Anderoo

I haven't fished for ages! Once I've kicked this latest illness hopefully I'll be back out there. I haven't been chubbing once this winter...

Yes I'd also say cheap Chinese stuff from ebay. Get a bright colour so you can see it easily.

Also, if you haven't already, look in on the LAS (lure angling society) forum - that is often helpful.

I really must try to force myself out this weekend! I haven't fished for ages, the weather has been too 'something' and all my motivation has gone. But I think maybe this weekend a trip to the canal with the ultra light lure stuff might be in order...

Oh and on the canals, fishing around obvious structure is the way to go for reliable results. There are (apparently!) hot spots away from the locks and bridges, but it will take a very long time to find them. Locks are especially good. Another very good technique is 'dibbling'. Hopefully Kappa will explain that as he's much better at it than me, but essentially it's just fishing vertically, right under the rod tip, just slowly working the lure up and down.

Like Kappa, I've never really got on with dropshotting, I've scratched out a few fish here and there but it's been nowhere near as successful as little paddle tail soft plastics on small jig heads. However, some people seem to have the opposite experience, so who knows! Fishplate, if you haven't been to this site yet, I highly recommend it: http://www.agmdiscountfishing.co.uk/ Loads of great stuff, all very cheap, and excellent service. (It all gets quite addictive...!) As others have said, squashed barbs will be fine for a barbless rule. Just use pliers. Funny that Newt should mention a float. I had that idea recently and have tried it a couple of times. It does offer a very good presentation (I think - experiments are ongoing). It means you can hold a lure just off the bottom and work it extremely slowly. It's also useful if the bottom is snaggy. I tried it at one of the midlands canals, it was a slow day but I did catch a small zander using it. It was very exciting, the float just suddenly shot forward. With the soft plastics, especially at this time of year, working them slowly is important. Hold the rod tip high, turn the reel handle to slowly swim the lure up in the water, then let it waggle back down on a tight line. Bites are almost always on the drop. Keep us posted, and I hope you catch a few more soon

Excellent!

This made me go and catch up on what's going on at wingham via the website - good grief Steve! What an amazing year again. It would be amazing if a future record came from there... (There may be/have been a record bream, we just couldn't catch it!)

Yes I really must make it out next weekend! Maybe canal...?

Agreed! To all who think catching such a fish is easy or worthless, try it and see how you do The fact it's a record is of no interest to me, but it's still impressive, in the same way any carp from that water would be.

Interesting, but not very I hope they learned from Two Tone when it eventually dies...!

Nice!

Oh did it? Interesting!

Yes good idea. One of the big crucians will come along at some point and I bet your jaw hits the floor (mine did!). But aside from that, the tench fishing is excellent.

Yes, you can get a night supplement for Johnsons if you want to fish overnight. With the change in season I will probably just get the day ticket next year, I never really enjoyed night fishing there - too exhausting when the tench go crazy and keep you up all night, and although you do catch the big crucians in the dark, you seem to catch them equally well in the daytime too.

I've had the same thing happen on the Thames - every time the feeder lands there's a swarm of bleak, then an explosion as a perch hits them. Very exciting to watch, but like you I've never actually managed to catch the perch responsible! A bleak livebait should offer the most chance...

I've has a little bit of success with crayfish lures on the midlands canals, for both perch and zander. Both with little tiny lures and bigger ones up to about 2.5". In both cases I fished them on a small jig head, hooked so they come in backwards. I haven't tried them forwards. I caught by bringing them back very slowly across the bottom - a slow turn of the reel handle with the rod help high, then a long pause. Bites were gentle but pronounced little donks on the rod tip (ultra light rod) and often came when the lure was static on the bottom. I think fish sometimes follow the lure and pick it up when it stops moving. It takes some nerve to fish them properly as you're fishing them so slowly - each cast, even on a little canal, takes ages! So it's easy to get twitchy, lose faith, and swap for a little paddle tail. But they do work. I would definitely recommend trying them out somewhere you're likely to get plenty of bites. After half an hour of biteless fishing you'll be conviced it's a total waste of time

Johnsons gets the pressure because of the size of the fish, I don't think the day ticket lakes are really producing the really big crucians any more. Last spring Johnsons produced so many really big crucians it was silly. I photographed multiple 4lbers for adjacent anglers and the record was broken (I think) 3 times. Rusty, the tench fishing is excellent for numbers of fish (some days it's hard to keep a bait in the water!), but they're genertally quite small. However, there's quite a few that go 6lb+ with the occasional 7 - lots of fun on light tackle, although something of a nuisance when you want the crucians!

Can't be more busy than last May! Overall I think it's sensible but I am even more glad now that I managed to catch one of the bigger ones last May. I had a pretty tough time last spring so that was some consolation. I enjoyed the fishing a lot more once the crowds had gone in the summer, so it will be interesting to see whether they still fish there once the chance of pre spawn giants has gone. I suspect many won't.

Either way I hope to be there

So sorry to hear this. I had hoped to bump into Paul and Chris at Johnsons at some point. I always enjoyed hearing about his exploits there, and all the other waters he fished. Sincere condolences to Chris and Paul's family and friends.

I've just ordered another load of small soft plastics and little jig heads from AGM - the Thames around me can be quite hard work so I will probably be visiting the canals and local stillwaters before attempting somewhere more serious...! Plus the canals have the added advantage of zander which does make it a lot more interesting. I was expecting to be doing a lot of perch fishing this winter but actually now I can see me spanding a lot of time fishing for roach on the rivers, mainly the Thames. A fish or two over a pound and a half would be fantastic but they are rather hard-won.

I actually went fishing yesterday! Just for a few hours in the afternoon to a local bit of the Thames, quivertipping with bread. I was hoping for roach and with the river flowing well and holding some colour it looked nice and roachy. It took a while to build the swim (a deep steady glide between big bends) and as usual a few small chub were the first to arrive, and then later on the roach. No big fish but I had quite a few, and it was very enjoyable. I was upstream legering, and I'm definitely improving with that method. I'm converting a lot more bites now than I used to by fishing downstream. It took a while to get the rigjht combination of feeder weight, hooklength length and bow in the line, but once that was done almost all the bites were lovely deliberate donks on the tip followed by the tip falling slack. A really nice method - I will keep practicing, and hope the big roach of a few years ago are still in residence...

The worst thing is being desperate to fish but not being able to for whatever reason. Being able to but not wanting to isn't a problem at all

Nice one Christian! For me at the moment, I just have no questions, no big plans, in fact no real urge to fish at all. I still enjoy reading other people's catch reports but have nothing to say really. I think I last fished about a month and a half ago...