like sitting in the open air staring at rods than fishing so far this year. Either I haven't been able to find them or they just haven't woken up and started exploring yet. The bream, on the other hand, had been going wild down south. I couldn't string the time together to go after them though. It can be a short period of easy fishing and I'd missed out on it last year. Tuesday saw me able to get away. Unsure of the range I'd need to fish at I packed my Interceptors and one of my Ballistas. My plan being that if I needed two long range rods I'd press the marker rod into operation - so I put a spare Baitrunner in the bag. For some reason I threw another spod in the bait bag, to give me a choice of four. It must have been premonition.

The first task was to walk round the lake looking, and asking, for clues. One thing I will say about carp anglers is that when they know you're one of those weirdos who prefers catching bream or tench they are very helpful. A spot where the bream had rolled the previous evening was pointed out to me. It would be a starting point if nothing else, so I wheeled my wheelbarrow round and selected a swim that gave access to open water. Out with the plumbing rod and hard gravel was located almost at the casting limit of my Interceptors - determined by casting a feeder at the marker float. This process revealed that one of the Sporteras was making a grinding noise and felt as rough as a bag of gravel. I put my spare Baitrunner on that rod and swapped the other Baitrunner from the Ballista to the other Interceptor. I prefer to fish with matching reels so that I know where all the knobs and levers are and that they all work in the same way. Essential in the dark, I find.

Tools of the baiting trade

The next task was the spodding of feed. A presoaked mix of pigeon conditioner and groats to which I added a load of mixed pellets. To save my back I stood the spod mix bucket on two other bait buckets. This also speeded the spodding up. Well, it did until the first spod fell apart. I had wondered why the bead was a tight fit under the loop on the MCF spod when it hadn't been on the previous cast. Everything looked okay. Then I cast again and the fins fell off. I had assumed the fins to be an integral part of the moulding, but they are not. They are a separate piece that is glued to the spod body. As the wire loop is attached to the fins and takes the force of the cast inertia did the rest. No matter, I had three more spods.

Spod the difference

I clipped on a bigger spod that I'd modified to release like the MCF, filled it up and let rip. There was a resounding crack as the line parted and the spod flew free. The line had tangled at the reel. Arse! Time was getting on and I had two options. Swap my marker reel to the spod rod (it was clipped up at the correct distance and I had my horizon marks picked out to aim for) or take the float off and use the marker rod. Out with a second MCF spod (because it was smaller) and try the marker rod. It did the job easily, and was less tiring to use than the heavy spod rod. I was soon working to a rhythm and the bait was placed accurately. I think I'll try a lighter rod for spodding again.

With half the spod mix out on the lake bed I set to sorting out my method mix. This consisted of Vitalin, more of the mixed pellets and some Sonu fishmeal and pellet method groundbait. The thinking being that bream like pellets and fishmeal! One rod fished two grains of floating fake corn set about half an inch off bottom and the other rig had a 10mm Tutti Frutti boilie on the hair. With both rods out I set up camp and waited. As if a switch had been thrown bream began rolling at eight o'clock. First of all well out from the baited patch, then closer and all points between the bait and the middle of the lake. Confidence was sky high.

When tench fishing with 'bolt' rigs I set the baitrunners and the line tight. The only way the bobbin can go is down and the tight drag helps set the hook and stop it falling out. When I'm fishing for bream I've started fishing the bobbins almost as low as the chains will allow but with just a bit more of a drop possible. The baitrunners are slackened off so if a bream does move away it can take line and give an indication. One or two have actually given decent runs. Too often I've failed to spot a bream take using the tight set up. All that happens is a single bleep and that's it. Either the fish stays where it is or it kites round on the tight line. Ignore the bleep and you end up winding a bream in when you wake up!

The down side to the slacker approach is that you are more aware of line bites, some of which can fool you into thinking they are the real thing. I always give an indication plenty of time before lifting into it. Letting the bobbin go up and stay up, watching the line tighten and the rod tip move, waiting while the bobbin goes up and down for ages, or watching it drop right back. Even so they still manage to fool me now and then. Line bites can occur on a tight line too, and if they result in a slack liner you have to get up and reset the bobbin. I think fishing the bobbin's on a bit of a drop is the best, and most informative option.

Loaded for bream

Once it was dark everything fell into place. Suffice to say that the bream found the feed and my hookbaits, the bobbins jiggled, alarms sounded and the tripod was required! One fish came out in daylight, and after I'd returned it and was sorting the landing net out I found a tiny pikelet. The tiniest pikelet I think I have ever seen.

From acorns...

To give a sense of scale!

The second night followed a similar pattern to the first. Bait was spodded out in readiness for the dark hours and right on cue at eight the bream began rolling. Again it wasn't until the light had gone that the bobbins moved and the scales and camera were required. Despite the problems that beset the start of the session a little forethought in packing extra spods and reels and some improvisation on the rod front had rescued the situation and I'd done okay. As I packed away my bream camp in the morning sunshine it was apparent that my bunny suit and towel would need a good wash!

Many years ago I scoffed at people wanting to fish for bream. It wasn't until I caught my first double that I realised big bream are different to small or medium bream. They're not groundbait devouring slime-balls, they are impressive and majestic beasts.

A male bream rests before release

---

A deserved blank

When you watch a coot swimming out to your baited patch, diving down, popping back up with a tasty morsel in its beak, swimming back to its chick and repeating the process, all day, it should tell you something. Slow on the uptake it took me almost two days to work out that there were either no fish in the swim or the coots had devoured all the bait. That was last week and it was nice to be out in the sun, but that's not the same as catching fish.

Coot food

What was surprising was that the coot (or coots as I suppose the pair might have been taking turns) rarely picked up my baits. The fake casters were never touched, the fake corn occasionally and the boilies only after they had been recast. A bait was never picked up a second time. I also noted that when there was a hatch of flies in the evening the coot(s) stopped nicking my bait and made the most of the meat that had come available. Once the hatch was over they went back to the pellets and stuff. There'll be some well fed cootlets swimming about soon.

A coot snack

On the way home I collected my latest batch of blanks which have kept me occupied since my return. I'd be more occupied with them if I wasn't still waiting for a few rod fittings. Par for the course though for a European distributor to be out of stock...

A few rebuilds and refurbs have materialised this week. As usual they show varying levels of craftsmanship. The professionally built rods just need tidying up even though they are fourteen years old. They do have ridiculously long handles though. The 'home made' rods are a different matter. One of the reel seats on one pair is fitted off centre. I wouldn't actually know how to achieve that if I wanted to! Other than that they are a simple rewhip and varnish job that is almost complete. The third pair of rods are a full strip and rebuild.

One of the reel seats was loose. When pulled off it was apparent why. Whoever had built the rod failed to run epoxy round the outer edges of the rolls of masking tape under the seat. This allows water to get in and soften, and eventually rot, the masking tape. The reel seat then works loose.

Rotten tape

The blanks are Tri-Cast Arrowlites which are nice blanks, but like all woven carbon/Kevlar blanks frustrating to refurb. Strip the clear coat off and the Kevlar strands stick up. Being bullet proof they are impossible to shave off with a blade. Apply varnish over them and you have sticky-up bits. These can be trimmed away for a second coat. But it's all a right pain.

With no time to get away I snatched a couple of fly fishing sessions. One a blank on the ressy, one on the canal that resulted in a jack attacking a 'fly' three times before getting fed up. Pleasant evenings but, as with the tench/bream session, I'd have preferred to catch something. At least I put some effort and thought in so didn't feel like kicking myself.

With warblers arriving the cuckoos won't be far away. The trees are leafed up nicely, hawthorn buds starting to show (even elder buds) and the reeds are starting to turn from straw to green as their shoots reach up through the water.

New shoots

It all makes you want to get out and fish. Then another Bank Holiday approaches to spoil it all.

---

Pick of the year

Well, that's another year's fishing over. For the first time in a long time ending in a big freeze. Although I had been hoping for some prolonged cold weather to target chub this winter I hadn't wanted it this cold for so long - and predicted to continue. I nipped out mid-morning today and it was -2c and foggy, by late afternoon it was still -2c and foggy!

At least the fishing this year didn't grind to such a complete standstill as last year did. I started barbel fishing later but caught more, larger and for longer. The year had started slowly, but I made more better decisions and was more flexible than I have been in the past, so carried on catching fish by shifting my targets. You never stop learning.

Spring and summer were difficult owing to the ever changing weather with hardly two consecutive days the same. Even so I managed to catch some nice fish. After a season of bad timing on one river in 2007 I managed to get it right more often than not this time round, as my barbel results show. But where have the chub gone? Usually a few have come along to the barbel rods. This season (so far) they have been a rarity.

I'm not making any firm plans for the coming year but I do have a couple of new venues in my sights. If I can up a few more PBs along the way I'll be happy. Then again, I'll be happy if I catch more often than I blank. Unfortunately for the blog the issue of publicity bans cropped up this year and will be a factor in the coming months too.

Gagged

That doesn't stop me looking back at some of my fishy highlights of 2008.

• Barbel - 14-03 [pb]
• Bream - 11-02
• Carp - dnw
  
• Chub - 5-09
• Dace - 0-07 [pb]
  
• Golden Orfe - 2-00 [pb]
• Grayling - dnw, but bigger than the one I caught last year! [pb]
• Perch - 3-05
• Pike - 16-02
• Roach/Bream Hybrid - 5-06 [pb]
• Roach/Rudd Hybrid - 3-04
• Roach - 1-10 [pb]
• Rudd - dnw
• Sea trout - dnw [out of season]
  
• Tench - 7-04 (m) [pb], 9-03 (f)

[pb]= personal best, dnw = did not weigh (i.e. small!),(m) = male, (f) = female

Quite a satisfying list by my standards.

All the best for 2009.

---

Underwater Ireland

I stumbled across a link to www.underwater-ireland.com today and found some cracking underwater photos of fish. There are also some good videos of fish in the clear waters of Irish loughs and canals which are most easily viewed on YouTube. Here's one.



By the way if you have Lumbland bookmarked, or have a link to it on your site, please change the address to www.lumbland.co.uk. It's taken me ages (and much tearing out of my remaining hair) to work out how to get the new domain name to function with all the pages displaying correctly, but I think it does now!

---

La indecisión me molesta

After fighting the weed at the weekend I didn't really feel like tench fishing and was stuck for an idea what to do. The problem with becoming an 'all-rounder' is that there are just too many options! Tuesday was wasted in indecision, so by lunchtime on Wednesday I was in the car heading for the tackle shop and some bait. Although I still didn't know where I was going or what I was after catching. I had plenty of groundbait, bought some maggots, and still was clueless!

After a chat with my mate in the shop I decided it was bream or bust. A few hours later the indecision was about which swim to choose as I had the entire lake to myself. I plumbed the shallows, which were fairly weed free reasonably close in and the wind was off my back - which was handy as I managed to cast off my plumbing float...

Like a fool I decided that it would be better to fish the opposite bank. On arrival there the weed was pretty thick, but I found that at forty to fifty yards it was clear, and there was around nine foot or more of water. I mixed up a couple of kilos of groundbait and balled it in, leaving enough behind for adding to the method feeders. Then I spodded out some pellets, set the rods up and settled in for the night.

It had been warm and sunny when I arrived but it clouded over at dusk. Although this meant I was able to sleep wearing my bunny suit under the bedchair cover it also meant that the dawn was grey, and showery.

The night had passed surprisingly uneventfully. Although I wasn't after them a tench had rolled in front of the rods before dark. However it may have been a prelude to sexual shenanigans as I am pretty sure I saw tench spawning when the light had faded enough for the head torch to be required. It was certainly too dark to be 100% sure what was writhing in the marginal weed.

I hadn't set the alarm, but still awoke shortly after first light. After the usual cup of tea I rebaited and recast then nodded off again. What befell my eyes when I awoke didn't fill me with glee. I'd been robbed of groundbait. By ducklings... The greedy little half-grown beggars had scoffed the lot, and paddled their muddy little feet all over the groundbait bowl and my catty!

I've been robbed!

They were unrepentant too, and weren't for being told to **** off - just coming back for more as soon as I turned my back. When I mixed up another bag of feed I made sure the bowl was duckproof.

Thwarted!

During the morning I swapped rigs around. One rod fished The Rig with an eighteen and two maggots to see if there were any roach or hybrids about while the baits on the other two rods were varied between pellet, fake corn and 10mm pineapple boilie - all baits that could pick up almost anything. It was noon before a smallish roach fell for the maggots. At least I hadn't blanked.

Better than nowt.

A slightly larger skimmer came along around three, but it was pretty quiet. More bait went out in preparation for the hours of darkness; groundbait, maggots, pellets and seeds. The spodding process was carried out in two periods. Not for any carefully thought out reason, but because I cracked the spod off and had to wait for it to drift back into the bank before recommencing the bombardment. That's the second time it's happened and I reckon it's time to step up the line on the spodding reel. Although I use a shock leader it is the shock of the line hitting the clip that seems to be causing the leader knot to fail. Back to the 30lb Power Pro, methinks.

I was confident that a pellet, a boilie or the fake corn would be picked up by something in the night. Untroubled by nagging doubts I was asleep well before midnight, and again didn't need the sleeping bag. At twenty five past four in the morning I was staggering out to the rods, trying to get my specs on and remain upright before determining which rod had caused the remote sounder to disturb my slumber. It turned out to be the middle rod fishing the boilie and the culprit looked more like a roach than not to my inexpert eyes.

Roach?

Or not?

The helicopter rod was converted from a pellet/bag rig to a maggot/feeder. The hook was a size 14 Animal and four red maggots were crammed on to it and a piece of red rig foam trimmed to give a slow sink. This produced a small roach/bream hybrid an hour later that had had a lucky escape from a small pike by the looks of things, followed by an equally small roach. The day tried to warm up, so I donned my waders and searched the margins for my missing marker float. And found it in the reeds near the next swim!

With that I called it quits while I was ahead.

Title-link

---

All good things...

As the sun sinks slowly in the west I'm amazed that I've managed to keep this blog going as long as I have on a fairly regular basis. In my early twenties I kept a diary where I wrote each trip up in detail when I got home. That lasted a couple of years before dying the death, and it looks like this blog might be going the same way. I have an inherent loathing of routine and 'having' to do things. That's why I stopped pike fishing and writing articles - neither are compulsory activities, and neither is writing this blog.

There may be a few rig thoughts to come, probably some tackle reviews, and possibly a tale or two if anything really interesting happens. But but for now, that's about it.

Got my mojo working

What a lovely summer day. The sun shone, the bees buzzed, England batted and bowled well, and the jinx is off! Only one bite but a fish landed. A strange bite too. The line tightened and the alarm sounded a couple of times as a coot popped to the surface near my maggot feeder. The coot was shaking some weed as the alarm continued to stutter with no line being taken from the reel. With trepidation I picked the rod up, felt something move, yet the coot remained undisturbed. Fish on!

The tench decided that it would kite over the line of my middle rod, then under the line of my right hand rod. After I had sorted the mess out and got the fish clear I saw another fish shadowing the tench, which was around the six pound mark. The shadower was a pike of maybe ten pounds. Needless to say this put the wind up the tench! As the tench swam to the right the pike followed it. When it ran out from the bank out of sight the pike went with it, to reappear behind the tench when I drew it back. Eventually the pike shot off when the tench splashed on the surface just before I netted it.


As can be seen, I was using was a Preston Innovations feeder modified to fish in-line. As they come the swivel attachment is weak and will snap off in use. I'm told this fault has been rectified, but it makes the feeders a perfect candidate for modification. After removing the swivel attachment holes are drilled in the centre of the cap and the closed end of the feeder. The holes should be just wide enough to accept the PVC (I think) tubing which is the key to the modification. I drill the holes slightly too small and open them out with a reamer to get the snug fit. The tubing I use comes from and old bulb release. It is the perfect size to grip a size 10 Power Swivel and does away with the need for tulip beads or neoprene sleeves attached to rigid tubing. I fit the feeder to the tube, running superglue around the it where it exits the end of the feeder. When set the tubing is trimmed to length.

My MkI version seen in the photo above revealed a problem in use. The end of the tubing sticking out of the cap was cut too short. When filling the feeder the cap would slide down the line making it a fiddle to replace - by which time half the maggots had wriggled out of the feeder! By leaving the tail a little longer and superglueing a tapered sleeve to it I hope to have solved the problem for the MkII model shown below. Although simply making the tail a bit longer still might do the same job and be cheaper. I'll try both options next time out.

---

Jinxed

The session was doomed to failure before I left home. But it had to be got out of the way. I'd been on a tackle buying spree. A new spod and head torch weren't enough. No. There were some feeders bought to convert into in-line jobs, and - worst of all - three shiny new bobbins and isotopes. If there's one thing guaranteed to result in a blank, it's new indicators. At least the day at the pit was a pleasant one to spend admiring them. They they went up and down when I played with the line, so I guess they'll work okay when a fish eventually comes along.

Ironically the alarms and pod caught fish on their first trips, but indicators are a different matter. They're pretty though, you have to admit! They're part of my policy of mixing tarty and not cheap with cheap and cheerful. The pod is a Nash Hooligun 'entry level' pod. It has the advantage that Korum banksticks fit it. With two of those in the back position I can raise my rods higher at the back to get the tips low to the water. This is an advantage when waterfowl are about.

The spod certainly did the job, though, and I wish I'd bought it a couple of years back when I first saw one. I've used casting clips with spods in the past so they retrieve nose first, rather than backwards. But they were home made modifications that didn't always release and sometimes tangled. The MCF Swordfish is a bit different and (so far) releases every time, admittedly occasionally needing a jerk at the start of the retrieve. I now want a bigger one. Or I might get the wire bending tools out...

The first blossoms of spring on the blackthorn gave way to the white cascades of the hawthorn a few weeks ago. As those began to fade last week the elder was already in bud and is now in flower. A sure sign that summer is almost here. So, with June a couple of days away, I was rather surprised to hear, and then see, a cuckoo calling late in the afternoon. That, and watching a group of tree creepers feeding and squabbling in the willows almost (almost) made up for the blank. How some people can sit reading books when they are fishing is beyond me, there's always something interesting going on in the natural world if you keep your eyes and ears open. In fact there was so much noise from the birds in the surrounding trees and undergrowth (chaffinch, robin, sedge warbler, great tit, blackbird, and more I didn't recognise) that I could hardly hear my radio at times!

---

Slow progress

It was back into the bunny suit after the brief heatwave. Not only was there a north-easterly blowing but there was also rain around. I managed to get set up in the dry after pondering my swim selection on the basis that nobody was catching much. The decision was made more on a whim than anything, selecting a deeper swim that hadn't been fished this season as far as I know. I kept the baiting to a minimum and cast three rods out all fishing different baits. Two method feeders were set up one fishing the standby of two grains of plastic corn, the other a 10mm pineapple Boosted Wrap. The third rod fished a maggot feeder with two plastic casters on the hair.

Unusually there were lots of small fish topping all along the bank from a few yards out to maybe thirty yards. Small fish don't often show on this lake, although I have had one day in three seasons that they have been a nuisance on the maggot rod. Grebes, terns and pike were making the most of this abundance of prey, all obviously catching small roach by the looks of things.

The first night was quiet. Not a peep from the alarms. Before dark I had swapped the Boosted Wrap for three 6mm Tutti boilie pellets, and when I started to wind them in in the morning a small pike of around two pounds grabbed them. Two red maggots were added to the bare hook on the plastic caster rig, and it wasn't long before a small roach was landed. Plenty of bites came to this rod, most failing to result in hooked fish. If I had scaled things down I'm sure that a number of small roach could have been had on single maggot. But that wasn't what I was after. Around noon the caster/maggot rod produced a bream of some five pounds, followed by another little roach.

Then, out of the blue, the alarm on the middle rod (fishing the corn) screamed out, and my best tench of the season so far was landed. Not fully filled out yet she was a sleek seven pounder. As I was weighing the tench the caster/maggot alarm bleeped once. The tench was sacked while I set up the camera and as I did so the line on the caster/maggot rod tightened and I pulled into what felt like a heavy bream. In the shallows it swirled and took some line, then all went slack. The hooklink had been bitten through. Pike. I guess that first bleep had been a roach hooking itself, to be taken by one of the pike patrolling the area.

The day was not exactly warm and not exactly cold. Despite the light rain, coming in showers of varying length, it wasn't unpleasant as things soon dried out when the rain eased off. The wind was cool, but not strong, although annoyingly unable to settle into one direction.

At eight in the evening a small bream picked up the caster/maggot combo, so for the dark hours I fished without the maggots - as I did for the following day. The idea being to leave the plastic casters to wait it out for a tench. Most of the night was quiet apart from a roach/bream hybrid of a couple of pounds that picked up a Boosted Wrap at one o'clock.

Sunday dawned brighter with the wind more steady in direction, and turned out quite warm in the afternoon. The grebes, terns and pike were joined by cormorants - all catching small fish well within casting range. One tern actually took a fish from the very edge, a foot or so from the marginal rushes. The bobbins, however, were still.

As I had had a flurry of activity around noon on the Saturday I intended to stop until one at the earliest, and stay longer if action was forthcoming. Sure enough, at a few minutes before twelve the bobbin on the caster rod dropped back slowly. So slowly I thought a small roach had picked up the bait, but when I wound into the fish it was obviously not a small roach but a tench. A six pound male as it turned out. This spurred me to stop longer. As the Test Match was interesting I thought I might as well listen until close of play. I did, but no further action was forthcoming.

A frustrating session is some ways, but the most tench action I've had on the lake so far this season. It certainly seems like there aren't many tench, and they are wandering around pretty much at random. If you pick the right swim then one or two might move through while you are there. As they are not moving around in shoals it doesn't make too much sense to put down big beds of bait. Having watched tench grazing in a bay two years ago I don't think they follow patrol routes. Those fish sometimes turned round and covered ground they had already been over. All pretty random as far as I could tell.

If this is what's happening then the light baiting/feeder approach is probably wise. There doesn't seem much point to pile in loads of feed and sit on it until the tench show up in numbers. It might be worth a try for the bream though.

A while back I got fed up of having to go and fetch my forceps from my rucksack when unhooking fish in the landing net, so I started clipping a pair to the mesh by the spreader block. This proved to be useful even when fish were to be weighed and were being unhooked on the mat. I wasn't too sure about the security of the forceps, so I pinned a 'zinger' to the net. This arrangement is working well so far - even if the 'zinger' is looking a bit rusty now!

---

Thin on the ground

Back in April when I caught my first tench of the year another angler landed one that he said he'd caught twice last season. I don't usually take pictures of other people's fish, but this one I did. It has a black spot near it's tail making it easy to identify.

Although that wasn't the reason I took the photo, I did remember that my biggest fish from the water last year also had a black spot on one flank, but I wasn't sure that it was in the same place.

Having only just got round to inspecting the photos closely I now know that the fish is one and the same, and it was caught from the same swim, albeit in different months. This does rather suggest that there isn't a huge head of tench in the lake.

---

Fish. No, really!

I was pretty sure I'd spotted a fish being returned up the opposite end of the lake on my last day there, so that was where I hoped to fish this time round. With the weather turning suddenly hot I reasoned that the shallows would have warmed and the tench would be mooching around them. As the prevailing wind had been blowing into that end of the lake that was a second reason for the choice.

Arriving in late afternoon I was surprised to see just one angler in the area, and only a couple more on the rest of the lake. A chat revealed that there had been a few tench caught in the area over the last week, but that the guy fishing there now hadn't had a bite for two days and nights. I then went for a look around as another option was a large shallow bay round the corner. An hour later I was setting up in the next comfortable swim to the bloke already fishing. The bay didn't look any more promising, and was a midge infested swamp!

By the time I started setting up camp the strong wind was easing to manageable proportions and everything calmed off nicely towards dusk and a night so mild that the bunny suit was surplus to requirements and the sleeping bag didn't need zipping up. I soon had a couple of indications to the maggot feeder, just twitches that could have been liners, which suggested there were fish in the area. With catches being just a few fish I kept the baiting minimal, ten or so spodsful of particles, dead maggots and pellet mush topped up with the method and maggot feeders.

Preparing to get some sleep the alarm on the middle rod with the trusty method feeder fishing two grains of plastic corn bleeped a couple of times. Popping my head out of the bivvy I saw the bobbin right up on a tight line. Lifting into the fish I felt the nodding weight of a bream. My first double from the water and, apart from a split tail fin, a nice clean, young looking fish.

Half an hour later the same alarm signalled a far more positive take, and after a good scrap a tench was landed. A female of five or six pounds. Things were looking good and I was anticipating more action through the night. It never came. One more twitch and that was it.

In the morning there were tench blowing over a wide area in front and to either side of me and the other angler, but as usual they didn't play ball. Out of the blue the other angler, who had broken his duck with a few small bream in the night, landed a male tench around ten o'clock with the sun beating down. He packed up shortly after and I was on my own on that length of bank watching the scummy algae and weed drifting on the surface as the bottom 'broke up' with the heat.

What little wind there was caused this scum do drift into, and collect on, my lines requiring it to be cleaned off at intervals or it would have clogged in the tip rings had I been lucky enough to hook a fish. As the water went calm when the sun set the scummy blobs remained on the surface slowly drifting straight in to me. When I got up in the night to see what might have caused a single bleep I spotted huge mats of scum drifting in. I put on back leads to prevent problems.

By dawn the scum had cleared, but the wind failed to gain any real strength and more blobs started to appear. I decided that the best plan was to move upwind to find a spot where the wind would drift the scum away from me. With the sultry conditions there were plenty of pike basking in the marginal shallows, all either small or very small.

Although the swim I picked had produced a few double figure bream over the last couple of weeks, and I had seen tench bubbles moving through it last week, the afternoon, night and first four hours of daylight were completely fishless. I'm sure that it was a combination of bright sunshine and lack of wind, plus the bottom 'breaking up', that was the reason the fishing was patchy. The lake is either going to switch on big style soon, or continue to be moody for the rest of the spring. Knowing my luck it's going to be the latter.

---

No fish (the real blog)

Three nights (as in four evenings and three mornings with most of Sunday spent away from the water) with hardly a sign of fish until I was packing up when some fish, maybe hybrids, showed at dusk. The first two nights were spent in a swim that isn't a swim, but plumbing around with the MkII modifed plumbing rig found something interesting, the south-westerly was blowing into the area and all looked good. Apart from three or four single bleeps during the hours of darkness the alarms remained silent. Which is more than can be said for the coots.

The lake is certainly waking up. Not only are coots sitting on eggs (when not squabbling amongst themselves) the swans and geese are nesting too. The cuckoo was calling at dawn each day and the hobbies are back in town. In the water the invertebrate activity in the margins has increased, so I assume the fish activity will be doing the same.

I have to admit that after moving for the final night I did spy some tench bubbles at one point. What looked like a couple of fish moving through a bay. I had a cast at them, and would have moved if they hadn't been moving through so quickly - and I hadn't already put the last of my bait in for the night.

Not much (if anything) was caught at my end of the lake while I was there. So maybe the bulk of the fish have moved with the change in the temperature. It was t-shirt weather at times, and the rain was that summery sort that doesn't make you chilly and soon dries from the grass.

Two good things to come from the session were the upgraded plumbing rig, and the foamed baits. I'd noticed that after very little use the cork balls between lead and float were getting damaged, mainly by the clip on the end of the line. Opening up my pike box to find a hard plastic bead to act as a buffer I spotted my bait poppers. Two birds, one stone. They could replace the cork ball and alleviate the need for a plastic bead - as they are hollow hard plastic. I also cut up a single leg rod ring and added a snap link to it to provide a hi-tech run ring. Knowing my luck it will crack, but I'll stick with it for the time being.

The other step forward is one I've been trying to make for ages. I'd seen PVA foam used on his hooklinks by Terry Lampard in an issue of Coarse Angling Today a couple of years ago. Unfortunately it wasn't the issue in which he'd explained how it was done and it looked like the stuff had been sliced and the line slotted in to it. I tried that and it failed - the foam flying off on the cast. Then last week I had a blinding flash of inspiration. If you can call it a flash when it took two years to happen! I'm sure this must have been written about a million times, but I obviously read the wrong magazines. Take a piece of foam, lick one side of it, fold it round the hooklink and hook point and squeeze. The damp PVA sticks to itself and the lump stays put.

Much better than fiddling about putting the foam chunks in PVA stocking. D'oh!

---

When you see a good idea - nick it!

For some time I have been struggling to find a tangle free way of rigging up a marker float. I've tried different shaped floats, bits of tube, links on the lead, all sorts. None worked with any degree of satisfaction. The other week I spotted an angler's marker rig and a little light went on in my head. I'd tried one cork ball between my big eyed swivel and the float, but not three. As well as acting as an anti tangle device this also adds a fair bit of buoyancy to the float. Trying it out on The Crow Pit it seems to work well, the float only failing to surface when the whole lot got buried in weed and not tangling once.

What the plumbing revealed was a small clear patch about twenty yards out. So that was where I kept casting a method feeder and a maggot feeder. Another maggot feeder went down the edge. It soon became apparent that the clear patch was either not all that clear, or it was smaller than I thought. So, the feeder on The Rig had it's hooklength increased to seven inches, and the size sixteen with three live maggots was swapped to a sixteen with three live maggots on the hook and a plastic caster on the hair to give a slower fall. Furthermore I added a bit of PVA foam. Now I have a problem with PVA foam. For some reason it always comes off the hook too quickly for me. So I popped it into some PVA mesh and nicked the hook in that. It worked!

I had arrived later than I hoped, starting fishing around one o'clock. Around two thirty I started to get drop backs to the maggot feeder on the clear patch. I suspected roach to be the culprits for some reason. This activity didn't last long, and I couldn't be bothered shortening the hooklink again to get a hook up. After all, I was tench fishing.

Out of the blue, at five, the method rod was away. I picked the rod up, felt the fish kick, and with the line under little tension everything went slack. For some inexplicable reason the mainline had parted. I had only recently tied on a fresh hooklength with a 10mm pineapple boilie and a piece of floating plastic corn on the hair. So I can't see it having been knot failure. But you never know.

An hour later I was stood by the rods staring vacantly over the water when I hear the thud, dink, clunk, bzzzzzz of an indicator hitting the rod, the line pinging out of the clip, the indicator hitting the rod pod and the baitrunner whirring. The caster/maggot rig was away, and it wasn't a roach. After a decent scrap on the 1lb 10oz Interceptor I had a chunky male tench in the net.

The next bite also came to this rod, an up and downer that eventually held at the top. Lifting into something it didn't feel large but could have been a small tench, until it flashed silver. There were roach out there, and this one scraped over the pound mark. The other two that managed to hang themselves, from numerous bites, were about half that size. Now I'm trying to work out how to avoid roach!No self take photos this time as something has gone awol from my tripod. Just when I'd got the bulb release sorted too...

For the first time this spring I was able to fish without the bunny suit. Even when I packed up at dark it was still mild, and the light showers hadn't proved an inconvenience, barely requiring the waterproof jacket. With a first tench from a 'new' water under my belt it had been a good day.

I had gone fishing for two reasons. One was because my plans to work Monday to Wednesday morning and fish the rest of the week had been scuppered by the late arrival of rod blanks, limiting me to the Friday only. The other was the arrival of some goodies from Sonubaits. They're not really a sponsor as such, I just happen to know someone who works there.

Not being much of a bait fiend I actually get more excited by the simple stuff than the latest 'guaranteed' fish catching gimmicky baits. That's why I was keen (as in having run out of groundbait) to try out their method mix and Hemp and Hali Crush which are just what they claim to be and full of 'bits' for the fish to browse on. Add the two together and you have something that should appeal to the tincas. I already had faith in their feed pellets when added to a method mix so some of them joined the two groundbaits in the bowl.

I was also sent some 10mm Boosted Wraps in pineapple flavour to try. These are a pretty simple birdfood boilie by the looks of things, but with a peculiar jellylike flavoured coating. It was one of these, on the method rod, that I lost the tench on. At least I know they don't actively repel fish, so they'll be getting further outings. The groundbaits certainly will.

---

When the wind's in the east...

Although the forecast was for strong to gale force easterlies I had nothing to do on Thursday and no prospect of any blanks arriving on Friday so I packed my tench gear and headed south. It was hardly a thrilling sight that greeted me, and boy was it cold in the wind. I settled in next to the only other angler on the sheltered bank and took my time setting up. There had been a few tench coming out since my first visit but the cold wind seemed to have slowed things right down.

With few tench moving I didn't pile the bait in and concentrated on recasting the feeders to put free offerings in. It wasn't until after dark, around ten fifteen that a single bleep stirred me just as I was starting to nod off. The bobbin was dropping back on the left hand rod which had cast a method feeder, rigged with the standby of two grains of plastic corn, as far as I could heave it. When I connected it felt like the first tench of the year, and after it had tried kiting into the next swim a couple of times I got it in the net. No monster, but nice to get that first fish under the belt.

The wind showed no sign of abating and kept up all day Friday. Around tea time the angler next to me landed a tench, and just before dark I dropped a hybrid off - the bite again coming to the long-chuck method rod. Friday night continued cool, windy and fishless, as did Saturday morning. With rain forecast I packed away the gear at ten o'clock and headed home. Under the conditions I felt like I'd done reasonably well.

Most of my time was spent watching the birdlife; martins, swallows and terns swooping over the water, courting grebes, and a pair of coots building their nest. It really annoys me when people say anglers disturb wildlife. Not only did one bloke have a mole pushing up earth in his bivvy, but the coots were building their nest about thirty feet from me and I had no trouble getting closer to take a photo.

---

New toys and April showers

Having bought myself three new reels recently I have been itching to try them out. I have been looking for an intermediate size baitrunner-type reel for some time. The Okuma Epix Pro 30s that I use for perching have been great. Nice and smooth with a reasonable front drag too. But they are a little small for tenching, while I find the Shimano Aeros just a tad too large and don't like the fact that the various size spools are fitted to one size of body. That was why I got myself three Daiwa Regals last spring, but they proved a bit frail in my hands. The bale arms bent just by looking at them for one thing!

After a bit of interweb surfing I settled on the Tica Sportera 3507. These have the size of spool I want with a body that is in proportion. The baitrunner lever (or Hit and Run lever as Tica call it) operates the same way as the Shimanos I'm used to - unlike the Daiwas - so eliminating confusion. Initial impressions are good, but of course new tackle means blanking, so I'll have to report back more fully later in the year!

First time out was an afternoon roach fishing session in the same area of the lake that had produced on my last couple of sessions. Result? Five hours before I got a bite, followed by a small roach and a Tommy ruffe...

Undeterred I loaded the spare spools with some heavier line and headed for The Crow Pit, which I had never set eyes on before. The day was cold and wet as I set off, but although there were showers forecast (which duly arrived), I found a sheltered little sun trap to spend a pleasant afternoon watching swallows and martins from. Crystal clear water with no features I could find, and few clear spots, I fished three rods for almost eight hours with one half hearted bite (to double maggot) for my trouble. This was more an exploratory session, as much as to actually find the place as anything, than a determined attempt to catch some tench (or bream). That's what I keep telling myself, at least.

---

Book Review - A Time for Tench

It's that time of year again, and if you are thinking of doing some tench fishing over the coming months and haven't read Time for Tench by Chris Turnbull then I suggest you snap up one of the few remaining copies of this excellent book.

Instructional, anecdotal and inspirational Chris has provided something for everyone. Each chapter is in two parts dealing with the topic in hand, be that bait, tactics or whatever. The first part deals with the practicalities in detail, while the second relates a tale that is relevant to that topic illustrating how what you have just read has applied in practice.

There are masses of colour photos of big tench and tenching scenes throughout which can't fail to make you to want to catch a few of these red eyed beasties, and there are Chris's own hand drawn illustrations of rigs and so forth to clearly show how things should be set up.

Without a doubt one of the best angling books I have read in a long time, and one I keep dipping into each spring - even if only to look at the pictures to remind myself what a tench looks like!

It's priced at £24.95 plus £4.00 p&p from Harnser Books at 48 Hansard Rd, Norwich, Norfolk NR3 2PX.

---

The Rig

As promised here's a description of The Rig that I have been using with some success for a number of species. There are a number of variables that can be changed to suit the baits being used and fish being sought but two constants are 14lb ESP Power Gum and Drennan Grippa Stops.

I don't claim this to be an original idea, far from it, as it is in fact a variation on the helicopter roach rig described on FISHINGmagic by Andy Nellist. I wonder if Andy has ever been a carp angler? Because his rig seems overly complicated to me! Admittedly the Grippa Stops weren't around when that rig was described, and they do make the rig more streamlined.

The first thing I got rid of was the upper hook. I have a hatred of double hook rigs ever since I watched an idiot (there is no other word for him) fishing one with two hair rigged boilies for tench in thick weed at Sywell back in the dark ages. He was getting runs okay, but unsurprisingly losing more fish than he was landing (which wasn't many). Why he couldn't work out that the hook with no fish attached was the problem I haven't a clue, but I saw him retackle with the same double hook rig...

Anyway, here's The Rig.

I first knot the Power Gum to a size 10 Power Swivel using a four turn Uni Knot, then add a Grippa Stop followed by a size 12 Power Swivel and the second Grippa Stop of the pair. Finally a Hiro Rollsnap is knotted to the other end of the Power Gum. The snap link can be any kind you like really as it only serves as a quick change device for removing the feeder when packing the rods away, so it doesn't clatter about when the rod is broken down rigged up with the hook placed in a rod ring, but the Rollsnaps are quite neat.

The length of the Power Gum isn't critical, but should be at least twice the length of your hooklink and no more than twelve inches. I suppose that the longer it is the more shock absorbancy there is - which would be handy with very light hooklinks. The hooklink should be no more than four inches long, it's strength and the hook size being determined by what you are fishing for. I must say that I have found that with these short hooklinks fine line is not too critical, so I rarely go below 0.11 Reflo Powerline even with a size 20 Animal.

You can either tie up your own hooklinks, with a loop to make gauging length easier and to facilitate quick changes with cold hands, or if you find small hooks fiddly to tie you can buy hooks to nylon which you can cut down to suit.

Some people might prefer to set the Grippa Stops closer to the Rollsnap so the bait lies at the side of the feeder, but even with the little bit of silicone tube over the small swivel acting as a boom I find the hook can get stuck in one of the holes in the feeder. Placing the stops so the hook lies just above the lower knot makes the rig less tangle prone and doesn't seem to affect catches.

On stillwaters you fish The Rig on a tight line with a heavy bobbin to show dropbacks, which is what the vast majority of bites are unless you are on a commercial full of daft carp! Where carp are a possibility then a baitrunner should be used and engaged, but where they are not a problem I have managed fine with a standard fixed spool reel. I've even used this on rivers using a quiver tip as bite indication and it has worked superbly.

As well as using The Rig to catch my target species I have also taken to using it to supply myself with livebaits as it requires no effort and is a pretty foolproof self hooker. Just cast out The Rig with a size 20 and a single maggot and wait for something to hang itself. A packet of hooks to nylon and a couple of Power Gum links now live in my pike box!

One word of caution. Make sure that the hooklength is always lighter than the main line, and certainly no heavier than five pounds, just as a safety measure. For use with heavier hooklengths then a safer feeder rig is this one. I have recently streamlined this rig by swapping the Run Ring for a Rollsnap, and replacing the upper bead and stop knot with a Grippa Stop. So far it seems to work.

---

Here comes summer

Seeing my first swallow of the year doesn't guarantee that summer is on it's way, but breaking out the overnight gear does. This first tench session of the spring was as much to check the gear out and see what didn't work as to try and catch some tench. In fact part of the plan (!) was to fish for perch. So I was sort of pleased to find the favoured early season tench swims all taken and my preferred perch area vacant.

A lobworm went out first, swiftly followed by a maggot feeder fishing two plastic casters on a variation of The Rig. Then I set about rigging up two more tench rods and making camp for the night. I could only manage the one night as I had an appointment with a customer arranged for Saturday morning. Which was handy as the forecast was for Friday night to show a drop in temperature!
Before this session I already knew that my sleeping bag was due for replacement and had picked up a new one from Aqua earlier in the week, and a couple of days later I discovered the waders I had bought this time last year were goosed. So a cheap pair were purchased when I bought my maggots en route to the lake. Apart from a dead isotope in one of my bobbins everything else seemed to be functioning well. A third rod went out with a method feeder and a 10mm pineapple pop-up on it. During darkness the worm rod would be swapped for another maggot feeder, this one an in-line job, also fishing two fake casters. Around seven as the sun was starting to sink I got a drop-back on the middle rod fishing a variation of The Rig and a nice surprise roach/rudd hybrid was landed.
By ten o'clock I was tucked up in my cosy new sleeping bag and drifting off to sleep. Although I was undisturbed by fish I slept fitfully as I usually do on the first night, or if doing just one night. Come morning and the feeders' contents were replenished and launched back out just over the weed edge. Shortly after breakfast there was a storming drop-back on the in-line feeder rod and I connected with something that had more life in it than the hybrid. I was thinking that my first, albeit small, tench of the year was on it's way to the net. After a bit of charging about under the rod tip I got a real shock when a spiny dorsal broke surface and a perch slid into the mesh. A decent one too, but covered in leeches.

Two plastic casters on a short hooklink and a semi-fixed feeder is hardly your actual perch method of choice, but this is my fifth, and biggest at a shade over three pounds, to the method. Food for thought? I hastily cast out a worm on a more traditional running feeder rig, but it was ignored for a few hours before I swapped it for another feeder rig and two more plastic casters.

The day progressed quietly. I failed to connect with a couple of bites, one to the boilie and one to caster and that was it. At five I put the stove on to heat up a tin of Irish stew, and before it was hot enough to eat the middle rod was away. The only trouble with using 2.25lb rods for this sort of game is that size 16 hooks can easily be ripped out if you apply too much pressure, so I tend to play fish gently by backwinding. I've reverted to the rods I used the season before last, rather than continue with my 2lb Torrixes, because they seem to handle better the heavy modified Black Cap feeders and method feeders I like using . The action is less tippy but the overall power quite similar.

Anyway, the fish was netted and proved to be another hybrid, this time a personal best roach/bream of over five pounds. Some people may scorn hybrids, but a fish is a fish and a PB a PB! Sacked up while I polished off the stew it was quickly snapped and returned.

With just three hours or so of daylight left I had two more fish, both small, one a skimmer which somehow managed to remove one of my casters from the hair (I did retrieve it so no need to fret!), and the other a roach which took two red maggots that I had replaced the casters with.

Maybe no tench, but five fish, all different, (including a hoped-for perch by accident!) and one personal best made for an enjoyable 28 hours or so.

Out with a whimper

One final attempt to catch a fish, any fish, before the year's end came to nothing despite the river looking great and rising in temperature. Still, it was a more pleasant experience than last time with next to no wind and an overcast sky keeping the air temperature up after dark. Even though I blanked it's made me keen to get out again. Things can only get better!

If 2007 had carried on as well as it started of I'd have had a phenomenal year's fishing. As it was things started to fizzle out around October. Even so I'm not complaining. I beat my bream pb three times, my perch and tench pbs twice, caught a pb barbel and my first ever grayling.

Unlike 2006 I got the springtime perch fishing in, paying off big time, and the tench campaign worked more or less to plan this time round. The double figure bream were also a nice interlude. Again I enjoyed the fishing, especially exploring new-to-me stretches of river in search of barbel. Fishing new and different places - and catching fish doing it - is always enjoyable and enlightening.

• Tench - 9-04
• Barbel - 13-09
• Perch - 4-12
• Bream - 12-06
  
• Roach/Bream Hybrid - 4-11
• Chub - 5-04
• Carp - 13
• Grayling - not very big!

Here's to a great 2008!

One last try

Despite the barbel bug biting I had a new blank I wanted to try out for casting method feeders. I also got the impression the tench hadn't spawned the last time I fished for them and there would be a slim chance that, given the weather since then, they might still be carrying spawn. So it was that I got my work for the week out of the way and was getting down to sorting the gear out for a final tench session when the phone rang. It was an invite back to the gravel pit to try for the bream, doubles had been coming out hand over fist. Why not? The gear would be the same, I'd still get a chance to try the new blank out and even though the tench would have spawned on the pit an eight or two might be on the cards.

The carp fishing had been slow by all accounts and I got the pick of the swims - so I settled in on the gravel bar that had been producing the bream. A few casts with the plumbing rod soon found the bar, but there were large patches of bubbles coming to the right of the bar in what felt like a weed free area. One rod on the bar, one where the bubbles were rising. As I was targeting the bream I'd added some Vitalin and brown crumb to my hemp/molases meal/pellet/pv1 mix, saving some back for catapulting out in balls.

It didn't take long before the indicator on the new rod cast to the bar was telling the line bite tale. I knew I'd get a fish when the stars came out. Sure enough around ten thirty the left hand, bar rod, indicator rose and held steady. The typical dead weight and occasional thump confirmed the presence of a bream on the end of the line. It was a dead ringer (bar two ounces) for the two I caught last time, again picking up the trusty double plastic corn bait.

I didn't get much sleep as liners kept the bobbins moving at regular intervals but didn't get another fish. As it came light I switched the method rod on the bar to a maggot feeder/fake caster rig which produced a surprisingly plump tench just after eight am. They hadn't spawned. July 11th and the tench hadn't spawned. Most odd. But I wasn't complaining when a bigger one, proving to be a new personal best, and the next step on the big tench ladder climbed, took the corn fished off the bar. It's not often that a new rod proves lucky, but this one did just what I wanted it to - cast method balls well, and play big fish nicely. Although the tip is stiffer than the Torrixes I have been using all spring, and so casts heavy method balls better, the playing action comes further down the blank with no hint of lock-up.

Despite a few tench rolling and tail-slapping no more were caught during the day, although three more bream came along followed by another at half eleven. A fake pop-up pellet on a method rig produced one of them, the others all taking corn. The rest of the night was quiet and I got a few hours kip. The following morning produced another three bream, to the corn, before I packed up and headed for the water I had been concentrating most of my efforts on this spring/summer. It had been a successful session, eight bream (six over ten pounds), and a couple of tench. Just as well given what was to follow...

On arrival the water looked a picture, yet it was all but devoid of anglers. Just one was fishing despite it being a Thursday. A month ago would have seen it a struggle to find a free swim between Wednesday afternoon and Sunday evening. This meant that I could set up where I'd succeeded a fortnight ago. This time I got more than a few hours undisturbed sleep... The opening of the rivers and the way the water had been fishing had combined to create an exodus to pastures new, and that's where I'll be heading next time!

Make your mind up

I'd been debating whether to have another tench session for most of the week, mainly because the weather forecast was for rain, more rain, and a little more rain. I put it off until the forecast had worsened then decided to go anyway. As I arrived on the Sunday afternoon conditions were grand, light wind from the south west, sunshine and warm. I pretty much had the choice of swims and headed for the shallows, even though the the track was a bit slippy and the car didn't always go the way it was supposed to. While setting the rods up a few spots of drizzle fell so up went the brolly, but the shower soon passed and two method feeders were out and a boilie rig with a bag of pellets - all at staggered ranges. The dreaded maggot feeder having been abandoned.

Things looked good, and a couple of fish rolled. As so often has been the case, conditions that appeared perfect failed to result in any fish. After dark it started to rain, as per the forecast but not as heavy as expected. During the night the wind swung round forcing me to reposition the brolly twice. Apart from hooking a small bream which fell off close in those were the only disturbances during the night. The morning dawned dry, but the wind decided to swing round yet again, and blow straight into the brolly, so I had to turn it round again. Soon after more rain came along.

The first fish of the day came around 6.30, a bream of five or six pounds that fell to the method rod fishing a 10mm boilie with a grain of fake corn.

A little over an hour later a proper run to the other method rod with the two grains of corn resulted in a tench of just under eight pounds. Result. Both method rods soon had corn on them.

The rain faded away and the day turned out warm when the sun broke through the constantly changing cloudscape. Meanwhile on the radio I was hearing tales of serious flooding in other parts of the country. It seemed unbelievable with the weather I was experiencing as I reeled in a succession of bream in the three to five pound range. You can only take so many small bream, so I started to drop the second feeder a bit closer in, which did the trick of avoiding the bream.

Late in the afternoon the wind swung round yet again. Would it never make up its mind and settle into coming from one direction? With the brolly moved, I settled down to make something to eat. The wind strengthened, forming white caps on the waves. I have found that this kind of a blow has often brought the tench on the feed, and as I finished off a tin of Irish stew a tench decided it fancied two 10mm boilies for its tea. Fighting a big six with the rod, and the wind with the landing net was quite a tricky job. But I managed it. Forty minutes later the boilie rod was away again, this turned out to be fantastic looking big seven - the pictures failing to do it justice.

I was expecting another tench at any moment, but a small bream to one of the method rods was the final fish before the heavens opened - and the wind changed up a gear. By now the alarms were bleeping all the time, the rods arced round, and when I wound one rod in the line was festooned with weed. It was starting to get silly. The rigs wouldn't be fishing effectively, and the weed gathering on the line would have posed problems had a fish been hooked.

When the brolly tried to change shape it was decision time again. During the day the track had dried out nicely and would have been easy to drive down, but the rain over the last couple of hours had turned it to slime again. Option one: wind the rods in, batten down the hatches, sleep through the storm and fish again in the morning when it had all calmed down. Option two: pack up immediately and make a run for it - keeping fingers and toes crossed that the car wouldn't get bogged down.

Deciding that I was supposed to be enjoying myself I hastily, and roughly, packed the gear away as the rain lashed down, slinging the gear in the back of the car anywhere it would fit. Now for the fun bit - don't stop the forward motion once the car is moving! It started off easily enough on firm ground, then came the rutted dip. Down into it was easy, then the wheels began to spin faster than they were moving forward. Slowly the car came up the other side, painfully made progress up the next slope, then it was downhill all the way. So long as I didn't collide with a sheep I'd made it!

Was I relieved to make it to the gate? You bet! I guess I should have been more decisive earlier in the week and fished sooner to avoid the bad weather I knew was due. But hey ho, it had worked out okay in the end. Now, shall I have another crack at the tench or start barbel fishing? I'm not sure...

A mixed bag - of fish and weather

I was in two minds about this session. The rivers had opened the day before and were up and coloured. Barbel would be feeding. However I had one of those indefinable feelings telling me to go tenching again. The weather forecast was not great, with heavy showers and prolonged spells of rain forecast over the next couple of days, even though it was a glorious summer's afternoon as I headed south and remained pleasantly warm as I settled into my chosen swim.

Swim selection had also been the result of a hunch, it being one I hadn't fished before, but it felt right. A small roach/bream hybrid took a couple of plastic casters almost straight away, but by the time it went dark nothing else had happened. As night fell so did the forecast rain, which, although not heavy, lasted all night. The only action to the rods during darkness being an occasional line bite or tufty activity.

Dawn broke calm and dry but it wasn't until six o'clock that a positive bite registered. The method feeder rod tore off and a tench was hooked, only for it to fall off when it hit a patch of weed. The hook came back draped in Canadian pondweed and a small piece of plastic bag. After that bream started showing up, not large, the biggest being around the six pound mark, but they came along at intervals during the day. At quarter past ten, after a couple of bream had been landed on the double caster/maggot feeder rod the corn on the method rod was away again and a six pound tench safely landed.

Around one o'clock the first of the showers arrived right on cue after a few fish had rolled in my swim. I had switched to two method feeders by now, both fishing two grains of plastic corn, as that seemed to be the going method to catch the tench. For what it's worth the mix I was using consisted of hemp, molasses meal, assorted 4mm and 6mm halibut and Sonu feed pellets bound together with p.v.1 binder.

By two o'clock it was raining hard enough for me to be willing the bobbins to remain still when the one on the caster rod started doing its up-and-down going-nowhere bream dance. The rain was pounding on the brolly so hard I couldn't hear the Delkim! I threw on my jacket and landed the fish as quickly as possible, recasting an empty feeder just so I could dive back under cover. But as I reset the indicator I noticed that the bobbin on the middle method rod was up to the top and the line as taut as a bowstring. Again I had heard nothing. The bream had obviously moved in.

On picking the rod up the fish was weeded but steady pressure got it moving towards me. A couple of thumps told me the fish was still on and I wasn't just dragging a ball of weed in. Two more thumps and the 'bream' came free, took a bit of line and kited to my left. Ooops. It was a tench! Standing out in the lake in my waders with the rain lashing into me would not have made for the traditional tench fishing scene. Again the hook held, and after a good scrap my biggest fish off the water so far was in the net.

Such was the changeable nature of the weather that by the time I had the fish weighed and ready for the snaps the sun was shining, and as soon as the fish was returned it was hot enough to get my damp gear dried out!

The rest of the afternoon was quiet, apart from the unusual, to me at least, experience of catching two perch on fake casters. One weighed in at 1lb 12oz. The amount of fry to be seen in the margins explained the presence of the perch. Maybe I should have put a worm out to see if there were any bigger ones around.

The afternoon turned into a glorious evening and brought the bream which showed at intervals into dark. An hour or so before dark I had swapped the maggot feeder for a straight leger with two 10mm boilies, and just before 10 o'clock something made off with them at a rate of knots. How I failed to hook it was mystery. A little doubt crept in over this, was the hair too long? A bream shortly after and a roach/bream hybrid of 4lb 11oz at 1 o'clock set my mind at rest on that score.

The following dawn was more like you would expect at this time of year, flat calm with wisps of mist rolling over the surface of the water. Again the tench refused to roll and bubble to complete the picture. It wasn't until 5.40 am that the final tench of the session made an appearance, a five pounder that was in a rather sorry state around the vent. I caught up on some sleep and packed away my gear as the midday shipping forecast interrupted the commentary from the fourth test.

Method Feeder Rig

Without a doubt this rig, in various guises, has proved to be my most successful so far this spring. Various feeders have been tried and I have settled on the Drennan's for now. The only 'faults' with the feeders are that the tail rubbers are a bit of a slack fit, easily cured by a dab of super glue, and the hole through the tail rubber is very small - only a problem if you are visually handicapped!


All dead simple. Mould some groundbait laced with hemp and pellets around the feeder, chuck the lot out, set the bobbins, sit back and wait.

A larger swivel could be used for attaching the hooklink, but I like to make the link come out stiffly from the feeder using the silicone tubing to completely eliminate tangles. While I have mostly been using two grains of plastic corn the rig works equally well with other baits, popped up or on the bottom.

Maggot Feeder Rig

Last year I was using a helicopter variant as my maggot feeder rig, but changing hooklinks was a bit of a pain and I was never convinced that it was all that good a rig anyway. Although this one uses more components than I'd really like it is pretty simple, and easily converted to a straight leger rig. I don't like quick-change connectors between my main line and hooklink, preferring to retie the knot. It takes only a few seconds longer, ensures that the knot isn't neglected and makes the rig more streamlined. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

The feeder is a 30gm Kamasan Blackcap, and the backlead shoved inside it is around 30gm too. This makes for a feeder that flies well, is heavy enough to tighten up to without moving and which still sits horizontal on the lake bed. Using a sliding Powergum Stop Knot to trap the Run Ring between two beads makes the hooklink stand out from the main line on the cast, and gives me the option to quickly change to a free running rig should I so desire - by sliding the knot up the line a few feet.

For what it's worth I have been using Daiwa Infinity Duo as mainline, in the 0.285 diameter. I quote the diameter because this line is IGFA rated at 12lb, so it will break below that. I have heard it said that Duo is bad for line twist, but I have actually found it to be less prone to twisting than Sensor. Maybe it's the fact that the two-tone colouration of the line that makest he line twist readily visible that has given Duo this reputation?

It was the limpness of Duo that attracted me to it in the first place, and it has proved good in that respect once loaded on the reels, and it seems pretty abrasion resistant too. Reflo Powerline has been a good reliable hooklink material so far, in both 0.19 for the casters and 0.21 for corn. It's maybe not as limp as it could be in short lengths, but it is very clear and I can't see the need to delve into the murky world of fluorocarbons when this stuff is avialable.

One thing I don't like about using plastic baits is trapping them on the hair using a bait stop. It looks kind of clumsy, although I know full well it doesn't put the fish off. Even so I have had problems with artificial baits falling off the hair, so when using casters and pellets I tie them on to the hair. That way they ain't going nowhere!

While I have read that Kamasan Animals are not particularly sharp hooks, my experience has been different. Even so, it's no great hardship to run a file over a hook if the point is not up to snuff. When I want to use a small hook the Animal is the one I go for.

So that's about it. Maybe not the most exciting rig, but it seems to work well enough.

It's not what you do, but where you do it.

This time last year I took up an offer of some tench fishing on a southern gravel pit, and came away with a new PB, beating the one I had caught a few days earlier on another water. They say you should never go back, but another invite was forthcoming and off I went - to discover the tench fishing had slowed down, but some decent bream had been showing up.

The swim I had been told to head for was taken but the carp anglers were helpful when they knew I was after tench and I headed for another swim at the same end of the lake. Tench started showing almost immediately and I had soon located a nice hard patch not too far out. Apparently a maggot feeder approach had been sorting the tench out, so I started out with one rod on that, with three red maggots on the hook, and a method feeder with my trusty grains of plastic corn on the other rod. Half a dozen small spodsfull of hemp went out and I sat back. The tench continued to show but the bobbins remained inactive.

As darkness fell an eel of about a pound took the maggots, so that rod was switched to another method feeder, but with a single plastic pellet on the hair. At half past eleven the corn rod tried to spring into life, but as it was a bream that had picked up the 'corn' it wasn't exactly hyper. The dead weight on the end of the line told it's story, a couple of tail slaps as it neared the net and I had my first double in the net. In the past I had scoffed at people fishing for bream, but now I could see the attraction. When they get to that sort of size they look like another species.

The next time an alarm sounded it was a proper screamer, and at two in the morning it was a bit of a shock. Unfortunately the hook point made contact with the pellet and I failed to hook the fish.

At dawn the tench were rolling and tail slapping again, so the maggot feeder went back out, this time with two plastic casters on the hair. I do like these plastic baits. However it was the corn that was off again, and a hard scrapping seven pounder, the deepest bodied tench I have ever seen, was netted and returned. I didn't bother with a photo as the way the tench were rolling in the area I was sure more would be following soon. Well, if more than twelve hours later is soon, one did!

Having a chat and a cup of tea with my host when he called to see me after work the casters headed for the hills. This tench fought harder than the first one, and I was concerned about the hold the size 16 hook had. Rightly so as it fell out in the net. In the sling and weighed it was a new personal best by two ounces.


As you can see above, I let some old bloke hold it for the photograph...

Despite more tench activity on the surface the infuriating fish would not pick up my baits. So, in preparation for some more bream activity I again rigged up two method feeders and lay back for some sleep. I was awoken around two by a very dodgy take to the corn rod, and it was like Groundhog Day as the perfect twin, to the ounce, of the first night's bream was netted. This time I made a slightly better job of the photos, though.


The final morning dawned damp, and again tench were everywhere. Only one small one deigned to pick up one of my artificial offerings, and picking a lull in the rain I packed up and headed for the water I have been fishing since April.

Talking to the anglers already there things had gone from bad to worse and very little action was being had - although one bloke I was talking to as he set up stall had fish rolling all over the place in front of him. I chose to head for a swim that, although usually popular, hadn't been fished for some weeks. As soon as I had my baits out a good tench rolled over them. More visual signs of tench followed before dark and at dawn, more so than usual on this venue, but take my baits they would not. A move was called for and a chat with other anglers to see what had been occurring. Not a lot. The guy who had a swim full of tench had not had a sniff! What to do? Pick a swim with no tench activity?

I set up away from the rolling fish, but not too far away,and put out some bait again. Felt confident. Saw tench over the bait. And blanked. The following morning dawned foggy, and when it lifted and the chill went from the air I called it quits. Just goes to show that you have to be on feeding fish to catch them.

Bump - back down to earth

Armed with my successful new tactics, brimming with confidence and encouraged by the weather I was back again for three, maybe four nights of tench packed fishing. The wind direction suggested that the tench should still be in the same place as last week, and although I actually hoped to get a different swim the one I fancied was already occupied and I settled into the one I had fished last week. Baits out by five o'clock and it was only a matter of time before the tench would start crawling up the rods.

Despite an almost perfect sunset it was dark by the time a five pound male tried to eat my fake corn at 10.25. As it was bound to be the first of many more tench I didn't bother with a photo, and I didn't bother taking a picture of the small roach/bream hybrid that picked the same bait up at four am, nor the tufty that had expressed a liking for a fake pellet half an hour earlier. Something was bound to happen during the morning, and it did. A pike snaffled the corn on the way in, and nearly made it to the net before it bit through the hooklink. Nothing else showed any interest in my baits until I decided on a move at eight the following morning when a pike of four or five pounds nailed a 10mm boilie as I began to wind it in. This one was hooked in the scissors and was safely landed and returned.

I had two areas in mind for the move, and despite expecting a late arrival to have nabbed my first choice swim it was still free. The angler was fishing twenty or thirty yards from it and had just returned a tench as I approached. My mind made up I set up in swim choice one. After a few hours someone in the area I had marked down as choice number two landed a fish. Not to worry, things were still looking good. The afternoon was pleasant and it felt like a take could be imminent at any time. In area choice two it was, as I saw another fish landed... Dusk arrived, a tench rolled, and the wind swung round into the brolly, bringing a little drizzle with it, so I turned it round. Cosy again, I settled in for the night staring at the motionless isotopes.

Then the wind swung back where it had started from and brought more drizzle of a heavier nature. I moved the brolly back just before the drizzle became rain. Just after midnight, during a dry spell, I got a drop back that was the result of a liner. On recasting there was a tentative take on the corn and I lifted into an obvious bream.

For once it wasn't a skimmer, and although it wasn't a monster it was the biggest I had ever hooked so it got it's photo taken in the dark - in more rain. Shortly after recasting I had another line bite which I ignored. Every so often until dawn I would be woken by yet another liner on the same rod. Somehow I rather suspected that a smallish bream had hung itself - so it proved when I decided to rebait and recast the rods in daylight when the rain had cleared.

A nice ripple on the water as the sun rose and the day warmed up should surely have heralded tench activity. But no. Not a sniff. Deciding to call it quits I was on the road home by half past twelve. A few days of work will ensue to reappraise the situation and plan the next part of the campaign after this minor setback.

Nothing succeeds like success

When you are blanking it's all too easy to stay at home when you really should be out there doing it. Conversely when you have had a good session you will move heaven and earth to get back and do it again. After my last session I was definitely in the latter mode. I had hoped to get away on Wednesday and return home on Friday as I had to be somewhere on Saturday morning, but Wednesday didn't pan out. Either I could do an overnighter Thursday-to-Friday or fish through until early Saturday morning. I decided to push my luck.

There was fairly strong north-westerly pushing down the lake, and fish had been caught close to where I had caught last time. So I set up on the downwind side of the willow and fished baits on the edge of the mudline being created off the point to my right. It didn't take long before tench number one made off with a couple of grains of fake corn on the method feeder rod. A male with a rather tatty tail.


Before dark two more fish were landed including a seven pounder which picked up two fake casters on the maggot feeder.

For some reason this rig is proving my least effective, although it does catch an occasional fish. The night was pretty quiet, apart from the obligatory two o'clock four pound bream. Then just as daylight was starting to make an appearance the boilie rod was away resulting in another seven pounder, and as I was rebaiting the hair something made off with the method fished corn. Two fish in ten minutes and then nothing until half nine when I suffered a hook pull after playing a fish for a reasonable length of time. Having only just changed the hook (because a pike had bitten off the original hooklink) I was cursing the different pattern I had used.


I needn't have worried as two more fish were successfully landed on it later in the day, although the afternoon was quiet, a last fish of the day took a boilie at quarter to ten. Around noon the wind had swung round to the west and intensified producing far from traditional tench conditions.

I like a decent wave when I'm tench fishing, but this westerly was cold and so was the ensuing night - certainly compared to Thursday night which was positively balmy. In truth I wasn't too confident, and sure enough only one bleep from the alarms troubled my slumber. Despite Saturday dawning with a lighter wind and sunshine no early morning feeders made their presence known, and as I left for home another angler reported that sport had dried up for him when the wind had picked up, having had only one run (which slipped the hook) in almost 24 hours.

Having ended the session with nine tench you can bet that I'll be trying to get through my work early this week so I can head back for another session while they are feeding. The females are starting to fill out, and a big fish could be on the cards over the next couple of weeks.

Madness in my method

Travelling 150 miles to fish an overnight session might not be the action of a rational man, but my excuse was that I had a meeting to attend in the general vicinity. Sort of. For once the weather forecast was spot on, and the afternoon turned to rain - so I sat in the car for an hour or so waiting for it to ease off as promised. For once my first job was to get the brolly up to keep the gear dry, then after a quick bit of plumbing three rods were baited and fishing by half five. The evening was turning out nice, the wind swinging round to the south-west and dropping in strength as the sun shone.

The plan was to fish without spodding a bed of bait out and to use a mesh bag of 'magic beans' on the boilie rod, a maggot feeder in conjunction with two fake casters and a method feeder with one sinking and one floating grain of fake corn popped up slightly. The three rigs were cast out in a staggered pattern with the furthest one being in six feet, and the others progressively shallower. All lines were marked with orange Dacron fly-line backing. On casting out I feather the line as soon as I hear/feel the marker go through the rings. No need for clipping up.

Within an hour the caster rod was away and I was playing a male tench of over five and a half pounds. Unbelievable - so little effort and an almost instant result! As I was sorting the fish out another tench slapped its tail close to my baits. The next bait to get picked up was the double corn and another male an ounce lighter was landed at 8.30pm.

As darkness fell I rebaited and recast for the night. With cloud cover moving in the night was pleasantly mild, and I recast the two feeder rods a few times before getting in the sleeping bag and nodding off. Just before midnight the method rod was away again this time it was a six pound female tench. A bream of around four pounds picked up the same bait around quarter to two, but then all went quiet and by dawn there was a snail creeping along one of my rods in search of a lump of method mix!


After a brew it was time for rebaiting again at 5am. Shortly after six the method rod was away yet again and my biggest tench of the season so far was in the net. A battle-scarred almost two-tone female that had clearly yet to fill out with spawn.


By now the wind had dropped to nothing and drizzle set in. I had a horrible feeling that the wind was going to pick up from a fresh direction and blow straight into the brolly. I was right. It did. I hadn't turned the brolly round in advance and everything got soaked as I uprooted it in the rain. I waited for a break in the rain and made my escape. For once driving north saw the sun breaking through and I soon got all my gear dried out when I got home!

Ol' red eyes is back

Would it be third time lucky? The plan for this session was to do an extra night in the hope that this might give the tench more time to find the bait.

As there didn't seem to have been loads of fish caught since my last visit and no areas producing numbers of tench I decided to fish a swim that hadn't seen much attention. If they weren't in the 'hot swims' they had to be somewhere else.

Apart from a few single bleeps the first two nights passed without event. Then, as forecast on the Saturday afternoon the wind swung round from a not too cool north-easterly to a mild south westerly - blowing into my bank at an angle. When the wind died before dusk I spied bubbles out of casting range. I've seen them there before, so perhaps there is some sort of feeding station out there. More importantly as I was looking at the bubbles through my binoculars a tench rolled in my line of sight - right over my bait! With it being warmer, and a tench having rolled my confidence level rose a good few notches.

As darkness fell all was quiet. No bleeps. Nothing. And I dozed off. At half one the right hand alarm woke me, as something made off with the 10mm boilie. The fight was unspectacular and the few nodding thumps suggested a bream, but nope. It was a tench. Not massive, but a six pounder in great condition would do me as a first tench of the year.

The rest of the night passed without event and I awoke before the alarm and recast all three rods at five thirty after a Mars bar and brew to kick me into life. As dawn broke the wind strength gradually increased until the margins began to colour up. I had planned to fish until noon, but despite my confidence for the morning nothing had happened by ten so I decided to start a slow pack up. I'd got everything in the car beside the rods, alarms and net and was strapping the marker rod into the quiver the right hand rod was away again. This was definitiely a tench, but half way in the fish fell off. Bugger!

What to do? It had to be worth another hour so a fresh bait went out. After half an hour something was niggling - I hadn't put the bag of 'magic beans' on the hook. I wound the bait in, changed the boilie, added the 'magic beans' and recast.

The wind had now picked up more strength and swung round more to the west and was blowing straight at me. Maybe fifteen minutes after recasting the boilie rod was in action for a third time. The 'beans' had worked their magic again. This fish put up a decent scrap, and I was surprised when it weighed in just over six pounds. Yet another lovely looking, yellow-bellied, tench.

I gave it another half hour or so, and while I'm sure more fish could have been caught, pressing matters demanded I head for home.

The 'magic beans'? Hmmm. I reckon it was the wind that brought the fish over and put them on the prod. Although all three runs had come to the 'beans'...

A small victory

Well, the tench beat me again, although I did have a decent fish roll over my bait this week. The biggest confidence boost was to catch something, although quite what it was I'm not sure, on fake corn in the dark.

For some reason I'd got it in my head that fake baits only work in daylight. So landing the hybrid above was most welcome - not just because it prevented another blank. No longer will I hit the hay with the nagging doubt that my fake baits are a waste of time and I'd be as well fishing with bare hooks.

PS General consensus on the Total Coarse Fishing forum is that the fish is a bream/rudd hybrid.

PPS Or maybe not!

Tormented by tench

The picture above just about sums up my first tench session of the year. As so often happens I picked a swim that tench moved into at various times, even over my feed, but apart from two or three possible line bites the bobbins remained motionless for the best part of two days.

I've noticed everywhere I have fished for tench that when they are bubbling in my swim I hardly ever catch them. They're frustrating red-eyed buggers!

Not to worry, so long as you learn something a blank isn't wasted. From this session I learned that my waders leak...

Happy Old Year!

As a new year starts it's customary to look back at the one just passed.

I must say that as far as return on investment of effort or time goes I can't complain about my fishing results for 2006 - apart from the gruelling tench campaign! All in all my decision to pick my times and restrict my fishing to venues that are capable of producing the size of fish I want to catch, and to fish them only when conditions are at least half favourable, paid off.

From being a pike-only angler a couple of years ago in 2006 I fished for pike on just three days, catching eight pike. Six of them were jacks and the other two weighed 25lb 8oz (caught in February before starting this blog) and 29lb!


The year had started off well with an eleven pound barbel from the Trent on a sunny January day with clear water conditions.


Apart from missing out on some springtime perch fishing the rest of my plans went okay as the list below shows and the blog archives relate.

Biggest fish of the year:

• Eel - 3-10
• Tench - 8-12
• Barbel - 12-10
• Pike - 29-00
• Roach/Rudd Hybrid - 3-10
• Chub - 5-07
• Carp - 23-04

Maybe not earth shattering, but it will do for me. The best thing of all is that I've enjoyed it all .

Happy New Year!

Three month wait

Having caught my fifth tench of the season from water X on April 25th, my second visit, I got my sixth on the 11th of August. A battle scarred fish of 6lb 5oz.

Luckily I'd managed to fish waters Y and Z in June and managed a few bigger ones - one of which you can see in the Gallery


I was itching to try out my new camera so took some pics of myself holding a hybrid this session. Not the largest I'd had, but still a boilie munching three pounder.