A Stolen Hour

My life revolves round bottles, nappies and a pram at the moment - and after waiting for so long for little Tommy to decide to come along I'm not in any rush to get outdoors with a fishing rod in hand at the moment.

The poor little lad is only 8 weeks old, and hes already been round Clifton Marina, Broughton Park, Drinkwater Park, The Rochdale Canal, The Bridgewater Canal, and Salford Quays with his dad. This afternoon my sister who has been desperate for "a go" took him out with her kids for a walk in Heaton Park and I was suddenly presented with a couple of free hours.

After wasting an hour dithering about trying to decide whether to go on the MSC tip fishing for bream on a new spot I've discovered, or punch fishing on the Bridgewater Canal, I ended up with my lure rod in hand on the lakes behind home Drinkwater Park.

There were half a dozen other pike anglers  out in the Autumn rain - with nothing much doing apart from a 4lb jack between them. I did a circuit of the front and back lakes, then a trip up the valley to Waterdale with nothing to show for my efforts. Both lakes are still too heavily weeded for lure fishing to be effective - a  few hard frost will improve things no end.

Nice to be on the bank - even if it was only for an hour or so - but then again - I've got a new little pal at home and I'd rather be staring at him than a float.

A Day Out At Gingham Fishery Nr Horwich

There's been a lot going on at Fishing Fiend Towers recently - a new son Tommy 6lb7oz and the other Tommy (aged 76) in the family being hospitalised for the last month. So with yours truly being both a dutiful father and son, fishing time has been non existent recently.
A weeks "paternity fishing" was wrecked by the incessant rain - with river levels not being conducive to good sport. So with a return to full time working hours beckoning - today was my last chance for a bit of bank time.
I'd promised Paul S ages ago that I would accompany him to a fishery of his choice - and he chose Ginghams near Horwich. To be honest, I'd never heard of the place before - but hey ho I've been desperate to get out fishing for ages now so despite yet another rotten weather forcast I gave it a go.

Heres a link to the fishery - http://www.ginghamfisheries.co.uk 

Set on the slopes of Winter Hill - its very picturesque.

The banks of the fishery are very steep, and the water quickly drops away to 10ft only a couple of meters out, so i fished top 2 plus three pole sections, corn as hookbait over a bed of hemp.
Peg 7 - my home for the day

I had a couple of roach and skimmers early on, and then had a run of 4 smallish mirror carp to about 4lbs.
Great fun to watch the 16's elastic stretch out with the fish being able to run in the open water. Then to stop things getting absurd - the pulla bung did its job as the fish came quickly to the net once tired (I've recently re-elasticated all my top kits - so the laccie is still a little slack allowing the fish to give a good stretch on 16s)

As the morning progressed the weather turned, and the forecast wind and rain arrived - at the same time as the bailiff - £4 - not bad for a commie.

I had a few more fish - (all carp) but they seemed to arrive a couple at a time - then nothing for a while. It was only when i added a few pellets to the hemp i was feeding that the fish arrived and stayed.

The last half hour saw a run of 6 fish in 6 put ins - with the float burying nearly as soon as it had settled. The effect of getting the feeding right made such a massive difference with the last fish being nearly double the size of anything I'd had earlier in the day.

Paul S, had a similar day - catching carp intermittently on pellet waggler, as did his friend also conveniently named Paul, and Luke who also tagged along with us - did very well on method feeder catching a good stamp of skimmers regularly throughout the day.

So would i go back to Ginghams  - absolutely - I think I'll organise a club match on here sometime between now and the end of November - It will give me something to look forwards to in the midst of all the sleepless nights and dirty nappies.

Irwell Barbel Quest part 11

You can't keep a good quest down - I know they're there and one day I will finally achieve my goal. Today wasn't that day.

Other than chasing dreams on the river, I've been roach fishing up at Maceys in Bury, and on the Old River in Irlam. Fishing caster shallow at both venues I've been very frustrated missing a high % of bites. A switch to a wider gape hook saw me improve my bite to fish ratio but theres still a long way to go with the fine tuning of my rig before I'm happy.
One very pleasing thing I've discovered is incredible growth rate of the roach in the Old River, last spring we couldnt catch roach any bigger than half and ounce - this summer the fish are averaging 4oz - looks like it will be a cracking fishery again in the near future.

I also had good sport on the Old River with pike, taking 6 fish to 6lbs by fishing a sleeper rod live bait just a foot or two past the end of my keepnet. Great to see this place making such a good comeback.

Full House

I spent the evening on a local stream with Pete. My first time on this particular water I had no idea what to expect. Pete told me that i had the chance of trout, roach, perch, chub and dace.
He wasnt wrong - we caught the lot in less than an hour.

I found it to be a beautiful bit of water, lots of fish to be caught amongst the Starwort

Even the rain didnt see us off.

Back On Th'Irwell

The rivers been unfishable for large parts of this summer - and during the windows when the river has been fishable yours truly has been under the thumb, dressed in decorators garb brush and roller in hand.
I've been trying to get out for an evening on the river with Adam (Rawtenstall Kick Sampler) for ages now, and we finally made it out fishing together on Saturday evening.
A nice bright evening - the fish were initially thin on the ground, but as the evening wore on and our ring rustiness wore off we started to get amongst the fish.
My old favourite the "irwell imp" accounted for the largest fish of the evening, which despite coming in at less than a pound ran me all over the river on our light tackle.

A cracking evening, doing something I've really missed.
My early season decision to target specimen fish hasnt come to fruition, as i seem to have been sidetracked organising and fishing a series of matches. Not my favourite form of fishing, but I'm glad to report that I've finished in the top half of each match, and managed to win one of them (my first ever match win).

A Diddy Duddy is due at the end of August which I'm sure will curtail fishing activity even more effectively than the bad weather, so I cant see any of my early season targets being acheived without a huge dollop of luck.

Warning - Fishing Pox

The blogs been quiet recently - that doesnt meant I've not been fishing though - lots of sessions with nothing really worth writing about - and a couple of big fish getting off have numbed the urge to write.

SYMPTOMS: Continual complaint as to need of fresh air, sunshine and relaxation. 

Patient has blank expression, sometimes deaf to wife and kids. Has no taste for work of any kind. Frequently checking out tackle catalogues. Hangs out in sporting goods stores for longer than usual. Secret late night calls to fishing friends. Mumbles to self. Lies to everyone.

      NO KNOWN CURE

TREATMENT: Medication is useless. Disease is not fatal. Victim should go fishing as soon as possible. 

Your help needed

Please visit Waterfeature...

...and if you watch the video at the top, then read the background to the Kelham Island hydro scheme and wish that the good folk of Sheffield would learn from the terrible consequences of hydro schemes elsewhere and reverse the decision to plough ahead with their own hydro scheme, please vote on the petition at the top right hand side of the blog.  You need not be a citizen of Sheffield to vote. All you need to be is a citizen of the world and care about the life in and around the world's rivers.



...the terrible consequences of hydro schemes elsewhere...

The river Don, a natural salmon river, has suffered about 400 years of abuse.  It is an amazing example of how a river can come back to life if folks stop abusing it.  The saddest aspect of this scheme is that, after a few short years of improvement, the river Don is going to be set back to the impoverished state it was in, when really it should be getting all the help it can to keep on coming fully back to life.

You can give the Don some help by registering and voting your disapproval on http://waterfeature1.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/screening-and-cleaning.html


(Lifted from Regular Rods blog but well worth the copy and paste)

Another problem is that the noise from these small scale hydro-electric schemes may be scaring off migrating fish, preventing them from reachng their spawning grounds. See this article on the Settle Hydro:
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/at-a-glance/main-section/salmon-fishing-harmed-by-hydro-scheme-1-4193772
Of course this problem is also very critical locally, where three hydro schemes are being installed (one already generating) on the Goyt, which has a nascent salmon run, not yet properly established. The hydro scheme may well ensure that the salmon run NEVER gets to be of any significant size.

(thanks JayZs)

Duchy Lagoons

The track down to the Lagoons is best described as "a bit rough" - which also happens to be a good description of a few of the locals down in deepest darkest Salford. But as you turn left at the end of the track - you get a glimpse of a wildlife haven in the centre of one of the UKs dirtiest industrial areas. Its a real green oasis - which you have to see for yourself to really appreciate. My description of the locals might be a little off putting - a better description would be hard outer shell - soft inner centre - like chocolate eclairs. The work these lads have done is incredible and the transformation they have made to the lagoons incredible.

The Lagoons have been over run and neglected for years prior to Salford Lads Angling Club taking an interest a couple of years ago. 1000s of tyres, a few cars and a couple of tons of scrap metal have been dredged from the depths by a couple of dozen volunteers and theyve now turned the place into  a cracking little fishery which is available to everyone for a £2 day ticket.

I set up on one of the central pegs on the main lake, fishing slightly to the right of a big pad of lilys. I used finely chopped spam as groundbait, and fished lumps of spam and 4mm soft hooker pellet on the hook to catch a steady stream of rudd, skimmers tench and crucians. A very enjoyable evening. There are a few lumps in there too waiting to be caught - as i got busted a couple of times by big fish which ran me straight into the lily beds.
Am looking forwards to coming back again.

All Quiet

From the lack of blogging activity you might think that I'd not done much fishing this month - but then you'd be wrong.
I've fished a couple of Salford Friendly fundraising matches winning one match in a howling gale on the Rochdale canal with a single skimmer bream on a match that was abandoned after only 2 hours as being unfishable. The next Salford Friendly match on the Old River in Irlam started well with lots of bites and missed fish in the first hour, then as the match went on the bites dried up and i ended up with 12oz of tiddlers to claim 6th. And the last match on the Rochdale canal on a red hot sunny day I had a 5th place again with a few ounces of tiddler roach.
The matches we have fished so far have all been on rock hard venues, and I am beginning to lose the will to live. We've booked another 5 matches - this time on venues with better stocking density  - so hopefully catches will be higher and moods lighter.

In between all this match fishing, I've been blanking on the Manchester Ship Canal - while those fishing around me have been bagging big bream, and on my last trip to Drinkwater Park - suffered a blank in a swim which was alive with fizzing bubbles from bream.

The only saving grace has been a few good sessions on Sainsburys Pond - where even a numpty like me can bag up.

I'm going to get out this long weekend for a few hours at various venues - lets hope i can get a decent bend in the rod for a change.

Right On My Doorstep

Instead of driving into town, or to my office I often walk or ride my bike alongside the River Irwell which is a much more pleasant vista than the A56 corridor. It is rare though to see any sort of fishy activity - as the trout never seem to actively feed at the surface on the lower river. So when I noticed fish rising in the same spot twice in the space of a fortnight it really gave me an itch to get out trouting.

In the past I've had a couple of absolute lunkers from this area whilst lure fishing for pike, but have yet to take a trout from this section of river on the fly - for some reason I cant reconcile fishing a big urban river with the delicate fly fishing presentation needed to tempt the trout - I much prefer fly fiishing small streams and pocket water so on the Lower Irwell I tend to use small lures or wait until the coarse season starts and catch them on maggots.

So this evening after work, I ventured down to the river with my lure kit in hand to the spot where I'd seen the rising fish. I had a take from a good sized trout after only 15 minutes or so but it threw the crushed barbs on the copper bladed mepps I had tied on. Undeterred i carried on moving down stream losing a couple of spinners on the river bed iron mongery but still seeing the occasional fish rise which kept my confidence up.

Moments after missing that fish, I was joined by Irwell dry fly master Nick - who immediately spotted rising fish and started a stealthy move upstream to cast to them. His arrival was fortunate, as it wasn't much later that I had a second take and a lovely little brownie took a shine to my mepps.
Both of us were overjoyed to see trout in this part of the river, its only 100 yards from my office and less than 5 minutes away from Nicks front door.

Within 5 minutes of returning my little fish, I looked upstream to see Nicks rod bending into this cracking Brownie.

An Irwell brownie, nudging 2lbs, caught on upstream dry fly in the Bronx of Lower Broughton - Urban Trouting at its best.
I cant believe that trout have moved into this area of the river in numbers - only 100yards from the office - its going to be hard concentrating on work this summer :)