A refreshing dip
Last week I was pike fishing on a local river. Having rained for much of the day the river was rising and the flow increasing hour by hour. I'd taken my umbrella though so remained satisfyingly dry. The rain eventually stopped and as ever I started to get itchy feet. A short distance upstream I found a few small fish in a slack on the far bank. I was pretty sure perch were attacking them. I returned a short while later with my float rod, some worms and big pike net. I crouched down on some flattened near-bank reeds with the main flow right by my feet.
Sure enough I was soon expertly playing a decent Perch. I drew it into the reeds to hand it out as I didn't want to have to unfurl it from the folds of my cavernous pike net. As I leant down to pick out the fish my balance shifted slightly and I put my hand down to stop myself toppling over. As my hand went onto the reeds they instantly parted and my arm shot into the cold, muddy torrent followed by much of the rest of me. A brief panicked melee ensued and by the time I'd removed myself from the water the Perch had somehow ended up in the net anyway. My fishing wife for the day Nick was mortified he hadn't witnessed the carnage. I fished on, wet but somewhat revitalised by the experience.
Catching up
After reminding myself not to leave it so long last time, it's been even longer this time. In my defence I needed a new laptop which I'm writing to you on now. You owe me for it obviously, no doubt you'll lavish me with cash when our paths cross. Some highlights from last year...
Winter 2021/2022
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| Trent perch 3lb 1oz |
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| Back a week later with Alfie Naylor, best of a multiple perch/pike catch between us. |
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| Lincolnshire river 3lb 13oz perch. Taken second cast of the day on a TRD, caught nothing else of note from there the rest of the winter. |
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| Lincolnshire drain. 3lb 6oz perch on my first visit, again nothing else of note on multiple return trips. |
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| Nate Green always visits from a distant Kent at Christmas. Here with an expertly caught 5lb 10oz Chub from the river Bain right at the end of an otherwise uneventful day. |
I know that place!
Scrolling through my news feed on Facebook one night I came across a picture of a chap with some rather large roach. Ever the opportunist I thought I recognised the venue and so I should have done, it turned out to be in my village. Something wasn't quite right though. From experience I knew most of the fish weren't true roach but hybrids. I studied the photo again. He was holding one that looked about right but the others laid on the unhooking mat in front of him were dubious. Only one way to find out I thought and rather than fish from the almost suicidally steep banks I lobbed my boat in. They certainly weren't put off by it and I caught some magnificent fish on trotted bread. Not one of them was a true roach.
2lb 9oz was the biggest and I had several 2's. They look suspicious as soon as you see them, mouth and fins not quite right to be true roach but lovely to catch regardless.
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| I was still catching a few pike all winter. Modest fish to mid double-figures, either on my own or with..... |
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| ....our old friend Benidorm Dave, |
The back end of the river season was spent chasing chub, unsuccessfully for the most part. Not for my mate Nick though who caught a really remarkable fish. Like me he endured plenty of blanks and missed bites but joined the uber exclusive Lincolnshire 7lb club. That's as much of his secret I'm giving away.
Spring 2022
Every year I have a few very half-hearted goes at trying to catch a catfish. Night fishing isn't really my thing but this year I was aided by some mates from work- twins Zak and Josh. Avid carp anglers I joined them at a local lake for a few sessions. They fished for carp and I fished for cats and carp. I did catch a few of the latter but nothing massive. The cats proved allusive though.
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| The chaos twins, hogging the facilities |
On one memorable night, just after dark eventually my cat rod alarm rang out. I'd caught a few rogue pike on squid but as soon as I lifted into this fish I knew it wasn't one of those. Luckily both brothers were there to help and they wound in my other rods and readied the net. Even with 50lb braid the fight was fairly fraught and I basically just held on for dear life until it got fed up. It's difficult to put into words because for most of the fight I was just praying it didn't come off or get snagged. After what seemed like an age the boys finally netted it for me, I can't remember which one but give me a break, they're virtually the same person. Joking aside that shared moment of your mates being pleased for you and the elation of finally catching something significant by design is one I'll never tire of.
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| 37lb 8oz Catfish, handily impressive for when any non-fisherman friends ask what the biggest fish I've ever caught is. |
Other than a few carp I spent most of the spring trout fishing at the excellent Withern Mill. I even tempted my friend Nick out of fly fishing retirement to have a go despite his protestations about having a bad back. I caught loads of trout, mainly rainbows from the lakes but had a few brownies from the river too. A lovely way to spend a few hours.
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| Nick in action |
A few of us also had our annual Ide fishing trip, which if truth be told I'm a bit hopeless at. They swim around with hundreds of ravenous carp you see. Very frustrating trying to pick them out.
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| For the first time ever I can't actually remember the weight. 3lb something I reckon |
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| Richie Martin had the best of the day at an impressive 5lb 1oz |
Summer 2022
The drains and rivers of Lincolnshire tend to be smaller and shallower than the proper fens further south. As such they can get pretty much choked with weed. With the exceptionally warm conditions we experienced this year the weed seemed to be as bad as I can ever remember.
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| The river Steeping, totally unfishable. |
There's an almost scripted calendar proper specimen hunters stick too. Early summer for most means Rudd. Fortunately a few friends were catching some really nice ones that were in my range for a visit. I took Nick up on his kind offer of a lift to a venue he'd already been to a couple of times. We arrived to find an almost arrow-straight drain, impressively wide and deep, thankfully almost completely free from weed.
We both headed downstream and soon found small pockets of fish, visible just under the surface, some quite large ones too. Being a newbie I struggled for the first hour or so but after making a few mistakes and the loan of a heavy, stumpy float I sussed it out. They were mostly on the far bank and the odd one I did find close-in were super shy, even with a free-lined bait. Loosefeeding didn't seem to make much difference to the likelihood of tempting one either. My first fish was in a group of three fish milling about on the far bank. I didn't feed anything and just made a speculative cast towards them. One of them grabbed the bread almost instantly. It went 2lb 1oz, a lovely start.
After walking a good couple of miles in the searing heat I was beginning to flag somewhat but the promise of stumbling across something special kept me going. Indeed I did see a really big fish that was frustratingly hanging around a far bank staging that I just couldn't reach. Later in the day though I struck lucky. It too was out of range and I must have had six or seven casts at it before it took pity on my efforts and swam over to swallow my bait.
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| The best one of the day- 2lb 6oz |
Sea round up
Despite my relative rudd success I didn't go back because at the start of the summer the sea always takes priority. I was really keen to better my 13lb Smoothhound PB and had several trips out in my small inflatable trying. As usual I caught plenty but sadly no really big ones. Fish to 11lb were great fun though. Even the smaller ones are able to strip 30lb braid from the reel and fight all the way to the boat.
Such experiences are always better shared and I had a couple of great trips out with Zak and Josh from work too.
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| Zak with one of several that day, including rays, whiting and bass. |
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| Myself with a modest example |
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| Rays were abundant this year, often catching more of them than hounds |
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| Zak's twin brother Josh |
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| Braver than his brother who wouldn't hold the prickly rays |
Despite some very hot weather the summers hound prospects were actually pretty poor, offshore winds roughing the sea up for weeks on end. The opportunities to catch them soon whittled away and all the gear put away for another year. There's always something else to do though and although not as productive as usual I bothered a few caravan park carp on the float.
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| 22lb 4oz |
With it being too hot for most of the summer I only went barbel fishing twice, both times with Josh who was keen to get his first river barbel.
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| I failed miserably to catch the target species although I did get a few chub |
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On our first trip Josh waited patiently and kept plugging away, feeding and re-casting finally to be rewarded with a 9lb 12oz beauty.
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That just about rounds up the summer action but I did have a few early perch trips
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| 3lb 2oz from a short window when the Witham was free from weed |
Oh I nearly forgot. Bear with me. For a few years now I'd been meaning to visit a commercial reasonably close to home that had a history of throwing up the very occasional big perch. I'm talking genuine 4lb+. I was probably a bit late to the party but everywhere else must have been fishing pretty terribly for me to finally have a go.
I went with Zak, also keen to catch a decent perch and he'd come with just the right man, or had he? I fished with two float presented lobworms, one in the margins and one in open water. The margin one produced an eel in the first couple of hours. Zak was catching some tiny perch from the edge of his swim while my open water bait had produced nothing. Not a tap.
I must have recast it around a dozen times during the afternoon, spraying maggots around and generally trying to create a bit of activity. On my last cast I set my rod down to fire in some maggots and it ripped off the bank almost immediately, disappearing far faster than my reactions into the murky water. A carp must have taken the worm on the drop, along with one of my beloved perch rods. More importantly I couldn't have a fish towing that around so after much consternation and despite not having a clue where it was, I had to go in.
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| Shameful, but ultimately no harm done. |
Autumn 2022
I had a rather fraught feature for Improve Your Coarse fishing where I really struggled to find any decent perch locally. Just the day before I had a 2lb 13oz fish from the venue in question which was new to me....
A week or so later I met up with our old friend Martin Barnatt for our yearly visit to the south of the county. Strangely enough we couldn't fish in our usual spot due to someone being bivvied up on the river for days at a time. Martin assured me he'd found somewhere to fish further downstream. In fact he'd had numbers of perch to 3lb 6oz a few days before.
In essence the river is wide and featureless. I was pleased to see a few bait fish dimpling in our chosen spot though when we arrived. To cut a long story short I had a disaster. Martin couldn't stop catching perch all morning, some good ones too. Despite fishing above and below him at much the same range with the same tactics I could barely buy a bite. It was bordering on ridiculous. In fact, looking back now it was. I still can't really fathom it.
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| Martin with two perch from the tightest shoaled perch in the world |
Luckily for me Martin started to get pestered with small fish and being the host suggested we might have time to try elsewhere on the way home. It was a venue I was familiar with and I was slightly disappointed to find the first spot we stopped at lifeless. A match angler confirmed our fears by informing us he hadn't had a bite in two hours. Upon arrival at the second spot I instantly saw some fry priming in the water. That'll do I thought. Indeed it did. Ten minutes later I rescued the day with a reasonable specimen.
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| A very welcome 2lb 13oz perch on a tough day |
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| A day with Dave on another river produced lots of Pike between us. This 15lb 10oz fish the best of the bunch |
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| I had a perch that day too. Unbelievably it was also 2lb 13oz. |
Nick and I had agreed to meet locally to try for both perch and pike. I took my boat and we were soon afloat. Nick caught a perch almost straight away, I'm almost embarrassed to write this as you'll never believe it- it was 2lb 13oz. He took it from some structure a fair distance away so I decided to move the boat closer. On striking the engine up I heard a strange noise. It turned out to be the drag on my reel and as I looked down to the side of the boat my dropshot rod was bent double eventually snapping clean in half before I'd had the chance to shut the engine off.
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| A Favorite White Bird, my favourite dropsot rod. |
It turned out my rig had become entangled around the propeller, ripping the braid from my reel. When I finally untangled it all there wasn't anymore perch in that spot anyway. Then on the way back to pick up a spare rod Nick was loaning me I dropped my new vape in the river. Not a good start. Pretty terrible in fact, I really liked that rod.
For the next couple of hours we drifted and motored about trying to find some fish to no avail. In the end we went to a spot neither of us had any joy from before, just out of curiosity really. Amazingly we caught a couple of small perch so we anchored up. What happened next proved to be fairly significant.
Nick hooked a decent perch, probably just under 2lb and a Pike absolutely torpedoed it on the way in. The pike weighed 17lb 8oz and the perch swam off seemingly uninjured. With the pike returned to sulk upstream the perch really came out to play and we started to catch on every drop down.
There's a famous sports psychologist that explains something called the beat. A period in an activity where everything becomes almost effortless. I've experienced it when I was swimming regularly, runners experience it all the time. A sort of serenity where every action becomes automatic. Without wanting to sound like a wanker I've experienced a few times when I have a big shoal of perch in front of me, lost fish and missed bites become distant memories and I hook and land every one. I had ten that were comfortably over 2lb and two that weighed 3lb 2oz. Nick caught plenty too but sadly the 3s evaded him.
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| 3lb 2oz |
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| 3lb 2oz |
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| As a brace |
Final word
Looking back it's been a good year. I've really enjoyed my time with my friends, none in particular, I'm not fussy, they're all my favourites. Two of them, Nick and Benidorm Dave I met through this blog so it's only right I keep it going (and they pay for my laptop). Thanks for reading.
Till next time....
