So far March has been an almost fishing free month with just one visit to the canal on March 4th. Arriving at the Three Magpies I settled 10m past the moorings and cast out the pike rod at 9:50 and started to set up the usual whip. I had just finished plumbing up when the pike float skated across the surface after a couple of bobs and a strike sees a feisty fight and a 6-08 pike in the net by 9:55!
I missed a further run at 11:00 when the hook pulled just as it was getting within netting range and for the rest of the session 11 roach, 11 skimmers 7 perch and 5 rudd for approx 3lb kept me busy until I packed up at noon. Double maggot was the only bait they would look at, singles produced nothing and even worm only produced a solitary roach.
I did not get a further opportunity to go before leaving for Yorkshire for the mother-in-law’s funeral, returning the following Wednesday.I had intended to visit Bowood one last time but with heavy rain and high winds on Thursday and strong winds on the Friday I just didn’t bother! My season at Bowood has been shorter than any previous, 27 visits at an average cost of £8.89 and an average catch of 2-11. I caught more in the first two sessions last season compared with the total for this season. I have decided not to rejoin as the estate management have done nothing to control the spread of weed or rushes nor even replied to an e-mail I sent asking for their future plans to deal with the issues that I laid out for them. Added to that the increasing appearance of cormorants and the otter plus the access have not left me with the desire to partake in another season. Instead I am going to focus more on the rivers which I have neglected plus High Penn lake along with the K&A canal.
Later this month I have two matches coming up, first at the Glebe and the following Saturday at Boddington.
Monday 16th sees me back at the Magpies near the overflow fishing a short session from 10:00 to 11:15. The 5m Chinese whip was in action again with just loose fed maggot and double maggot on the hook. This produced 16 roach, 4 skimmers a perch and a ruffe for around the pound mark. It has been very noticeable that if you lose a maggot, ie end up with single maggot, you did not get a bite, double maggot the bites returned.
Next day I returned for a short session this time just with two pike rods I did get a run on the sardine (the other rod had a smelt) and appeared to hook it okay but just as I got it in net range the sardine came flying back. Whether it was a hook pull or it wasn’t hooked in the first place I’ll never know.
Gareth returns from the Finland trip and we are back st the Magpies in the wind and rain for two hours armed just with the pike rods- one run and this time a landed pike of 5-02.
The bite!
That night we were awoken near midnight with a call to say my mother-in-law had died, this was not unexpected and we had already arranged to go up to Yorkshire the day after Gareth et al returned to China. So I was a bit blurry eyed when I got up on Thursday ready to set of to Chew for a day arranged by Gareth on a boat pike fishing.
Having got there we found that although we were in time for a 9am boats ready we were the last to arrive and leave as the rest had been off at 8 or 8:30! We weren’t too bothered as it was meant to be a chilled day with neither expecting to catch given the size of the place and our relative inexperience off a boat. Any way prior to the visit I had purchased a Chinese fish finder similar to a deeper and had tested it on the Pondtail and was quite impressed. I had set it up on a 4m whip so that we would stop the boat and try it before dropping anchor and fishing. To be fair it was very good, identifying the depth and were the fish were sitting in the water and the relative size of fish.
It was lucky that we were able to go on the boat as the boats had been cancelled on Monday and Wednesday due to the high winds. Anyway we spent the best part of six hours staring at pike floats and moving to various locations while blanking! It has to be said that there was a wind and the fish finder inevitably showed more fish on the windward side of the boat rather than the leeward, so we got a bit windswept.
Next day sees us back at the Magpies still no pike but the whips produced 15 Roach, 6 skimmers and a perch for about 2lb for me and Gareth had exactly the same number of fish but 12 roach, 5 skimmers, 3 perch and 2 rudd. Best fish was a 10oz skimmer for me.
Saturday arrives, Gareth was going back to China later that day and I had a Maggotdrowners Silvers match at the Glebe. |Gareth made the most of his time and visited the Magpies very early but after I had left at 5:40 and managed to get a farewell pike of 4-02 and missed another run.
At the draw everyone was saying that the 20s would be best so I was not too disappointed when I drew peg 20. I set up a waggler, light feeder/bomb and two pole rigs- one for 11m the other for 5m. Feeding the 11m line with two balls of groundbait laced with casters worms and micros I put one small ball at 5m and loose fed maggot. I also started feeding the waggler line (about 18-20m) with casters every 5 minutes or so. Starting on the feeder I had a good few casts to get some bait down but saw little response so moved on to the 5m line, no response, on to the 11m line, no response, waggler eventually saw a bite with a skimmer hooked and promptly lost as it reached netting distance! After two hours I had my first fish- a gudgeon on the 11m line. I decided at this point to forget the pole and concentrate on the waggler. I had set it up to fish on the drop with three no8 shot as droppers and by plugging away I started to pick up the odd skimmer. This then went quiet and I swapped to the bomb over the same area that produced a few more skimmers by the end. At the weigh in I found that the non-20s had fished a lot better, indeed of the 20s I had the second best weight, beaten by 3oz at the last peg. Of course as the match ended the rain began!
Fast forward to the 27th I visited the Magpies again for a two hour session, fishing about 20m past the moorings. No pike but the whip produced 12 roach, 8 perch, 12 skimmers, 4 rudd and a very rare bleak! Total approx 2-12 taken on double maggot or worm. If I had stuck to maggot I would have had more but I wanted to see if I could get the better skimmers or perch.
Next month sees matches at the Glebe and Boddington plus I am intending to make a farewell visit to Bowood as the season closes on the 14th and I do not intend to rejoin next season. Meanwhile back in China Gareth caused a bit of a stir with the locals at the predator(bass) commercial by catching a red snapper (Chinese translation) and then had a blank on an evening session.
Tuesday 3rd February I set off at 9:53 in the rain for the Three Magpie stretch of the Kennet and Avon Canal and got out of the car at 10:06. I am so lucky to have a number of decent venues within short distances of home! Anyway I gathered my tackle, haversack seat on my back, bait bucket, whip mag, landing net, handle unhooking mat and pike rod and set off up the canal towards the swing bridge but stopped about 40m past where the concrete moorings stop and half way between two moored boats, giving them a good 30-40m space each. Pike rod was set up with my usual float and two single hook wire trace with a sardine and was lobbed out towards 3/4s across. Set up the 5m whip with a 1g Chinese float with a 18 hook and double maggot. I chopped up some worm in a bait box and added a handful of groundbait then mixed it up with just a dash of water. Two squash ball sized helpings were introduced along with a half dozen maggots. Started to get bites immediately with a couple of roach coming to hand before the pike float bobs and disappears, a strike, an initial heavy weight then nothing – it had left go leaving me cursing!
Back out and within five minutes another run, this time it was connected with properly and soon a pike of 9-06 was on the unhooking mat.
The session carried on in a similar vein as by the time I was driving away at 12:18 I had added pike of 3-00, 8-12 and 8-04 with 6 roach, 4 perch and a skimmer for about 2lb.
As you can see from the pictures, I needed to make some repairs to the net!
Friday 6th, day before Gareth and family arrive, sees me back at the Three Magpies but this time a lot further up as the boats had moored in the previous spot. Fished 10:40 to 1pm when heavy rain descended. No runs on the pike rod and fishing the whip in the same way but with a different Chinese float (with a bulbous tip shotted down) accounted for 22 roach, 2 skimmers, 2ruffe, a gudgeon and10 perch, the best being 1-10,1-04 and 1-02.
Sunday afternoon Three Magpies near the swing bridge end as the boats were multiplying! Gareth and I fished but the weather was wet and cold, during our time we had three deer in the field opposite watching up from the relative shelter of a hedgerow! Gareth fished a 4.5 m whip and I stayed on the 5m but it was hard with Gareth ending up with about a pound and a half while I managed about 3lb, boosted by skimmers of 1-04 and 12oz to go with 3 roach, a micro-perch and6 smaller skimmers.
Gareth et al fly off to Finland on the Tuesday and will return the following Tuesday so Friday 13th (good job I’m not superstitious!) I am back at the Magpies fishing 5m from the bench started at 9:40 and packed up at 11:40.Fished the same way and ended up with 18 roach, a ruffe, 9 skimmers including 4 net ones and two micro perch for about4lb plus a pike of exactly 6lb. Should really have been two pike but just as I started to get the initial bobs as a precursor to a run I had to wind in as the Canal and River Trust barge came down just at the wrong time! At which point I packed up.
As you can see the net repairs were not great! Meanwhile in Finland Gareth and Zachary where ice fishing to no avail!
So Sunday 18th I finally kick myself in to gear and get on the bank! The weather was not great, rivers up and flooding, Bowood chocolate, possible match on canal so I opted to go to Blacklands for a change. I paid my money at Reception and said I would fish peg 13 – my first mistake as they had re-pegged it! So instead of being near the overflow I was now on the opposite side of the island- the furthest point from the car!! As it happened I was the only one on the lake but I stuck with my choice and primed two areas both at 11m, the left hand swim with worm and caster and the right hand with micros. Groundbait is not allowed so loose feed was the order of the day, fishing with a 0.10mm hooklength to an 18 barbless under a 1g Paster.
Bites came straight away with a piece of worm about an inch long and despite a couple of slow periods when I was playing around with different shotting patterns and baits it was a pleasant few hours with 18 roach averaging 3-4 oz, the one in the picture is one of the smallest, 8 skimmers (best 1-04) and 3 perch(10oz best) for a total between 7 and 8lb.
Wasn’t until the following Sunday I got out again this time for the rearranged pike match at Peatmoor. I had missed the first one when everyone blanked as we were in Yorkshire.The plan was to fish two deadbait rods on floats (Bowood style) one with smelt the other with sardine. I fancied two pegs- peg 1 which was right in the top corner that had form in previous years and peg 13 which was on the corner of the bay. I ended up going to peg 1, blanked and only one pike caught – that’s right from peg 13 in the first 10 minutes!
No further visits this month as life got in the way! However on the other side of the world Gareth made is trip to Thailand to fish at AmazonBKK, a predator lake. The rules were lure fishing until midday then bait fishing, but after a couple of biteless hours the guide had a word with the owner and he allowed Gareth to bait fish. The results were over 30 runs, that produced 2 Arapaima (110kg and 30kg) 2 Alligator Gar (12kg and 7kg) 1 Red Tail Catfish (25kg), one snap off and several hook pulls. The alligator gar are notoriously difficult to hook due to their hard tooth beak of a mouth and that was the cause of the missed bites and pulls.
Even as I have been typing this he has been fishing the bass commercial he went to earlier this month and has sent me this!
February is likely to prove interesting as he arrives next week!
As I write this at 11:15am on Wednesday 14th I have yet to go fishing this year! Life and weather have got in the way, closest I have got is this morning when I managed to load the unhooking mat and landing net in the car when I discover a rodent had eaten away my haversack seat! Combined with a temperature of -2C, a frozen bird bath again and no prospect of it getting above zero until after 10am along with month old maggots that did not look great I decided to cut my losses and instead sort some things out in the garage! First on the agenda was to replenish the rodent bait trap!
Working through the garage I have concluded I have too much kit! I found two rods that I didn’t remember having! Now the prompt for the tackle inspection was the impending visit from China of youngest son Gareth and family who had informed me that despite being number 518 in the queue for pike tickets at Chew had managed to get a ticket for a boat for two – so that was an additional prompt to check out what tackle I had suitable for the 20lb main line minimum and 40lb wire minimum!
So while I have been not on the bank Gareth has been busy starting by flying to Nanjing for an 8hour session on a predator lake after pike. The owner suggested he spent the first part of the day lure fishing on the bass lake before going on the specimen lake to deadbait for pike. When he arrived it was 3C, 17C lower than when he took off! The morning lure fishing went better than expected with 47 bass, 3 pike and a trout!
The afternoon session on the specimen lake went less well with a missed bite, possibly a liner and two taps but nothing else.
Back to Zhongshan and his next outing is on the river which has hard going with only one “fish” answers on a postcard for the species! (I think it is a type of loach)
He then gets an invite to go with one of Wendy’s friends husband, ironically to the very fishery he was considering trying himself, it turned out very busy with 200 on the predator lake and 15 on the non-predator one.. A few of the anglers were drop shotting on whips which sounds an interesting method while others were fishing 5m whips with whole shrimp or fish. Zachary was with them and had some success fishing close in with pieces of shrimp .
Some UK matchmen should fish here (LOL)- you catch a fish then immediately there are 4 people next to you fishing within inches of where you caught, totally different customs and regard for personal space! Zachary enjoyed it so much he didn’t want to go home!
Still not content Gareth is off on one of his flying visits to Thailand – fly out after work at midnight, arrive 3am, couple of hours sleep in hotel then days fishing back to hotel for nap and flight home at 1am. Oh to be young again!
wheatnotcasters 