Slow Progress

Back to College Pool, or should that be back to school?! It was a tough day (especially the first half) and the Bream mission I'd started the previous week remains a case of unfinished business. I'm not setting my sights too high for the challenge - there's a fair head of Bream in the 4-6lb class in the pool, along with the odd 7lb+ fish that we know of. One of the larger 6lb+ samples that I've had on occasions in the past would give me a solid mark to work from and I could then target bigger fish later in the year on other venues.

After 2 sessions on the pool though, I can't seem to connect with the right stamp of fish. A few hours in and I'd only had a 3lb 14oz Bream and 3 small Perch. The guy opposite had banked a solitary small Barbel before calling it a day, while on the next peg only a Roach and a decent Bream had come out.

Despite nearly calling it a day around 2ish, I stuck it out for an extra couple of hours and just kept fishing over the bait I'd balled in at the off. In the end it paid off to a small extent, as I took 3 more fish in the last 2 hours. A Bream of 3lb 15oz was first on to the bank, followed by an all too rare (for this pool) Chub of 2lb 9oz.

I can recall many years ago when I first fished the pool, it was full of Chub. Very few seem to show up now though, so this immaculate looking fish was a welcome change. I didn't expect to be increasing my Chub challenge score today, but this fish chucked an extra 3oz (or a massive 2pts!) on to my score. The final fish of the day also added 2 more points to my score. It was the species I'd set out to catch, but at 4lb 12oz, it was still quite a way short of my target for Bream.

Sadly I had to call it a day at that time, as I had other duties to attend to. I get the impression that I was probably leaving when prospects were on the upturn and I'd have liked at least another couple of hours. Keith J had turned up was fishing the far bank, so I'll be interested to see how he got on.

Next time I think I'll dig out the pellets to see if that sorts out the better fish. I seem to be in the habit of adding to my challenge score each week now, but at this rate it's going to take me until 2013 to get competitive! I don't have that long! In all honesty, I'm just happy to keep extending my number of sessions since a blank.

Brian is back in action next week so that could scupper any progress! He's dared to suggest the Ryton word - or the Murder Pool as he calls it. He's on a run of 4 consecutive royal blanks there now. I've suffered my share there too and I'm not sure if now is the time to tackle the fickle one.

Spring in the air

I didn't get around to doing a report from last week's end of season river venture, so I'll start with a brief catch up. Despite the temperatures being a lot healthier, the river fished poorly. We were on the section that we're less familiar with, due to a match on the other section. I ended up moving pegs after a couple of biteless hours - a move that brought better fortunes but hardly spectacular.

I managed just 4 fish - all different: Dace, Roach, Chub and something that looked a bit hybridised to me. I thought I'd got a decent Chub, as the fight was fairly spirited, but when I saw a brief flash in the water, I began to wonder if it was a monster Roach. When I netted it, the Roach theory was quickly put to bed (not a red fin in sight), but it looked to me like a Roach/Bream hybrid. I didn't weigh it but it was in the region of 2.5lbs.

Brian managed just a solitary Dace.

On to this week and the weather forecast promised us a stunning Saturday and it didn't disappoint. That said, I had to clear ice off the car before leaving and I was hoping the chilly overnight temperature wouldn't kill the prospects.

I had been mulling over the Leamington AA opportunities open to me and in the end I settled for College Pool in search of Bream. I'd had a good day for them in March last year, so I figured on a repeat. I bumped into a chap called Paul who I quite often see throughout the season. He was just setting up and reported that fishing on the pool had been slow so far this year with just the occasional better fish showing. I settled in on the next peg.

I balled in a few balls of groundbait into the usual 15+ foot of water and fished over it with a straight lead on both rods - one baited with red maggots and the other with bread. It was a slow start, but I'd heard a few small fish being banked on the next peg so I was optimistic.

I picked up a Roach of 5oz to get me off the mark and boost my challenge score by an extra 1oz! I feel like a prize idiot weighing fish like this!

The next fish gave me a strange dull fight. I thought it had to be a Bream and not a terribly big one, but when it surfaced my jaw dropped. It was a big old Perch and a country mile over my pb. It just rolled nicely into the net and meant that I had joined in with the bloggers Perch party! It weighed in at 2lb 12oz, which stuck nearly a pound on my previous best.

I picked up a few more bits during the day before connecting with a couple of Mirror Carp - both on maggots and both led me a merry dance on lightish gear. Sod's law, the bread rig sat close by was more geared up for the Carp but they didn't want any of that!

Anyway I won both battles and twice increased the weight of my best Carp from this pool - also increasing my challenge score too. It's good to see the Carp in the pool are packing on the weight now

7lb exactly

7lb 10oz

Paul on the next peg had started to get amongst some nice Bream (my intended quarry!) and had banked 6 of them. I was intent on catching at least one and I even extended my stay to try and prove a point. My patience was eventually rewarded, but the result wasn't what I'd hoped for. A Bream graced my net, but at 3lb 8oz it was a plenty short of the required target and didn't increase my challenge score.

In total I had around 22lb of fish, which was very welcome after the indifference I've suffered on the river this year. I'm starting to subscribe to a theory now though. I've had 2 decent sessions so far this year and what's the common theme? - both times Brian wasn't with me! I always knew he was jinxed!

Pre-bait for Pike!

With just a week of the river season to go, we returned to the Avon in the hope of a points scoring bonanza. Having had a near 2 week lay off I was itching to give it a real good effort - so much so that I indulged in a little pre-baiting the afternoon before. It was a nice idea, but we failed to reap any obvious rewards from it.

I wasn't overly chuffed with the 0C temperature reading when I got in the car. I've come to learn that whatever it's reading when I leave home, it always seems to be 2C colder on the stretch I was heading for.

I winkled out a couple of small Roach early doors on maggot, while the other rig (on which I alternated bread and worm) remained pretty motionless. With bites drying up, I started to set up a float rod when I saw the maggot rod arch right over and then spring violently back. I grabbed it and it felt like a small fish was on initially, but it then seemed to wake up.

I confidently expected to be attached to a points boosting Chub, but after a brief battle on lightish tackle the fish surfaced and into the net popped a small Pike of 3lb or so. Not what I wanted, but it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the day.

Brian wasn't fairing any better, although he amassed a mammoth 5pts for a 1oz Dace! He'd been after Pike already and I now decided to join him. It wasn't too long before his Lamprey section was on the march and although Brian allowed the take to develop, the single hook rig he's been trying out didn't connect. A few minutes later and exactly the same thing happened again. We got a good glimpse of this fish though before it made off and it looked a definite double.

I was next into the action when my line started to tighten up and the rod tip began to arch over. I connected with this one and thankfully the hooks (I was on trebles) held firm. Although only a small Pike, it stuck a few extra points on my tally at 6lb 8oz.

Brian's turn next and this time the single hook connected and held firm - and it needed to! The fish led him a merry dance and went under a landing stage and did a 360 around the support. I think we both figured this was going to end with the fish winning again, but I managed to net the Pike and Brian was able to slacken off the line so we could get it banked. As always, Brian seems to go a bit better than me on the Pike scores and this one went 8lb 5oz.

Not the day we'd hoped for, but pleasant enough nonetheless - it certainly beats watching Coventry City trying to play football by a long way!

A Bit of Solitary

A change of plan this week saw me and Brian on the Avon on a Sunday. In some respects it was a blessing not to be out during Saturday's rather damp and cool conditions. Instead we faced a coolish but dry day and a river that was about 10 inches up and coloured after the previous day's rain.

Usual tactics came to the fore with 2 feeder rigs with baits varying from maggot, worm, bread and meat. The Lamprey also came out of the bag in the hope of attracting a Pike.

We spent 4 hours trying to entice something, but precious little happened. Conditions certainly could have been a little better and any fish was going to be welcomed. In the end I managed just a solitary Bream of 2lb 15oz.


If nothing else, it extends my run of non-blanks to 3 now!

Next week sees an enforced lay off as we have a freebie to watch the Sky Blues take on Leicester City. I certainly wouldn't pay to watch them when I could be fishing, but the free food swung it!

Second Best

I pinched a Friday off work and had a day down on the Avon at Alveston with Brian. Boosted by a decent effort there last time out, I figured I'd got things sussed out. The weather was very pleasant and it was all set up for a productive day.

Things didn't go to plan for me though and the Chub and Bream I was largely planning for, didn't show up. It wasn't for the lack of trying though, but in the end I had to admit defeat and resort to the scratching tactics I'm more familiar with.

There were plenty of bites to be had on the float line and I amassed a few small fish to get me away from the intensity of staring at two pretty motionless quiver tips.

Brian had no success up to that point and was moving into the land of nod. A bite on his maggot rig saw him connect with a small fish that very quickly became a much bigger fish. A pike had scoffed whatever he originally struck into and he was left to pick up the pieces. "It's a double" he claimed, but I quickly dismissed it as maybe a 7lb fish and decided against getting my specimen landing out of the holdall.

How wrong I was! From my angle it didn't look huge, but when I had the task of trying to get it into a largish match style landing net, I suddenly started to get worried. This was a PB in the making for Brian and I didn't want to screw it up. Luckily the Pike played ball and went in first time - with a bit of a squeeze!

The size 14 barbless hook had lodged itself on the outside of the Pike's scissors and popped out easily. Despite a lot of willing, we couldn't get the scales to hit 14lb - Brian settled for a very respectable 13lb 15oz. Although not caught by design, Brian is taking credit for his Lamprey dripping approach. He'd already had a Lamprey section on the go earlier on and had a constant stream of juices oozing from it into his swim. Maybe that was they key?

Brian's other main action of the day came on his bread rig - yes he had some success even if I didn't! A Bream of exactly 4lb graced his net.

I managed 6 species in total - two of which don't count (Minnow and Bleak). The other 4 don't amount to a lot, but for the challenge scorecard purposes here goes with the best of each:

Dace - 2oz

Perch - 11oz

Roach - 4oz

Pike - 4lb 11oz

The Pike also fell to a Lamprey section fished close in under a float. Brian also had a tangle with another Pike, but the hook didn't set and fish got away.

A pleasant day though and the honours most definitely sit with Brian on this occasion.

Phew!

I was out on my own this week and the venue choice was made simple by the conditions. The wind was blowing a gale, so I headed off for the shelter that my club stretch at Alveston provides. There's a bank about 40ft high that surrounds the village section and blocks out any south westerly winds. So while all around was very blustery, I found myself in somewhat tranquil conditions for the whole day.

With my current run of form reading blank, blank, blank, blank I needed to fish a peg I had total confidence in. Peg 9 was the choice and was actually the last peg I caught on at the back end of December.


I set up two feeder rods using a concoction of about 4 parts liquidised bread and 1 part fishmeal based groundbait. I've become a bit more organised recently and I'm starting to freeze up any old bread that would normally be binned. I'm then liquidising it as needed the day before I fish. The freezer is also housing a supply of deadbaits too, in case I fancy a spur of the moment predator session.

I fed the bread mix through both feeders, but opted for different hookbaits - bread flake on a size 12 on one rod, with 2 or 3 maggots on a size 15 on the other. I tend to use the odd numbered hooks in the Kamasan b711 range quite a lot for my maggot fishing. Both rigs had tails of about 2.5ft to 3lb bottom.

I decided to cast fairly regularly to keep the bait going in and I didn't have to wait too long for my first bit of action on the bread. The tip pulled round and I just needed to lift the rod, which was met with a fairly stiff resistance. I knew it was a decent fish and I was hoping it was a Chub, as it would definitely be a personal best.

I played it carefully and when I got a glimpse of the fish I could see it was a Carp. Although a little disappointed that it wasn't a Chub, this was going to be a first for me, as I'd never previously caught a river Carp. The fight went to plan without too much fuss and the fish was banked. It weighed in at 6lb 2oz.



Not a monster in Carp terms and in challenge terms, it's not going to make much of an impression either. As I joked to Brian in a text, I'd get more for a 3oz Dace! In this instance though the figures don't really matter - it's nice to put the river Carp issue to bed at long last and more so at this time of the year when my fishing has been very barren. Suddenly 4 blank weeks became a distant memory.

Things didn't really take off though and after a couple of hours I decided to rest both lines and have a mess about with a float rig. I managed a small roach that I didn't weigh - I don't think it would have made 1oz, before snagging up my rig and losing the hook. I then saw a decent fish top on the feeder line, so I went back out there again. The difference this time was that I switched the rods over and fished bread on the right hand rod.

A steady run of fish then started - all taken on bread:

Chub 2lb 6oz


Bream 4lb 5oz




Chub 2lb 7oz




Bream 2lb 7oz

Bream 2lb 5oz

Smack on 20lb in total, which I'd take any day on a river. I packed in around 4-30pm and went home very content. 57 percentage points on the challenge board, but in all honesty if any of these fish remain on my scorecard at the end of the year, something will have gone badly wrong. It's just a relief to be catching again.

Pastures New - Same Old Story

Saturday rolled around again and it was time to end the drought. Both Brian and I had a few things to sort out, so it was a delayed start which curtailed the session into an afternoon one only.

I was less than impressed by the tempertature again though - a mere -1C while I was doing the rounds in the morning and it was barely above freezing when we set out. We had hoped to fish one of the local ponds, but the ones near me were frozen up, so it had to be a river.

We headed out to the south side of the city and I suggested taking a look at a section of the Avon near to Middlemarch Business Park. We parked up and took a short walk across the scrub land and found a very fishy looking bend with enough depth to entice us into having a go. It was either that, or 15 mile drive to the usual areas we fish and with time against us, we went for it.

Upstream:



Downstream:


Light feeder / bomb set ups were deployed and even the Pike rods came out for a while. You know where this is going don't you? Yes, we blanked again and in royal fashion. I went on the move for the last hour or so and found another cracking looking run not far from the hotel, but it didn't deliver either.

January has come and gone and I'm stuck on a blank. I thought it only fitting that the blog should be renamed for a while, in honour of this non contact (with fish) pastime I am participating in! I'm still upbeat though and given some better conditions, things will improve I'm sure. On a positive note I'm no further behind than I was at this time last year!

I had a bit of a recce on the Sunday and I've eyed up a couple of interesting new spots on both rivers and ponds. I have a couple of others I want to visit during the week if I can sneak out of work early one day. I'm sure I can blank on them all given the chance!