bream

April 2024 Part 2 – Away Days!

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It was on 19th that I made my way up to Woodland View near Droitwich to have a practice session in preparation of the three dayer at the end of the month. One reason was I had not fished a “proper” commercial for carp for some time and I wanted to check out the new elastics I had bought from China, the second was I wanted to buy the fishery pellets in readiness as I would have enough to do on the first morning with collecting three days of peg fees and pools.

Making a relatively early start I arrived about 8:30 and duly paid the day ticket and bought my 2mm and 4mm pellets at the on-site tackle shop. It is easy to distinguish Woodlands pellets as they are a blue green colour like the water of the pools! I made my way up to peg 37 on Arles and set up a rig for the margin, one for 2+2 and one for 11m. The two non margin rigs were the same depth, so I had a “light” rig of 0.14mm to a 16 with a float taking 4 no 8 shot and a “heavy” rig of 0.16mm to a 16 with a float taking 0.5g.

Starting on the short line after cupping out a handful of micros to 11m and a large pinch on the 2+2 line it was very quiet, I fed some chopped worm and caster on the 2+2 line with some caster and started feeding a pinch of caster every put in. Eventually I began to get the odd bite but decided to try the long line which I had been feeding with catapulted micros and an expander on the hook to no effect. I brought the rig in and made some adjustments, flicking it out directly in front of me I was putting the pole together when the line tightened and a carp of 3-12 took the expander!

I continued at 11 m for a while and had another carp of 4-08.

Arles carp.

I had most success on expander on the 2+2 line with further carp of 5-04 and 5-00 with five small stockies, nine bream, four rudd, a roach and a perch for about 40lb in the four hours I fished. I came away pleased with the elastics and content that I had a plan for Arles.

No further fishing for me until the three day festival and of course on the Saturday it chucked it down, so much so that on Sunday on my way to the venue a lot of the roads were in a state of flood and it was not a pleasant driving experience. Worse still I knew that the rain would have adversely affected the fishing, so I would need to play things by ear as the matches progressed. Money collected, pegs allocated and weigh boards filled out we got on with the draw and the last peg left was mine. I was hoping for a peg in the high 20s or 30s but ended up on peg 5 (the board) which was upwind and hence flat for a lot of the time.

It was hard, very hard and with two hours to go I had four small fish, two carp a skimmer (blade really) and a perch. With Tony on peg 3 also struggling I decided to spend time down the margin, worm produced another small carp to take my tally to about 2lb. I then threw caution to the wind, put corn on and started to drip feed micros in every put in with just the odd piece of corn. The result was two late carp that took my final weight to a level 12lb and 4/5 in section.

Day two sees us split between Ghost and Back Deans, I was left with peg 38 on Deans with the board again! On looking at the section board it really was a deadly section – peg by peg- Carl Liddle (collector of many brown envelopes), me, Barry Gabriel (winner of many of our festivals and others), Pete Bailey (of Garbolino and many festival wins) and Rolly (Fishomania finalist and winner of many matches). I told myself realistically I was last and so decided to just have a pleasant day ignoring what others were doing. I set up four rigs – a margin one on 0.18mm to a 14, the 2+2 I used on practice and two long rigs one on 0.14mm the other 0.16mm both to 16s.

At the start I cupped in a ball of micros with some casters and a pinch of corn at 11m, a handful of micros mixed with caster and chopped worm on the 2+2 line and a half cup of caster and micros down my left margin. I ignored the right margin as there was a goose sitting on 4 eggs right next to where I would be fishing. I went straight on the 2+2 line with an inch of worm, within five minutes I had my first fish in the net, an bream of about two pound. Apart from a brief try on the margin line that produced a solitary F1 I spent the whole match on the 2+2 line apart from a short look-see on the 11m line. I had 23lb of carp over 2lb, 20lb of silvers, mainly bream and 41-08 of F1s and carp under 2lb for a 86-08 total. I was pleased with the day as I had been kept busy and I was even more delighted and shocked at the weigh in- see pic.

For me to have been that close to so many very good anglers was like winning!

The final day arrives and as is custom those who fished one lake on day two would fish the other on day 3 so I ended up on Ghost 16. The previous day we had strong winds coming off our backs or to our side but today the wind was just as strong but blowing directly into us. Once again with the board and once again next to Barry, who said (tongue in cheek) he would never speak to me ever again if I beat him again! Anyway no such chance of that happening. I must add that I set up a bomb rod each day and never picked it up! With the same rigs set up, worm didn’t work neither did expander other than me losing my first 4 fish (possibly foul hooked) and still blanking after 2 hours. Eventually I had a bream on the 2+2 line, but needed to use a heavier float (the 11m rig) to get presentation right, again I went down the margins alternating between left and right, feeding via a toss pot micros and 4mm with just two grains of corn each put in This got me a few carp and I ended up with 46-00 despite losing two in the last five minutes, making me 3/5. Overall the festival went well with me finishing 12/21 and after finishing the match at 3:30, we packed up, did the weigh in sorted the results paid out three days of brown envelopes and was out of the gate by 4:50.

Meandering March 2024 Part 1

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March arrives and it is not until the 6th that I am able to get to Bowood arriving at peg 10 with a frost on the ground, air temperature of -1C and fog! I was ready to fish by 9 and continued to 12:30, the fog eventually lifted and the day turned very warm and sunny, however the water was highly coloured with a max of 3 inches clarity. Anyway the usual set up was in place and by 10 am I had one micro perch that dropped off! There were two others in the top field and another regular, Bob, turned up and went on 9 as he assumed the other two had gone on the other bank and had been planning on going to the top field. While chatting the float started going against the tow, a strike and a solid resistance followed by a goodly amount of elastic came out. Unshipping slowly I finally put the net under a 3-08 bream hooked in the pectoral! I had a small bream of 1-12, five roach, 3 skimmers/blades and 6 rudd for a final total of 6-10.

With the close of Bowood approaching – it keeps the same close season as the rivers- I went on the last Sunday, thinking it would be busy, how wrong I was- I had the lake to myself! Back on 10 with the usual approach I managed to get another bream of 3-06, a tench of 3-00, 25 rudd, 4 roach and 3 skimmers for a 7-12 total.

However there was a point when I quickly unshipped the pole as the pike float bobbed and started to go then stopped. On finally retrieving the bait I find there was a piece of flesh cut out with almost surgical precision less than 5mm from my top hook.

There have been no reports of crayfish in the 10 years I have been going to Bowood and I have never seen one there. Showing the picture to Jackie in TK Tackle she was bemused at first but came up with the possibility of it being a catfish. The lake was design and built by Capability Brown and many of his lakes at that time had carp and catfish introduced, it is quite feasible that some offspring of the original fish may still be in the water as 80% of it is not fished. A thought to ponder!

I decided to go on the Wednesday and leave the last day of the season alone! Bowood 10 was the peg again but the wind was blowing very hard and the water had got very coloured with a couple of heavy overnight downpours. I started at 9 but packed up at 11:30 having to fish the last hour or so just using the top two of the pole as the wind was extreme. Seven roach, twelve rudd and seven blades finished my season for 1-03.

To review the season – I have again succumbed to peg 10 during the autumn and winter due to it being the deepest area and with bait going in it does hold the fish (possibly!). Anyway the initial outlay for a Bowood ticket of £205 may appear expensive but given it is only 3 minutes from door to gate it is convenient plus the 55 visits I made means each outing cost me £3.93 so it is financially worthwhile.

I netted 555lb 5oz of visit making an average of just over 10lb a visit. That breaks down in the following way Pike 17 caught for 168-05, seven over 10lb (18-11,17-06,14-04, 14-04, 13-00, 1`2-04 and 11-13), Tench 13 caught for 51-15, the best 5-06 with 6 between 4 and 5lb and 6 between 3 and 4lb, there were 82 bream weighed the best being 5-00 with five between 4 and 5lb, 35 between 3 and 4lb, 32 from 2 to 3lb and 9 from 1 to 2lb for a total of 234lb. That leaves 101-01 of other fish. I made 25 fewer visits this season, partly down to spending more time on matches and Gareth dragging me to the canal or river!

Who knows what next season will bring, if it follows the usual Bowood cycle it will be a tench year with few bream!

Cheesey what?

jacksonb1 Bait, Fishing, Tactics , , , , ,

More than 45 years ago I learned the secret art of  cheese fishing – not for chub in a river but for roach and tench in a park lake! Brynmill Park, Swansea was the venue, home of small roach and cheese fish of wondrous proportions in the eyes of a teenager more used to catching 1oz fish!

PCD-04863Alas Brynmill Park no longer allows fishing but the skills learned from the gurus of the day – Alan Godrich and Paul Huxtable- live on. Poles were not available then, you could get fibre glass telescopic whips up to 6m, elastics unheard of, everything was rod and line.

Alan developed a method of catching the better roach using cheese  just over his rod top in about 3 foot of water. A pointed stick float was dotted with strung out shot to an 18 or 20 hook and a piece of cheese was moulded around the hook so that it was soft and just covered the hook. Small pieces were moulded and rolled as loose feed, only half a dozen at a time, one after the other they were tossed around the pimpled stick, the process repeated every five minutes or so. Bites when they came were dictated by the size of fish! The bigger fish rarely submerged the float, usually a minute lift or dip were all you would get, occasionally just a ripple emanating from the tip of the float, the medium to small fish would just submerge the float. Bait was interesting, Cheddar was the favorite closely followed by Red Leicester for the roach, but Caerphilly picked out the odd tench although it was a sod to keep on the hook!

Today’s weaponry makes it far easier to fish cheese at a greater distance and when combined with a micro pellet loose feed can prove deadly- especially for bream! Most commercial waters these days are fed with pellet, either by the anglers or the owners as a supplement to the anglers bait. Fish become accustomed to pellet but can also become wary, particularly the silvers who often have to wait for any left overs from the carp. Cheese can score as so few people think of using cheese it becomes a new flavour/food for the pellet fed fish and will pick out the older and wiser (usually bigger) specimens in the swim.

So how do I fish cheese today? Depending on the venue, the depth of water will dictate how far out you need to fish. You are looking for a flat bottom with at least 3 feet of water, at Blacklands I am fishing at 8m in 6-7 feet (as the depth is constant) but I would not try cheese any deeper than this unless there was a large head of big roach present. The basic rules still apply, float pimpled, strung out shot if in a shallower swim, my rig at Blacklands has a bulk 2 feet away from the hook and 2 no 10 droppers to a 6 inch hook length of 0.10mm Shogun, with a 20 0r 18 barbless B911. Elastics are very much dependent, as always,  upon the size of fish likely to be encountered. At Blacklands I tend to opt for a no 6 latex, but have an 6-8 hollow rig set up as well if the bigger skimmers or roach move in, although generally I tend to stay on the no 6.

I use two types of float for my cheese fishing, both homemade; the first is a 0.5g version of the “Roach” with a 1.5mm tip for those times when you want a delicate approach and may want to string the shot out later in the day,

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the second is a long glass stemmed diamond body variant taking 1g with a 2mm tip. I use this second float when I am confident that there are skimmers around and want to get the cheese down fast. Pimpling the 2mm tip gives a good visual marker even in wind affected water while the long stem gets down past any surface tow.

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I prime the swim with a handful of micro pellet and half a dozen “pellets” of cheese cupped in, this is left for at least an hour and is topped up with a similar amount every 30 minutes.

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When I go over the swim I am expecting a bite within 5 minutes but this time the bites can be sail-aways if coming from bream or skimmers but the big roach give the same type of bite as all those years ago!

 

 

Preparing Wheat

jacksonb1 Bait , , ,

1. I use a large plastic tub that they sell suet balls for birds in. I put 2-3 pints of wheat into this.

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2. I now pour a full kettle of boiling water slowly over the wheat.

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3. I now add cold water until the bucket is about half full

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4. Put the lid on and leave for at least 24 hours, preferably 36-48hours.

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5. Two days later!

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6. Drain off the water (save it for groundbait if you like)

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You can see the difference now in colour

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7. Bag up and put in freezer

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New Year at Bowood

jacksonb1 Fishing , ,

Due to the festivities and family commitments I did not get the chance to get out at all until Monday 5th. I decided to head for the same swim on the premise that it was the only peg that any bait had been going in (I can’t believe that I get the whole place to myself! ). Following on from the last visit  I decided to cup in 6 balls of Red Supercup and Special mixed 50-50 and topped that up with a pot of micros – planning to return the next day also to see if it had drawn in any bream. The water colour was a bit murky but beginning to clear, although the wind was driving the rain into me. Tackle was exactly the same as previous visit which was a 0.75g Paster and 0.10Shogun hook length to an 18.

Small skimmers (blades really) began to respond to maggot and I was glad when the rain eased off after an hour or so, as I do not take a brolly, trusting my Cabelas Goretex waterproofs to keep me dry! Small fish continued in periods before finally on pellet a length of white hydro exiting the pole tip indicated the bream had arrived. The net was slipped under a welcome bream of 3-7 and 20 minutes later another sample at 3-0 was in the net. Another wait produced a final bream of 4-5 before I decided to throw the remainder of my groudbait in and  high-tail it back home as I could see the weather beginning to deteriorate.

Next day saw me back at the same peg with high hopes. The water had got even murkier but at least the rain was holding off.  Anyway the best laid plans succumbed to Murphy’s Law and after an initial roach and skimmer of around 12oz it went quiet- bream time I thought! The float buried with expander on the hook, yards of white hydro came out of the tip and after 10secs returned as the hook pulled. I was suspicious as it did not feel like a bream. The next hour saw very little action apart from the odd roach when I put a maggot on. At this point it went quiet again and once more the float buried and elastic came out with a solid weight on the end that then decided to move out in the lake, 10 minutes later my suspicions were confirmed as a pike close to 15lb came to the top before making another run out, another 3-4 minutes saw me try and net the fish in my woefully inadequate net- the head would go in  but the rest wouldn’t or vice versa- you get the picture! Anyway. it made one more dash and the hook pulled!

Hoping it would have sulked out of the swim, I topped up and began on the maggot to see if anything was left in the swim, once again it was very slow and after about another hour and 3 small roach , a strange thing happened- another angler arrived! This chap had come down to do a couple of hours spinning for the pike in the next field. More small roach followed , not in any numbers and I was having to work hard for them.

The piker returned after about an hour and a half and reported no takes and began working the swims further down on the way back to the cars. Half an our later and back on the pellet, pike number 3 was hooked, this was a lot livelier and at one point I had all the sections of the pole on, after about 5 minutes I had it close enough in to confirm that it was indeed a pike and it was not going to fit in the net although it was smaller than then last one. A quick shout and waving my net got the desired response and my friendly piker netted the fish after another 5 minutes. Fortunately the hook fell out in the net and on weighing Mr Esox became my first double from Bowood at 10-13.

I fished on for another half hour but then gave up with no bream in sight.

Wednesday and Thursday were ruled out for a variety of reasons, but I was back on Friday with a larger net in tow! I began to get worried as there were quite a few cars there when I arrived but soon realised that they were there for a pheasant shoot.  Finally got to the peg to find the water was chocolate in colour with no visibility down into the water. Same tackle but this time I cupped in 4 balls of my groundbait (same mix) and a quarter of a large pot of micros. One hour later – no bites, nothing on maggot, nothing on pellet. Now I reckoned that there must be larger  fish there if the roach were not showing, the question being were they bream or pike!

On went half a worm to see if that could entice a bite and after 15minutes the float buried and I missed it!!! I then decided to put in some chopped worm, so 20 worms were quickly mushed up and the same mass of micros added and mixed in, this was potted in and I crossed my fingers. Half hour later the float lifted and then slid under, this time the strike was met by a solid resistance and the thump of a bream, soon a bream of 4-6 was in the net, followed fifteen minutes later by a smaller sample of 3-3. The wind was very strong but fortunately was blowing mainly into my face, I began to notice that the shooters were now moving from their initial positions and into the first and second fields. Soon the salvo of shotgun blasts began again, interspersed with dog whistles. At one point the wind must have been strong as I got showered by spent shot!

The bream, however did not seem to mind and were continuing to feed on the worm, as I added ones of 4-1, 3-10, 4-14, 4-4, 3-1 and a roach to my net at regular intervals, much to the interest of a beater who stopped to watch. Then I pulled out of 5 one after the other with no discernible reason- a quick top up and a change to pellet saw 3 further bream of 3-14, 3-5 and 4-7 before the skies darkened and I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and returned home in far better spirits!

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So a nice 39-2 net to ponder on (39-1 bream plus that lone 1oz roach!)