College Loonies

Like Roger Booth has recently blogged, the carp at College Pool, although small, do not fight the way they're supposed to. I think the biggest I've ever caught there barely reached double figures, but they obviously have watched too many action movies and aspire to join Stallone, Van Damme et al.

I parked yesterday morning at about 7:30 to find no-one else there . Having this luxury, I had a walk around the pool - didn't take long! - and decided to fish the far end near the lillies.

I know from previous experience that you can't afford to be anything but alert when fishing from this peg, but still put up a quiver rod for the thousands of perch, amongst which swam some heavyweights as I found out to my delight last year.

I came "gunned up" ( is that right? I know "under-gunned".) I had my usual carp gear, a 2.75lbs TC rod, 12lbs main line, a Korda Safe Zone leader and 15lbs braid with a size 8 strong hook. A little on the heavy side? Not when you're fishing here for these loonies. Bait was double 20mm boilie inside a solid bag. I scattered a few freebie boiles in and around the lillies and overhanging tree - no need for a catapult!

Initially, I started catching perch on the quiver, in fact they were coming one a chuck. Nothing of any size; up to 3/4 lb. I was using a maggot feeder with 2 red maggots on the hook and changed to prawn to try to tempt the bigger fish. No chance. Swinging in 4 " perch with the prawn literally filling their mouths reminded me of their voracity (greedy buggers actually).

It didn't take long for the carp to start showing an interest. No twitches, no lifting of the line, just wham-bam-thank-you-mam. The first one caught me out and by the time I'd grabbed the rod it had me in the middle of the lillies. Knowing I had some strong stuff on I tried a tug of war. No result, for me at least. Then I slackened off and watched the line for a few minutes. Nothing. I went back to strong arm tactics and only managed a lilly pad.

 That was it, war!

I concentrated on the carp and let the perch swim rest.  The next time the reel spun I was on it in a second or so. Leaning into the fish, I was amazed at the bend in the rod.  Surely a high double? No, a feisty 8lb on the nose mirror.

Not the rod I was using, just like the juxtaposition of centre pin, goose quill and fish.

A very enjoyable day finished with 5 carp hooked, 3 landed and at least 50 perch. Another result was that just as I reached the car, the heavens opened. So I remained dry, well dryish.

Car Boot Gems

Not the "got any jewellery, mobile phones?" etc chat from the dealers who descend on the poor booters even before the engines are turned off, rather 2 nice rods from days gone by.

I've only once had the chance to buy a real gem, a Hardy split cane rod which needed some attention at £80, but I turned it down, foolishly as I now know. But this weekend saw us going to a couple of our regular car boots in the area. I found a lovely cane and split cane 10' rod in fabulous condition. Not made by any well-known firm, in fact it doesn't have any markings but just the quality and feel made me buy it after a small negotiation!

The other is a 13' hollow glass rod, again in great condition made by Norco of Fordingbridge and is an "Interceptor" by Howard Humphrey. He was part of Ivan Marks's "Likely Lads" match team in the 1970s and was a brand manager for Lanes Tackle.

So I can't wait to try these 2 rods out, bought for a total of £11, maybe on my local bit of the Oxford canal.

10th August Middle Severn

I'd promised myself a trip to one of the BAA's stretches on the middle or lower Severn and finally made the effort on Friday. I had a reasonably early start and pulled up in the car park around 7:30 to find not a soul in site. Happy days!

This stretch is fairly straight and I chose a swim which had an overhanging tree to my left, downstream, with a clear bit of water directly in front and upstream.

 

Knowing that this part of the river holds some good-sized bream and also the possibility of a large barbel,  I set up a large halibut pre-drilled pellet under the tree and a cage feeder with smaller soft pellets on a quiver rod. This was cast slightly upstream into the main channel.

I soon had the bream interested and started to catch them up to 6 - 7 lbs.

The best went 8lbs 3oz.

I was pleasantly surprised to pick up the odd roach, which found double 8mm soft pellets to their liking! Mostly they were in the 1/2 - 3/4lb range but the best went a very nice 1lbs 7oz.

I'm afraid despite ringing the changes of bait and hooklength the barbel didn't show. I went from 3' mono to 6" braid, hook sizes from 12 to 8, pellet to meat to boilie, all to no avail. Still I enjoyed the wildlife between bream/roach as well as 6 hang gliders doing their crazy stuff god knows how many hundreds of feet above.

There were the usual summer boaters, both holiday-makers in narrowboats as well as a few gin palaces. Most were really sensitive to the angler (me) and when they realised I was there, pulled further out into the river.

However, around lunchtime I heard the chug chug of a narrow boat coming upstream but couldn't see it through the tree to my left. I thought that it must be further away than I thought until suddenly, about 10 ft from my bank appeared the bow with 2 ladies of a certain age enjoying a cuppa. On seeing me one shrieked back to the Captain, "Look out, there's someone here!". I sunk both rod tips in speed which Usain Bolt would have been proud of, and watched in amazement as the craft continued its parallel course, not turning one iota until Captain Pugwash casually said, "We'll only be 15 minutes, we're just stopping for a bite". With that he churned the water and proceeded to moor no more than a few yards upstream from me.

A reasonable guess would have been that within several miles there were no other fishermen. So why here? Good as his word, after 20 minutes or so he cast off and, instead of continuing up the river, he swung the boat around and went back to wherever he came from. Hopefully only to fall in some mammoth-sized cowpats when disembarking!

Rosinante, I solute you (with 2 fingers!).

I ended up with 8 bream between 6 and 8lbs 3oz and some very nice roach up to 1lbs 7oz. Oh, and a bit of sunburn.

Early Doors at a Thames Jungle and Pimlico

I've had a couple of trips out in the last 2 weeks. The first, to a small stretch of the Thames west of Oxford which is on a Club card I recently bought. Although it takes only 30 minutes to drive to the track leading down to the river, it's another 15 minutes negotiating the rutted track and field to get to the water. 2 gates later, one of which is padlocked, I saw what lay ahead of me.

Driving down to the bank I was careful not to lose the exhaust system. Having parked, I decided to walk the stretch and managed to get soaking wet struggling through the knee-high grasses and weeds.

I must remember that at 5 o'clock in the morning everything is saturated despite any fine weather forecast!

Along the whole length, about 1.5 miles, there were only 3 or 4 "easy" swims. Everything else entailed major gardening and ground work to reach the river.  I settled in a swim which was just below a bend, having a quick walking pace flow.

I didn't connect with any of the barbel for which I was hoping, but did manage several smallish chub up to about 2.5 lbs.  As the holiday makers started their breakfasts and decided to move their boats I decided to head off home. Particularly as at about 9 o'clock this one got confused and thought he was at Silverstone with Lewis et al. Good job I had packed away most of my stuff otherwise sitting on the edge I would only have got soaked again.

So yesterday I had another early (for me) start - 5 am - and went down the the small lake where I caught my PB carp a few weeks ago. This entails a bit of a walk, although nothing compared with Martin's new water. I think he said it's a 35 mile walk, or was it 35 mins?

Although there were 3 anglers there before me, I had most of the main lake to choose from. and fished a swim opposite the one I fished earlier. I chose this because I'd noticed that the fish were showing on the surface there rather than on my side of the lake.

 Good job my boots are waterproof

You may see the gloopy mud which went up to my ankles.

As it was early and I couldn't see any activity up in the water, I started with 2 bottom baits, one under a tree to my left and the other a little way out. It was from the "tree" rod where the action came and 3 nicely scaled mirrors just making doubles came in fairly quick succession.

I'll have to sort out this self-take stuff!

This one had some nasty marks, spawning trophies?

Around 7 ish I started to see some dark shapes cruising just under the surface in the middle of the lake so I got out my floater gear and put away the bottom rods. I'd recently bought a brand new Sonic rod from a lad on eBay for buttons and wanted to try this out. Although it's a 2.75lb TC I'm  impressed with its action. Nice and relatively soft tip, so with a 10lb main line and a 8lb hooklink I had no problem playing fish close in.

I had a further 3 off the top and funnily enough all were commons and all torpedo-shaped. As forecast it started to rain around midday so I packed up having had a most enjoyable 6 or 7 hours fishing.

Marcliff Weir

Martin persuaded me that a late afternoon start at Marcliff would be a good idea. As he works and thus supports us poor retirees I agreed.

Arriving before him I walked down from the car park to find that nearly all pegs on the island were occupied but 2 guys said they'd be going around 6 ish. I continued down the main river and found that there were only 1 or 2 swims which didn't need the agility of a Joe Brown (showing my age).

The river was looking in great condition, about 8" up but, according to one of the fishermen, just fining down. The colour looked perfect.

By the time I got back to the car Martin was just arriving so we loaded up and walked back to the weir. Luckily a guy who had been there since 7 am was packing up and I dropped into his swim. He left with the news that out of 8 bites he only landed 3 fish, all the others making off downstream and promptly taking him into the bullrushes. At least I knew they were feeding!

Martin had brought his chest waders and wanted to roll some meat under the far treeline so went into the only remaining swim at the top of the island.  After an hour or so of a) having to add more weight to my large feeder in order to hold station in the flow, b) losing hooklinks and c) landing just 2 small chub, I walked along to see how Martin was getting on. He was certainly getting into it big time! He was halfway across nearly up to his armpits.

Shortly afterwards he landed a nice fat-looking chub. Picking it up I was surprised that its' round tummy was in fact empty and probably just scraped 3lbs.  So the intrepid explorer ventured out again into the torrent.

By this time he had managed to soak his jacket thus ruining anything in the pockets, including his carefully prepared sticks of luncheon meat.

When the 2 other anglers had packed up I moved into their swim which gave a better and wider view of the main current at the far bank.

I only managed one more chub in the high 2lbs but it was in fine condition, although, like Martins', had an empty belly. So no barbel for me, just 3 chub, but when I packed up just after 9 Martin was braving it out 'till dark. I think he finished with 3 or 4 fish including 1 barbel. He had, however, been broken by a very large fish earlier.

An unusual thing happened while we were there. The first 2 anglers, who had moved, lived in East Anglia and around 5 pm 2 others arrived from Hull. 4 from miles away!

The Hull guys were down for their annual trip of 5 or so days, fully prepared with bivvy etc. They were giving Marcliff until Sunday then heading off to Fladbury weir for a day or so. I know the fishing here can be very good but it was strange to meet 4 anglers who had made, between them, over 700 miles round trips to fish our part of the river.

Half a Pint of Reds Please

I had a similar result yesterday afternoon as a fellow blogger, Pike Blog.

When I caught my PB carp last week, another angler told me that the 2 smaller pools there had a good stock of roach going well over 1 lb. I fancied using my new "old" wagglers recently purchased from eBay. Originally I was going to stick with corn, pellets and bread flake, but as I was walking past my local tackle shop I popped in for some essentials (we all do that don't we? Not sure you could describe all such purchases as "essentials"). At the last moment I got 1/2 pint of red maggots, just in case the other baits failed to interest the roach.

As the day was blindingly fine, it was a mistake to arrive just before midday. The car park was packed and when I had a walk around the 2 smaller pools there was only 1 swim free, tucked up in a shallow corner. If I hadn't bought the maggots I might have gone back home but I couldn't see nearly £2's worth of fresh bait turn to flies - no chance of using the fridge in the kitchen! I'm not Scottish, honest.

I had a sleeper carp rod out under the far bank cover and set up my 15' float rod with a centre pin loaded with 3lbs line. The small Wotton goose quill was set just to touch bottom on the shelf out from some reeds. I baited up with hemp and corn, leaving the grains to work while I had a drink.

Starting with corn I immediately caught some nice-looking roach around 6". I switched between the corn, flake and pellet but couldn't up the size of fish.  The guy to my right had a lovely view of a far bank bay where he said he could see dark shapes cruising. Luckily for me he packed up early so I quickly moved into the spot.

My carp rod was cast to the far bank from which you couldn't fish due to the "jungle". I thought that it was a given that sooner rather than later I'd be into a carp. Bugger all! Except that I did have 2 very short bleeps on the buzzer and when I finally wound in the lead clip rubber had moved up the line by about a foot. So I guess I'd been done over by some clever carp.

You may be wondering where the maggots in the title come into it. I had been reluctant to switch from corn etc to the maggots reasoning that they wouldn't improve the stamp of fish I was getting. But I was wrong. In the 3 - 4 hours I had nearly 100 lovely roach and rudd on double maggot ending up with stinky trousers and an even worse towel.

Although there were no one pounders, almost all of the fish were between 1/2 and 3/4 lb. By the time I'd run out of maggots - and getting anxious to get back to see the England v Ukraine 7:45 kick off - I was catching them about 1 ft deep with the shoal boiling on the surface. A place to go back to in the winter months with JH's bread discs I think.

Passport To Pimlico

On my last post I mentioned that I'd been sussing out some places more local to me, i.e. within 20 minutes, so I could steal the odd evening without keeping BP, Shell et al in the lap of luxury. The photo of the "pod" of carp was taken at one which is literally 5 minutes away. The other place I had looked at is slightly further - 10 minutes - but I'd recently heard that there were some high 20s and even a couple of low 30s in there. It used to be popular with the kids when I last fished there about 10 - 15 years ago, hence my reluctance to go back. (I know, we were all one once.) Then, although you normally caught, the average size was around 6 - 8 lbs. Not to be sniffed at but not exactly awe-inspiring.

So yesterday I set off early doors (breaking my "somewhere for the evening" idea) and firstly stopped to have a look at the very local one. Only 1 car was in the car park and I had a quick walk around. However, something told be I should go on to the other one. When I pulled up I could see that there were already a few cars and vans parked, but as there are 3 lakes I assumed there would be plenty of choices.  In fact the one I wanted to fish only had a couple of anglers set up. I walked round to the windward bank. Previously, when I'd done my recce, a couple of fishermen told me that it wasn't necessary to cast far, in fact most were coming out from the margins.  With that in mind I baited 2 spots close in.

Stoneacres it's not!

My right hand rod with a balanced Source boilie was placed tight to the rushes and the left hand one was dropped as close to the tree as I dared. I had a Withy rig on this one with a pink 10mm pop up. The tree rod had only been in for about 30 minutes when the bobbin slammed into the blank and the rod tip was pulled around. I was fishing with a tight clutch and was worried that the fish would rush under the obvious escape route of the submerged branches. To my surprise it decided to head off to the the middle of the lake. Thanks. It was a powerful run, taking line steadily from my now loosened clutch. I was surprised having a fish take line as easily as this on my usual carp set-up so I thought it must be a better stamp than I was used to. I had it close in on several occasions but each time it powered off again towards the middle. Now I was sure I was looking at a good 20. After the 4th or 5th attempt at coaxing it towards the net I managed to get it over the string. All the while my bacon was burning on the stove, so while I let it rest in the margins I turned the bloody pan off.

Lifting out in the net I was now convinced it was going to be a PB. It looked a lovely smooth mirror and went 29lbs 6oz., easily beating my previous best. Apologies for the quality of the photo but my phone isn't really the dog's whatsits when it comes to taking pics in full sunlight.

My mug of coffee and re-cooked bacon sarnie tasted wonderful!

Later in the day the same rod roared off again, this time wiping out my right hand rod in the process. This fight was different in that the fish really seemed to be mad at being hooked. It went mental, running right, left and off into the middle but I managed to get it into the net sooner than the first. This one was a torpedo-shaped common, also in great condition, not having the shoulders or the belly of the mirror. It went 20lbs 4oz.

Two fish for just shy of 50lbs, I was well chuffed!

The common had a rig still in it's mouth. Boilie still on the braided hair, but a short length of snapped mono which I put at 6 or 8 lbs. Not the best balanced combination of Mono/Braid I think.

PS I'm hoping our resident technical expert (JH) can do something with the fish pics as I can't Photoshop out the contrast.