Red Letter Days

[Guest Rabbit]

On the same lines as the PB thread what was your best Red Letter Day?

 

I suppose mine was 20 Tench in a morning session on a gravel pit, over 100lbs in total.

[Elton]

One June 16th, I had 16 lure caught pike. My mate blanked!

[Dales]

Mine would be more a red letter night eather then day. Around 20 years ago I used to fish a local lake Hollow ponds in Epping Forest it was hard going and not many fish used to get caught. I often fished it with a group of freinds around 6 or 7 of us and we would have around 12 - 16 rods out between us and maybe one person would catch 2 or 3 Tench and the rest the odd Roach.

 

One weekend I fished it with only 2 mates and I managed 12 Bream up to around 5lb and 4 Tench to 4lb. I have caught more fish on other trips but to get so many on this venue was very special. Even now anglers who know the water find it hard to believe.

 

When ever I drive past the lake I remember that session, it's sad really no one fishes the lake now and the fish stocks are now gone.

[Chris Plumb]

7th February 2003 - Here's an article I wrote about it for a book which never saw the light of day!

 

You know its going to be your day when the first fish of the morning is a 2lb roach!!! And as I slipped the net under the Rutilus of many an anglers dreams I thought to myself - ‘well I can go home now - it won’t get any better than this!’ Will it? To tell the truth the redfin was an ounce under the magic mark - but the fact it was here at all was a minor miracle. I was fishing an estate on the Middle Kennet near Hungerford - ostensibly for the numerous grayling the water holds - but hoping for the occasional monster dace the water throws up from time to time. In 5 years prior to this day (& 6 years since) I’d never had a decent roach from the venue.

 

However, this was a day when everything about the conditions was spot on. If you could order a perfect winters day for fishing your request to Mother Nature may look something like this. Mild, with a heavy overcast cloud cover giving low light levels all day. No wind, rain or overnight frost and a maximum temperature of 12ºC. This to be the first mild day following a prolonged cold snap. The river to be full after a wet winter but sufficiently fined down after the last rains as to only have a tinge of colour - and definitely NO road salt in the water. 7th February 2003 was just such a day in West Berkshire.

 

Like many fisheries in this part of the world the venue is a series of mini weir-pools and carriers criss-crossing the flood plain. In the spring and summer it is the preserve of the dry fly angler with its well manicured banks and stocked rainbows. In the winter, grayling are the target - and mayflies give way to a loafer float and a ‘blow fly emerger’!! I have still to catch a 2lb Kennet grayling* - I have got within 2oz of it - and this was the venue that provided it. In the winter there is no better fish to guarantee you sport than the Lady of the Stream - and on the Kennet there are few better waters than this one for consistently providing good catches of them.

 

Whilst it was grayling that first brought me to this lovely water its been the promise of something much rarer that has kept me coming back. These days my appetite for 2lb grayling is well satisfied by a couple of annual trips to the River Itchen. It is this venue’s propensity to occasionally throw a curve ball at you in the shape of a 1lb+ dace which now sets my pulse racing when I anticipate a day’s angling there.

 

As already mentioned this is a fishery of pools, glides and carriers, some so narrow you could jump across them from a standing start. There’s never much depth of water either, some swims may only be 18inches deep and 3 foot constitutes a hole! In the winter floods, one stream in particular attracts my attention. It empties into the main river Kennet and 100m upstream of that confluence splits in two - with both branches quickly terminating upstream in small plunge pools. Naturally they are gravel bottomed, lined with common reed and just occasionally and especially late in the winter they hold dace. In dry years the carriers hardly contain enough water to cover their backs and the streams are barren but when the Kennet is high and pushing through the dace see these narrow watercourses as sanctuary. I don’t know for sure but I suspect these waters may even be the dace’s spawning redds in such years. You certainly catch dace in spawning condition during the last month of the season - the females fat and pigeon chested, the males as rough as sandpaper.

 

And on this soft and benign February morning - it looked like a roach or two had joined them!!

 

I’d arrived before the break of dawn in order to get 2 cracks at these dace streams - the first and last hour of daylight being usually the most productive. As usual my eagerness at wanting to get started found me at the water well in advance of daylight and I was in the first swim at the top of the carrier some time before it was light enough to see my float. The plan was to fish the carrier down to the confluence with the main river then return to the top of the other arm and do the same. Tackle was a float rod and centrepin, small loafer float, a size 18 hook to 2.75lb bottom. I always travel light on such trips - so a bait smock full of maggots and pockets stuffed with bits of tackle means the only thing I carry from swim to swim is a rod and net.

 

I spent the time waiting for dawn looking at my watch - agonising at how slowly it appeared to run - knowing in 10 hours time it would be the complete opposite! I also trickled in a few maggots every couple of minutes until it was just light enough to prick one onto the hook and flick out my tackle into the head of the glide. At first nothing happened and I quickly got into a rhythm of casting, feeding and trotting. Sprinkling in half a dozen maggots every other trot through. I was just about to move down to the next swim when the float slid to the side and I needed no more than a check with my thumb on the reel to set the hook home. The fight was a curious one - too stately for a trout, not the bloody-minded doggedness of a big grayling, and too big for a dace, surely. I was just thinking chub (although I’ve never caught one of those here either) when those bright red fins broke the surface.

 

Big roach are so rare that the time from definitely knowing you’ve hooked one to having it safely in the folds of your landing net is always fraught. This was no different and being shocked at the first sight of it (and it of me no doubt) I subconsciously started to play it more cautiously allowing it a couple of quests for freedom into the reeds before it was thankfully coaxed out and into the waiting net. It looked all of 2lb - though only ever having caught one above that weight before I can hardly say my eye was in and I had to reluctantly agree to my scales recording of 1lb 15oz!

 

Next trot through produced a splashy rainbow trout of around 1½lb - and this was my cue to move downstream to the next glide. Here the carrier widened just a touch, the flow was slower and the depth a few crucial inches deeper on the far bank. With my Polaroid’s on and with the light levels increasing I could just make out some dark shapes drifting in and out of the reeds in the margins. These dark shapes were dace. BIG DACE.

 

The recollection of the next hour or so is now hard wired into my memory. My dairy entry for the day records that I caught exactly a dozen dace. All of them were over ½lb. Eight of them were 13oz or bigger and the biggest 3 went 1lb2oz, 1lb1½oz, and 1lb exactly. Three, 1lb dace in an hour’s fishing - unbelievable!!! The biggest of course was (and still is) a personal best - a fat pigeon-chested female that was 29cm in length. The second biggest was leaner yet 2cm longer - dace over a foot long - WOW!

 

At times the angling was almost of Mr Castwell proportions. Trot after trot the float dipped at the same place, a flick of the wrist set the hook and a huge dace was guided away from the main shoal to be netted, recorded and slipped back. In order to stay off the skyline the whole thing was done on my knees and I was almost glad when the bites eventually dried up - my back was killing me, my joints had seized and my leg muscles were in pain from lactic acid build up. How we suffer for our sport!

 

By now it was mid-morning and I gave the remaining swims down to the main river a cursory look before heading off to some of the faster stretches on the estate in search of grayling. Whilst the rest of the day was spent catching these lovely fish I had a sense that all I was doing was killing time waiting for dusk - and a chance to return to THAT swim! I dropped by it every hour or so to throw in a handful of maggots though every time I returned I couldn’t see any more darks shapes.

 

By 4pm having thoroughly enjoyed myself with the grayling - and having caught around 3 dozen to a 1½lb - I was easing my self back into position at the top of the glide. I didn’t start fishing immediately - contented my self with trickling in some maggots and peering into the clear water to try and make out if anything was showing an interest. Nothing - no shapes drifting in and out of the cover to sip in the free offerings not even a flashy trout slashing at some of my casters that were floating off downstream.

 

I started fishing - and was soon nothing more than an automaton as I cast and recast without the slightest indication on my float. I kept thinking I should try further downstream - after all I hadn’t really given those swims a proper go in the morning - but something held me to the spot. A sense that this swim wasn’t finished with me yet. Sure enough on something like my 28th ‘last cast’ the float gave a dragging type of bite - as if caught on the bottom. It took my consciousness half a second to realise that the float had passed that way a dozen times without incident and that this must be a fish!

 

The next 2 or 3 minutes happened in slow motion. The strike connected with something which at first just stubbornly held station in the current. Again my 1st reaction was ‘chub’ - I couldn’t dare to hope it would be another roach - because this was certainly bigger than my ‘prologue fish’. After about 30 seconds the stand off ended and the fish blinked first, turned and shot off downstream to the next pool. I was quickly to my feet following, ‘salmon angler’ style. Here the water was shallower and I could clearly see it WAS another roach - and a bloody big one to boot! Alas, the fish also got a good look at me and kept up its quest for the sea. Its at times like this you really appreciate the way the banks on these trout fisheries are tended - no obstructions - and it was simply a matter of getting below the fish and helping it into the net with the current.

 

I didn’t need the scales to tell me I’d landed my second personal best of the day. This roach was a bit of an ‘old soldier’ - a little lank and out of condition yet still managed to pull the needle on my scales around to 2lb 11oz. I reckon in its prime it could have touched the mythical 3lb mark.

 

And that was my last cast of the day - after all HOW could it have finished any better?

 

 

C.

 

*Caught a 2.01 & 1.15 from here in Feb 09...

[Anderoo]

Real red letter days are extremely rare, maybe once in a lifetime. It's an excellent topic, but I've been struggling with this one - I'm not sure I've had one. I have had fantastic days where it's all come together, the plan has worked and I've caught a big or difficult fish or two, but I think to take it into 'red letter' territory it needs something extra special (Chris's post is a great example of one!).

 

My first big hit of big tench would come close, but I think for it to be a red letter day it needed a double or two and maybe a surprise 30lb carp thrown in My big bream is also close, but as there were more big bream rolling over my bait after I caught it, and I didn't get another, I can't really count that. I had an amazing weekend at the end of last season, catching several big chub and perch, but again none of them were PBs or giants in relation to where they were from. All great days, very special and will live with me forever - but were they true red letter days?

[wellyphant]

On the same lines as the PB thread what was your best Red Letter Day?

 

I suppose mine was 20 Tench in a morning session on a gravel pit, over 100lbs in total.

Nowhere near as good as yours but my best catch was during a short maggot drowning session one october.I wasn't planning on catching any particular species and travelled light,ie no keepnet,no camera.Using a float,i immediately started catching perch and caught them steadily,along with some nice roach and rudd.The perch were all well over 1lb the biggest being 2 1/2lb(my pb).I know that's not huge but it was the biggest perch i'd ever seen.I caught 36 perch,a few roach and rudd.If it wasn't for the fact i had to pack up and collect my daughter from school i could have possibly doubled my catch.

 

When i thought about,40lb+ of perch,roach and rudd in three hours was quite a good catch(around here it is anyway).I was curious what these fish would have looked like collectively in a net so i returned a couple of days later,with camera and keepnet,same swim,same tactics and managed to catch about half a dozen perch about an ounce each,,typical

Edited November 9, 2009 by wellyphant

[Rusty]

I’ve always wondered what this phrase meant. Wikipedia didn’t help much so my own interpretation will be going home genuinely feeling that you’ve just enjoyed the best days fishing you’ve ever had.

 

Mine was during late summer 1974 at Danson Park lake in Kent. I was 14 and owned a rod, a reel and an assortment of end tackle kept in a wartime gas mask bag. It was the last day of the summer holidays and ‘O’ Level year loomed so trying to put off the thought of going back to school for as long as possible I dug up a few worms from the garden and went fishing.

 

The usual form with my mates was to see who could catch the biggest Gudgeon, we never managed to fish the good swims where the “experts” fished but were happy to find a spot elsewhere and have our fun. On this day, a Friday, there was only one expert fishing so I set up a few yards away trying to ignore the disdainful looks. I had no landing net, seat or rod rests so out went the overly large float with the worm dangling below and I sat down on the bank.

 

Within a couple of minutes the float started to move gently from side to side, this puzzled me, Gudgeon normally just pull it under. Eventually it slid under slowly, I struck and felt resistance I’d never experienced before. I wasn’t sure what to do so hung on for dear life until the resistance gradually lessened and then carefully wound in the 10lb line. It was the biggest Roach I’d ever seen and once the other angler realised that I couldn’t get it out of the water he came over and landed it. His scales registered 1lb 12oz.

 

I landed five more of a similar size until I’d used all of my worms, each needed the landing net so the other guy was getting a bit fed up by the time I went home.

 

These were the first proper fish I’d caught and I was absolutely elated, I’ve never felt that way after a day’s fishing since. Of course it was all luck, I just happened to fish in a spot with a resident shoal of Roach and had the right bait but that didn’t stop me bragging to my mates about my new found angling skills. They didn’t believe me.

 

I still have the rod and Intrepid Prince Regent reel, might dust it off one day.

[wayne baker]

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

[Chris Plumb]

I’ve always wondered what this phrase meant. Wikipedia didn’t help much so my own interpretation will be going home genuinely feeling that you’ve just enjoyed the best days fishing you’ve ever had.

 

The etymology of the phrase dates from the time when feast days and holy days were marked in red in church calendars.

 

 

C.

[arbocop]

The etymology of the phrase dates from the time when feast days and holy days were marked in red in church calendars.

 

 

C.

 

You can certainly write good report Chris! I'm at work now and haven't been able to get out on the river for three weeks - it now feels like an eternity.

 

However, you said 'I was fishing an estate on the Middle Kennet near Hungerford' call me a pedant but isn't that the upper kennet?

 

Anyway, as regards the thead, I can't actually recall any particular days, I've had days where I've caught lots, large fish, new methods, new species etc. but nothing stands out in mind as a particular red letter day.

 

These spring to mind - when I was about 14 I caught my first double figure pike in Ireland - 17lb. When I lived in Cheshire, on my local lake at the time I caught a 15lb carp from the surface on floating caster from a shoal that suddenly started surface feeding over 15ft deep water - in October!

 

My first fly caught trout, bass and grayling are all memorable.

 

My first netful, and I mean a netful - of roach when I was about 12, I went to my local partly polluted severed river section and caught over 60 roach on maggot - every cast I got a bite and a fish. I had a whole group of people watching me.

 

Winning my first match age 12 - I've still got the trophy!

 

The way I feel at the moment, just a day on the river with a centrepin would be a red letter day!