Big river perch, in fact monster perch!

For the majority of the country's river anglers the winter just gone was incredibly frustrating, I kept telling myself that it was selfish to moan about not being able to fish while elsewhere in the country lives were being ruined by the incessant rain but deep down that didn't help, What compounded things was that my chub fishing had been going really well and I knew that I had located a group of fish that stood a good chance of giving me my target, but I just couldn't put a bait anywhere near them for week after week.

River Derwent chub - on a mission for a monster

I always used to class chub as my favourite species. I think that goes back to my youth when a bonus chub would be the highlight of a days fishing and at that time a good Soar chub would be 2lb plus. I remember well when my Dad caught a monster of over 3lb's several years after we started fishing the river and that really was something pretty special to us. I first cracked the 3lb barrier on the River Wreake near Sysonby, I guess in the mid 1990's, and I was chuffed to bits with that. I can still remember the swim and the drop back bite that showed that my piece of flake had been picked up. That was, in fact, the first time I had ever tried upstream legering, a technique that became a firm favourite years later.

My brother with a typical Soar chub from our childhood

My dad with a Soar monster!

Chew Valley reservoir pike fishing - easy does it?

I initially said that I would have a couple of days fishing for the monster pike of Chew Valley reservoir just to say I'd been and leave it at that. Those first two days were fished just over a year ago and I've added another six days since, I'm weak willed you see! Well in fact that isn't fair, the lure of the place is hard to resist, you truly do not know what could be swimming in front of you at any given time to the extent that it is almost frightening to contemplate.

Big River Trent barbel - mission accomplished

Although I had made a conscious decision to do more barbel fishing on the river Trent this season circumstances had until recently limited the time that I had available to devote to that plan. Although on paper the Level Two Angling Coach course takes up six classroom days over four weekends there is also the need to spend some considerable amount of time at home and on the bank carrying out practice sessions and planning. In theory I could have got away with spending less time on this but as the course went on I found myself revising my ideas constantly and in effect I went over the same ground a number of times which in hindsight was the right thing to do and is actually a fundamental part of the principles of coaching. The upshot of this is that I didn't really get stuck into a fishing campaign over the summer months. Short barbel sessions fitted in well but the Trent fish are much more cooperative after dark and short summer nights meant a lack of sleep which was too much for me to handle on a regular basis. A few outings for other species have broken up my time but effectively I've been down to one, or at the most two, sessions of only a few hours per week for a good while and that wasn't helped by me catching shingles, it never rains does it! The start of October saw me complete my course and it was time to snap out of the doldrums and get stuck in to some fishing proper once again, with the nights now drawing in fast it was prime time to get back to the Trent.

Angling coach - nurturing the future

If you've been reading my jottings for a year or so you may remember me taking my two nephews fishing, if not here's the post, Angling from the start - take kids fishing. At ten and twelve years old they've fished a few times with their dad, usually in the sea when on holiday, but on each occasion, and that includes when they came with me, they were just given the tackle ready set up. As part of my level two angling coach course I had to teach a series of four one hour sessions that were linked in topic and it seemed the perfect opportunity to try and get the lads really involved with doing things for themselves. I was under no illusion that it would be an easy task particularly as Uncle Rob tends to be one of the kids when they are around, usually resulting in me being jumped on, beaten, and generally run ragged! Trying to deliver an organised session when the participants are so familiar with you is not easy but in for a penny and all that and so we set a date.

Big Derwent barbel - Jungle warfare

A little earlier in the summer I had been messing about in a swim on the Derwent that holds a lot of barbel but which is a devil to fish, the story of one particular session is here, Barbel stalking The long and short of it is that I can almost guarantee a fish per visit but I have never hooked more than one barbel and despite seeing one or two better fish in amongst the hoards have never had a double figure fish from there. It was on that last session that I got to thinking about an alternative line of attack. To say that the area is overgrown is an understatement and combined with high vertical banks which make fishing impossible along the majority of the stretch it was hard to see what else I could do. But after a bit of thrashing and poking about with a long bankstick I did identify a possible swim from which I could just maybe draw some of those resident fish to me, the problem was that it was somewhere in the region of forty yards upstream from the fish holding feature. Maybe next time I would give it a try.

River Trent barbel fishing - learning the ropes

The river Trent is about twenty minutes from my front door at its closest point yet over the years I have neglected it greatly in preference for the more intimate rivers that feed into it, namely the Soar and Derwent. I was probably fifteen or so when I caught my first Trent barbel, miniature rockets from Clifton Grove that did nasty things to a nine foot Silstar Matchpicker, almost as brutal as attempting to cast a 2oz feeder on the poor rod but that was the best I had available at the time and so it had to do.

Pocket rockets from down "The Grove"

Since those very distant days I have hardly targeted the rivers whiskered residents at all bar a handful of sessions in the last three years where a few larger residents have graced the net. Wether it be whilst playing fish or just going through the process of actually fishing you can be left with no doubt that what the Trent lacks in intimacy it certainly makes up for in raw power, not to mention it's huge appetite for gobbling up any tackle that you dare to risk by casting into it, she can be one unforgiving lady alright.

River Soar zander - into the unknown

For years I have known that the River Soar held a few zander, odd reports came in of fish caught accidentally by pike anglers but to be honest they were pretty few and far between. The thinking was that these were escapee's from Frisby pit which lies a considerable distance away next to the River Wreake, which then joins the Soar. When I became more involved in the running of Loughborough Soar Angling Society and spent more time walking the banks I started to pick up a few more reports and my interest was fired up. By no means was the river heavily populated with the species but they were there alright and I now had confirmation of at least four fish in double figures having been banked, spread across virtually the whole length of the clubs waters, it would be rude not to have a go wouldn't it.

A stunning piece of water full of features

 

After my week of carp fishing I decided that I'd have a week after those zeds, I was still very much in flitting mode angling wise which can work against you in some respects but so what, it's good fun and nice to have that variety, the campaign fishing can come later.