Wingham Fish-In 2015 Catch Reports & Thanks

[Steve Burke]

Please post all your final catch reports here to keep them in one place for future reference.

 

Catch reports and comments during the fish-in can go on the main thread.

 

Thanks.

[Newt]

Adding this post from JK to the catch report topic. Sorry but I seem to have lost the original post so here is the content.

 

J.K, on 26 Apr 2015 - 12:37, said:

 

Just to keep all the catch report together ...

 

We blanked unfortunaly. Only real excitment was at around 2am, one at a time, all 3 rods beeped into life right to left. I suspect a shoal of "somthing" was passing through. I really hope it wasnt the bream but I will never really know, but thats the great thing about Wingham, it keeps you guessing

 

This morning I was woken up by the geese and their goslings, dont know who got the bigger shock as they all turned up at the bivvy door

 

Good luck for the last night guys, We are currently drying off after this mornings downpours lol.

 

As always, a MASSIVE thank you to all those involved in getting the fish-in together. Its one of the few events each year I really look forward too.

 

If im lucky enough to be able to attend next year, I will try and get my head round how the gate locks work lol. Didnt seem to matter what code I tried the things didnt want to let me out

[Vagabond]

Well, mine won't take long !

 

Asked for a perch swim, got the "Y" swim which has produced decent perch for me in the past.

 

Arrived Friday afternoon, set up, and ten minutes later a perchlet had got its mouth outside two lobs on a size 2 hook. With the election looming, I could not but help notice its strained expression (mouth distended top and bottom) was very like that of Mr Farage .

 

That was the ONLY bite until I packed up Sun afternoon (Packed up earlier than planned as a family friend's funeral takes place tomorrow) I fished lob or maggot during daylight, and corn at night, but the fish of the "Y" were anorexic.

 

Steve asked the weight of the lone perch and I said two ounces. However, that might be an over-estimate !

 

Glad to see the auction went so well - the bailiffs deserve it for all the work they put in, As for me, I came away with Anderoo's mini fly reel, will let y'all know what I catch with it.

 

Good to see the regulars there, and met up with Sharkbyte (of the underwater videos) for the first time and had a very interesting chat about eels - you know, that rare species that keeps turning up every time you fish a lob at night !

 

Massive thanks to Steve and his team for making these fish-ins possible - the more you think of the organisation needed to make it happen, the more massive that thanks needs to be.

[Mat Hillman]

Final score for me was 6 tench, biggest 7lb 7oz beating my previous PB (also a Wingham fish) by 2oz, two fish both of 6lb 4oz, may even have been the same fish, I'll be studying the photos later, two 5's and a male of 3lb 9oz

All of them seemed very "lean" compared the the "plump" tench I'm used to seeing at the fish-in! I suspect the earlier date may be the reason?

 

All caught in the first 24hrs, while we has the southwesterly breeze, as soon as the wind swung around my swim went dead!

 

I missed you as I left, Steve, so didn't get a chance to thank you in person, but once again a huge thank you for inviting me, and even more important thank you to Peggy for feeding me

 

Mat

 

 

Edited April 27, 2015 by Mat Hillman

[Tony U]

Well what to say, my first Coarse fishing session for over four years and I bag a PB Tench of 8.00lbs and caught on a piece of plastic sweetcorn another first. Mind you if it wasn't for a superb bit of netting by my ghillie Sue, I would have lost it at the net.

Between us it was complete chaos landing a fish in the dark for the first time in years, petty someone didn't video it.

I must pass on Sue and my thanks to Steve for a great weekend and to Peggy for the excellent BBQ on Sunday afternoon. I also am grateful to Vagabond for winning the mini fly reel that saved me a few hundred quid that I would have spent on a new 1# rod to go with it.

And the Coarse fishing... well I have just ordered a new specimen rod and I am thinking of those summer Tench.

 

Tony

Edited April 27, 2015 by Tony U

[Steve Walker]

Final score was a male and female tench of 3 to 4 pounds and a female of 5lb6oz. I had no eels, despite taking a chance and fishing worm on one rod until after midnight on both nights. I had no pike, but hooked a couple and had a few of those characteristic bites - a series of single beeps, then a screaming run, strike into nothing and find the hook link severed.

Many thanks to Steve, Peggy and the team, well organised as ever and always a pleasure to see everyone again.

[Anderoo]

Firstly, as usual, huge thanks to Steve for the invitation, the bailiff team for all their hard work both before and during the event, Peggy for the BBQs (I hardly ate anything else while I was there!), and Steve C for the sausage sandwich on arrival, very welcome after such an early start

 

The weather threw a little bit of everything at us over the 3 days, but the fish fed and I think quite a lot was caught. As we discussed there seems to be a new year class or two of smaller tench coming through, so although the average size may have dropped it was really nice to get a few bites.

 

After a bit of chatting and catching up on Saturday morning I went ahead with my plan to fish for the perch, and found two nice spots to drop a lobworm and a feeder full of chopped dendras and maggots. With the rods out, I made a start of setting up camp and getting myself organised. It was quite a hot day with a decent SW wind blowing away from me and cloud cover.

 

Nothing happened with the worms so I brought them in to find that both had managed to crawl into weed. So I popped them up with a syringe, refilled the feeders, and dropped them back in. Within half an hour I’d had a perch on both rods, pretty fish of about a pound and a half, but they had clearly very recently spawned and looked rather frail. They both gave funny twitchy bites and took a fair amount of time to recover, so I gave up on the perch fishing after that. It seemed like they needed a rest.

 

So then the marker rod got a good workout. There was a liberal sprinkling of fresh Canadian pondweed and small patches of eel grass pretty much all over the swim, with large, dense clumps of weed (possibly dead weed that had accumulated due to undertow?) dotted around. I decided to limit myself to 50 yards to make life easy, rather than find a lovely spot at 70 yards and then struggle to reach it again once the wind changed direction (I’ve done that before…!)

 

After a while I settled on 3 nice spots. The first the far right-hand corner of the slope of the little island in front of me, which was 7ft at the base, gravelly with patches of light weed but mostly clearish. The second was a flat, hard silty patch out in open water surrounded by weed. The third was another flat, hard silty patch surrounded by weed but much close in, not far from the marginal shelf.

 

That done, the next job was to mix up some groundbait and put 10 spods over each spot, and then get the rods out. I was fishing fake maggots with a little PVA bag of maggots in the day, switching to fake corn with a little PVA bag of the groundbait mix at night.

 

It was a slow start but at dusk the middle rod zoomed off and my first Wingham tench for quite a while was in the net, a nutty 5lb male.

The night passed without incident, and at dawn the wind swung round completely and was now a cold NE right off the sea, heading directly at me, bringing with it drizzle and rain.

 

The view for most of Sunday!

 

For some reason this brought the swim alive, and a succession of tench came to the left and middle rods. By BBQ time I’d had 7, and had rebaited all spots with the same amount of bait, and found a new spot for the third rod, the top of a gravel bar about 6ft deep with 7-8ft of weedy water around it. It’s rare that an unsuccessful spot suddenly comes to life, so it was worth trying somewhere else.

 

Then it was the BBQ and the very successful auction (I’m glad the little reel went to a good home, and I really hope Vagabond christens it with something interesting!). All very enjoyable! I lost my nerve and missed out on a couple of good lots but many people got some real bargains, and lots of money was raised for the bailiffs.

 

The tench were still there when I got back to the swim at about 4.30, and a few more came my way during the afternoon and at dusk, bringing the total up to 11. Also, another perch of around the same size managed to get caught on the fake maggots.

 

The rain then stopped and the wind died down, and the temperature really dropped, it was a very cold night indeed. A few fish were moving but again no bites during darkness.

 

A couple more tench turned up at an amazing misty dawn, again to the left and middle rods, and then it went quiet.

 

Dawn on Sunday

 

It turned into a much brighter day with clear skies, but still very cold in the wind. By BBQ time it was still dead, so I went for broke and chopped up the 2kg of worms I’d got for the perch fishing, mixed them up with some black groundbait, and put another 10 spods over each rod. After the BBQ it was much warmer and for the first time I started to see fish moving, with rudd (I think) rising for flies, tench rolling, and patches of fizzing bubbles.

 

Sun!

 

By the time I left I’d caught another two tench, bringing the final tally to 15, with a biggest of 8.04. Absolutely fantastic fun, and the 8lb tench is the biggest I've caught for a few years now.

 

I can’t post this without mentioning the wildlife, as this is so much of what makes Wingham special. There was a hobby hunting over the lake, a bittern booming somewhere (probably a long way away!), a very chatty chaffinch who helped himself to my bait, a cettis warbler somewhere in the trees by the bivvy with it’s incredibly loud bursts of song, and a robin who by the end of the session had become very tame and was almost constantly in the swim with me.

 

 

 

So another great fish-in, and it was great to catch up with everyone again.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Anderoo

[Maddog]

Thanks to Steve and the bailiffs for making the fish-in possible and Peggy for the BBQ.

 

I managed a male tench of 5-8 at around 6pm on Saturday and a 7-7 female a couple hours later.

 

6am Sunday a screaming run resulted in a male of 6-7.

 

No luck with the Perch, float fishing lobs but did have an eel of around 1-8 at dusk on Sunday.

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2015 by Maddog

[Dales]

Many thanks Steve for giving me another chance on the Carp lake, the bailiff team for all the hard work they do to ensure the Fish-In can take place and Peggy for the top BBQ she lays on come rain or shine and Steve Campbell for the warm welcome with a bacon sandwich to kick start the day.

 

I fished a swim called Irises, i had asked Terry in the morning would it be easy for me to identify the swim to ensure I did not set up in the wrong one. He said "you can't miss it, it will have Irises in it (DOH) and it has a massive tree stump and big piles of freshly cut up logs and fresh chippings". He was right, no chance of missing the swim the stump was HUGE. I know the EA had been doing work on the river and so I assummed that they must have done the work to cut up the tree in Irises and so you can imange me surprise when talking to Steve on Sunday that it was the bailiff team that had done the work. Shows the sort of hard work they do to keep the place in order and ensure the Fish-In can take place.

 

As in previous years I had planed to target the eels, although I was a little concerned that those of us fishing the Carp lake for them last year at the Fish-In had drawn a blank. Steve had told me that eels had been caught recently from Irises and so i thought it was certainly worth ago as those of you have been to the Fish-Ins before may remember the average size has been bigger in the Carp lake then the Coarse lake in recent years. During the day I planed to try for a Carp.

 

On Saturday, I fished 2 zig rods with a pop up boilie on one and a imitation snail on the other and alternated between maggot and worm on the other rod. At around 3.00pm I decided it was time to put out a little ground bait laced with dead maggot in preparation for the evenings eel fishing. I had a few bleeps during the day on the boilie zig, very suspiciously like Pike interest but nothing came of them. After watching tufties dine on my baited area all afternoon, I decided it was time to to fish for the eels and opted to fish running feeders with chopped dendras and maggots in the feeder. I decided to fish 3 different baits and see which if any would work the best, so one rod had maggot, one lobs and one dendras.

 

Dusk, came and went with out any indication of activity in my swim and when it started to rain rather I did have a moment of doubt about tactics and thought I wish I had fished boilies for the Carp as if the big eels are gone maytbe they have been replaced by smaller ones and who wants a small eel in the rain. Well nothing happended until around 2.00am when the maggot rod started to get a few bleeps and started to take line. I struck and felt resistance but not much of a fight but I could tell it was an eel but without the normal spirit of a hooked eel, I effectively just reeled it in and into the net. It had none of the dogged fight and backing of the net that makes eel fishing so much fun but it did look a good size. When I went to weigh it I think I surprised a big Carp that breached about 15 yards away, amazing to see. I weighed the eel it registered 3.14, not bad at all. all the Carp lake eels seem to be 3lb plus and it was good to know they are still their after much discussion last year at the fish-in as to whether they had done the off.

 

About an hour later, i had another jittering bite/run on the lob rod again not the screaming runs I have been used to for eels at Wingham. Once again not much fight and easy to net but this time I could see it was a much bigger fish and this one weighed 4.08. That was it for the night and nothing else happened until mid morning when I had a Jack on lob worm.

 

So, come Sunday night I was rather positive that I may add to me eel tally. I opted to add a bit more grounbait and dead maggots but left it a lot later to bait up as I did not wish to feed the Tufties again. I had a few bleeps on the Lob worm at dusk but nothing much happened and when I checked the bait about 20 minutes later the wormd where managled. So when I cast out a new bait i was optimistic that I would have something that night. Well the alarms remained silent all night and that was it fishwise for me at the Fish-In, 2 Eels and a Jack. The lack of fight with the eels may point to them not being fully active yet, but to be fair I have had them at Wingham much earlier in the year and they fought like stink and so I may be wrong in my assumption.

 

I was lucky enough to win 2 lots at the auction and so a big thank you to the guys who donated these items Steve Campbell and Bob H. i had a quick flick through Tinca Tinca last night and it looks great. I have also heard good things about the Osprey Specimen book and so I am sure i will not be dissapointed when I get it.

 

As usual a great event and many thanks once again to all those who make this happen.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Dales

[Dave H]

Not bad Dale , i was looking out for your report hoping for a big wriggler for you. It did seem a bit early for eels so i thought you might switch to the Cod hoovers but well done for sticking with your guts and not to bad for a April eel fish

If you have some piccies shove them on here although if there aren't any i wont believe you know ....

Edited April 28, 2015 by Dave H