Thursday 24 March 2016

A specialist anglers year, part one

Despite my best intentions to try and resurrect my writing at the start of last year it all went to pot I'm afraid. After taking over the new business we really needed a buffer period to settle in but the customers thought otherwise and along with trying to aclimitise to our new venture we experienced a surge in sales. Of course in theory that's good news but it also resulted in a large dose of stress and a great reduction in free time. Blog writing? No chance! As with many things in life once you've fallen out of a routine it is hard to get back into it again and so it has taken until now to try and kick start things. I have to say a thank you to a few people that I've met recently who said that they used to enjoy my ramblings, you gave me that little shove that I needed to get on with it.

I'm going to have to start with a recap of the last years angling just to fill in the gaps. Apologies to those who have seen all of this before on Facebook, I'll try and keep it fairly concise.

2015 started on the rivers perch hunting and it was hard going, despite a fair few sessions I only managed one mid three pounder which brought my winters total to three perch.

Equal best of the winter

A good old lump for the river but not a perch!
Between perch trips I had a couple of visits to the Dove in search of grayling and as usual enjoyed it greatly. The first trip was quite productive with a good few pound plus fish and a beautiful bonus brown trout. The second trip was much harder fishing wise but was memorable for the sight of a number of hares boxing in the adjacent fields, something I'd only ever seen on the TV.

It almost stayed still, almost...

Spotty invader

February saw me bobbing up and down on Chew valley reservoir in the company of my mate Greengrass for a couple of days. I did actually manage to land my first Chew pike from a boat though it was about 10lbs wet, still more than enough to get the heart going when it pulled the float under I can assure you.

Chew teaser

Desperation time
I finished the river season off with one last go for that monster perch and to be honest conditions looked as good as they had for months. When the tip juddered round and I struck into a weighty fish I really thought I'd cracked it, until a 5lb tench popped up!

With the weather warming up I took my dad for a session on a local commercial, I say warming up in the loosest sense as once on the bank the wind was bloody evil. The place is solid with fish so you would have to try very hard to blank no matter how cold so we had a bit of sport. I even got my dad fishing the method feeder for the first time though he did manage to cast it out complete with mould attached on one occasion!

I spent a few over night sessions after slightly larger carp, midweek making the lake a much more appealing prospect, weekend lakes rammed full of carpers are something I just can't cope with nowadays.

Best one from a brief local campaign
I decided that this was to be the year that I had a proper go for a double figure tench and after a bit of deliberation came to the conclusion that the venue was going to be Larkfield, in Kent, a mere 155 miles from home and on the wrong side of the dreaded M25. In hindsight that was a bit of a brave move particularly as for years I've been telling her indoors that Kent is too far for a weekend a away, oops, a bit of back peddling was required at that point.

My first trip was during the third week in April and I found the journey much less of a chore than I expected, granted I left home in the early hours to arrive lakeside by 7.30am but it really was a doddle. That was a good thing as I then proceeded to blank for three days. Fortunately as the weather warmed up so did the fishing. In fact to describe my next trip as hot would be something of an understatement.

My starting point though I went on to catch well on 6mm boilie too
The action started with a rude awakening just as dawn broke. The fight was not particularly spectacular and the only real drama was when the tench, for that's what I still assumed it to be, kited to my right through a semi submerged tree. As you do in such circumstances I sunk the rod tip and gave it the butt, feeling various bits of woodwork ping off the line as I drew it back towards me. It was only after the fish swirled near the net that I realised that 24 inches of pan net probably wasn't going to do the job. Luckily I had decided before starting on the water that I would carry a carp net just in case this "problem" should arise, unfortunately said net was now ten yards away on the other side of my rods and up a rather slippery section of steep bank but after a bit of frantic scrambling I manage to grab hold of it. I still didn't grasp just how big this fish was even after I had scooped it into the net, I certainly knew it was bloody heavy when I attempted to lift it up that ledge onto the bank. It was soon quite obvious that my 40lb Avon's weren't going to do the job and I had the embarrassing job of waking up a carp angler on the adjacent lake to borrow his scales. He recognised the fish straight away as the biggest in the lake and when the scales span around to 47lb also declared it a new lake record, oops!


No. definitely not a tench
The action didn't stop there and over the next two days I went on to land a new pb tench at 9lb 11oz plus a great big male of 9lb 1oz and two more carp at 25lb and 27lb.

9lb 11oz

9lb 1oz male

25lb 8

27lb 11
Talking to some of the carpers on the lake the general consensus was that it was hard fishing, one bloke had gone two years without a bite, yet the tench anglers caught a fair few while I was there including a 36lb common within 24 hours of my big one. The story on other waters was the same, carp that have seen more 16mm balls than a little are much less cautious when they come across a bed of mixed particle and groundbait, maybe maggot and caster, and in my case a tiny little 6mm boilie topping off the meal.

The fishing on my next visit was much slower. The Tenchfishers had booked the lake for a weekend social and a few fish had been out all over the lake but nowhere in particular seemed to be producing any great number of bites. One swim had been closed for a few days as the carp had been spawning in there but with a change in the weather they had vacated and it seemed a pretty good option to me so that's where I plumped for. The first day passed without a hint of anything being present within a mile of me, not a sign of a fish, however true to form at the crack of dawn the next morning I found myself playing a fish, the fourth time that this small window had produced a bite in five nights fishing. I certainly can't claim that the fight was spectacular, more of a waddle into the net job to be honest, but I'll happily let the little uns fight and the monsters surrender, this was a monster alright. I had come to catch a double and I had surpassed any hopes that I had by a long way, as I write this nearly a year later I'm still not sure that it has really sunk in.

Bugger me that still looks huge! 11lb 9oz of huge!
 After that bombshell I had only a couple of weeks before the rivers opened and with a weeks holiday mixed in the month soon slipped by without much to show on the fish front. In fact July wasn't exactly spectacular either, very low water levels weren't helping at all and in all honesty I wasn't too bothered. A spectacular visit to the Royal Air Tatoo to see the Vulcan bomber in its last year and a bit of tootling around on the river in the dinghy kept me entertained. I rounded off the month with a Trent barbel trip which produced some action, a cracking days roaching on my local reservoir, and another commercial trip with my dad. I was hoping that the weather would break and give the rivers a much needed flush through but only time would tell.

Beetroot head







6 comments:

  1. Nice write up Rob and sone cracking fish. Just how big was that tench? It's huge!

    I hope you find time to sit in front of the keyboard this year.

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    1. Hey up Dave hope you're well. I forgot that bit of info! 11lb 9oz mate

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    2. Strewth! That and a 47 common - ya greedy bugger ;o)

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  2. Nice to see you back at the keyboard Rob. I look forward to reading your future adventures again ;)

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    1. Cheers fella, got mucho reading to catch up on too I'm sure. Perhaps I should go carping :)

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