Fishing can be so so cruel........

[gozzer]

I hope those spots aren't contagious Phil

 

John.

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Weekend update........

 

fished the Avon again saturday night with 4 mates. It wasn't gonna be a long sesh though as myself and one of the other lads have been fishing into the early hours enough this week and it was catching up with us both!

 

We arrived and I managed to snaffle my favoured swim! The lads all set up the the right of me giving me free reign to spod around to my left to try and find another decent swim. It was tough going on the whole, but I did manage 5 bream and 1 chub, and all from my favoured swim. The left hand rod managed to spod its way into more snags than I care to remember, and the other lads didnt even have a single bite between em. I'm left scratching my head as to why this one particular swim is so productive? The only thing I can come up with is its the first nice clear area for them to feed in and will stay there if they find sommat to eat there. Its a weak explanation but the only one I can come up with right now.

 

Thanks to bluerinse who pointed me in the general direction of this area. I'll give him some more in depth details if he'd like to PM me!

 

Finally got around (well actually I didn't, the missus did) to getting some Stormsure to repair my waders. I fixed them yesterday but it takes about 10 hours for the stuff to cure so today I decided to give em a test! I grabbed my trusty 1.5 lb test curve specimen net and headed off to see if I could capture some basking carp!!! Despite spooking plenty, including a couple of hefty commons, I 'blanked'.......the weed was much thicker than earlier in the year so it was almost impossible to sneak up on them without them knowing I was there. Nice to see em though and I almost went with rod and line to target them tonight, but was very tired and wanted to do just a quick session tonight so decided not to. Interestingly though it was worth noting where the highest concentrations of basking fish were and perhaps this knowledge will help me target better feeding areas in the future. All very interesting learning and watercraft though. Good news was, my left foot stayed as dry as the right one!!! Bumped into the bailliff in the car park on the way out and....he's a deaf sod, he though I said I was hunting basking sharks!

 

Well, I had a few worms left from last nights river sesh along with loads of fishy stink groundbait so went and had a go at the canal for a couple of hours. Took 3 bream (I'm getting to be quite an expert at catching bream!!!) but no carp showed themselves. It was only a quick couple of hours though and I think I'm gonna try the big lobworm tactic again down there. Of course I also want to give this new bait a couple of real thorough testing sessions too which I've kinda neglected due to my sudden obsession with the warwickshire avon!

 

Well, thats it for now..........I can hear my bed callin me!

Edited August 6, 2007 by Brumagem Phil

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Well my bream frenzy continues it seems!!

 

I still had quite a few worms left so did a quick sesh down the canal again. Only two and ahalf hours but still managed 11 bream including 3 on the beachcaster! I'm still amazed at the bream taking bread off the caster so readily as it seems to be the only place they do.

 

Caught one nice bream of around 3.5lb which had a small scar on his right gill cover....a very distinct S shape. I caught him again about an hour later..........greedy bugger!

 

The carp in here are still proving to be most elusive though.

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Well, the last few days have been noteworthy for their lack of noteworthy activity!!!

 

I fished the canal after the last bream frenzy, and managed 1 bream only. Didn't manage any other fish either! On friday night I decided to fish the river instead and was gobsmacked when I blanked!!! Even the worm didn't manage to score me a bream or a tench. Gorgeous evening though, and kinda just chilled out in the end watchin the precursors to this weekends meteor shower. Had one which produced a huge purple ribbon of a trail across the sky which took the best part of 20 seconds to fade away.........never seen a shooting star like that before!! I of course made a wish, but the 35lb fully plated mirror obviously had other plans for the evening!

 

I decided what was needed was an evening at 'the gym' so armed with a feeder and some of the new bait and my beachcaster, I headed off to Earlswood for the evening on saturday. It had been a tough days fishing for the matches but that doesn't mean much when you are fishing the margins and surface as neither area receive much pressure in matches.

 

I picked up a couple of decent fish (15lb and 12lb) in the margins early on the new bait, but it soon became clear that the fish had moved into the margins earlier than usual (possibly due to the matches) and for the rest of the evening the margins went quiet. That was a shame as this new bait really seems to work quite well, but it can catch a thing if the fish are not there.

 

It took 15 mins or so for the fish to come to the call of the 'plink plink' of dog biscuits getting 'pulted into the swim, but soon enough those tell tail swirls told me they were up for it and so the caster was loaded up with crusty bread and launched into the swim!!

 

The caster went mad from then on and I ended the evening with a tally of 14 fish landed, with 4 others lost (including a huge one lost right at the net as he'd come in tangled with loads of weed and a last bid for freedom saw him snap the line) 12 of which were on the top. It got silly in the end as literally 30 seconds after the bait had slapped on the water, the tip of the caster was pointing at the horizon! I do like the challenge of my specimen hunting, but the occasional evening like this does bring a smile to ones face!

 

The biggest fish was actually 16lb and the last one I hooked and took me 15 minutes to land.........my arms were falling off! (its why I call this pool the gym!!!).

 

Popped down the canal today as it had been another nice hot sunny day and slapped a couple of loaves of bread on the surface, but surprisingly only a handful of fish came up and those that did, took a couple of pieces of bread and then vanished, not to be seen again. This is in contrast to the 15 to 20 individual fish which usually appear and clean up.

 

Tonight was gonna be a fairly short session so I ruled out the river (I never manage to leave the tranquility of that place till the wee small hours) and the canal looked a poor prospect based on the earlier feeding activity so I went for another quick session at earlswood.

 

The matches had weighed in just as I got there (quite late for matches to finish) and the winning weight was around 130lb which aint great for such a venue. I reckoned based on the previous poor match weights the day before and similar weather that my arms were due for another workout tonight............................how wrong can a bloke be eh???

 

I fired biscuits after biscuits into the swim tonight but just like the canal, the blighters really didn't want to come up and feed at all. The margins were dead too until a snatch of the rod resulted in a bream that would have struggled to nudge 8oz on a set of scales. I did laugh as the piece of bait he was trying to eat would be like me eating a whole loaf of bread in one bite!!!!

 

After watching the damp squib which was supposed to be the meteor shower for a while, I packed up and came home.

 

I have to wonder why today it was so hard to drag the fish up to the surface to feed given it was what you'd normally call ideal conditions for them to surface feed, specially given what had happened just 24 hours previous.

 

I guess such unanswerable questions keep us hooked on fishing!!!

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

The weather forecast was a bit ropey for tonight and besides I had a few chores to catch up with and so decided to have a night off tonight.

 

I didn't forget about the fish though, OH NO!!!

 

The canal and the trouble catching what is in fact a fairly decent head of fish got my mind working again (not for the first time lately I can tell you) and I decided it was time to have a go at a baiting campaign to try and draw fish into a given tight area.

 

I mixed up a dry mix of pigeon conditioner, hemp and vitalin and tossed it into a coolbox and added about 5 kettle fulls of boilling water and bunged the lid on!! About 3 hours later and it was beginning to look superb!!! The hemp was splitting, the pigeon mix was swelling and the vitalin just added some body to the fluids. I decided to bang some in tonight so got about 3 kilos of the mix and went and deposited it in a nice tight area about 6ft long by 3 feet wide and will continue to do so for a few nights and see if it draws in a few fish.

 

If that fails, then theres always hand grenades..............

 

I'll keep you informed of any progress.

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Hello all.....

 

Popped down the canal yesterday after baiting up the swim for a couple of days. fished it for an hour before dark, and the moment I dropped the rods in they were tapping away like someone sending a morse code message!!

 

I was going for the carp really a bit later so used a very lazy set-up of a pair of empty 2oz blockend feeders free running with lob worms on number 6 wide gape hooks, so although I was getting loads of taps I just left the tiddlers to rip up the worms and only struck when I was confident a fish was there. Took a ruf and my first decent perch of around half a pound. Not huge but beats the 2inch long hook eaters I normally catch.

 

Once it went dark, the ruf and perch vanished and the rods calmed down. I picked up a couple of bream of the usual 3 to 4 pound mark, but no carp.

 

Tonight I went for another go, but didn't get there till after dark so missedout on the chance to catch more perch as the light faded.

 

To begin with I set up both rods very close together right over the baited area, but it was soon clear that there wasn;t much action going on here. One of the rods was moved to an area about 8 feet way, just a bit further out into the main boat channel. So far, this is showing itself as the most productive of areas. It wasnt long before a couple of bream had been landed, and the rod was showing interest on a regular basis.

 

I hadn't long poured myself a cup of tea when the rod gave a couple of taps then the bait running moved just 2 clicks then all stopped. A few seconds later the same thing happened, a couple of taps followed by the gentlest of clicks from the bait runner. I decided it was worth a look and so lifter the rod only to find something BIG was on the other end! It didn't run, it just sat in the water like I'd hooked into a sunken log. It hen woke up a bit and flew to the surface with a big splash and went on a couple of small runs. I wasnt quite sure what it was at this point. It then sunk down and just ploughed around without wanting to surface, periodically going on very short runs. I reckoned by now it might be a decent eel. Once again it surface and I got to see it.....OH MY, thats a big old head on that carp!!!!

 

Its been a week or two since I hooked a carp, so I'm all nervous now......check the drag, not too loose but not too tight so he can snap the line with a lunge etc. Heart in the mouth each time he goes on a run in case he slips the barbless hook. Once again he goes for the deep ploughing around routine......then he wakes up and wants to go on a couple of decent runs right by the other rod! If he picks up the other line I'll scream! Nope, I manage to turn him and he's under my feet again ploughing around, then one final run sees him out of puff and on the surface, and a quick slide of the net under him and the fight is over!

 

Sat him in the water in the net for a few mins to let him get his breath back then weighed him and took a couple of pics. I think I know why he didnt fight all that hard though. He'd proper swallowed the hook! MY LONG disgorger vanished in his cavernous mouth and throat without even findingthe hook. I lifted his head and shone the torch in and the line just vanished into his stomach. Amazing given how subtle the bite had been!!!! I cut the line as deep into his mouth as I could, confident the barbless hook wouldnt give him any real trouble. I did notice that his mouth was absolutely perfect, not a single hook hole anywhere and the curtain under his top lip was still in perfect condition......now thats my kinda fishing!!!

 

Sorry for the poor quality of the pics, but as usual, they were taken on a mobile phone. Here he is, all 16lb 9oz of some form of ghost carp (he's not a 100% true ghostie though IMO).............

[Newt]

Nice result Phil and a great write-up, as usual.

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Nice result Phil and a great write-up, as usual.

 

Cheers newt.

 

The canal seems to be a really odd kind of venue. You KNOW there are decent fish in there, but its sooooo hard to actually catch em.

 

What really surprised me tonight was how gentle the bite was from such a huge ruddy fish!!! Richard Capper posted before to suggest float fishing for these brutes might be worth a try. I did try it but ended up deep hooking a load of small fish which kind of put me off the idea, specially given some of the grief I got on here. I think now I've taken some good advice on board regarding float fishing, that I should give this a try once more...........I'm sat here asking myself how many of those gentle pulls and let go's might actually have been carp? I'm used to the old grab and rush carp take, but of course canal carp are not used to being caught and as wild fish, probably fall into the category of 'uncatchable' as the old carp used to be classed..............

 

..........I need to up my game!!!!! You can bet your arse I'll do just that to catch these blighters!

 

Watch this space!

[musicmick1973]

I would still try and stick with the float, get the balance right and you can have some good fun.

I have just came back from a week down in Dawlish warren, where I go each year to fish for carp and anything else, I and all the locals always fish it with a waggler, I have had fish to 23lb 12oz.

but that was using carp rods and 12lb line size 8 hook.

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

I would still try and stick with the float, get the balance right and you can have some good fun.

I have just came back from a week down in Dawlish warren, where I go each year to fish for carp and anything else, I and all the locals always fish it with a waggler, I have had fish to 23lb 12oz.

but that was using carp rods and 12lb line size 8 hook.

 

Yep, I may well give that a go, thanks MM.

 

At the moment I'm in the middle of a baiting campaign and am off up there now to give them their tea!

 

About 4 kilos of it....pigeon mix and hemp soadked in hot water for a day or two and then a couple of handfuls of vvitalin and ewe nuts added to soak up the excess water. Cheap as chips too with these 4 kilos probably not even owing me a quid.