Local potential

Just got in from a local session with Neil on the boat, we finally got round to trying a localish spot we have had our eyes on for a few years now but never got round to fishing as we didn't want to risk wasting the chance of a full day on a venue we knew we could do well on. Our plan was to get on it after work and fish into the evening as it was local enough to do that and gave us enough time to try it out and suss out the potential if any for a full days go at it.

We got set up and Neil set us on our way ready for a troll downstream, i flicked my tail dancer over my shoulder and no sooner had it settled into its path than a jack hit it and we was off the mark straight away. I flicked back out and a perch took it straight away!

It didn't carry on like that but it was steady sport. We didn't want to go too far as we was limited for time,  it was more a case of just trying a few spots, seeing what the depths were like and seeing what potential there was by any fish we caught. I chose to fish the taildancer as it would get down deep, be big enough to attract a decent pike but not too big that it would put off perch. It seemed like a perch magnet as i was getting quite a few which was a surprise as we expected most of the action to be from pike.
I'd say the majority was in the perch favour by the end of the session but we managed a good number of both with a tally of fish into the 30's that was enough from a tester session to really encourage us. We didn't even fish some of the best spots on the river.

The few highlights of the session was a nice 2lbish perch for Neil, a mid double that Neil lost off then right at the end a couple of half decent pike to finish off with, Neils maybe just tipping double.

There's was some real good signs for potential and we cannot wait to get back there for a full day at it.

Last week i got out for a few short perching sessions, nothing big caught but some decent enough lumps to put a bend in ultralight rods. There in super condition at this time of year and even the smaller fish are stunningly coloured.

Tour de River

While most people in Yorkshire were stuck in traffic jams and watching power rangers on wheels go past, myself and Neil got out the way for a day on the river in't boat.
We stayed clear of our usual spots not wanting to risk the traffic coming back so headed off to somewhere out of the way of the race.

We had high hopes really as we've fished it once before and done really well, in fact up until our last session on the boat it was our best day out. So it was a little disappointing to roll up and find the river coloured. It was the kind of colour that was hard to tell whether it was too much or actually wasn't too bad, either way it would have been allot more favourable clearer.

Our worries were confirmed as we trolled quite allot of river and cast in quite allot of areas and didn't get so much as a take, they were certainly not in the mood as we both thought the colour wasn't bad enough to make it that difficult to catch.

It was a long hard day by pack up time, we managed to scrape together just short of 30 fish but allot of those came in one small area and a short spell of action, the rest of the day was taken up trying different things and trolling our balls off for the odd fish or there. It was very disappointing but still a day out on the boat and a good laugh so its never the end of the world.

Another season starts.

I always book a few days off for the new river season and this year was no exception, i had a few plans on the go for weeks leading up to the 16th. Monday was going to be a day on the boat with Neil, Tuesday was a bank day with Paul and I wasn't exactly sure where i was ending up Wednesday.

 

I was out all day Sunday for fathers day and didn't get in till late evening so I was pretty much going to be full on for 5 days in a row as Saturday had been a long day, as Sunday night drew near i was getting excited again though, just one more sleep and up early to fish with Neil on his boat.
We was a little disappointed to find the river low but still carrying quite allot of colour, you couldn't see that far past the length of a trace, so we wondered if our excitement was going to soon turn to disappointment.
We started trolling ultralight lures and covered a bit of water before we got a take but it was great to get a fish and give us a bit of hope. We was probably a little hasty in worrying about the colour as we steadily picked up fish, we also caught quite a few drifting and casting into areas which doesn't always go to plan when we have tried it in the past. I would say on this session we caught more fish casting than we did trolling.
Nothing massive caught but we had some decent perch and pike big enough to pull back which were actually amazing fun on the ultralight gear, fit river fish don't half fight!
We bumped into quite a few of the Yorkshire lot who had also had the same plans and at one point i think there was five boats all within view. everyone seemed to be having a decent day and catching plenty.
Another highlight was when we saw an otter asleep on a rock right next to the boat, it was curled up like a cat but soon woke up and went into the river. A brilliant sight and surprising how big they can get, not sure its a good thing for the river though taking into account where we saw it being quite urban.
One more thing to mention was a perch Neil had on that surfaced and looked very big, we only got a glimpse of it and to me it looked a good 3lber but we will never know as sadly it came off!

 

I was still pretty shattered Tuesday after the long day on the boat and was up again early to fish all day. I had planned to meet Paul for a days bank fishing and hopefully some chub. Paul only had the morning to fish so i had some ideas for where i could move onto.
No sooner had i pulled up and was walking to check out the river than i get a text from Paul saying he had slept in, this didn't come as a surprise as Paul has a bit of a habit of this.  My first thought was well at least there will be more fish for me.
As it turned out the small river was still carrying allot of colour too and i didn't fancy it, i didn't give this spot too long i just had a feeling i was wasting my time so thought I'd put plan B into effect.
I had a drive to the second spot then realised I'd have to wait nearly 2hours for the postie to open to buy a fishing permit! I thought id have a walk and check out all the swims while i waited. What swims? the bank vegetation was over head height and you could not even see the river, i pushed my way though but i was getting covered in pollen which made the hay fever i was suffering with even worse. I was getting a bit annoyed at this point as my plans for today were going down the swanny.
Eventually the post office opened and i went to buy a ticket not really looking forward to having to make my hay fever worse. The guy at the counter was really helpful and said the banks had not been cut yet and he was a bit annoyed about it, he suggested i go elsewhere and gave me a map and talked about the spot in detail.
The story of today was pushing my way through pollen laden grass and lots of climbing into and out of swims often falling back into them and getting scratched and nettled. My arms, neck and face were a bit of a mess with stings and generally being puffy because of the hay fever, i felt pretty lousy but pushed on. It was a tiring day but i did OK, i had a handful of pike quite a few perch and a few chub to make it a Yorkshire treble.
I had a phone call of the Mrs to say her car was knackered and would need mine on Wednesday so that meant i wouldn't be able to fish. I decided to go check out a canal spot Ive not fished for a while and see if i could spend the evening catching perch on the fly that Ive been enjoying over the last month. It didn't go to plan and there seemed to be nothing about other than a few tiny perch. All of a sudden everything tightened up and i had a fish on, what a surprise i got when a trout surfaced! Not sure if it had been to sea or was on its way but given its location it was certainly migrating somewhere. It had some characteristics of a fish that had been in saltwater, apparently the fins of a river dweller are olive and migrated fish have no colour in there fins even when the body colour starts to come back. It also had star shaped spots, no red spots and was nearly white in colour. Its always difficult to tell where the trout have been and its something that interests me and would like to learn more about. i did a bit of reading and apparently when a fish decides its going to migrate to sea at a young age it starts to change its colour and characteristics before it travels, this is called a 'Smolt' Either way it was a surprise and capped the day off nicely.

 

 

 

Last day on the boat

Things have been very hit and miss lately and Ive also been very busy with other things so my fishing has kind of been on the back burner which explains why my blog has been quiet. I have been out fishing now and then but the results have been shocking and nothing really to shout about. I have been doing allot of building and rod building though so I'll try and find some time to update my blog with all that stuff too.

So at the weekend I got out with Neil for what would probably be the last day on his boat together this year. I was really keen to get out with him at this time of year as I've only been out in summer when its mainly trolling ultralight lures. In winter things really slow down and its not a case of numbers of fish anymore, but hopefully a few bigger ones.
The plan was to troll big lures and stop whenever we found good spots and chuck some dead baits out. This approach is brilliant because your fishing all the time and giving yourself lots of different chances to catch. while looking for good dead bait spots your trolling baits.

I've never actually done any dead baiting so i was keen to see how that went down, i could imagine the excitement actually sat watching a float and waiting for it to disappear, not knowing if it was a 3lb jack or a thirty pound monster!

So we met up and got the boat in the water pretty early as the sun was just making it light enough to see what was going on. When finally in the river it wasn't actually too long before Neil had a fish trolling which was great as we had a good chance of catching more. We always take a photo of our first fish no matter what the size, its now tradition so it now feels abit like superstition if we don't!

 

We picked up a few fish trolling throughout the day, in fact i think most of our fish came to trolling. I also managed to get my biggest trolled fish so far with this really good conditioned fish, it was proper stocky and look at the size of its fins!

 

We found a good spot to try abit of casting and for the first few casts we both picked up a fish and missed a few takes. That was fish to both trolling and casting, the day was going great and we still hadn't sat it out for abit and chucked baits out yet.

 

We found our spot early in the morning but decided to pass it and come back to it later. that time finally came and i think at that point we was pushing double figures of fish which was a good result in the freezing conditions of winter.

It was a great change of pace anchoring up and chucking the baits out, we had a rod each and cast a bait both to the back and front of the boat, the plan was to sit and wait for 30mins before trying another spot. I soon got itchy feet and decided to throw lures around while the baits were sat doing nothing. It was bound to happen, and i managed to tangle my dead bait with a lure DOH! i reeled it all in and as i was untangling my lure from the line on the dead bait rod, the float started to bob about right at the side of the boat! fantastic..... then from the side of me Neil says his float is going too! I wind down and strike and a fish is on! Neil does the same and its double hook up time. Nothing huge for either of us but great to both catch and at the same time, how strange. That was fish to all three methods now and we were really enjoying the day out in the cold.

 

My first dead bait caught pike

 

We set up the baits and cast them out again, while they were in station we both cast lures off the side of the boat, as there was always a chance and it kept us feeling like we was doing something. Neil was drawing up from over twenty foot of water when a pike flashed at his lure as it hit it right at the side of the boat under the surface. It was a big fish and all hell broke loose, this was a net job and after hearing Neil say it was only just lightly hooked i netted it first chance i could, i looked across at my float as i netted Neils pike and it was sailing under the surface! Then Neil informs me his float is away as well, now were in a pickle, a big fish in the net and two more on the deads. I strike my fish but it comes off pretty much straight away, Neil does the same and his also comes off. Its all abit manic now and we still have a fish in the net that is potentially a really big fish, we still hadn't fully seen it. Now being in a position to deal with it, i lift it out into the boat, on the mat it looks huge and we think somewhere between 16-18lb it was really fat so we thought it would go to the latter end of that guesstimate. Lifting the scales it sails round to 17lb really quickly then just stops dead, minus the net that would make it about 15lb, neither of us think that's right so we try to zero the scales and try again but the scales have now frozen and wont zero or anything. We didn't get a proper weight in the end because we couldn't trust that the scales were working before they locked up. The fish doesn't even look what size we suspected in the photo, but never mind it was a fantastic fish and really topped our day off brilliantly.

 

We trolled our way back to the launch picking up a few more pike to take us to 13 for the day. It was a day of a mixture of things so it felt pretty much action packed and we were both really happy going home with what we had caught on the day, can't ask for much more than that.

A day afloat

Ive not being doing a great deal of fishing at the minute and it always feel strange when i haven't. A week can soon feel like a month! The kids are just about to go back to school so i should be able to find more time again hopefully.

On Friday I had another day on Neils Bote trolling and casting for pike and perch. We both had a trick up our sleeves that we thought might add a different dimension to our day.
To be fair the river had still not fully got over the rain from the week previous and although the levels were fine the colour was still running through and it wasn't ideal. We started to pick up a few fish here and there which was actually a surprise as we thought it would be more of a struggle.

Neil with the first of the day, a trend that is becoming so familiar, I'm sure he brings the same fish along and clips it on when I'm not looking!

 

We carried on heading up river and on the way we both lost off what felt like better sized fish with only seeing a glimpse of them before coming off. We had built a tally of around about the early teens when we reached a spot we knew always held fish and this is where we intended to bring out our secret weapons!

 

Neil wanted to give live baiting a shot in this spot as we generally pick up better pike and good sized perch here. We saved a few ideal sized perch from earlier to use as bait, as soon as Neil cast one out it was snapped up in seconds, after a good fight and nearing the boat it then came off. Another bait when out in a similar area and again with seconds it was gone, sadly the same happened again and the fish was lost. Neil really wanted to land one of these fish as he was using a really old set up he had from younger days and wanted to land a fish on it for nostalgia. While he was casting into a few different areas, i was running my soft shads through the swim and had two pike, one on a 3" yellow dragon phantom shad and the other on a 4" savagear cannibal shad. Not massive pike but great fighters on the light gear.

 

 

A little later as my takes had dried up, Neil put another livo into the hot area and once again in was sailing away in seconds, hopefully this was going to be third time lucky and it turned out it was as the fish stayed on. We got a photo with the rod and reel in view for memory sake.

 

My plan was to give drop shot a go in this particular area as usually we do really well for perch here and often get a few big ones, we always notice that the takes come on the drop too so i wondered if drop shotting would find us more fish. there was no perch showing an appearance to normal tactics so i thought I'd leave it till on the way back to have a go hoping the perch would have moved in.

 

The day got slower and slower and we really struggled at times to find fish on the troll, we had a few little spells of catching small perch and a few pike by casting lures to walls and other features but in general it wasn't proving to be a good day after the promising start we had in the morning.

 

On the way back I got my chance to try drop shotting in the hot spot, and despite there still being no action on the kopyto's i had to have a go with the drop shot. The thing about drop shot is that it needs a proper set up and lots of patience. I only have the latter in very minimal amounts and i didn't want to keep changing set ups or take another rod for it. The night before I came up with the idea of making a hook rig that i could just clip on and off if i wanted to change to drop show quickly. This was basically just a hook with wire passed through the eye and then twisted to form an eye at both ends of the hook eye. This enabled me to clip mu lure off my trace and clip the trace onto the dropshot hook making an 'up trace' as protection from pike. On the bottom eye i then had mono tied to a weight.

I worked this in the hot spot for a few minutes before eventually i saw the rod tip bouncing away so gave a brief pause before striking into the fish. I was chuffed to get a perch and on the right day i think it would really hammer some fish.

 

Neil then thought he would catch the smallest fish of the day on a kopyto!

 

That was pretty much it for the day, we had a tally into the mid 30's so we did ok to be fair, sometimes I think you just want more when your used to catching more. We both always enjoy it no matter what and this time was all about trying a couple of different things that might really make another good day an even better day if it is more successful.

4 men in two boats...

Yesterday Saw Neil and myself, Woody and Marshman join together for a two boat exploration of a new bit of river.
We couldn't have a really early start because the slipway that Woody needed to use for his boat wasn't open till 9:00. We decided to go earlier than that anyway in case someone was about and opened earlier. It was really going to be a trial on this bit of river so the later start didn't matter too much.
The night before I looked on google earth and thought knowing the area abit from previous visits I thought we had a chance of getting Neils portebote in from another location close by that would mean we could use the extra time to get set-up before Woody and Paul got there boat in the water. Porteboats have to be built of course so if it worked out right we would all be in the water and ready to fish at around the same time.
As look would have it, Woody and Paul got onto the slipway allot earlier as we was half way through building the bote so they came over to see us and we were all just about ready to troll off up the river. While crossing the river to see us they had already picked up a fish so that was a good sign.
So we were off! Just as we got going we could see that Paul was into a fish already and then not too long after Neil was in on our bote, was this going to be a great day? Its become abit of a ritual to take a photo of our first fish (just in case its the only one we get i think!) so here's the first fish of the day, a nice bristling perch giving a good pose for the camera.

 On we trolled again and within a short time i was in and our first pike of the day was on the boat

Things started to go pretty well and we kept picking up fish, mainly pike, then trolling abit and picking up another, good steady sport. We was pretty pleased with how it was going, and we started to build a tally. We like to try and keep count of how we are doing just so we can get a picture of how the day has been and also a little bit of a personal target to aim for, in the past we have got close to targets and gone on to beat them by trying a little harder so it helps us in a way.
The second half of the stretch wasn't as productive for us and we put that down to the shallower depths. Eventually we caught up with Woody and Paul and had a quick natter about how we had got on, strangely they had caught mostly perch up to that point while we had mostly pike.
The day got abit slower as it went on and we continued to troll up and down the stretch passing woody and Paul from time to time who were going the other way. We were all doing well and the new bit of river was proving to be a good spot.
One of our best spells came from a short burst of perch, we were casting to a tree and every cast getting a perch on over a lb each time, with Neil getting the best at around 2lb

This was the first time we had stopped to cast around features, with it going really well we kept stopping here and there to drift and cast to more fishy looking features, in hindsight we probably wasted far too much time casting that just wasn't producing. You have to try it though and I'm sure from time to time it would prove more productive but yesterday it just didn't. It was evident that trolling was the way to go as every time we caught up with Woody and Paul they had been doing better than us and had spent more time trolling.
Apart from a few stops here and there for a quick cast we pretty much stuck to trolling for the last third of the day, the casting did produce the best perch of the day for us though with Neil taking 3 to 2lb with this fish being the best.

I think another reason we wanted to try casting to features was because the area looked so good for chub and we knew they were abundant on this stretch. Funnily enough when we lost all hope of finding a chub I caught one trolling, not realising it was a chub until it surfaced it gave us our first 'get the net' moment of the session as we really didn't want to lose our one and only chub. It was a nice specimen too

Throughout the afternoon we kept getting closer to our best total fish tally together on Neils boat which was 52 we knew we would probably beat that today so kept counting the fish down and then when we did eventually beat it it was then a case of 'we need to get to 60 next'
We got a call from Paul to say they had got there boat off and had decided to head home, we were still 20mins up river so we thought we would also head home. Woody and Paul had also had a good day with 68 fish and that prompted us to try and get abit closer to there tally so we could feel we had done ourselves justice. Its never about trying to beat the others tally, for myself and Neil we just like to think we are holding our own and never like to think we are doing something wrong if we have a much lower tally.
Through out the day we was enjoying it so much we kept saying things to each other like 'what would really top it off would be a nice perch' then we would get a 2lb perch, then it would be 'we've had perch and pike, a chub would really cap it off' then we got a chub. Towards the end it was 'it would be great to beat our best tally' and yes we did that.... then as we headed back to our launch site we kept saying 'A nice pike would really top things off and give us a good fish of all three species' ....... Neil was in and the fish held low for awhile, we did it again, a scraper double for Neil see us top of our day and we were both chuffed to bits.

The final spurt of excitement (ooer) came in the form of our tally getting ever so close to the 68 mark, so much so we were only about 100m from the launch site and 65 when Neil lost a fish. We really didn't want to beat there 68 as they'd never have believed us anyway!  but it became another target and it would have been a great ending to the day for both boats to finish on the same and a great prospect for the future on that stretch, that would be nearly 140 fish altogether!
So it was now about 50m left and i get a perch, two more to go.... 30m and Neil got a perch, at this point we was swinging them in like they they do in the Bass comps in the states, not wanting to lose them they were in the boat asap! we then had a torturous last 30m hoping for a last fish and expecting a take at any given moment, it didn't come so we went another 10m past the other way just to give us one last chance and when Neil got the last perch literally of the surface as it came up and took as he was about to lift out, we had a right chuckle and couldn't believe both boats had managed the exact same total.
A fantastic day I won't forget too soon, thanks To Neil for a great day afloat.

You can read Pauls blog about how there day went on the other boat here RIVER PIKER a cracking read...

Trolling in the heatwave..

Yesterday I had planned to fish with my mate Neil on his Bote, It was going to be a day of trolling our way up and down a river with small deep diving lures. Its more of a numbers game than looking for big fish so its always exciting at the prospects of a fish filled day which really does have the potential to do a tally into the treble figures.

I've only been trolling with Neil a handful of times since he got his boat last year and its a totally different experience which i love. The change of being able to sit down is quite refreshing with lure fishing but you still have the freedom to move about and explore because your in a boat so for me I don't get 'itchy feet' sitting in the same place looking at the same scenery.

Since doing abit of trolling I have started to make my own deep divers, i generally always look to start making my own lures once i start getting into a new field of fishing. I made the lures below especially for deep diving/trolling and finished them in time for my day on the boat with Neil.

 

I got up at 4:20am which incidentally is the time i get up everyday for work, so to be doing it on my weekend off felt a little odd. I shot over to Neils and we were on our way by about 5:15am.

The first thing Neil said when we got in the boat and launched off was 'we will just troll down past these few boats and if we get a fish that means its going to be a good day'. The water was really clear so we were both quite excited. True to his word, it wasn't long before we set off that i got a fish followed not long after by another 2. The average stamp of perch is good here and this set us up for the what we hoped was going to be a belter of a day.

 

 

We fished the first bit as Neil suggested, then turned around and headed upstream, things didn't go as well as we had thought after the initial few fish and it was a little while before Neil found his first.

 

We had pondered on the way if the recent hot temperatures and bright sun would put the fish off to some degree which is why we made the initial decision to go that little bit earlier than we usually would. The more we trolled and the more water we covered with any fish it felt like our worries were starting to become a reality. We reached an area that we knew from the past would always throw up some fish and we had a good little spell here with a flurry of fish, Neil found the best of the day so far with a nice perch.

 

The day did improve to some degree throughout the day and we started to build a tally of fish, it was slow going on the troll and we kept stopping to cast around features on the drift which picked up a few more fish, the average stamp of perch was good but it took a while for the pike to start showing.

 

Neil even managed a pike off the surface which was very much enjoyed followed by a micropike that had a go and was hooked momentarily. By this point we was heading into town with more structure and we had a good tally behind us but with all the boats that the hot weather had attracted it was becoming abit of a nightmare, far too busy and lots of idiots that would not slow down!

Neil had some good perch around the town and a pike that gave him right old run around on his light gear, it was some time before we actually got to see it as it was staying low and kept running.

 

After some time we had had enough of the busy town so thought we would troll our way back, we added to our tally again and we had really had a decent day with a final tally of 54 fish, probably 60% of which were perch and 40% pike. At some points it felt like we was covering too much water with no action at all so it was a funny day, a good days fishing but with that little bit of disappointment in the back of the head that it could have been allot better. i do sometimes think we expect too much but we are not daft and know that there is much more potential to double that kind of tally so it will be really enjoyed when everything does come together.

 

The lure of the day for me was one of my deep divers, after initially testing a few it was evident that we needed to play around with tuning them. I usually do this in the bath with my shallow cranks but its just not deep enough for these kind of divers! The boat is the perfect way of testing them because the sounder will show you what depth it is when they are tripping bottom. In the end we didn't fish with many of the ones I'd made as we were too keen to fish and didn't want to mess about tuning lures. The one below didn't need tuning so i used it abit and it caught me more fish than any others on the day.