And We're Off!

Farnham AS, Mill Lane Lake

10:00-17:30 / 1-2 Rods / 9 Rod Hours / Blanked

The start of a new Pike season and after a break of a staggering four years I couldn't wait to get out, even if it was 20c and a touch too warm for my liking.

Given that gap in time it was planned as more of a 'getting my hand back in' session than anything else, although with my cousin's husband Paul out with me I was hoping to give him a hand, pass on a few tips and hopefully see him catch. As it was he did far better than I did, three fish, the first at 4lb 2oz within 45mins of starting and two more later in the day around 2-3pm at c. 2lb & 1 1/2 lb!

Fishing wise my plan was to rove with one rod twitching Sprats/Sardines and then have an hour or two's break with a dead bait rod out, as always things didn't quite go to plan but it was a great day out nonetheless and we had a few good laughs along the way too.

Following the Farnham AS Pike Teach In we'd attended I'd decided to ditch the old 7 strand trace wire I had and in future use the 49 strand that the instructor had recommended, it's far more supple and less prone to kinking apparently. So for the roving set up it was the lure rod, Korum 4000 loaded with 27lb Power Pro Braid (more on that later), home made 24" crimped trace with one treble/one single hook or two trebles, depending on the bait size, with a dab of lead putty added for extra casting weight.

I did take a break and put a dead bait out for a couple of hours early in the afternoon, Sardine to start with and then a Herring but not so much as a touch, if they're not 'avin it, they're not 'avin it I suppose?

More on that braid. At the Teach In we'd been told nothing less than 50lb for braid and 20lb for mono, the reason being that when fishing with lures particularly, although logic tells me the same applies to any moving bait real or otherwise, if you get snagged up using 50lb braid the odds are that with a decent pull it'll come free, even if it does mean the hooks straightening out. As it was I genuinely believed that what I was using was actually rated at 60lb and it wasn't until I got home and checked the packaging that I realised it was a lot less.

I've since ordered up a 300m spool of Berkley Whiplash 8 at 50lb and with, believe it or not, a diameter of just 0.18mm?! It's not cheap but it keeps me the right side of the law, which is all about fish welfare after all and as thin as it is will enable me to search out a lot more water in future.... a classic Win-Win in my book.

So, first day out in years and all's good in the world, roll on the next time!

2018/19 League Table

1. Paul - 3
2. Kev - 0
3. Me - 0

Numpty Boaters and Ducks

But no fish!

Home Park again, this time for a serious attempt at establishing a PB for Chub.

Condition's weren't too bad although the river was still a bit on the high side and pushing through, it was more the time of day that wasn't ideal, given the choice I've fished from late afternoon til dark but a morning til midday'ish session was the best I could manage.

6 hours and nothing, ledgered bread crust, flake and luncheon meat all failing to generate anything more than the odd knock on the quiver tip despite being placed beneath the branches of an overhanging tree in what looked like a classic Chub swim.

Twat in a tree!

The only event of sorts was some numpty managing to drive his boat right through my swim no more than five feet from the bank before getting it stuck in the same tree my bait was sitting under and spending the next ten minutes trying to dislodge it! Not surprisingly i didn't have a touch after that so packed up and went home.

Happy days!

A week to the day later and I'm back on the Thames for another pleasure session.

The plan was to try out the Korum 4000 Feeder Reel I'd bought recently, the first I've ever owned with a baitrunner facility and at the same time practice my casting to a clip technique which was frankly non-existent.

Peg 5 on the Home Park stretch this time and following torrential overnight rain, which had thankfully stopped just after I arrived at 8am, the river was pushing through more than I'd hoped.

I set up an Avon rod with quiver tip, 30g cage feeder with 10lb main line line straight through to a 15 inch long 4lb hook length and a size 14. After a couple of practice casts it was clear that more weight was needed to hold bottom so i swopped the 30 for a 60g, the heaviest I had and set about developing my casting technique only to find that even when packed with groundbait I still couldn't hold bottom so dispensed with the line clip and settled for trying my best to hit the same spot each time.

Groundbait was a 50/50 mix of a proprietary Bream/Barbel brand the name of which escapes me and Vitalin that had been put through a blender until it was a fine'ish powder, to this I added a few sweetcorn kernels that I'd doused in paprika and left overnight. Hook bait was one fake floating sweetcorn kernel and one real one.

To my surprise I felt confident using the fake kernels, a few years back I'd have laughed at the idea but here I was using them and fully expecting them to do the business.

Between around half eight and ten o'clock every cast led to a bite and while not all of them developed enough for me to hit them it wasn't long before I'd had four or five good Roach in the 7-12oz bracket, a couple of Chublets, a single Dace and one small skimmer Bream.

The other side of ten I had a few knocks but no more so stuck it out until around half twelve and then called it a day.

As with any session a few lessons were learnt, not least that I need to get a few heavier feeders, casting to the clip is probably best practiced on a stillwater and that my new reel was all that I'd hoped it would be.

And with two pleasure sessions under my belt I'm now ready to get back to setting all those new personal bests! The question is which one do I aim for first?

A New Dawn

Following a break (for all sorts of reasons) the enthusiasm finally returned and it wasn't long before I'd found a suitable club and was back on the bank.

Old Windsor Angling Club (OWAC) are a long established small and extremely friendly club affiliated to the Thames Valley AA (TVAA), Reading & District AA (RDAA) and the Basingstoke Canal AA (BCAA). Their own water is a stretch of the Thames that runs along Home Park in Windsor in the shadow of the castle, this and both the TVAA and BCAA waters can all be fished for an annual membership fee of just £35.

River Thames - Home Park, Windsor

The first day of the 2016/17 season I opted for Home Park with the intention of spending a few relaxing hours just getting back into things and as there's nothing I enjoy more than running a stick float through a river swim that's how I kicked off. Nothing complicated, 3lb main line straight through to a size 18 with red maggot and/or caster (occasionally both) on the hook and loosefed with a few grains of hemp.

With more than 14ft of water under the rod tip and a 13ft rod I'm not sure I ever got a bait down deep enough but it was good fun nonetheless with a few decent Roach landed along with a dozen or so Dace and the odd Bleak.

Weather wise it was a pleasant 17 degrees with a light wind and thankfully no rain although when I called it a day around 8 o'clock the heavens were about to open. 

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable eight or so hours fishing.

Day Out With Trevor (Crabtree Lake)

My old mate Trevor and I hooked up for an afternoon session after work on Crabtree Lake in Thorpe today in search of big Roach, we both caught and while I managed a new personal best neither of us were able to tempt any of the real monsters.

Trev fished the pole using maggot and corn, on the bottom to start with but when he switched to 'on the drop' the bites became a lot more frequent with corn tempting the slightly bigger fish.

I gave my new Avon rod a work out using a small feeder packed with hemp and corn plugged at both ends with liquidised bread, a single grain of corn on the hook and a quivertip for bite indication, I was getting good solid bites from the off but they were so fast I couldn't hit them! Assuming these were small Roach snatching at the hook bait I ignored the lightning fast bites and only hit the slower pulls and slight drop backs, which worked and I ended up with five or six half decent fish, the two largest of which weighed a healthy 7 ounces, a whole one ounce over my previous PB.

Roach - 7oz

Crabtree is absolutely teeming with Roach, most likely a result of there being no predatory fish present, and are rumoured to go bigger than 2lbs. 

It isn't a big water so locating them shouldn't (famous last words) be too much of a challenge, it's a lovely looking water as well and I'm really looking forward to paying it another visit.

Prawns, they're the future! (Lyne Lake)

I had another go at Lyne today, it was one of the warmest days of the year so far and the plan was to to fish from mid afternoon until dark in the hope that the Perch might show in the last few hours as the light faded.....they didn't!

The approach was much the same as before, two rods (one ledger one float), worm/maggot cocktail and prawn hook baits fished over a bed of seed compost and chopped prawn groundbait. The only changes I made were to scale down the hook sizes to a 12 on the float, a 10 on the ledger and fish a straight lead as opposed to a feeder on the ledger rod and fished less than a rod length out in a swim on the opposite bank to which I fished before.

Unlike my previous visit the bites were few and far between, the first coming to the prawn baited float rod after over three hours, I played whatever its was (and it wasn't huge) for just a few seconds before it managed to shed the hook. Ten minutes later saw an exact repeat, same rod, same bait and same outcome.

It was after 6pm and with the light fading noticeably that the ledger rod sprang into life, a few moments later I was guiding a skimmer Bream that went 1lb 9oz into the net, another species that had succumbed to a prawn.

1lb 9oz

An hour and a half later the float lifted slightly before slowly disappearing and I struck into something a lot bigger that made a couple of brief lunges for safety before rolling over and giving up, a typical Bream bite followed by a typical Bream fight. The last time I'd landed one of this size was from a Kennet weir pool back in the 80's and while this one was considerably paler than it's lovely bronze coloured river cousins it was a good fish nonetheless.

Onto the scales and around they went....5lb 8oz

That'll do, another target achieved!

5lb 8oz

I fished on for an another hour or so until I could barely see my float in the dark but that was it as far as fish were concerned and I headed home, wondering where my elusive big Perch will eventually be caught from? 

And if there's anything that won't fall for a prawn?!

We're off.....but no Perch! (Lyne Lake)

I took the opportunity to have a go at Lyne for Perch this afternoon and while I did land the one it was just a few ounces and well below my target, disappointing but the Tench and Carp more than made up for it.

When I met up with Tony, the CSAS Fishery Manager who'd recommended the place to me he handed me a permit, gate key and went on to say that Pegs 11 and 3 were probably best if it was Perch I was after, it was but I opted for 10 so as not to disturb any of the small number of anglers who were already fishing.

With platforms in every swim and any bankside growth cut back hard it had the look and feel of a commercial, there was one very small man made island but that aside it appeared featureless and I could feel my confidence sapping from the moment I first saw it.

Lyne Lake Peg 10

Still, I was there and so were the Perch so I set up my usual two rods, put out some groundbait and settled down for what I was sure was going to be another blank session.

On one rod a waggler set around 4 inches over depth and placed half way down the nearside margin shelf, line was 4lb straight through to a size 8 hook. The ledger rig was a small blockend feeder with 8lb straight through to a size 8. Bait in both cases was either a two worm halves/single red maggot cocktail or single large prawn.

With both baits out I glanced at my watch, it was 2 o'clock and with the sun still quite high in I wasn't expecting anything to happen for another four or five hours when the light would start failing. I did have a few knocks on the float early on and the odd bleep on the ledger but nothing that I felt I could strike at, particularly in view of the size of baits I was using.

4lb 1oz

Just before 5pm that all changed, the float lifted slightly before sailing away and I struck into a lump of a fish that had fallen for a prawn and while it dug deep and fought well a few minutes later I was sliding the net under a beautifully conditioned Tench that went 4lb 1oz.....my first of the season and a whole ounce over my target for the species, one down, ten to go!

A little while later I landed a second at 2lb 12oz, again on the float but this time to the worm and maggot cocktail.

7lb 9oz

That was followed by a prolonged spell of quiet, broken only by Tony who'd walked round to let me know he was leaving. We stood chatting for a minute or two before being interrupted by the alarm on the second rod, striking at distance I was relieved to feel a good solid resistance on the line.

I was then taken here, there and just about everywhere by something that felt a lot bigger than the Tench I'd had earlier, Tony's guess that it was a Carp was eventually proved right, a 7lb 9oz Common that again was in near perfect condition and had been tempted by a prawn. It was also more than 2lb over my target weight....two down, nine to go! 

As the light continued to fade into near darkness I continued to get knocks on the float but nothing that developed into a fully fledged bite until just before 8 o'clock when I finally struck into a Perch....all 6 ounces of it, not that I bothered weighing it.

I may not have achieved what I'd set out to but to get not one but two of my targets for the season in one session was amazing, although it did have me wondering if I'd set them too low? Nope, they were good then and they're good now, they won't all be as easy as these two proved to be, not least the Perch one which is already beginning to frustrate me.

Lyne Lake looking west from Peg 10

One thing I always try to gain from a session is learning something that might improve my fishing in the future and having given it some thought there are one or two things I can take with me from today.

Firstly not to be put off by the look of a water, it's what's in it not around it that ultimately matters, secondly I need to make more of an effort to make small changes to my rigs now and again, hook lengths for instance, shotting patterns, depths, nothing major but changes that just might improve my catch rate.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable session....but still no big Perch?!