Sunday 8 February 2015

Winter Fishing

Hello,

Sorry that I have not updated the blog for a while, but I bust my leg playing five a side just before Christmas and this has put the kybosh on much of the fishing that I intended to do over the festive period. As I type my leg is still giving me some jip and I cant really walk any distance without pain. This means that I have only been out for a couple of half hearted sessions and none of the roaming around with lures that I usually like to do.

First up was another go for some winter perch so armed with a match rod and one of my trusty centrepins I set of to a local stillwater.

It was not too long before I started to get some interest from some small perch with the float going under regularly. The perch were taking the worms with confidence. I continued to feed the swim with red maggots in the hope of attracting some better fish.
Something buried the float and started to put a bit more of a bend into the rod than the small perch had managed.

Not a monster but a nice winter roach, The pattern continued feed a few red maggots with worms fished over the top and the float didn't take too long before it was pulled under. Another nice pull on the light gear resulted in a small ide that put up short but lively battle.


It was probably around a pound but was in lovely winter condition. I was putting together a nice mixed bag but not really getting any interest from the bigger perch so I decided that a move was in order.
I relocated and began to feed with the maggots again, this time I also put in a good amount of chopped worm and fished worm over the top.
First cast resulted in a fish that felt better straight away, it stayed deep and plodded around in that characteristic perch manner. Going quite steady to avoid any hook pulls or parting of the light tackle the perch eventually came up in the water and into my waiting net.


It was a nice perch that pulled the scales around to 2lb 2 oz, the move had paid off, I thought it would now just be a case of fishing the worm to continue catching these better stamp perch......Wrong.
The other species in the lake provided some cracking sport for December but no more decent perch.
I managed five carp that provided some thrilling battles on the match rod and centerpin. None of them where huge but when playing them on light gear like this you have to be careful.

This mirror was probably the pick of the carp but I also had three nice Koi's that for some reason seem to fight even harder than the "normal" carp. one of them was into double figures and gave a really good account of itself. I love playing decent fish on the centrepin it gives you a lovely feel and I really believe that there is no better clutch than your thumb.


The other Koi were no less impressive if not a little smaller but each and every one of them provided some cracking winter fishing. With 5 carp 3 koi and a good back up of roach, perch and Ide I was very pleased with the session. I even manged a couple of small tench that dont normally put in much of an appearance at this venue at this time of year, so the fish must have been really feeding hard.

It was a really nice day and despite only managing one decent perch I didnt mind as the other species made up for the lack of big perch.

NEXT UP Was a trip out to the river for some stick float fishing, I met up with a chap called Bill who was keen to try his hand at some trotting. I had not been fishing with the stick for a very long time, probably over ten years. The leg was still playing up but this river is only small and has nice even banks so taking it steady I thought I would give it a go. Bill is mainly a fly angler so the idea was to show Bill the ropes with the stick float fishing and in return He would give me some guidance with the fly rod at a later date.
The day started off well for me with three fish in the first three casts. It was nice to once again trundle a float along in the flow and see it bury as some unseen adversary takes the bait. It was very enjoyable and had been too long since I had fished like this.  The first couple of fish were grayling but the third felt much more substantial. A decent chub was making for the roots of an overgrown bush, With a little careful sidestrain and steady pressure on the match rod the chub slowly started to ease from under the bush and shortly after into my net.


It was a bit of an old warrior with a split tail and was like a bar of ice when I handled it to remove the small hook, a quick snap and back he went.

Bill wasn't fairing too well so we decided to move. Next swim provided similar results a few grayling followed by another chub, thankfully by this time Bill was starting to get into the swing of things and started picking of a few grayling.

We split up a little after this and I moved into a nice swim on the inside of a bend with Bill fishing a nice run under some trees further downstream. I continued to catch grayling steadily with the odd chub making an appearance. One was a cracking fish of over four pounds and was in splendid, chunky winter condition.

When I found Bill again he had hit a bit of a purple patch under the trees and had a good string of grayling from the spot. Between us we finished with a really respectable bag of chub and grayling for this time of year (it was freezing).  It was great to meet up with Bill and also great to get back out with the stick float. Oh and it was also nice to meet up with "old big gob" again.....

Now that I have been out fishing with the trotting gear I am keen to give it another go in the not too distant future..watch this space.


Bye for now.....Mark