Return To The Scene Of The Crime

Having agonised for the last few days over the big trout i lost on the Irwell, i decided to return to the scene of the crime for an evening session with beefed up tackle.
The river was 18inches higher than normal after heavy rain earlier in the day. I have previously called the Irwell Manchester storm drain, as all the run off from the roads, peoples roofs etc all ends up in the river. This means that the river can rise feet in a matter of hours after heavy rain, but also that the water levels can fall nearly as quickly, and whilst i fished for only a couple of hours yesterday evening the river dropped a good 9 inches in height.
However i should have thought about the effect of the cold water flushing through the river system as i endured a poor session, catching only a few small roach and chub.
I am going to blame river conditions for my poor catch rather than the stronger tackle that i have now decided to use.
I used the centre pin reel that Big Dave so kindly bought me for my birthday for the first time, and despite a couple of birds nest tangles i found it quite easy to use. It is most enjoyable to play fish on the pin as every thump and movement of the fish is amplified through the rod and reel to the angler - great fun - now i cant wait to catch a cracker on the pin, as i bet it will be a tremendous experience.
As always i stuck it out till nearly dark in the hope that a better fish might decide to take my bait in the failing light, but it wasnt ment to be.
Big Dave came down to the river to watch me fish for a few hours, and drink my tea and it was a pleasure to have such an experienced angler chatting and giving me tips as i was fishing.
Yet again i had trouble with bumping fish off the hook whilst playing them, size 16 BS520's have always been a favourite of mine, but i think i am going to start having an experiment with different varieties. Mayber a wider gape hook will be better when fishing double maggot as the bait will be less likely to wrap itself over the point of the hook. I did think that maybe the rod i am using is not forgiving when catching smaller fish, but i use a 15ft Drennan Floatmaster which is designed for using light lines. Again i am going to have to experinment until i come up with a solution.
I hope to get out again on the river bank of Tuesday evening, and if i can get the fish feeding i will have a good mess about with different terminal set ups to see if i can make any improvements.

Square Lodge

As i have recently purchased a season ticket for a local club so that i can fish their river beats, i also now have some new still waters to fish.

So as i hadnt caught a crucian carp yet this year i asked Tony which of these new waters would be most likely to produce one. Square Lodge was the reccommended lake but Tony gave the caveat that it was a shallow, weed infested, litter strewn scrote magnet.

In order to minimise the scrote factor i decided to have an early start, and arrived at the water at 5am. The lake was nothing like what Tony had described with no excessive amout of weed, well maintained pegs and no litter, all in all it looked like a really pleasant spot to pass some time in the pursuit of fish.

As well as finding my surroundings agreeable i found that the fishing was absolutely top draw. I caught lovely rudd and roach on the drop, hand sized skimmers from the bottom and a few lovely crucians. I have always enjoyed crucians, with their delicate bites, and nodding fight where the swim around and around in ever decreasing circles. I caught steadily all morning, but in the early afternoon, as the sun came out the bites dropped off so i called it a day.

The low point of the day was again losing a good fish. I hooked a powerfull fish which sped across the lake, again my float pinged back at me with only a large fish scale on the hook - probably a carp.

I try not to dwell on things when i lose a good fish, but i am now getting frustrated as i am hooking decent fish, but have become incapable of landing them.

After the trout fiasco earlier in the week, i have stepped up the strength of my hooklengths from 0.10mm to 0.13mm. The difference in breaking strain has therefore gone from 2.5ls to 4.5lbs. I thought this might have the effect of reducing the number of bites i had ( a throw back to my youth when most of my fishing was done on gin clear canals), but today proved that this step up in hooklength diameter has had little effect on the number of bites i get. In future i will start off strong and only go lighter if desperation strikes.

I found today i was bumping off alot of fish (mostly skimmers), and am worried that i being too heavy handed when playing fish. My goal for next time is to land all the fish i hook - this could result in me having epic 10 minute scraps with even the tiniest minnows!

Tony joined me later on in the morning and used pellet to catch some lovely crucians to well over a pound. He was amazed at the transformation of this little lake since the last time he came,as its so close to his house i am sure he will not be leaving at long between visits.

So Near Yet So ....................................Far

I spent a very enjoyable evening with Phil fishing of the mid-river lengths of our local river, it was especially memorable evening for me as my father who lives only a couple of hundred yards away decided to come and watch us fish for a few hours.

It was my dad got me hooked on angling when i was only 7 years old, so its a pity that he rarely picks up a rod these days. After a couple of hours watching Phil and me catching a chub a chuck he is now raring to go fishing this weekend. Hopefully there will be three generations of my family out fishing together for the first time in ages.

This evening I was the first to arrive and caught a nice wild brownie first cast. However i very nearly packed up in diusgust 20 minutes later when i hooked and then lost the mother of all trout. I hooked into the fish and its initial run bent my rod over like a hoop and stripped 20-25yds of line off the reel. It then performed some acrobatics, and proceded to swim back up river towards me. I felt great as i was gaining line on the fish, but as soon as the fish saw me and the net it turned a ran again this time snapping my 3.5lb hooklength. I was gutted. Even though i saw the fish i am not going to estimate its weight other than to say it was big.

Despite loosing that fish I was getting bites steadily all evening fishing maggots and using my new bait dropper to feed the swim. The swim i had chosed to fish was at the confluence of the main river and a smaller shallower tributary. Where the smaller river joined the main river there was a shelf and drop off so i fished this drop off as it seems as though its a natural fish holding area.

When Phil came he fished slightly upstream of me, and caught steadily too, though he had no luck with the trout he caught chub for fun all evening long.

Midway through the evening i decided to try the swim behind the island to see if i could tempt one of the larger chub that i think might reside there. After only couple of runs through, the float buried and after some more acrobatics i landed another brownie of about half a pound.

My dad was chuffed to bits to watch me catch this lovely little fish, amazed that the river, once so polluted can support a thriving population of oxygen loving fish such as trout and minnows.

As the evening drew to a close i re-joined Phil, and we caught a few more fish together. I didnt fish on until dark as the mosquitos were out in force, ignoring the DEET which i have finally resorted to using.

If i hadnt hooked that big fish in the first place i would be sitting here at home now feeling great after a very enjoyable evenings fishing. Seeing as though i lost the biggest trout i have ever seen from this river i am sitting here wishing i had tied a different knot, used a stronger hooklength, held my rod higher, set my clutch slightly lighter etc etc.

Gutted.

Ribble Again

After having spent a couple of days working from home whilst my house has been invaded by builders, plumber, plasterers and electricians it was a welcome respite on Saturday evening to spend a few hours on the banks of the Ribble with Tony.

We were both looking forwards to revisiting the swim in which we had so much success last Monday. When we arrived i was shocked at the numbers of anglers lining the banks. Most of these guys sitting behind quiver tips rods and bite alarms and the scene was more reminiscent of a carp puddle than one of the Norths premier rivers. No matter how hard i try i still cant get the rationale of the bivvy, pellet, bite alarm world. As we walked upstream from the car park to the swims we wanted to fish, the number of anglers thinned out - presumably its too difficult to carry vasts amount of gear over a couple of stiles and 500yds of river bank.

After midweek rains the river had obviously had a good flush through and there was far less blanket weed to contend with. Water levels were up a good couple of feet from Mondays visit and wading was more difficult.

I settled into the swim that had been so productive on Monday, and was soon into a lively chub of about 3/4lb. Despite playing about with my rig, depths, weights and speed of run through i couldnt tempt any other fish into taking my bait. I was a little dissappointed as i thought that this was a cracker of a swim, as had been proved earlier in the week, but i wasnt too surprised as this is only my second visit to the Ribble and its so different to the Irwell where i usually fish.

In contrast to my limited success Tony caught a succession of fish from a swim 100yds downstream of me. He had a couple of lovely chub, the largest 4lb+, some great dace and a wild brownie. I enjoy watching Tony fish, as despite his very simple tactical approach he has a very skilfull technique when searching the drifts, runs and eddies of the swims he fishes in.

On reflection i feel as though i could have done no more in the way i worked the swim with the float and bait, but think i got the feeding completely wrong. I had a bait dropper in my bag but didnt use it, relying on loose feeding instead. The extra flow and pace of the water probably washed my loose feed out of the swim before it even got halfway down through the water column. Using the bait dropper would have got my loose feed down to the river bed and given a reason for fish to feed in the channels i had chosen to fish. By allowing the loose feed to wash down the river in the strong flow i gave the fish a reason to scatter and follow the bait. Hopefully Tony got the benefit of this as the loose feed washed into his swim!!

Phil and Tony swear by the use of a centre pin reel in this form of float fishing as a bait can be held back smoothly through the swim by using pressure from the thumb against the drum of the reel. I was using an open faced fixed spool reel wich results in line being released in an uneven jerky manner. Its small issues such as this which can result in a fish accepting or rejecting a bait and i am finding out the hard way. I am going to have to have a search on ebay and get myself a pin.

We fished on until 10.30pm as the twilight seems to last for ever at this time of year. As we walked back down the banks, the bivvy boys were settling down for the night with beta lights and alarms glowing and primed for action. We asked a few of them if they had been successful, with only one of them reporting having caught a fish - an eel of about half a pound. This made me feel a little better about my limited success, but those of you who know meknow that i am not fazed by a lack of fish as i enjoy fishing just as much as catching fish.

I really enjoyed my evening out, despite the rain the chat in the car is always about venues, tactics and fishing disasters - great fun.

I spent my first evening session of the season on one of my favourite lengths of the Irwell. As i knew Big Dave was coming i chose to fish the swim nearest to the car park. This proved to be a mistake as it only produced three minnows in an hours fishing.

Tony also came down to fish this evening, and he chose to fish one of the shallower swims behind the island. He only stayed for an hour as he wasnt feeling great but still managed to catch a couple of small chub.

After getting fed up of the first swim i moved 500yds up river to a swim i have enjoyed some success in before. I wasnt to be disapointed this time as during the next few hours i caught a succession of chub, roach, gudgeon and minnows. I love fishing at this time of the year as the twilight seems to last for ever, and this evening i was still fishing at 10.30!!!
Even though i didnt catch any of the bigger chub which inhabit this length of river, by feeding constantly i was getting bites and fish on a regular basis. I only had maggots as bait this evening so didnt have anything to bypass the smaller fish. I will be coming back to this swim in the next couple of weeks armed with hemp, caster and worm to see if i cant tempt some of the lunkers that were splashing about as night was falling.

An 8oz chub was my biggest fish of the session, but quantity compensated me for lack of quality.

Back To Normal

After a few dry weeks the weather returned to normal today with virtually constant heavy rain all day. I had intended to use up some of the maggots left over from Mondays trip to the Ribble this evening, but the local river rises like a flash at the first splashes of rain so fishing was a non starter this evening. Hopefully if the rain eases off i will be able to fish one of the slower deeper swims tomorrow evening. I havent spent any time on the banks of the local river coarse fishing during the last couple of months and i am more than looking forwards to catching a few of the lunking great chub that live there.

I have discovered the above photo on my mobile phone, it gives a great indication of the water clarity at Salford Quays as a shoal of bream can be clearly seen amongst the weed beds. One of my friends was fishing the quays this morning, and he told me that the water levels rose over a foot in 4 hours as huge amounts of extra water washed into Ship Canal from the Irwell. Neil reckoned he had over 30lbs of roach and perch in a 5 hour session, not a bad way to use up his left over maggots.

Good Times

Yesterday was the first day of the official coarse fishing season, when the rivers open up to anglers after a three month break, during which time the fish spawn and recover.

After a couple of months fly fishing and coarse fishing on still waters yesterdays trip was a one which i had looked forwards to for quite sometime.

Tony took us to one of his favourite stretches of the River Ribble and armed with our trotting rods and three pints of maggots each we started off the season in style.

Have a look at the photos below as i dont think my words can really do justice to the great days sport we had, which involved new personal best Barbel for Phil, Neil and myself.

(above) 10 pounds 4 oz of smile! the fish wasnt bad either.

I didnt fish the "hot swim" for long, and had a great walk up river with Tony who showed me some great pools and runs. We even saw a stone loach, a weird looking fish that looks like a cross between a gudgeon and a tiny barbel. As always we turned a few stone over to take a look at the general bug life, there is an amazing variety of creatures that live on the river bed. My next purchase is going to be a fly tying vice so that i can learn to imitate these creatures in order to catch more fish. The quality of representation of the insect is so important and i have yet to find a shop which sells flies of the quality which can be tied by hand. Tying flies will also give me another way to be involved in fishing once the nights draw in, and fishing is impossible. I am sure that the fish which we caught yesterday could be caught using fly tackle - the main factor being able to find a fly rod powerfull enough to land them. My 15ft trotting rod was bent over like a hoop by the fish below which weighed just over 5lbs i wouldnt like to think what one of these fish could do to my fly rods!

I am 42 years old today, sometimes after taking under 13's rugby training i feel 102, somedays after work i feel 102, but yesterday i felt as though i was sixteen again, out fishing with my mates, having a good time catching fish. Was a day out with the guys i shall remember for a long time.

Pilsworth Match Lake

Matthew and i had a couple of hours up at Pilsworth last night in search of carp, but we couldnt carch any thing other than Bream. Matt hooked into another decent fish, which took him straight across the lake and into the weeds. He is determined to bank a carp so it looks like we will be having another session together soon.
Its taken time for him to get the fishing bug, as i often think he accompanies me just to keep me happy. If he decides that carp fishing is the thing for him (which its not for me) then i dont mind spending a bit of time sitting behind a pod and buzzer bars, as long as he catches fish and learns to enjoy his fishing.
I am looking forwards to a trip out with Phil and Tony tomorrow as its the first day of the coarse season.

This weekend i was lucky enough to be able to fit three fishing trips in. My first venture was a return to the swim on the Manchester Ship Canal where i had bagged up on roach last week. This week however i turned up but the roach didnt. I struggled to get bites but stuck it out for a couple of hours to catch 4 small roach and a chublet.

Sunday morning saw me fishing at dawn again with Neil at Salford Quays for Pike. Over the last couple of weeks it has been noticeable that the Pike feed as night turns into day, and that once the sun is up the pike stop feeding. Today was no different, and i took this nice little fish at about 4.15am. About half an hour later Neil hooked into what he thought was a small fish, so passed the rod to his girlfriend Tez who was accompanying him. She made a good job of playing the fish which stayed deep for 5 minutes or so to the net. It was only when the fish rose up in the water the we could see that it wasnt a small fish at all but a broad shouldered pike of at least 15lbs. As is often the case once a fish sees the landing net in the water, it spooks and finds an extra reserve of energy - in this case, as the fish turned its head away from the net the hooks pulled and a lovely pike zoomed back down into the depths. By 5am the sun was shining on the water and the pike stopped feeding. We fished on until 9am but didnt have any more runs.

To keep myself occupied i set up a slider rig on my waggler rod and had a go at catching some small roach and perch. The water on this particular quay turned out to be 24ft deep only one rod length out! I caught quite a few little fish but nothing of any size to report.

In the evening i had arranged to meet Tony on the river for a short session. Tony had tied up a few Oliver Edwards caddis patterns which he had used with great success midweek so i was looking forwards to trying them out.

On arrival we decided to walk up to the furthest away runs and then make our way downstream back to the car.

However for some reason once we started fishing we moved upstream through some delightfull pools and fished water we had never visited before. I found this great fun, and it more than compensated for the large amount of trees i was catching and the few fish i was hooking.

I did manage a few takes and to land a small brownie, but to be honest i was knackered and should have gone home to bed.

As we reached the pool which was at the head of our allowable beat, Lucia decided to come and visit us which was great as she could save us a long walk in our waders and drive us back to our starting point.

What poor old Lucia didnt realise was that two big guys in wet waders in a citroen saxo would create a vile stink of the type she had never smelt before. Therefore she drove like a nutter with all the windows down to make her experience as short as possible. As she left us at 9pm i promised her that i would only fish for another half hour but at this time of the year the twighlight seems to last for ever and we fished on until 10.15pm! Tony took a nice brownie from the car park swim, but the fish which were rising, seemed preoccupied with some form of fly and werent really interested in our offerings.

I have a busy work schedule over the next couple of weeks so my fishing activities are going to be curtailed to some extent. I have however booked myself a day off to fish with Phil on the Ribble on the opening day of the coarse season - i cant wait.

Klinkhammer Magic On The Ship Canal

I spent a very enjoyable evening in the company of Nick, author of Angling For Something. We had arranged to have a plugging / spinning session after work for the large trout that allegedly inhabit the Ship Canal. I originally planned to take a second rod which i would use to suspend a team of buzzers beneath a bubble float, but as i finished work later than expected i didnt have time to organise my tackle properly so only took my lure fishing gear with me. A decision i would later regret.

When we met up Nick had brought two rods, his spinning gear plus a fly rod, with which he hoped to catch some of the many freely rising fish which can be seen along this stretch of water.

It wasnt long into our session before Nick put down his plugging gear and started to fish a dry fly.

The photos below illustrate his virtually immediate success.

However this proved to be the only fish of the evening. We fished fronm 6 -10pm but didnt have any more luck. I stuck to lure fishing whereas Nick alternated between his lure rod and his fly gear. We explored a mile or so of the canal bank all the way to Potato Wharf and beyond into the city centre. We saw a nice carp topping in one of the side basins, and lots of small roach rolling and topping in the main canal, unfortunately we saw now evidence of the large pike and trout which were our intended quarry.

To be truthfull, I am getting pretty brassed off now with lure fishing as i am having no luck at all using this method. The last time i caught a fish on a lure was a jack pike back in Febuary on a spinner when the river was in flood.

I have a box full of about 30 different lures and i have used them all on trips during the last few weeks with Matthew, Lucia, my father and now Nick. Whilst i really enjoy time on the bank, and the company of the people i go fishing with it is important to me that i catch some fish.

With this in mind i am going to put my lures away for a few weeks and dust off my old rod pod and alarm set, in order to attempt to catch a couple of larger fish. I am sure that there are some really large specimens in the Ship Canal and it will be fun trying to see if i can catch them - watch this space!

Had an afternoon/evening session on the Ribble with Tony and Phil, i was looking forwards to trying some more upstream nyphing.

Despite the rain that was falling, the river levels were low, a good two or three feet lower than on our last visit.

Tony and i started fishing the shallow pools below the bridge but all i could catch was weed. Tony however connected with a couple of fish but didnt land any of them until a nice brownie graced his net, caught from the last pool in the series beneath the bridge.

We then wandered down to Phil who was fishing a much deeper pool further down the beat, he too hadnt had any takes but as ever was enjoying his fishing.

Tony and i fished another couple of pools, trying to make sure we fished the streamier, faster moving, more oygenated inflows at the head of the pools. Again Tony had a couple of takes and i had none.

We have developed the habit of turning stones on the river bed to see what sort of invertebrate life we can find, as we are sure that these bugs must form 90% of any fishes diet. A good hatch of flies must be a trouts form of dessert after having a good meal of bugs.

Tony is quite an expert fly tyer, and the photo below shows a real hydropsyche larvae, and an imitation fly that Tony has made. I am hoping that Lucia gets me a tying vice for my birthday as Tony has promised to show me how its done. His flies are impressive and seem to catch far more fish than shop bought ones.

The last pool we tried was one where another river joined the Ribble, Phil had joined us by now and was pleased to report success further up the beat in the shape of a brownie and a grayling.

There were three fast streamy run intos into this pool, and we each fished one of these tongues of water. I had a take from a really good fish on only my second cast, but it shed the hook after about 10 seconds. As i hadnt had a take all afternoon i was gutted, and thought that my chance for the day had dissapeared with that fish. However a couple of casts later i hit into a nice fish which i landed. About 15 minutes later i took a second, both of which Lucia and I have had for breakfast this morning. These fish appeared to be ones that had been stocked and didnt have fully formed tail fins, also their markings and colouration didnt match those i have seen on truly wild Ribble trout, so it was a guilt free breakfast. I have never intentionally killed a wild trout and would never do so.

Both Phil and Tony caught trout and grayling from this pool, so it was three happy anglers who made their way back home. Topic of discussion was do we take a day off on the opening day of the coarse season (june15th) and go fishing- of course we do!