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About this blog

the downs and ups of a pleasure angler

Entries in this blog

Barnes Lake 8.6.15

I last went to this large and attractive lake about 8 years ago. It is mainly a tench lake, but also used to have some quality rudd. The first time I went there were small rudd everywhere, but I also lost a couple of good ones. Then the next year I went it seemed dead and no-one was fishing. Maybe it was too early in the year? For better or worse I didn't go back, and today was intended as an exploratory visit.   3.30 - 6.30pm. The lake was full of weed, more so than I remember it. I started w
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

2

Roach from a 'commercial' 18.3.13

Court Farm, near Aldermaston 3.45 - 6.30pm A.T. 8degC dropping, W.T. 5degC After all that snow yesterday I wasn't too optimistic, specially when the only other anglers on the lake when I arrived said they hadn't had a touch all day. But I think they had been mainly targeting the normally very willing carp. My challenge, however, was how to avoid said carp. I fished fine, float-fished maggot and caster, and although it was never bite-a-chuck I managed 9 roach, the best about 12 oz, and several
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

5

Dace attack failed 11.11.13

Rainsford farm 3.00-4.45pm   Nice cloudy day with slight mist. River quite fast, and turbulent in many places. Trotted for dace with single and double maggot. I decided to try downstream of the foot bridge, but with the frequent trees along the bank and also fallen trees in the river there were not many nice glides long enough, given the speed of the water. In the end I spent most of my brief stay in one swim, but the dace weren't interested. My honour was saved by a half pound brown trout!
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

5

River Blavet, Brittany 1-6 October, 2019

This was a special fishing holiday near Pontivy in Brittany to fish the River Blavet and the Nantes-Brest Canal which it flows in and out of. I had heard from blogs on-line, and also a reliable report on Anglers Net, that the roach (to 1lb 8 oz) and bream (to 6lbs) fishing here was prolific, with nets of around 50lbs regularly available in a session. Also the locals mainly fish for predators, to be taken away and eaten, so I assumed the roach and bream wouldn't be too 'hook shy.'   Alas, that
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

0

River Ock 17.11.14

2.30-4.15pm First time on this little river. It was flowing though quite fast and coloured, so I wasn't expecting too much. I started trotting bread hoping for roach, and thinking that a big bright bait might be visible in the coloured water, but went 30 mins without a bite. Switched to 2 red maggots and immediately had 2 dace, one of 7oz - an equal personal best. Altogether had 1 small roach, about 7 reasonable dace and a chub of just under 3lb. A pleasing first recce on this little river!
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

1

Birthday monster pike! 29.12.2014

R Thames 2.30 - 3.45pm Wobbled smelt   Cold and bright. High pressure, so decided to use a moving bait; but when I got there the river was very up and coloured. Wobbled very slowly in the slacker areas, and also left static for short periods. I didn't have high expectations, so used my smallest smelt! Then JV44 (Steve) turned up, and we had a chat, so I left it a bit longer than usual. When he moved on and I started to retrieve she was on, all 22lbs 4 oz! She was lightly hooked, so my guess is
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Jigging for perch 16.12.13

2.30-4.30 Private weirpool   I'm lucky to be able to fish a private weirpool on the Kennet, and had a a tip-off from someone that had had bite-a-chuck success jigging for perch there. His approach was making half a turn of the reel handle at a time - a slower approach than the one I had (generally unsuccessfully) tried - so the purpose of the trip was to learn a bit more about jigging rather than to try and catch a monster.   First cast caught a small perch, which was certainly a confidence
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Dace Attack 2 - failed (18.11.13)

2-4pm. A beautiful grey day, should have been just the job. My plan was to fish Colthrop (a stretch of Kennet for info of non locals), but for some reason my key didn't work so I couldn't get through to the main part of the complex and was limited to a few swims on the back stream.   My aim was to catch a reasonable dace, ideally to improve on my sparse pb of 6.5oz. I tried about 5 swims, but not a touch till the last, somewhat slower and deeper, swim where I caught a few very small dace and
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Kennet Ruffe 21.10.13

5pm - 6.45pm My first Kennet ruffe. Not much else I can say about today! A nice, reasonably mild October day and I was shielded from the wind. The venue was a canal turning area where 3 streams come in as well as the outflow from a canal lock. I've been told specimen roach have been caught here, and a couple of weeks ago someone told me he'd had a big bream. I fished maggot feeder, and I thought I was bound to have some action, but it was not to be. 3 mini fish and that was all.   I started b
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

4

Perch and Dace 17.2.14

3.30-5.30pm   Went to same swim as last week, where I was fairly confident there'd be some perch even if they weren't massive. Plan A was to try drop-shotting with a sparkly gold 'worm'. They weren't interested. But there was a submerged step about 2' under water, so I was able to get a very clear view there of how my lure was performing. Fine on the up stroke, but the down was hopeless - it didn't look like anything other than a piece of old plastic slowly dropping through the water. I put o
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

3

Thames weirpool - bream hunt 20.10.14

4.30-6.30pm Visited a weirpool today said to be cram full of bream which don't mind feeding during the day. Felt like (and was) a complete novice. I was told you need to cast 50 yards to get to the edge of the flow, and I fear my casts fell short of that, and weren't particularly accurate either - always an issue for me with distance fishing. Still, I had a small bream of nearly two and a half pounds - a start!
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

2

Nice lake roach 22.5.15

Ladygrove Lake, Didcot 2-5pm This lake has some nice roach, but my last 2 sessions with caster and then hemp and tares failed to get through the small roach and ubiquitous skimmer bream. Put on a small bait and a small roach gets it; a bigger bait, and it is immediately gobbled by a skimmer bream, anything up to 3 lbs. I baited lightly with 3mm pellets and hemp, with hook bait alternating between 5mm soft pellet and sweetcorn. I noticed that the pellets were getting even more bream than the sw
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

1

Warm evening 15.7.13

8 - 10pm We've had a hot, dry July and the most obvious thing to do seemed to me to be to try for some carp off the top. In fact I expected everyone else to think the same, so was surprised when I got to the car park for our easiest carp lakes to find it empty. Do they know something I don't, I wondered?   I catapulted in some dog biscuits in two or three spots, but got no reaction from the fish. This wasn't a total surprise as I had been forewarned by a recent blog by Viney, but the problem
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Foiled by the bream? 20.7.15

7-10pm Tried a new gravel pit known to have a good head of bream which should beat my rather low pb of 5.5lbs. Hmm, I have little experience of this type of fishing. Clear, plenty of weed at the edge, but I cast out to a random spot about 30yds out in 15 feet of water. The feeder wasn't coming back too weedified. Fished sweetcorn or sweetcorn/maggot on the hook with conventional groundbait approach.   About every 5-10 minutes the bobbin would jerk up an inch or so, but I never got a good bite
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

2

Perch exploration 29/30.9.13

The essence of perch fishing seems to be that you do lots of hard work finding where the fish are, and then have a bonanza when you feel like it catching them. The latter is not too difficult, but the former is. At least, I find it extremely difficult, partly cos health issues mean I can't stand up/walk for too long, and partly I guess lack of patience/skill/determination etc.   Yesterday my plan was to spend an hour lure fishing the Hambridge section of the K&A canal, a stretch which I ha
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

2

Attempt at waggler 8.9.14

5.30-8pm R Thames The object of today's fish was to learn a new technique rather than to catch fish. Phew, fortunate that! I'd never fished waggler before and gathered it might be useful on the Thames, so... I remembered my depth gauge this time, and was surprised to discover how uniform the depth was -10' deep from a rod length out to three quarters of the way across. A bit deep for float fishing, but not impossible. I put the 2' extension in my rod to make it 15', and used a 10BB waggler f
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

0

Mepps Aglia Firetiger No3 11 August 2013

8.15 to 8.45pm A short session to see if I could catch a perch spinning at a hotspot on the canal. My first cast hit the water with too much of a splash well short of where it was meant to go, but still, just as I was about to finish the retrieve, a good fish was on - about 2lb, but annoyingly I had forgotten my scales. Amazingly I had fish on each of the next 3 casts, one more about 2lb, one a high 'two', and one could well have been a three. I was almost relieved that it wasn't even bigger, a
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

1

Spinning for perch 8.7.13

A hot, sunny, clear day. Not exactly a day for perch you might say, except I once read something by Archie Braddock which claimed the opposite. He claimed that in summer the best approach was to go out in the middle of a hot day and trot worm at half depth. Phew! I tried it once a few years ago on the Kennet at Speen Moor. I only had an hour but, to my astonishment, I had a two pound perch! Admittedly I fished in shadow.   Today it was so hot and humid I just didn't feel like fishing till the
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

1

Thames weirpool 30.6.14

7pm to 9.15pm   Lovely weir pool, with the main flow the far side and inaccessible to me, but a nice back-flow under the rod tip (9-11ft of water). Beautiful with the church bells sounding across the fields. I had intended to take worms and maggots, but stupidly didn't leave enough time to get to the fishing shop, so went with bread and lures, the latter with perch in mind.   No immediate response to the lures, but then I saw a suspicious splash under a bush, so I tried jigging a gold plast
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

2

Lure fishing for perch 12.8.13

7.15-8.45pm I went back to the spot where I fished yesterday, this time armed with a spring balance in the hope of catching a 'three'. I know lure fishing is meant to be mobile, but for minor health reasons I'm a bit limited how far I can walk, and also on this occasion I wanted to concentrate on this swim.   I started off with the Mepps Firetiger, as yesterday. 'Bang', first cast a nice perch of about 2lbs which got off at the net - drat, hope it won't scare the shoal. Second cast, a smaller
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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Mixed bag 7.10.13

5.15 - 6.45pm   I went to the top end of the White House stretch of the Kennet to trot maggot. When I last went there there was a strong flow coming in on the nearside bank through the marina, and I was planning to trot the crease, particularly for dace. My mingy pb is only 6.5oz.   This time the flow was much less which kiboshed my original plan, but I still fished the near bank. Somewhere at the back of my head I was planning to trot past some bushes where the fish were shielded from the p
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

2

Lower Itchen Fishery 14.10.13

2 - 6.30pm I haven't been to LIF for 6 years! Partly straightforward neglect, but in recent years also cos I can only normally handle a couple of hours standing due to back trouble, which doesn't really give value for money. But the back was great today - I stood most of the time and fished 4.5 hours.   The aim was to end a pb famine. My pb grayling is only 1lb 4oz, so as the grayling at LIF regularly go to 2lbs I felt I had a good chance - and of course a 2lber was the second aim.   The ri
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

1

Lunatic Heifers 24.6.14

7-9pm   I went to a stretch of the Thames that has many hazards to put off anglers - a dicey bridge, rough fields to drive over, cows galore. But the guy in one of the fishing shops (a skilled angler) assured me it was a good place for trotting for roach, so I braved the hazards. All OK on the way there, but a bit trickier on the way back. There are gates at each end of the dicey bridge, and these are necessary to stop the cows crossing. I drove onto the bridge and shut the gate behind me. P
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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general

River Severn - lots of mud, no roach 10-12 November 2021

I booked myself a couple of nights in a B&B in Bewdley in the hope of catching some Severn roach and maybe beating my river roach pb, a modest 1lb 2oz. Alas, things didn't go to plan, but as with all failed angling trips I'm hoping I can learn from the experience! Wed: arrived at 2pm at a BAA water, Blackstone Farm where I'd been reliably informed I could drive along the bank, only to find BAA hadn't sent me the lock combination. Just past office hours so I couldn't phone them up. Grrr.
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench in general

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Wily perch 10.2.14

4.15-5.20pm. Bright clear sky much of the time. I was shopping in Newbury last week and looked at a spot where 2 streams join. Most of the area was too fast for sane fish to hang out, leaving a small quiet triangle of water where in theory all the fish would be. So I decided to give it a try, fishing lobs from a float and feeding maggots.   I was immediately into a small perch, and then a few more (about 6oz), but they were tricky customers, unlike my normal experience of the sergeant. These
The Flying Tench

The Flying Tench

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