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November 2024 Part 1 – Rain needed!

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Friday 1st I head for Bowood fishing on peg 10 9:15 to 12:00.Usual set up but strangely quiet on pike front with mo sign of any chasing of fish or strikes! This inactivity from the pike encouraged the silvers to feed resulting in 42 roach, 13 rudd, 6 skimmers and a perch for a level 5-00, so plenty of action to keep my interest but no fish of note.

Sunday comes around and my knee is playing up so I head with the whips for a couple of hours max on the Pondtail peg 1 which had now been cleared of the undergrowth and was at last fishable. Setting up with the 4.5m Chinese carbon whip and an 18 hook to a 1.4g float I had a pleasant couple of hours if frustrating at time with the fish coming in cycles. 14 roach a gudgeon and a perch for 1-08 came to the walnut sizes balls of groundbait and loose fed wheat, with double maggot doing the business apart from the perch which perversely took double wheat!

Tuesday sees me walk back to peg 10 to find the water was quite clear and started at 9:15, my first and only bite on the pole cam after and hour and twenty minutes – a roach on maggot,. Despite trying chopped worm, wheat, pellet and all combinations of maggot I could not buy a bite so decided to pack the pole up just after 11:30, before doing so I had moved the pike rod right over the pole line. Just as I finished putting the pole away I had a take on the pike rod with line streaming off the open bail arm, striking I was immediately into a heavy fish but slowly managed to subdue it’s runs and managed to christen the new light weight landing net handle I had treated myself to! The scales showed it to be 17lb exactly, so that was my cue to go home!

Wasn’t until the Sunday that I was able to get out again, opting to return to peg 10. To my absolute dismay the water had turned to tap water clarity with the bottom 4m out being visible in 5ft of water!No bites, no runs and no signs of any fish topping or swirling! I packed up at 11:30 with a blank – a rarity for Bowood!

Tuesday sees me fancy a change and I go to Blacklands opting for peg 12 in the shade opposite the toilet block, a choice I was to regret as it was COLD but bright sun on the other banks!I fished 9:40 to 12:50 and had to adapt my approach as i had picked up my canal/silver fish hard case and forgot that the pole cup in my Bowood box that I had taken was the wrong fitment! Matters then got worse as I was intending to fish worm before moving over to a second area that was to be primed with micros, on opening the bag I thought contained micros found it was groundbait which is banned at Blacklands!

I, in the end, opted to fish a number 6 elastic to a homemade chianti style float taking 0.4g in the 6ft of water at 10m, using a hooklength of 0.10mm to an 18 barbless hook. The main problem I could see was that there were leaves everywhere so I had to be careful shipping out and lowering the float into clear water before feeding small pinches of chopped worm via a toss pot at the end of the pole. Anyway as it turned out worm head still works and 20 roach, 12 perch and a solitary skimmer came my way for what I reckoned on 6-08 after counting the ounces of each fish as I went along! The biggest fish was a perch and the skimmer, both 14oz.

Hopefully we will get some rain soon to put the colour back in Bowood.

June 2024 Part 1 – Thank you rain!

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June has been a slow burner so far with Bowood on the horizon I only managed to get down to the canal at Horton for what was going to be a couple of hours, however…

Picked up the exchange tickets from Jackie at TK Tackle and headed off to Horton armed with the whips and half a pint of maggots and a bit of groundbait. The long grass revealed that nobody had been fishing there for some time! Set up a 4m whip and Chinese float and got the first cast in at 9:50 over the top of two small golf balls of groundbait and a pinch of maggots. Bait unusually for a canal was double maggot but I have found that this does produce results despite the accepted wisdom of small baits!

It was not long before the first fish, a roach, was swung in and over the next hour I had thirteen roach, four skimmers and a perch for between 1.5 and 2lb but then five boats came through, two in one direction and three in the other all in eight minutes and that killed it so my two hour session was ended after seventy minutes!

Bowood was now looming and I made up some new bags of wheat. My method is not to stew the wheat as the convention but I cover in boiling water and leave covered for 2-3 days before draining off the water and bagging the wheat. One bag for the fridge and the rest to the freezer. I was hoping for rain for a few days before the start of the season which may seem odd but experience has shown that the better fish tend to congregate in the shallows at the start of the season and if there is a good colour in the water they will happily feed.

My wish was delivered and three days of rain to various degrees left me hopeful, although the river through town was still running low and clear! Sunday 16th arrives and I set off at a leisurely pace as again I find the fish don’t wake up and feed until 9 or 10 o’clock! Three cars were already parked up and I suspected they may have had an early start. The long walk down was not as bad as the long walk back up the hill but I duly arrived at peg 1 but was unable to spot it at first due to the undergrowth but finally located it and got the gear in situ. As I hoped the bottom could not be seen (it is only 18-24 inches deep) with a good colour. A couple of minutes was spent pulling out rushes that were encroaching across the front of the platform so that fish could be netted and keepnet positioned safely.

Two lines of attack were identified – straight in front at 10m and 45 degrees to the left at 10m. Both were identical depth so the same rig could be used for both. Said rig was going to be an Ugly Duckling taking 1g of shot bulked six inches from a size 14 hook to 0.16mm Shogun line. Two balls of groundbait laced with a bit of wheat and 4-5 grains of corn went on the left line while the main line had three balls of similar! Throughout the session I was feeding a pinch of wheat every five minutes or so. First drop in was at 9:24 with corn on the hook, after twenty minutes of inactivity I succumbed and put a pair of maggots on only for two two inch fish to drop of, probably they were only holding the maggot. A half ounce rudd in the net finally sees me back on the corn and at 10:10 a proper bite sees a bream of 2-03 in the net followed by another of 2-00 five minutes later but then nothing.

At this point I made the decision to introduce more groundbait but this time to cup it in loose. This seemed to do the trick and when I placed the last bream of 3-10 (left hand pic) in the net at 1:10 I had secured seventeen bream for 52-04, my best weight at Bowood. The reason I stopped as the fish were still feeding was that I realised I might struggle lifting the net out. Anyway I managed and placing the net on top of my netbag I took a quick photo and then released the fish back into the water.

Wife’s birthday means no fishing today so Tuesday next chance but I think the colour may have gone and a different swim will be needed. End of the month sees Makins Pairs.

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!