Month: June 2026

June 2026 part 2 – Weather!

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I am going to stop mentioning the weather as the weather gods are not happy with me! Following the thunder and lightning at Viaduct we then get a period of red hot temperatures plus more thunderstorms! Basically June the 16th came, that magical day with the opening of the river season, so what did I do… I didn’t go fishing! Experience has told me the first day on the river is never great but allied to that we have a river that is very low with hardly any flow and bright sunlight – a blank waiting to happen so I opted out and then the real hot period struck!. Yes I could have gone but these days I don’t deal with the hot weather in this country very well – China and Thailand seem to be no issue????

So my latter part of June has been curtailed to just one short visit to High Penn on the 28th. I had decided to set out to fish every peg during the season and as such set up on the west bank second peg in. I took my pole and fished 9:30 to 11:10 but the day did not start well with my 10m and 11.5m sections being jammed inside one another so it was 9m or not at all. No photos for this session and I had left my keepnet at home due to the hot weather so aimed to put any fish back asap. So plumbing up at 9m was just as it got deeper, I needed another section at least to be comfortably in the deeper area but that was not going to happen!

Fishing with a 1g Paster on 0.12mm to 0.10mm to an 18 with the bulk set 18 inches from the hook and a dropper 6 inches away from the hook I began with two balls of groundbait mixed fairly firm to try and get down past the rudd laced with chopped worm. Hook bait was double maggot and predictably the first fish was a rudd, after a couple more some perch appeared, switching to worm I had a roach and a micro perch at which point I thought to myself -“lets try something different”. I had in the past bought a series of jars of what are essentially flavoured and coloured translucent jelly pellets.

I have been using the bright yellow honey flavoured ones off and on during different sessions and have caught on them so I decided to give them an hour to see how they went. Immediately first cast there were constant dips as small fish investigated. Now I have to explain that these jelly pellets are about the size of a 4mm pellet and are perfectly round but after being in water for some time expand top a 6mm size. Eventually the float buried and a rudd came to hand. Basically I ended up with 6 rudd, 6 perch and 3 roach for about 1-04. Half of the fish were caught on the jelly pellets- including the perch!

In the meantime Gareth had made one of his flying visits to Vietnam as he had some time off for the Dragon Boat Festival in China. He visited the same place as previously and between having a nap and fishing for part of the second day racked up 21 hours of fishing time and caught 21 fish.

The first session, another 6 were taken in the second shorter session.

Bait for the non-predators were either stale cake from a bakery molded around the hook or if fishing up in the water the cake was used on the float feeder and rice paper on the hook, predators were taken with fish chunks.

Must make more of my time in July!

June 2026 Part 1 – It’s summer?

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June kicks off with me driving down to Viaduct for a Tuesday open on Campbell. Now before we start I have to admit I was under no illusions that I would struggle against the regulars but I wanted to see if fishing Chinese paste in a match would produce! Draw puts me on 131, all alone with nobody I can see on my bank as there is a bush blocking the view some 40m away – yes I had a lot of water!

Look carefully at the weather in the photos – it lasted for about an hour then we had thunderstorms, hail, driving monsoon type rain. Fortunately in one respect the wind came off my back but left me with the only water without ripple on the lake! At the end of the match I had 2 inches of water in my bucket! Anyway I managed a couple of skimmers and a carp at 10m fishing paste with a Chinese float (bottom end only) before the heavens opened. The right margin looked inviting but produced a solitary bob, the left margin gave me a carp three small roach and three further skimmers. All bar two skimmers came to the paste. I was nowhere to be seen in the match with the two carp weighing 13-03 and the silvers 13-04 for a 26-07 total, only about 150lb short! My kit took 4 days to dry out!

A week or so later I ventured out to the K&A fishing the short pound at the end of the Willows. I fished 10:20 to 11:20 on the whip, in the time nine yes boats went through so the canal was flowing like the Trent most of the time as the locks were in almost constant use. When I managed to get a little bit of still water for more than a minute, I got a bite, ending up with 2 roach, a gudgeon and 3 skimmers, one about a pound the rest small as you can see from the total of 1-04. Again double maggot produced whereas single was studiously ignored.

Saturday 13th sees me drive up to Meadowlands for a Maggotdrowners match on Warren. Peg 36 was to be my home for the day .

The left margin was alive with carp, coming right up to the platform, 10:30 match starts- not a carp to be seen! Basically set up three lines, a margin, one 5m out from the margin which was to be my paste line at 45 degrees to the platform and one directly in front at 10m. Groundbait went in at 10m and 5m line, while a toss-pot of micros and 4mm and a couple of kernels of corn went in on the margin line just past some inviting grass growing over the water. First hour was okay with 4 skimmers and a carp from the margin. m line on paste was dead and 10m line produced one skimmer. Decided to stick to the margin and added another skimmer and a carp. Things then went quiet and had a cast with a method along the bank into the corner bay to no avail. Put paste on down the margin and lost 6 foul hookers two pulls after crazy first runs then 4 “dinner-pate” scales. Managed to get a few more carp out before the end of a frustrating day! Nothing on the 5m line and 1 skimmer on the 10m. Weighing showed 8lb of skimmers and 31-03 of carp for a 39-03 total.

Monday 15th (new river season eve!) went up to High Penn for a couple of hours on the pole to use up some bait. Set up in the furthest peg on the west bank and found 8 -9 feet of water at 10m. Fishing corn on a 1.5g Paster float and 18 hook had a nice time with 12 roach and 20 dumpy rudd for a weighed 6-07.

Gareth in the meantime adds another new species to his list in China – a climbing perch.