Lure fishing on Rivers

[Brian Carragher]

Steve

Youre in the right areas. The woods at Bassy down the steps through to the Holmes at the back of the Green are all worth a go.

Downstream behind the baths and boathouse lane all produce but boathouse has some high banks. All along the dolomite stretch at the lower tees works as does around Victoria bridge.

The Yarm free stretch goes upstream into the woods past the church for about 200 yards there is a sign indicating where fishing is private and downstream to where the old skin yard was. There are flats there now with a public footpath in front of them now and you can still fish from there.

Dont forget to visit Preston park and the stretch near you under the new road from the pipe bridge donstream to under the legs of the new road.

Deads work a treat as do lures but instead of using bottom lures like the storm shads use floating divers like the big s as there is a lot of sunken rubbish on the bottom in the lower reach's due to storm deposits. If you floatfish a bait into that rubbish you can have some wonderful results.

One thing everyone says about tees pike is pound for pound they fight harder than fish from the swale or ure ( the same applies for the chub)

[Ken L]

Hi Spamhill.

 

Your stated gear is a bit limiting mate. The only option it gives you is chucking big lures for pike.

A step down to the sort of kit that's often sold for Sea-Trout fishing (8' rod able to cast 5 - 35g, 14lb fireline and a 2 or 3000 size fixed spool reel) will really open up your options.

 

The advice about targeting the pike hard into the near bank is sound and you wouldn't believe how close in some big fish can be if there's a bit of cover for them. My lures of choice for these fish would be spinner baits and weedless surface lures like the Heddon Moss Boss.

 

For searching for pike over sunken weed, try shallow running plugs lick the Bomber Long A's or Cordell Riplin Redfin's or of course those spinner baits.

 

Some jigs with shad or mag grub bodies are a good option for exploring those deep holes.

 

Search long apparently open stretches of water (on the Middle Severn we have lots of these about 4' deep and with no really obvious features visible from above the surface) with spoons, big spinners (Mepps sizes 4 or 5) or those shallow running plugs.

 

Where you have moving shallow water, get those size 2 and 3 spinners out and start searching out the chub and trout. These sections will also hold plenty of lure grabbing perch in the slacks, so don't just crank the lure back when it drops out of the water that you're searching - work it.

[spamhill]

Cheers Ken, I know what you mean about the gear and the big lure thing. I will invest in a lighter rig also to give a choice. Does braid behave on a fixed spool reel ?

[Newt]

Braid & Fixed spool, good match. Works fine.

[spamhill]

Brian, do you not find the Bassy woods stretch to be a bit slow shelving without much to fish to. The only run I had was the one in the beck end. This was winter it may be a different story come summer. What sort of tactics are used to get the larger fish. I had 3 smaller pike on a big S befor the close season but nothing above 5lb