The 20lb carp yes, yes ….no

It was hot yesterday, damn hot, but nice after all the unseasonably abysmal weather. So after a busy morning I went fish spotting/fishing at one of the club lakes in the pursuit of the 20lb carp. I’d had a couple of doubles at the weekend from another pond but nothing special.

After walking down Cardiac Hill and stumbling through the local cow induced mudbath I arrived at the flat calm 4 acre lake. This lake, because of its hard to get to location is very lightly fished, however, instead of making the fishing easy, it’s allegedly one of the hardest lakes on the clubs books. Fish spotting was easy as the carp were cruising around following the same route all day. However, they never looked at a floating bait or stopped when passing any of my baited areas … well not until later in the day.

I counted about 30 fish, including some large commons, but mainly mirrors. Most seeming to be upper doubles with the possibility of 4 or 5 going into the twenties, big fish for a non commercial venue in this area . Interestingly there also seemed to be a shoal of 20 or 30 other fish cruising around, possibly roach or rudd definitely not bream or carp, all looking subspecialty like 2lb+ fish and warranting further investigation.

I’d put small patches of bait in a few areas, more in hope than anything else, but had also thrown some old maggots and pellets into a margin swim. After a few hours, I looked up from my book, and noticed the water had clouded a bit in margin so I added a bit more bait and pulled in one of the rods. Half an hour later a pair of mirrors swam past, one of which was well into the twenties. Both turned on my bait and disappeared from view. Seconds later a screaming run was met with heavy resistance as both carp bolted from the area trashing my other two lines. The fish I was attached to dived straight into some nearby submerged trees and was turned just in time as I felt the line grating on the branches. After that the fish stayed nicely out in the middle of the lake allowing me to play the fish out and net it. My first 20lb carp get in …. except it wasn’t, it was the smaller of the two and shrunk further on the way to the net. Weighed I was surprised it went 18lb 10oz a new PB but it was very thick and also carrying either a fair bit of spawn or had a penchant for the local pie shop.

I’d broken my ribs in a “freak bedroom incident” a week or so before and was completely knackered so, after a further  hour of inactivity, I packed up, finished my Mr Kippling limited edition French Fancies – they’re exceeding good – and suffered the long walk uphill back to the car. A lesson learnt and plans of a night session starting to form in my mind.

Leaky waders and other uninteresting fishing trips!

I have 3 pairs of waders, cheap thigh waders, cheap neoprenes and cheap waist waders coupled with cheap boots. They all leak, I know this as I’ve worn all 3 pairs in the last few days. However the all-important question is do they leak enough to warrant replacing? I hate soggy feet and I’m also a cheapskate only time will tell!

Fishing has been pretty unimpressive; the quest for the 20lb carp continues with a blank and a handful of doubles but nothing of any particular size. I have seen at least 2 fish well over 20lb drift past so the lake does actually contain the target fish – which is always a good start!

About 8lb short of the target!

I’ve fly fished the Goyt and Hamps, wader leak 1 & 2, and blanked both times. So, just to catch a fish, hopefully one that wasn’t a carp or pike, and to celebrate my 43 birthday I met up with Mat for our annual one off trip to Cudmore’s Milo lake.

We picked this lake as it is advertised as containing no carp and has an outside chance of a nice tench, the predominant species being barbell and chub.  Strangely we never caught any chub or barbel, but I did manage a few “non-existent carp” in an 80lb+ bag of bream and 24 small tench. Good fun but not proper fishing and the car now stinks of slime.

small tench

two small tench

a 7lb carp (one of 3) from a lake that contains no carp

PB Pike and a new beat on the Manifold

With the weather staying cold (overnights of -3) and ‘orrible for the Bank Holiday Weekend we decided to have yet another stab at the pike rather than suffer trying to catch more warmer weather species. The plan was to meet Ian Hunt who was after catching anything bigger than the Jack Pike he caught as a kid and had suffered a fishless day with me last Bank Holiday weekend when it rained for 10 hours solid!

Arriving at the lake we were surprised to see no one fishing and had the choice of two pegs out of reach of the sailors that would no doubt appear in the afternoon. Ian got there before me and chose this peg, with its manicured lawn providing very easy casting.

I got the jungle swim, with brambles and snags everywhere and limited casting space, luckily I had brought waders so I could wade out cast and then return to my peg.

I also set up a feeder/bait rod in the hope of a decent perch or bream.

Two hours in two bleeps on Ian’s right hand rod were followed by screaming run as something had picked up his mackerel tail and made of to the other side of the lake. A strike put a fair bend in the 3lb TC rod and after a few minutes Ian was posing with a new PB of 18lb 1oz. An absolutely beautiful looking fish beating his old PB by 13 or so pounds he was well chuffed.

Unfortunately with the exception of a dropped jack and a couple of lifts of the bobbins that was it for pike.

The feeder rod stayed motionless for 4 hours until the tip swung wildly round and I struck into a decent fish which kited off to the left and threw the hook. I recast and within a minute the tip pulled round again with another lump on that also came off. Then nothing. Probably some of the bream that patrol up and down the lake passing through my baited area no doubt wiping out all the feed I put down in seconds! The thing that’s annoying me is one of them moved off pretty fast for a bream but wasn’t heavy enough a lump to be a carp and the line was unusually slime free. It’s the not knowing as opposed to the not catching that annoyed me for the rest of the day!

The silvers came on later in the day, giving me something to do while watching stationary bobbins and looking at the silly grin on Ian’s face. I honestly was dead chuffed for him.

Earlier in the week I’d popped down to the Manifold to have a quick look at a Peak Passport beat that was quite near work.

I’d forgotten to pack my waders so any attempt at fishing was out, but I was quite impressed by the short 650 yard Marsh House stretch. Glides, rifles undercut banks. Probably 3 hours to fish through when the trout are on the dries and perfect  for on the way back home from work. Can’t wait till summer to explore this beat further.

Rain, rain, rain, blank, blank, blank

To quote the great Idler himself, Mr Jeff Hatt,

“I rarely blank. But that depends on what you call a blank. I call a blank any session where I fail to learn a thing, others prefer to call a fish-less session a blank, and others still call a session where fish are caught but a target is not achieved, a blank.”

Seems these last few wet and windy weeks, I’ve not been blanking at all I’ve just been learning a lot!

Water levels have been my main problem. With plenty of days for fishing but no long sessions I’ve been sticking close to home concentrating on one venue in particular. At the start of the month I could do no wrong, however, the more water that came into the reservoir the worse the fishing became. Over the past week the water has risen approximately 4 foot which, over 100+ acres, is a significant amount of H₂0.

The common consensus is that now that the water has flooded the surrounding tree line an estimated 90% of swims are unfishable, therefore those swims still available are getting hammered, making the dream quarry, a 30lb pike, fish that don’t respond well to pressure, somewhat elusive.

At least the cold water is extending the pike season, albeit at the loss of carp and other summer fish that I should now be thinking about.

The fly rods have stayed in the shed and with more rain on its way and the rivers bursting their banks countywide; they’ll be staying there for a while longer.

One interesting development is a switch to sinking braid for general legering. A quick trial on Saturday left me quite impressed with the responsiveness and I banked 4 massive specimens like the roach/bream hybrid pictured below!

More pike and crayfish questionnaire win £50!

Esox World #4 hits the virtual streets this week with over 100 pages of great articles and photos. If you havent checked out this free ebook have a look at www.esoxworld.com

Crayfish research – your help needed!

As part of her PhD research Leeds University, Lucy Anderson, is conducting a questionnaire into angler’s experiences with crayfish. The questionnaire takes 5  minutes to complete and everyone who participates is entered into a prize draw to win a £50 AnglingDirect voucher.

Numbers of the UK’s native crayfish have declined considerably over the last few decades due to the introduction of the North American signal crayfish in the 1970s. The larger North American crayfish compete with the native crayfish for food, and also carry crayfish plague which is fatal to the native crayfish. At the moment, we have no effective way of controlling the North American crayfish or the plague that it carries. If the North American crayfish and the plague continue to spread, our native crayfish may become extinct within the next 30 years.

In the absence of any other form of control, the only way we can reduce the impact of these American crayfish and crayfish plague to native crayfish is to ensure that we do all we can to prevent its further spread.  As part of a research project at the University of Leeds, we are seeking your help, to try and get a better understanding of current fishing practices, so we can identify possible ways in which the spread of the North American crayfish and their plague could be reduced.

We are therefore asking anglers such as yourselves to complete our questionnaire to find out about the rivers you they visit and the kit that you use at each site. Your help will enable us to see whether there are any areas where the risks from invasive species such as the North American signal crayfish are likely to be greatest. This will allow awareness campaigns and preventive measures to be targeted to those areas to prevent future outbreaks.

Click here to take part: http://bit.ly/anglersurvey

After 3 very good, short piking trips I promised carp angling buddy, Ian Hunt, that we would thrash his pike pb on Bank Holiday Monday. He only needed an average fish to top his pb, a jack caught while he was a kid, and as I had caught 3 doubles in the last 10 days backed up by some high singles I felt confident enough to bet his mortgage on the chance of catching a good fish.

We fished for 10 hours, bivvied up against horrendous rain, with 3 rods each and typically never had a run let alone a fish!

I returned yesterday and fished the same spot for a few hours and landed 4 fish again including a scraper double and lost a monster- big enough to warrant a last couple of end of season trips. Go figure!

No camera and with a dodgy mobile phone pictures don’t really cut it.

Best bite of the day was when big Matt Picton turned up with sausage and chips and a golden trout for bait. Needless to say the trout produced no bites but the chips went down a treat!

Good Friday pike & more Trout in Dirty Places

For those interested in the book, “Trout in Dirty Places”, here’s a link to a BBC article and video.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17613273

Today I had intended to start my river trout season with an afternoon session on the Goyt, however, a few inches of snow on Wednesday and overnight rain has made the river unfishable. With temperatures peaking at 6 degrees it was probably best not to bother anyway.

With grayling and chub off limits due to close season restrictions, and it being too cold for most other species (even though carp were feeding on the surface and we were fishing in t-shirts only a week ago) pike, perch  and bream were the only realistic fishing scenarios available to me.

Three rods, two deadbait, one worm, four hours, three runs, two pike.

I was quite happy when the smaller of the two fish a jack of about 5lbs came to the drifter float and centre pin reel combination. The rod was staked out to run parallel to the bank and the float allowed to drift down the marginal shelf. Weird fight on the pin, coupled with braid you can feel every move the fish makes and with a 1:1 retrieve ratio and hooked at range they don’t half take some bringing in!

The bigger fish was my 3rd low double in 3 sessions, hopefully there’s a 20 knocking around somewhere.

A pretty Good Friday.

Peak District Piking

Had a few hours to kill Friday and as it was cold decided to go for the closest venue for a piking session.

I raided the freezer for what bait I had, which was a big bag of sardines and a few herring. The Hartlepool self-caught mackerel, my bait of choice, had long gone and the only mackies in Morrissons are about 16” long too big for just the tail section and too costly!

I got to the 100 acre reservoir and was faced with the choice of fishing the deep water near the dam wall or one of the shallower arms. Having seen pictures of very fat female pike in the angling papers and after the warmer weather we had been experiencing I guessed that the fish should be moving to the shallows by now and hopefully feeding well (possibly on each other) to gain a bit of pre-jiggly weight – so the shallows it was.

After an hour a small beep alerted me to a miniscule twitch on a dropper and I put down my book positioned the net next to the rod and hoped the bite would develop. It did and I hooked into a very angry pike. After a winter of catching lethargic pike this fish made up for it all. Tearing line of my reel, head shaking and tail walking this fish tried every trick in the books and I was amazed that it only weighed 12.5lb in the net. These fish aren’t particularly long but are very broad.

An hour later just as the Kelly Kettle was boiling this 6lb fish put in an appearance followed 20 minutes later by a 2lb jack.

It got cold so I went home happy – 3 runs 3 fish, well above my normal conversion rate.

Next day my wife wanted me out of the house so I was sent fishing again. Who am I to refuse the will of women?

Same lake, same bait, but due to carp anglers in yesterday’s peg I fished another 100 yards down the bank.

Funny enough same result. Three runs, three fish; a low double, a 5lber and a small jack. I thought the double was the same fish as the day before but photographs proved otherwise.

On the bank was the skeletal jaw bone of a small pike, possibly one of the dead fish I had seen in this peg last year.. It only belonged to a 2 or 3lb fish but demonstrates nicely why we don’t put fingers into their mouths!

Now the question that this whole post has been leading up to - 6 fish from 6 runs when I usually suffer plenty of dropped takes, albeit on a different lake. My bait of preference is mackerel; with their thick skins it casts well and stays on the hook. However, is this causing me to miss runs on striking? All six fish caught this weekend came back minus the sardine, the hooks ripping out easily, when I fish mackerel the bait usually comes back with the fish. I’ll be sticking to sardines for the future and freezing them before I go fishing. They cast ok when frozen to the distances I need (40 – 60 yards) but terribly when defrosted, so it’s a heave it and leave it situation.

Opinions welcomed.