Jump to content

Bayleaf the Gardener

Members
  • Posts

    590
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    4

Everything posted by Bayleaf the Gardener

  1. No, I can't do it either when fishing becomes nothing more than a pike feeding session. Rainbows but no brownies? Hope you weren't too disappointed
  2. Having blanked a few times now, I took local anglers advice and walked down to the beach with my new neighbour as the sun went down and while the tide was coming in. I'd also bought a newspaper packet of lugworms, plus a few frozen sandeels and confidence was high. After a heatwave of a day, it was beautiful on the sand at night as the lights of Swansea twinkled across the bay and the furnaces of the steelworks sent the occasional plume of flame into the sky. We had bites from the off. Most didn't connect and the lugworm was pinched, but Glyn beached six bass, beating my five, but then I had the biggest fish. How big were they, well, mine came in at 5oz, 8oz, 4oz, 5oz and 4oz. OK, tiny schoolies, but perfect minatures and it was a great fun evening, still in short sleeves as midnight approached. Two mornings later, I returned to the beach at first light in trunks, tee-shirt and a small backpack of lures and stood knee-depth in the water casting for the bass that were surely swimming all around me. Such fun! Nothing showed though, though after 90 minutes of casting, my nutsack had been breached by more than enough occasional higher waves of cold water and I admitted to myself that today wouldn't be the day. As I dripped back home, I thought that I was really living my best life.
  3. Summer has arrived at last and even in South Wales it's going to be 25 degrees. Choose the semi-circular lake to the left of the central causeway ans though this contains the smaller fish, it will mean I have the harsh sun on my back rather than full in my face. Take my 10m pole and fish against lilies. Its steady rather than ever rapid and a few hours before the heat of midday drives me away I manage 6 tench to 1lb 4, 2 small roach and 6 small rudd. Ah well, it was fun enough and though the tench were small they are always feisty here, and do pull the elastic more than their size would suggest.
  4. Put some lures in a back pack, tied rod to my bike and off I cycled to the river Afan where we blanked on bait tactics, but saw bass under the surface in the week. The full moon had raised the tide mark much higher than it had on Tuesday meaning most of the swims I fancied were not available. Those that were had a dredger, UKD SEALION, at. work in and out of the estuary. I didn't think any bass would relish 224 tonnes of dredger ploughing overhead so cycled inland. I lost 3 lures to snags before giving up and cycling the two miles back past home and off to the wider river Neath. Still at high tide, and with just 30 minutes of my allotted time remaining, I chucked out different types of lure from the bank without losing a single one, albeit I had to pull free of bladderwrack quite regularly. Packed up, I stopped my bike my a guy walking along the bank path with rods and a smile. Turned out he'd had five bass, mainly at dark/first light, and gave me some good tips. With a hight tide due this Tuesday evening an hour into dark, I plan to make a return and, hopefully, break my three-sea-session blank.
  5. A fun, par day in Bridgend. Float fished Mirrors of 9lb 6 and 6lb 2, Commons of 8lb and 5lb 2, Tench of 3lb and 3lb 6 and Bream of 2lb 14, 1lb 5 and 3 half pound skimmers. All went quite for the last hour around lunch time, during which the highlight was one of the two resident kingfishers making a dive across my swim and extracting a small roach in the blink of any eye. Stunning.
  6. My new neighbour and I took some mackerel and frozen squid and mussels to pin to the bottom of the tidal stretch of the river for my first visit. While we watched our motionless rods a passerby looked at us incredulously and said that crab was the bait to use, but that lures would be better as it was 'teeming with bass' on this stretch. Could have fooled us. But as the full moon high tide retreated we did start to see bass on the surface. A lure angler came through and though he did not catch, the number of fish we saw has given me hope for a return with the lure rod soon. That's the second sea-fishing blank out of three goes for me...but watch this space!
  7. Another trip to my new favourite lake. Overcast with threatened showers turned out to be an hours torrential rain which kept me hidden under my brolly unable to move and unable to see my float until past my intended packing up time. In the few hours I was there I managed for Commons of 10lb 2, 8lb 4, 7lb 14, 9lb 10*, a 3lb tench, seven skimmers up to a pound and a couple of roach. * I fought this bloomin' carp for over half an hour on 6lb line without even seeing it. It wasn't having any of it and took me all over the place never seeming to tire. Finally I got it to the surface and it didn't look anything like the huge fish I'd imagined. At 9lb 10 I don't know what it had been drinking (beyond pond water) but I'd like some. All credit to it.
  8. What chance have the rest of us got when you start catching two fish on each hook!
  9. A nice morning at the lake. Unusually no wind and no rain. A slow star while the swim built up then a good few hours sport. Commons of 10lb, 6lb 2, & 5lb 4, mirrors of 4lb 2 and 8lb 14. Two tench in two minutes of 2lb 4 and 1lb 15 and a smattering of skimmers, with one nudging 3lb.
  10. Two back-to-back sessions on these Swansea ponds. With Welsh wind and rain expected and received, the landscaped bowl around these lakes at least kept the wind off me if not the west stuff. Friday was the best of the two days float fishing, and though of the three tench I was after, the biggest was 6oz, mirrors of 8lb 14, 8lb 10 and a common of 7lb 8 at least put bends in the rod. Saturday brought just one more tiny tench and a mirror of 5lb 4. I nodded a hello to the other angler who turned up an hour before I left, and cast a PVA bag to an implausible 1ft from the far bank twice - each one bagging a decent carp.
  11. My second ever go at sea fishing in our new Welsh home came on the most perfect weathered afternoon possible. With a warm westerly breeze and surf churning nicely my mentor advised that the prospects for seabass were good. Nobody told the fish that however, as our sand eels and squid remained stolidly untouched. Never mind, it was just lovely to be out on the near deserted sandy beach as the sun sank over down-the-road Swansea.
  12. 3 Gudgeon! Are they making a comeback?? I trust you've reported this to Neil at GUGGS and registered a name beginning with 'U' for any specimen over 30g?
  13. With Mrs S away, I got two more weekend ventures to this active, very well kept and strangely under-fished lake. The weather wasn't set to be great throughout, so on Saturday morning I set up on the west bank for the first time, trees and prevailing wind behind me with only one other angler on the whole lake. A 5lb 2 Mirror obliged first cast after which it became a steady morning rather than the prolific one of last week. I ended up with nine Bream, most skimmers around 8-10oz with one of 3lb 4. There were also a couple of Commons of 8lb 8 and 8lb 10 (estimate - see below) and another Mirror of 8lb 3. It's a true mixed fishery, with a couple of roach to go with my first very welcome Treoes Tench of 2lb 2, 3lb 4 and 1lb 10. An enjoyable morning, the major drama coming when my new landing net handle disengaged during the process of landing one of the carp. Having laid down precariously on my front to reach down and unhook the fish in the water, it took quite a while to dredge the bottom with the remaining piece of handle to finally snag and retrieve the sunken net. Sunday afternoon started bright, and seeing it unoccupied, I plumped for the 'main' swim as the wind was lower than yesterday, and I was hoping to get away without a brolly, there being no means to ground it on the wooden staging. Much, much quieter than yesterday. I swapped techniques and baits but 'only' ended up with a Common of exactly 10lb, a Mirror of 5lb 2 and 10 skimmers. Planning on staying into dark, the rain moved in around 7 and was going nowhere, so I did, and made it home just in time for for the Antiques Roadshow.
  14. YAY! Sod the chub, we want gudge!
  15. My first trip to this large open lake set in a public park. The place is popular with walkers, but local tackle shop advice to choose a swim at the bottom of the several steep banks was good, and they strolled past 20 yards behind me leaving me blissfully alone. It did make having the occasional wee a tricky case of picking good timing. Pretty featureless on the surface, I kept my options open by having one rod near the bankside lilies and pinging the other one out into open water. I maintained this strategy and changed bait and methods regularly. In five hours I had one tap on the rod and one bite - which resulted in a rather lovely 7lb 14oz bream.
  16. I was going to try another lake, but a hangover meant I was late up and thus had time to visit the Ewenny tackle shop, Bridgend. I needed to show them the landing net handle branded as 'bomb proof' that snapped clean in two first fish on Monday. Without a receipt I was not expecting an exchange, I just wanted to ensure no other mug bought one, but they kindly allowed me to upgrade and deduct the cost of this celery-stick handle from it. On the bank by 8:30am, my prolific swim from Monday was taken so I set up in a new position to me, casting to the edge of lily pads growing out from the central island. From moment one the rod tip wouldn't keep still, with knocks, taps and tremors, but nothing stuck. I guessed it was small fish and I hoped that topping up the spot with feed would bring bigger ones in. It did, though it took an hour. I had 18 Bream, but none of the 3-4 pounders of Monday, with just three over the 1lb mark. While a little disappointing, a 1lb Roach appeared from nowhere and towards finishing fishing, the carp started to wake up for their lunch. I landed a 4lb 4 Mirror and an 8lb 14 Common. With my last cast I thought I'd looked another, but it was this splendid 3lb Perch - on a wafter!
  17. Nice chub, Chris. They must be sick of the sight of you. Glad you're making the most of retirement.
  18. Maybe, and with minimal cormorant activity, no mink or gates being left open!...alas not many tench or crucians, but apparently holds eels
  19. Well. Nothing happened in the first hour of the morning apart from a few sharp showers which kept all other anglers away until 11. Again it was too blustery for the pole so I took at two-method feeder approach, one to my left adjacent to lilies, the other to the edge of the central island. As has happened in recent trips to two locations, a switch of bait lit the touch paper. Between 8am and 11:30 it got so manic that at one point I swapped to just one rod as I couldn't keep up with all of the bites. I landed seventeen bream, which apart from four skimmers, were all between 3lb and 4lb 4. There were also commons of 5lb 5, 9lb and 4lb 15 and mirrors of 9lb 13, 3lb 14 and 7lb 15. In among these was a single roach which, at 1lb 2oz, represented a rather embarrassing pb for me. If just one of the two bigger carp that I lost to the far-off lilies and I would have smashed the 100lb total, but then given a blank final half-hour, I couldn't be too disappointed with a 93lb 2 haul.
  20. Those trees really hate you. Were you a lumberjack in your previous life?
  21. No trout? What were you doing wrong?
  22. A morning as the only angler of the lake - perfect for a misanthrope like me. Even the rain kept away for a change, though a swirling breeze stopped me using the pole as I'd planned. So it was down to underarming the method feeder towards a patch of lilies some 15 yards away. After the other nights success on small tuti frutti boilies, I eagerly pushed some on and waited for the action. Nothing for an hour except a splendid fly-past by the resident kingfisher. I swapped to an orange wafter (still nothing) and then a white one. Boy, that did the trick. In the next two hours I had Commons of 5lb 2 and 7lb 7, a Mirror of 3lb 13, nine bream between 12 oz and 2lb 4 and a roach. For the last hour it went quiet and I got my breath back. The last two sessions have really shown me the benefit of switching baits/colours to enliven an apparently dead swim. OK, I've still had none of the larger ones that frequent the lake, but great fun. Bite indication was really tricky with those bream, will use quivertip rod next time.
  23. A morning in wonderful isolation at these usually well attended lakes. Maybe the lack of swims in the 'carp' pond due to an excess of milfoil weed kept all but the die-hards away. I attacked my favoured 'silvers' pond with the pole next to a vast mound of recently raked out weed. This left the shallow water crystal clear, reminiscent of the old aquarium house at London Zoo as I watched shoals of small rudd pass by and experimented with the effect of groundbait and loose feed on them. To keep them away from the hook i fished sweetcorn, the inevitable continued knocks from the small silvers occasionally replaced by a stronger dip of the float. Though I did lose something good in the weed, I did manage five tench between 4oz and nearly a pond, and five 'larger' rudd of 2-3oz after I'd switched to 4mm pellet. Not a lot to show for what was a fun morning
  24. My first evening trip for many weeks now that the move to Wales has settled down as much as the weather. It was truly ghastly, pelting rain and winds last weekend which even put me off fishing. No problems this evening with sunny skies and light breeze. Plenty of lilies and weed beds around and chose a spot with a clear cast to the island to my right, and a nice looking 'hole' surrounded by weed one rod length out to my left. Soon after I arrived I saw the tail of a feeding carp about a yard out, which made me think fishing so close in would be no problem even at 4pm. So it proved, with commons of 5lb 10, 3lb 8, 10b 1, 4lb 4, 6lb 5 and 10lb 8 with mirrors of 8lb 14 and 5lb 5 - the first unusually pink and piggish - the second a really pretty fish as pictured here. Over 55lb of fish represents my best return this year - perhaps I'm back in the game after a torrid time since April. We'll see.
  25. One of the many benefits of my move to Wales was the chance to go sea fishing for the first time. never done it before, and I even get seasick watching the Onedin Line. I know little of tides beyond a childhood knowledge of their affect on my sandcastles but my new neighbour, Glyn, having dug his old tackle out his loft, took me saying two hours before high tide and an hour after was best. I bought the sand eels while Glyn kindly lent me a rod with missing rings, and a left-handed reel with a bail arm sprung like a bear trap. The shallow sandy beach made for very active fishing with us having to move the gear out from the incoming tide every few minutes. But our baits remained untouched for a couple of hours albeit great fun in the sunshine and bracing on-shore breeze. Finally, Glyn got a bite and to both of our surprises, brought in a 'freshwater' eel of around 2lbs. I'd had a couple of knocks before finally a proper rod-tip shaker. With minimum 30lb bs mono on, I wasn't even sure there was anything on, until a lump of silver bucked in the shallow water and I dragged out a sea bass of around a pound and a half. It was beautiful, even if I did get spiked by its dorsal. I couldn't have killed it, even if it had been of proper weight. That was my only proper bite of our three-hour sesh, but I'll certainly be getting some gear of my own, maybe even a right-handed reel and a fully-eyed rod.
×
×
  • 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.