A Grand Day Out!

[Steve Burke]

I've just teamed up again with my old fishing partner, Peter Rogers, who co-edited "The Book of the Perch" with me. Appropriately our first trip was before Xmas spinning for perch on the Coarse Lake at Wingham. That was a blank, but I did get some nice pictures with my new camera. I showed an interesting pic in the topic Lady of the Lake. This was one I took of Peter at "last knockings".

 

 

Peter decided that he wanted to catch a big pike and I suggested we try a campaign on the Carp Lake instead. We decided to fish 2 different areas each time with different tactics. Peter chose "The High Bank", I opted for "Mid-River". If one of us caught then the one missing out on the action would stay where he was. In this way, although short term results suffer, we learn a lot more in the long run. In the past when perching it's more often been me who's missed out, but this time it was Peter who blanked.

 

Although I wasn't very far away, I had 9 pike including 4 doubles to 17lbs. This is the 17lber that was the first fish of the day (they fed throughout, although we didn't start until 9.15). When I first saw it I thought it was a 20, but as you can see it had the length but was very skinny.

 

 

Contrast it with this fat one of 9-10 (it was even fatter than it looked in the photo). The only species in the lake are carp, pike and eels. I wonder whether different pike have a different diet as a result?

 

The most successful bait on the day was lamphrey, followed by "blueys", a mackeral-like fish (anyone know what they are?). Smelt didn't get a touch although it's often good on the next door Coarse Lake. I soon abandoned it as a result.

 

 

I fished 3 rods with half baits on each one (except for the smelts that were whole). All the baits were regularly recast, both to find the hottest areas, and also to attract the pike. One was on a ledger and twitched back periodically. The others were on Vic Bellars sunken float paternosters. The advantage of the latter is that I could see if I'd had cast on top of one of the closely-spaced gravel bars as the red float would then be on the surface, or into one of the gullies that the pike patrol along when the float would be sunk and out of sight.

 

The other advantage is that by increasing or decreasing the tension I could increase or decrease the depth the baits were fishing at. Additionally it gives the bait some movement without pulling it out of place, and this is often very attractive to the pike. Indeed, one fish came when I released the tension, the sunken float rose, and the line ran out ...... and continued to do so!

 

The highlight of the trip though was this little visitor who became bolder and bolder as the day went on. Eventually it came onto my unhooking mat just 6 feet away, pinched some bread (it didn't like ham, tomato or banana) and scuttled off into the bushes. By the end of the day though it was eating the bread where it found it, and didn't even spook when I walked to the rods.

 

 

For those who don't know, it's a water rail, one of the most timid of British birds. It's often heard (it makes a loud noise like a squealing pig!) but is rarely seen.

 

The ironic thing is that on the footpath 30 yards behind me there was a party of twitchers moaning what a poor day it was for birdspotting!

 

Every season has it finer points, and at Wingham in winter it's the banksides appearing to be on fire when the setting sun reaches a certain angle. It had been cloudy more or less all day, but at just the right time the sun briefly broke through just long enough for me to get this picture. I didn't even have time to turn the flash off!

 

Edited December 31, 2007 by Steve Burke

[Andrew Burgess]

Nice one Steve

[Guest tigger]

Great post enjoyable reading!

[cha]

nice pittures steve and nice fish

[Vagabond]

Nice one Steve. Norma was very taken with the water rail - we have seen them once or twice at Wingham.

 

Re blueys...

I was using "blueys" only yesterday to catch flathead in the Tamar (Tasmania) estuary, - Australian blueys are anchovy-like fish and absolutely deadly when threaded on a 1/0 hook. You get 4 oz of minnow-sized blueys frozen in a small pack for a couple of dollars.

 

I think your blueys must be a different fish.

 

The Aussie bait shops also sell some sardine-sized baits known as "mulies" - I once sight-fished for, and hooked a 500 lb giant sting ray on Exmouth (in West Oz) jetty on a mulie. I "played" it for about five minutes until it realised it was hooked and went seaward and over the reef.

Edited December 31, 2007 by Vagabond

[Steve Burke]

Nice one Steve. Norma was very taken with the water rail - we have seen them once or twice at Wingham.

 

Re blueys...

I was using "blueys" only yesterday to catch flathead in the Tamar (Tasmania) estuary, - Australian blueys are anchovy-like fish and absolutely deadly when threaded on a 1/0 hook. You get 4 oz of minnow-sized blueys frozen in a small pack for a couple of dollars.

 

I think your blueys must be a different fish.

 

By the number of "screaming pigs" we hear at Wingham water rails must be pretty common there. Funnilly enough it's we anglers who see them far more than the birdwatchers. It's probably because we're normally sitting still and quiet. However I've never been able to get one to stay as close as yesterday.

 

I'll go out to the freezer tomorrow and post up a photo of what the bait company calls a "bluey". I'll certainly be trying them again.

[Guest tigger]

Re blueys...

I was using "blueys" only yesterday to catch flathead in the Tamar (Tasmania) estuaryI think your blueys must be a different fish.

 

 

Vagabond........you deffo live the life m8.

[Leon Roskilly]

Thanks for that Steve

[Steve Burke]

 

Here's the promised picture of the blueys. There are 2 to a pack (approx. 12 inches/5 to 6ozs) for £4. So using half baits that's £1 a throw.

 

Shop-bought deadbaits are expensive but convenient. Normally though you can still catch enough mackerel in one summer evening at Seabrook for a whole winter's pike fishing. However I like to have alternatives as well because the pike's preference seems to change from day to day.

 

Haven't a clue what the blueys are. Bet you can't catch them at Seabrook though!

Edited January 1, 2008 by Steve Burke

[Steve Burke]

Just been doing a bit of scouting around the net about blueys. Amongst the references I found on Google was an interesting AN topic that I missed: http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/forums/pike-wo...&pid=787883

 

There seems to be a mixed view of the effectiveness of blueys. Some reported that they soon went soft, something I didn't find myself, perhaps because they'd come out of the freezer just minutes before. Additionally, they weren't long in the water before being snaffled! Having said that I had more pike on lamprey, but that may have been because that rod was in the hottest part of the swim.

 

If the fishing's slow I switch baits around to experiment. This is very quick and easy as on the bottom of my uptraces I use a Duolock link to which the snap tackle is fixed. There's thus no need to rebait, just swap snap tackles from one rod to another. On this trip I had no need to experiment though.

 

On the Coarse Lake at Wingham there's very little pressure on the pike as only myself and the odd guest are allowed to fish the 40 acres. Here I've found over the years that mackeral, lamphrey and, to a lesser extent, smelt have been the best sea deadbaits (I don't allow coarse ones). However the best bait can vary from trip to trip. I used to use herrings and sardines as well, but they weren't as successful. Interestingly, the other day Peter was using these, although he did filch a lamphrey from me half way through the session!

 

The Carp Lake's had almost no piking on it since I stocked the pike in November 2000, but contains just carp, pike and eels, On the other hand the Coarse Lake contains most species, although few silver fish once the cormorants discovered them. Up until now I'd used only the same 3 baits on the Carp Lake as I'd used on the Coarse Lake.

 

However I'll certainly be giving blueys another go, including comparing them against mackeral.

Edited January 2, 2008 by Steve Burke