Jump to content

wayne baker

Members
  • Posts

    425
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by wayne baker

  1. After spending the last three nights at work outside on a fork truck. The thought of getting wet again hasn't really fazed me About having a little mooch along the stour this afternoon. As i type we have just had a freak electric storm with hail stones the size if marrowfat peas Here in north Essex. Probably drop the water temperature again but never mind.

  2. Good to hear you had a good day. Theres a lot more to fishing than just carping. Sitting behind a battery of rods waiting for something to happen. On the river its down to you and you can make things happen. The true essence of fishing i belive comes from knowledge and water craft and i think theres no beter place to hone them than on the river. Aspects that you learn all go towards improving you chances where ever you fish. Even when carping.

     

    One more of us one less of them lol :D

  3. I would tend to agree with Richard, Worms would be a good choice of bait if the rivers high and coloured. They are one of those natural things that get washed into the river during floods. And the fish do tend to get on them. Though you may find the fishing quite hard if you don't know the stretch.

    Look for the slacker parts on the bends etc, This is where most of the fish will tend to be. Out of the main flow. and it will be easier to present your bait.. Perseverance is the hardest thing in flood conditions. It can be very frustrating with all the false bites from debris coming down the flow and can be very easy to give up. and go home ,But there's something very rewarding about a flood caught chub or barbel.

     

    One thing i will say and i think Ive said it a few times before, And i speak from personal experience. Flooded rivers are very dangerous places. So watch your step on the banks.

  4. Never caught a perch on spicey meat, In fact i cant ever recall getting any on meat full stop. However i have had a couple of decent ones one trout pellets when carping. Though it was from a heavily fished lake.

  5. I am quite set in my ways. Though i do take the odd diversion now and then. Most of the summer i spend barbel fishing, And a bit of tenching. Come October my thoughts start turning towards pike, And the barbel get substituted for chub perch and roach on my local river when i feel the conditions are right.

    Saying that i havent got much piking in this winter yet. Still waiting for a few frosts. And my local river is still looking far from desirable at the moment. I have managed a few chub at dusk and a few perch so far from the river. Once we get to the end of this month i will start my piking proper. On a local 17 acre lake where i fished last winter and had a couple of nice fish.

  6. Its a strange thing and i have noticed it to. I wonder if it is to do with that when you use whole worms they are alive and tend to wriggle for a while and the fish especially perch being quite aggressive tend to take them more because they see them rather than smell them. And when we use chopped worms they are taken more because the fish are in a feeding mood and smell them more. This could account for those odd days when you catch small perch on large worms,And other days small and chopped ones do the business.

     

    Just a thought.

  7. Hard to believe that fish is much over mid double (if that) regardless of the guys size. Great catch still but Im struggling with the claimed weight.

     

    Rueben Heaton 44lb scales eh? Im not familiar with that size does anyone know how many times they rotate to give maximum weight and how they are marked out (ie what numbers are in the same place on the dial)?

     

    Hi Budgie. I has a set of reubens but they are the 60ib version. They go round twice,first revolution takes you to thirty pounds the second marked on the inside go to 60ib Mine are marked in ounces divisions. Not sure about the 44IB model i would imagine they are very similar. Probably a lot easier to read

     

    These are the only ones i could find. Very similar to the old waymasters

     

    http://www.poingdestres.co.uk/1187/Reuben-...ial-Scales.html

  8. £29.00 rueben 44lb dial scales, according to the posts on P&P (see link from my earlier post).

     

    I think Mark's assessment is probably right - a genuine mistake with an unfamiliar species.

     

    Photo linked from the P&P site, hope that's OK.

    Grafham_record_v2.jpg

     

    Yes i would say he has made an error as well. Its a nice fish though. I would put it around mid double.

  9. Cant argue with that but what I will say is that its far better to put your effort into other aspects of your angling than just thinking additives are the quick fire route to sucsess.

     

    Quite right Budgie. Theres no substitute for experience and watercraft. The best edges there are

  10. Fireline is very stiff. You're better off with a nice soft braid.

    Personally, I never found low diameter that important for bottom fishing and of course, very low diameter lines risk cutting into the fish.

    I agree with you Ken. Fine braids have damaged a lot of mouths over the years.

  11. I would say if the object of the experiment is to catch a zander on the lobs then you dont really have much choice than to use a trace. Some of the lower bs ones are quite supply. I dont think the perch would be put off by trace. As you are using a large bait. Possible with a small bait they could be a bit finicky. I would be inclined to fish the float so there is little resistance.

     

    I have never tried lobs for zeds. It would be interesting to know how you get on. Anything is worth a try.

  12. There was a shoal of chub I used to observe a few years ago. On one occasion I saw there was a jack, about 2lb like the chub (although some of the chub were bigger) that had taken residence and seemed to be accepted as one of the shoal. I guess this is a bit of evidence that fish are not scared by pike if tehy are about he same size.

     

     

    I have seen something similar myself while fishing the Little Brosna in Ireland, the water was very clear and I could see two small Jack Pike, one around 2lb and the other about 5lb lying up in an undercut in the bank side. There was a shoal of around 50 small Perch around 3 to 4 inches swimming along side them. The Perch did not seem bothered by the Pike's presence.

     

    I was surprised to see 2 Pike together for a start and it looked like the bigger one would have no problem in swallowing the small chap, but to see such a big shoal of Perch darting out in to the main flow and then coming back to lie up with the Pike seemed very odd. I could understand that as predators they may well hang out in the same spots, but it seemed a dangerous place to be for a little Perch.

     

    Were the Pike in the swim because the Perch as prey fish were there? Had the Pike had there fill of Perch already? Could the Perch tell that the Pike were unlikely to feed? Or were these Perch to small to have learned that hanging around Pike is a stupid thing to do.

     

    On another occasion on the same river I saw trout lying up with a double figure Pike, which has led me to suggest that it may only be active feeding Pike that spook prey fish.

     

    I have made similar observations over the years. I have often wondered if theres is some strange fishy kind of understanding of each other.

     

    Abit like the antilope in Africa. They graze quite happily even when hey know the predators are about. Such as lions and cheetahs. Maybe its a safety in numbers thing and they take there chances. But do fish have an inbuilt awareness of predation or are they unaware until its to late?

  13. I think its good to set goals in your fishing. But like you say struggling to make these can make some people forget that we go fishing for pleasure. I'm always happy as long as something is pulling my string. Whether it be gudgeon or big pike.

    Fishing can be very obcessional and with some branches of it can breed some very egotistical characters. That our driven by a desire to be noticed

    Ive been luck enough to catch some nice fish over the years but apart from my carp fishing days when i was very obsessed, I have always managed to enjoy my fishing. My philosophy is enjoy yourself, and dont try to hard. It works for me.

  14. That's a great little piece Chris. I think to be honest i have never had a real red letter day. But i can recall on a few occasions when everything has come together just right.

     

    I recall about fifteen years ago a friend an i had spent the summer fishing for tench on a very rich gravel pit of about ten acres. We had had some good fish over he summer. And during are tenching we had become aware of the amount of quality pike in the venue. We had had a few encounters with the odd one taking small tench and roach. We decided as mainly pikers we would target the venue come the autumn. November came and we set out on frosty Sunday morning armed with a selection of deadbaits. There had been high pressure for several days but a front was moving in from the south west and we felt quite confident. As we unloaded the van i could see a bank of cloud moving in and felt very confident. As i unpacked the rods and set my banksticks i look out over the water and i just had that feeling we were in for a good day, With me its a smell in the air,

     

    The rods were cast out, We decided to work our way along the bank in a steady leap frog manner. The plan was to end the afternoon in one of the deep reed lined corners. After about ten minutes I had the first take on a float fished smelt. A scrappy little jack about ten pounds, But in mint condition. I doubt it had ever been caught before. My friend then had a fish of 18ibs about twenty minutes later. By now it was about 9.oo am, The next take i had was on another float fished smelt, But this one felt a lot bigger. It fought like a demon and despite not being one to play pike lightly i can say it was to this day the hardest pike i have ever played in my life. It hit the scales at 21ib 6oz. Another mint fish.

     

    Time wondered on and by about midday the temperature had risen And the clouds had covered the sun. We had had a few smaller fish since the twenty one, And moved a couple of times. My friend had another 18iber around lunchtime, A different fish than the first one a lot longer but leaner. Certainly had the potential to go mid twenty.

     

    After this fish it went a bit quiet for a while, So we decided to move down to the corner as we had been watching the grebes working along the reed line and coming up we silver fish. We the rise in temperature i decided go get my whip out and try and winkle out a few livebaits. It was one of those days with the rise in temperature even the roach were having it. I could of sat there the rest of the day catching them but pike were on the cards this day. I set up a small drifter and attached a five inch roach to it and cast it half way across towards the reeds, And aloud the gentle breeze to coax it he rest of the way to the deep reed lined shelf. After about an hour the float bobbed and slipped away, I picked up the rod and felt a steady resistance of a pike, I wound down and bent into the fish. As soon as i had control of it i knew it was a good fish. After a few minutes i had it wallowing in the margin in front of me. It went 27ib 4oz and i was well happy with my efforts for the day. At this point i would of gone home a happy man, But it was still only about 3.30pm and i knew the best time of the day was still to come. My friend had a couple more good upper doubles following my biggie and i continued to work the baits along the shelf.

     

    The light was failing when i had my last take from almost the same spot as the last one, The fish moved of steady and heavy and I could feel it shaking its head. It kited to the right out into open water, Always a sign of a good fish. At the net it reared its head and opened its mouth like an alligator. i could see it was going to be another mid twenty and my heart was pounding at this point.

    She went 25ib dead on.

     

    Only time in nearly thirty years of piking i have had three twenties in a day. I have had a couple of braces since, But nothing sticks in my mind more than that day. We left the pit for a while until the backend and we kept our little secret to ourselves. My friend got his revenge on me and had the 27iber at thirty one late February.

     

    We never fished the pit again for pike.We moved on to pastures new. And as far as we were aware nobody cottoned on to the pike fishing there. I supose it was a red letter day for me. The best session i can remember. So yes

  15. My method for hemp is extremely specialised - I put some in a big saucepan with water and boil it until it splits :D

     

    I've never felt the need to add anything, it's irresistable as it is. The smell of cooking hemp is one of the most evocative smells I know, it seems to sum up everything good about fishing :)

     

    I know what you mean. The smell of hemp is one of those. But with me its sweetcorn.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We and our partners use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences, repeat visits and to show you personalised advertisements. By clicking “I Agree”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit Cookie Settings to provide a controlled consent.