Fishing can be so so cruel........

[Newt]

I'd bet on the gangster one.

[Guest Rabbit]

I'd bet on the gangster one.

 

Dunno Newt ....

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Fancied another quick sesh tonight, so sneaked by the security cameras, fed the attack dogs a few spiked sausages, bribed the guards and then proceeded to climb the fence and set up my rods.

 

There had been a match today and it can be a bit patchy after matches. Some times it fishes its head off, but mostly its a bit tough.

 

Tonight I decided to use ONLY the new bait as I was into a bit of pleasure fishing rather than experimenting. The fact I chose the new bait over the dozens of other baits I could have tried tells me I am already feeling confident using it.

 

To cut a long story short, I had 4 carp and 2 bream in what was really quite a slow session. Once again, lots of bream tugs and pulls but I wasnt really tackled down for em so I only caught the clumsy ones. Fact is though, they wanted that bait!

 

The excitement (if you can call it that) was when I saw a rod butt surface about 3 pegs away. It was clear from its movement that a fish was still attached so I quickly reeled in one of my rods and ran up to the nearest peg to the floating rod. It was only a gentle chuck away so the second cast saw me connecting with something......trouble was, it actually felt like I'd hooked the fish! It took me a while to reel it in and when I got it close I could see why.........I hadnt hooked the fish but had hooked a great tangle of feeders and line! The fish was hooked in the pectoral fin by one of 3 hooks in the tangle and a great swathe of line was tangled around its fins cutting into them a bit. I had to get a pair of scissors to cut him free, but an examination of his injuries suggested no real damage was done and the superficial damage would heal. He swam away strongly.

 

I dragged all the gear back to my peg to sort it out. There was one complete ledger set-up.........wierd though as the lead was attached to a kind of long translucent rubber thing with what I assume was the hook length attached near the top ( I can take a piccy if anyone wants to see it). It still had the boillie attached! Looked like some kind of teather rig to me though as I couldnt see how a snap off would allow the fish to drop the lead. There was also TWO method feeders and all tangled/ attached to this rod and reel which had clearly been in the water at least weeks, if not months such was the gooey slim all over it.

 

I'm still trying to work out what the fish had picked up forst and how it had managed to pick up everything else on its travels! My guess is though it snapped off the teather rig and the long tangling lead (all 18 inches of it) managed to collect all the other debris over the coming days.

 

The rod cleaned up perfectly and a couple of pics are in the rod identification thread and the shimano reel still works fine too! Incredible.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Brumagem Phil

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Heard the river calling last night and although it was late, decided to have a splosh for 2 or 3 hours.

 

The Avon is now back nicely into its banks and the colour isnt toooo far from normal with 6 to 8 inches of visibility from the surface.

 

It was a bit slow to get going, but in the end a nice 8lb 10oz barbel came to pay the river bank a visit, followed 10 mins later by another one of 6lb. After that it died a death and just one bream of around 5lb paid a visit just as I was packing up.

 

Chucked loads of bait in too and once I had those 2 barbel from the same place, I thought I had that one swim cracked.

 

Never mind, there is always tonight.............maybe!

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Had an eventful couple of days.

 

Yesterday evening I popped down to the Avon again, but had a very patchy evening. fished a halibut pellet on one rod and worm on the other with both running a nice fishmeal and micro halibut mix on the feeder. Although I had twitches and tugs all night resulting in stolen worms, I only managed to actually hook and land 2 very small chub, 1 skimmer and one half decent bream on around 3,5lb.

 

Decided I needed a rematch tonight so dug a few more worms and mixed up some more of my fishmeal stink mix.

 

Had a much better session, netting 2 chub of around 2.5lb, 6 bream with the smallest being 4lb and the biggest 7lb 10oz and a nice mirror carp of around 5lb. Oh, I also hooked my first ever eel too but he managed to get off right at the net........not sure if that was a bad thing though!

 

A fellah I have spoken to before was having a torrid time further down the river and came and fished near me. He was after the eels. He caught two small ones of around a pound which were destined for his fridge. He did say on a decent evening he could catch 10 or 12 eels and that if he wanted to he could sell them for arounf £5 per pound in weight.

 

Fed up of digging my worms though......he had hundreds of em and said he buys a box from the tackle shop for 2 quid. Gonna have to look into that.

 

Really enjoyed my fishing tonight, and all down to the lowly worm!

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Guess where I fished tonight!?!?

 

Oh alright, you lot are far too good as detectives!

 

Set up in the same swim as usual and decided to run the left hand rod with worm and the fishmeal mix and the right hand one with the same mix but with different hook baits. I mainly fancied some nice smoked bacon which I went to cook today but decided was probably just past its human consumption date.

 

It was a steady evening really where the rods never actually went mad, but a steady flow of bites kept me busy. The big disappointment was the bacon which attracted nothing and by half way throught he session had been replaced by worms.

 

The first 8 fish were all bream, the biggest of which tonight as 5lb 10oz and was a recapture of one of last nights fish as a mark on his side showed. This was followed by a pair of fish that I'd never caught before despite a few good efforts on a pool near me.........two tincas!!! First one was 3lb 8oz and the second one 3lb on the dot. Well chuffed to have broken my tinca duck!

 

Last but not least I picked up a barbel............ran like a carp though, in fact never had a barbel go on runs like this one did. Weighed in at a respectable if not record breaking 9lb.

 

What a sesh, and once again, hommage must be paid to the worm!!!

 

I know people like pics so here are a couple..........please excuse the ropey quality but they were taken on a nokia n73 camera phone. I reckon the pics should be better quality than this so will have to mess with the settings. Anyway, a crap piccy is better than no piccy at all.

[Janet]

Nice report as usual Phil. I too caught my first two tench this week, after several attempts over the past couple of weeks. Delighted doesn't begin to describe it!

 

Janet

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Just a quick report to say I fished the river again last night (same peg) and it was pretty slow going. A late flurry gave the tally of 6 bream some respectability. Oh, I did catch my first slippery little sucker though........

[Miggy]

Almost an Eel Bracelet for you there phil slippery critters

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Wow, am I having a good week or what????

 

Went to find a new swim tonight but both the swims I'd previously earmarked were taken so I decided rather than fish somewhere I wasn't happy with, I'd fish my usual peg again tonight.

 

It really was tough going for quite a while tonight but in the end I got the one swim going............odd really, its always the same swim of the two that I manage to get going. The bottom seems pretty deviod of snags in this area so perhaps they just like to feed in a nice open area without lots of weed and snags?

 

Todays tally was 5 bream and 2 tench. Oddly I recaptured the 5lb 10oz bream for the third time in 4 sessions! He obviously likes my cooking! Oh, and in a week of new things, one of the tench was a bit special too.........only 4lb 6oz, but would you just look at this beauty.......................