Once, Twice, Three Times A Lady

As the floods have subsided, I've been looking forwards to getting out on the Ribble and having a try for a Grayling or two.
Saturday morning saw me donning my waders, and braving the icey cold water of a favourite stretch of river, which I know holds some lovely fish.
After 10 minutes or so of feeding the first swim with a regular supply of maggots, I ran the float through, and 3/4 of the way down the run, the float buried and I was into a good fish. I guessed it was a Grayling and not a trout, as it kited from one side of the river to the other using the current to fight the bend of the rod whereas a trout makes strong determined runs and tends to splash on the surface more.
I knew it was a good fish, from the pressure it exerted on the rod, but sadly as slowly waded backwards into shallower water to attempt to net the fish, it shed the hook.........

A few more runs through later, I landed its smaller cousin, and then a tiny little Salmon Parr - always a lovely sight - and one I would dearly love to see on my Manchester rivers.



Its easy to spot the difference between a Salmon and a Trout Parr, as the Salmon Parr tends to have a single black spot on its gill covers, and has elongated pectoral fins (like a flying fish!).


As I as catching nothing but small stuff, I moved downstream to where the two rivers meet. Theres a lovely channel to fish on the near side bank, and wading past knee depth isn't necessary. I was really feeling the cold, and the left leg of my waders has developed a serious leak!
Again, I didn't have to wait long for action, and was again into another decent sized Grayling, which i could see flashing in the current. Again, as i drew the fish in close for landing - the hook pinged out. Gutted, i sat down and had a cup of tea and a mars bar, and changed hook to a size 16 Drennan chub hook. A bit larger, and a heavier gauge of wire than I like to use for trotting maggots, but needs must after loosing two decent fish.
Surprisingly I didn't get any more bites from the rivers meet swim, and as my left leg was beginning to numb up with the cold, I walked back upstream to my original swim, to have a last half hour before enjoying the open fire in the Pub.
After settling in to position and feeding the swim, I again hooked into yet another decent fish after a few runs through of the bait.
The pattern of the day repeated itself and I was close to launching the rod after the fish when it threw the hook again tantalisingly close to the net.
Ah well the final score was Grayling 5 - Mike 3 and a wet leg.
But I had a great couple of hours in the pale, low wintery sun, not another soul about. The tide line of the recent floods was high above in the field above the river, right up to the gate near the little bridge. The big tree stump, which Tony used to enjoy fishing behind has now disappeared and some of the shingle seems to have shifted.
I'm away now for Christmas and New Year on a family holiday - so seasons greetings to you all - and I hope Santa brings you nothing but booze and fishing tackle.

Mike

Back On The Brook

Due to upheavals on the work front I've been unable to spend time updating my blog. Time on the bank has been restricted to only one Sunday afternoon out fishing the www.maggotdrowning.com annual Christmas Fur & Feather match at Pool Bridge Farm near York.

As I only ever fish this one match per year, its an event I look forwards to, and suddenly develop a competitive streak - meaning I would kill grannies and small children in order to finish ahead of Phil-K.

The weather was atrocious, and so was my drawing hand as I pulled out the peg furthest away from the car!

Safe in the knowledge that I have no chance of winning the event (there are some really top draw anglers who take part every year) I decided to go for small fish in large numbers and hope for a bonus fish or two to bump me up the leader board. Really I will settle for anything to avoid the embarrassment of a dry net.

Phil - who was only 3 pegs away took the opposite approach and set his stall out for the lumps.

And at the start it looked as though he had made the right choice, as his maggot feeder approach saw him catch a nice carp first cast, and then a tench on his third cast.

I stuck to my original plan, and was soon catching small roach and perch nearly every put in using a 6m whip and flouro pinkies on the drop.

I did also feed a pellet line, in the hope that i would pick up the occasional bonus fish - but they never materialised.

The fish kept coming all match, and i caught over 60 tiddlers - for a total weight of 5lb 4oz.
Phil had a couple more fish, but luckily for me nothing big. I pipped him by 8oz :) :) :)
But to give him his due, he didn't bring his brolly, and to escape from the incessant rain, hid in my car for an hour. I reckon if he'd have stuck it out he would have beaten me.
Due to the number of anglers taking part, the match was fished over two lakes. The winner (one of the locals) was on our lake and won with 11b+, then my net was the second largest on our lake, but other good weights from the other lake meant that i fished 7th overall, and Phil 8th. I was really pleased with 7th as I stuck to my game plan, and if a bonus fish or two would have shown up then i might have made the top 3.
These maggotdrowners events are more about meeting friends and having fun, rather than serious fishing - and it was good to meet some people for the first time, and catch up again with others.
In true Fur & Feather tradition, the winners were presented with Pheasants & Rabbits at the prize giving in the cafe at the end of the match.

Many thanks to David Senior for organising a great day out.

So other than this trip out to York, I've not been able to get out fishing recently. As you all know, the weather has been atrocious, the rivers high, and even "keen" anglers like myself have been disinclined to venture out.

Until this afternoon, when the sun shone through my office window and i thought stuff it - I've bait left over from the match in the fridge and it needs using up.

So a quick change of clothes, throw some tackle in the back of the car, and I was tackling up by the brook 15 minutes later.
The weather was perfect, the brook though higher than normal and carrying more than a tinge of colour looked fantastic. The recent heavy rain and floods have swept the banks clean of it summer growth, making the over-grown far bank far more accessible to float fishing than during the summer months.

This brook, despite its diminutive size, holds some cracking fish but I started off by catching their smaller cousins. I worked my way downstream having a few casts in each likely looking swim and took a couple of out of season brownies, small roach and perch whilst enjoying the weak winter sunshine.





I did hook into a larger brownie, after it realised it was hooked, went airborne a few times, then ran into a hole in the near bank under my feet and shed the hook. It was a good two pounds.

As the light fell, i had my heart set on catching one of the big roach which reside in one of the deeper swims. Just as it became too dark to be able to see my float, i felt a tightening of the line and the thumping knocking feel of a good roach on the end of the line.
I wasn't disappointed to catch this lovely fish.




Walking back upstream through the gloom towards the car, my mind wandered to another favourite stream - The Irk.
I think I shall have the last two hours of daylight there tomorrow. It would be such a shame to waste my remaining maggots.

2lb Roach

I had wanted to go fishing with my Dad ever since I was old enough to realise he was out doing something enjoyable and that I was going to be left stuck at home with my mum. Memories of my father going out every evening to catch trout from hill lochs in Donegal during family holidays are etched into my memory. Even more so, the wild brown trout which we used to eat for breakfast. I knew how to gut a fish before i had even caught one.
So faced with a son eager to carry on family fishing traditions and a barrage of nagging, my dad was forced into promising me a rod for my 7th birthday. It took a few years, many tangles and blank trips before I could competently handle my 7ft Shakespeare spinning rod and Ambidex reel. I can remember trips to Hollingworth Lake, Ogden Res, and even the lake that was to become the Pennine Trout Fishery (which was a great, big perch venue) as though they took place yesterday. Happy days.

Back in the 70's the Rochdale Canal, was closed to boat traffic and in a state of general disrepair. The absence of boat traffic led to the water being gin clear, and a great place to stalk fish. Specimen pike, bream, perch and roach were all visible with the naked eye to anyone who took the care to look for them. It was also only a fifteen minute drive from home.
It was during one of our regular Sunday afternoon fishing trips to the canal whilst my dad was lure fishing for jack pike that I saw a huge roach swim out from the cover of a bush which was growing out of the side wall of the canal. This thing was so huge to my young eyes and was the biggest fish i had ever seen in the canal. I was so in awe that i didn't even to try to catch it - just watching it swim by was such an amazing experience.
After that Sunday afternoon, "the bush" was the only place I ever wanted to fish, and I was rewarded by seeing the fish nearly every visit. Obviously being a keen angler - one thing led to another and I started to dream about catching the biggest roach I'd ever seen. The only problem was that the fish ignored all my crudely presented baits as it swam in and out of its bushy cover.
With most problems, if you spend enough time thinking about them you come up with as solution, and my solution lay in my grandmothers vegetable garden. One Sunday morning she awoke to find her runner beans collapsed on the ground, and I had a few new bamboo poles to count in my fishing tackle armoury.
My plan was simply to have more hooks in the water.
So that afternoon armed with my new gear I lightly fed maggots around the base of the bush under which my roach lived, cast in my three lines, sat back and waited. It only took an hour or so before one of the floats attached to a runner bean cane slid under and the roach charged into the cover of the bush and with little or no give in the cane dropped the bait as it fled.
The next Sunday using exactly the same tactics, I was luckier and the roach picked up the bronze maggot attached to my little spinning rod and after a short while I banked the biggest fish of my short fishing career. Maybe this fish has grown in size in my memory over the years, but my dad even today maintains that that fish was well over 2lbs, and the largest roach he had ever seen.
A consequence of this early success was that I decided that if I was going to be a proper fisherman, then I would need a proper fishing rod. A £12 14ft fibre glass job for my twelfth birthday did the trick and I soon became a regular on Heaton Park boating lake.
In those days the Heaton Park boating lake was a cracking venue holding big roach, gudgeon, perch, tench and crucians. Like all the other youngsters, I used to always set up next to the inlet stream near the boat landing stages. Using maggots, it was always possible to catch a few dozen fish every trip, though we rarely caught anything of any size. All this changed one day when a family came and stood near us feeding a carrier bag full of old bread to the ducks. For some reason, one of the boys I was fishing with decided to put some of the bread from his lunch onto the hook and cast it into the lake where five minutes previously the ducks and geese had been eating their free lunch.
Well, you don't need to be Einstein to guess what happened next. This lad caught a massive roach, followed by another. Wanting to get in on the act - my lunch was also sacrificed on the altar of the roach gods, and my second ever 2lb+ roach was banked. I'm sure many of you remember those old Samson spring balance scales which we used to use - well after our chance discovery of bread flake fishing these scales became the "must have" kit amongst all the young regulars on the boating lake, and we all caught many fish over 2lbs. However 2lb seemed to be the limit as I cant remember anything bigger than 3 or 4oz over the magic weight.

You may wonder what has brought about this rambling post about my childhood roach fishing exploits?

Well today I visited Pool Bridge Farm near York to have a crafty practice session before this years Maggot Drowners Xmas Fur & Feather fishing match. And surprise surprise I caught my first two pound roach in well over 20 years.

Fishing from peg 29 on the Horseshoe lake using hemp and caster I caught a succession of small roach and perch, along with a big brown goldfish/crucian and some nice skimmers. Then quite unexpectedly my float dipped a fraction and I lifted into what I at first thought was a carp or tench but then quite delightfully turned out to be a clonking 2lb roach. A very early morning start - resulted in me leaving my landing net and also my scales at home, so using a borrowed landing net and using Cleggys (the Fur & Feather organiser)scales I've banked my best coarse fish in ages.

I'm well chuffed!


Not the best picture - hopefully someone will be emailing me another one which i can post.

Twin Lakes Croston

I first visited Twin Lakes at Croston with my dad about 20 years ago when it was a purely fly only trout venue. Since then its become a mixed fishery, with the north lake having a great head of roach.

I've been back a few times over the years with my most recent visit being earlier this year on a cold and windy spring morning with Phil K, Wokkie, Dave and Baz. We all caught roach during that session, but nothing over 6oz.

I've always been sure, that there are some real lunkers in there as the only predators in the lake are trout and perch. Once the roach reach about 4oz their only predators are fish eating birds.

So yesterday morning, I arrived in Croston, to be greeted with lovely early morning sunshine, and a light southerly breeze - perfect autumnal fishing conditions?

As the lake has a steep marginal shelf, its easy to get a depth of 12 - 14 feet about a rod length out. By using hemp and caster, I was hoping to get onto the better quality fish and avoid the huge numbers of 1-4oz fish which inhabit the lake. I achieved this by fishing at dead depth with caster as hookbait - but then found that i couldnt get any bites at all!
By slowly shortening up a few inches at a time, I eventually caught a couple of nice roach and a bream. The weather which had been deteriorating all morning finally saw me rained/blown off the lake just before 1pm.
On reflection, maybe I should have tried a mid depth on the drop rig, to see if it would bring more bites.
I'm sure a really good bag of winter roach can be had from this deep water venue - back to the drawing board (pinkies? bread punch? mid water? on the drop? hemp on the drop?). Theyre there - its just a matter of getting the approach right.

Balls

My fishing time has been severely restricted these last few weeks, due to work, bad weather and making arrangements for my rapidly approaching wedding. Most of this weekend was again up with domestic duties but I did manage to sneak down to the river for the last two hours of daylight - when I took my plugging/spinning gear for Pike.

As has become the norm recently I didnt get a touch. I did get to watch these balls bobbing in the backwave of the weir though - very colourful.

Spinning For Salmon

I had intended to spend every morning of the last week of the Salmon season spinning for Salmon on the Ribble. However, upheavals at work meant that I only managed to get out on the Friday morning for a few hours accompanied by Phil-K.

I arrived at first light and was encouraged by seeing fish splashing in the first main pool I encountered on my walk downstream. I quickly set up with a red "flying C" and worked my way down the pool. Despite seeing fish moving, i couldn't generate any interest in the lures i used.

After an hour or so, I moved down to the pool where i took my first Salmon last year.

Again I saw fish moving but couldn't entice a bite.

Phil-K arrived about 9ish and was thrilled to see a salmon clear the water in part of the pool he was about to fish. But again he had no success despite using a variety of lures.

We slowly made our way back to the car, working through the pools we saw fish showing all over the river. Very frustrating but how could we complain, its just fantastic to see such magnificent fish, being lucky enough to catch one is just a bonus.

Here is selection of some of the lures which I use.

Fishing In Manchester City Centre

I spent the last few hours of daylight fishing the River Irwell behind Granada Studios on the old match length.

There used to be a weekly open match held on this length of river for quite a few years, until the owners of the Hotel opposite became fed up with anglers peeing in the bushes in full view of the guests eating in their riverside restaurant. The hotel then bought out the angling rights from Salford Council and prevented anglers from using the river.

The signs showing private ownership still exist, even though Granada Angling Club havent paid any rent for the fishing rights for over 5 years now.

This should encourage you to go down and fish there, as it used to be a fantastic piece of water, with match weights of silver fish to over 40lbs.

Since those halcyon days, cormorants have devastated fish stocks in the lower river, and all I could manage in 4 hours on Sunday afternoon was about half a dozen small dace. I started by using a maggot feeder, but the bites were nothing more than tremors on the tip. It was only by swapping to a stickfloat fished about 6 inches overdepth that i could pick up a couple of fish.
Again, I was kept company by herons and kingfishers - amazing that wildlife like this can survive in Manchester City Centre. What a pity that cormorants have ruined the fish stocks.

Famine Then Feast

After suffering so many blanks over the last month or two I'd really been looking forwards to Big Daves annual trip to his mates farm pond. Tucked deep away in rural Shropshire its a hell of a venue. A lovely setting, good company and a lake stuffed with big, hard fighting Rainbow Trout.

After an early start, we were fishing by about 9am, I started using a black leech pattern which is the so called "killer pattern" on this water. However despite getting alot of plucks on the fly I only landed 1 fish on this fly.

As soon as I swapped to a fry pattern the fish really went wild, and I ended up having to take it off as i was catching so many fish.

By lunch time, I must have had a good 20 fish to about 4.5lbs. What a session. I didnt expect this amazing sport to continue into the afternoon, as last year the fish seemed to turn off after lunch.

After scoffing Phil Ks ginger cake (cheers Phil), I changed tactics by using a bloodworm pattern under a suspender buzzer. This worked a treat, and by the end of an arm aching, rod bending day I smashed my record for the number of trout caught in a day by taking well over 50 fish.

Phil K also had a red letter day taking more than 30 fish on an Invicta pattern.

Last year, i thought that this was a special venue after taking 7 fish to 5lbs in weight, this year was beyond expectations.

Thanks for the invite Dave!!

Blowing A Hooley On The Ribble

Last Sunday afternoon saw me spending a few hours trotting an big avon float down the Ribble. It was a bit of a futile exercise really, as I've found that a delicate approach has given far better results this season. A really strong and gusting upstream wind put paid to the delicate approach, and as i only had my light trotting rod with me, my only choice was to use a heavy avon float.
No bites until i made my way upstream to a big deep pool at a bend in the river.
I was thrilled to see a pod of Salmon crashing about in the water, making big bow waves in the water as they jockeyed for position in the flow.
I thought i would chance my arm, so dug up a couple of worms in the corn field next to the river, and was amazed to see my float disappear on its first run down the swim. I struck, felt a brief resistance and then reeled in to find only a large silver scale adorning my hook.
I stuck things out for a further hour, before admitting defeat and trudging my way back to the car.
Things havent gone too well recently fishing wise having had lots of blank sessions. Observing riverside wildlife has been ample reward for the hours I've put in though - Kingfishers, mink, butterflies,foxes, herons, buzzards plus many more have made my time on the riverbank most enjoyable. Its not always about catching fish (though just one fish, even a small one would be nice).

Barbel Quest Pt8

I spent a few hours this afternoon fishing the slow deep run behind the Cliff in Lower Broughton.
One rod with meat, the other with hair rig pellet. I didnt get a touch on either rod. I feel as though I'm flogging a dead horse with this one, so next weekend will be having a change of scenery, tactics and target species.