A little trotting yesterday...

[Tigger]

I spent a few hours on the river today watching the float sail away . The fog barely cleared at all and the air temp's where quite low, I could see my breath all day. I went out thinking chub and I did catch a few, none of them massive but all between 3 1/2 and 4 1/2, had some nice trout also with several of coloured up ready for sexy times.
Recently I had a barbel with no pelvic's and today I had a chub with no dorsal ! I had another chub with only a sliver of a dorsal of which i've had a few like that over the last couple of months....

 

 

 

[BoldBear]

Very strange to have missing fins (pelvic and now dorsal). I've seen Barbel from the Lea with extra barbels (quite a few years ago) and the odd deformation but I've never seen completely missing fins before.

 

Nice report

 

Keith

Edited October 4, 2015 by BoldBear

[Tigger]

Very strange to have missing fins (pelvic and now dorsal). I've seen Barbel from the Lea with extra barbels (quite a few years ago) and the odd deformation but I've never seen completely missing fins before.

 

Nice report

 

Keith

 

A bit strange in'it. Like you I have had fish with torn/split fin's etc but never a total lack of fins.

 

Thank's Keith .

[BoldBear]

When we used to catch the odd Barbel with extra barbules (usually branching out from existing barbules) they blamed women and the birth pill and them peeing in the loo water which found its way through the filters back into the river after abstraction LOL.

It was also suggested that other types of chemicals like this resulted in some of the female barbel changing sex.

 

Although there could have been some truth in their reasoning it sounds a bit like a Bart Simpson cartoon LOL.

 

I haven't heard about any of these fish being caught in the last decade or so.

 

Keith

Edited October 7, 2015 by BoldBear

[Tigger]

I had to nip to the farm shop for a couple of sacks of spuds...maris pipers...make great chips . Since I was going there I decided to have an hour or two on the river. Turned out to be a good decission, I had a few small chubletts, some dace, some barbel and a fingerling barbel...

 

 

 

[Vagabond]

Yeh, that mini-barbel is "real smart". Its a pity they lose those speckles as they grow older.

[Vas]

Very strange to have missing fins (pelvic and now dorsal). I've seen Barbel from the Lea with extra barbels (quite a few years ago) and the odd deformation but I've never seen completely missing fins before.

 

Nice report

 

Keith

i think fins been damaged in keepnet , if fish not released with care. Not sure tho

Edited October 14, 2015 by Vas

[Tigger]

Yeh, that mini-barbel is "real smart". Its a pity they lose those speckles as they grow older.

 

 

It was a superb little fish Dave, I felt like keepin' it .

[Tigger]

I had a fantastic day on Saturday trotting for grayling and had lots of fish between 2 and 3lb, a seriously good day but it was just to alkward to take pic's !

 

I had a couple of action packed hours trotting today, I was either being 'bittien off by a huge pike, stuck in a tree, tangled round me rod, trying to get the freekin' hook out of my clothing, re-tackling etc etc or playing in a fish...fantastic little session lol . There was a peregrin Falcon baying for about an hour and when your trying to sort out tangles and trying to remove hooks from your clothes etc it was seriously annoying, I even shouted to the farmer to shoot the effin bird FFS !
At the start I was catching chubletts and dace with some nice dace swallowed by my resident croc. After an hour or so I got a couple of barbel and some decent chub, then lost a couple more barbel to hook pulls. I left some fish in the landing net head after taking a pic of them, the net was positioned so they could slide off and one of them had already gone when I looked down to see the resident croc salavating with it's nose on the rim of the net. I actually dangled my baited hook against the pikes mouth so it could suck it in as it breathed, first time it spat it out quick and second time I tugged the line to hook it in it's lip but the 6lb line just cracked off with the weight of the fish !! It spat out the 14's animal that had 10 maggots still on it. I wonderd just how cheeky this pike was so tilted the net a little to allow it access into the net, as it struck at the barbel I scooped it up in the net and it went berserk thrashing like crazy. Anyhow I got it out on top of some reeds and let the net tilt to allow it to flop out, I reckon it was well into the 20's.....

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2015 by Tigger

[Tigger]

Nipped over to the river for the last half of the afternoon to do a spot of trotting. The river was up on my previous visits and looked spot on, all be it a lttle on the coloured side. I tried a spot i've not fished since last year, all was quiet for the first few trotts through then the float dipped and I had a barbel. Another few trotts through and away went the float again and I struck into another barbel, not a big fish but great fun on the float rod and hamster wheel .
Next few trotts produced dace and small chub and after i'd had a dozen or so the party was gate crashed by one of those toothy critters. I had a rod in the quiver with a jelly lure attatched ready after having had a pike in my swim last time out !
I had a few casts and then the toothy critter could resist no longer and latched on, unfortunatly it was quite a bit smaller than the one that tormented my swim the other day but it did put a good bend in the rod at least....