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Posts Tagged ‘Waggler fishing’

Bury Hill Crucians and Tench

Posted in Angling Diary, tagged , , , on April 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »


It’s been quite a while since I last wet a line.  The end of the traditional river season was a bit of a damp squib, although I did manage a number of good sessions on the Itchen.  Since then I haven’t been that inspired by the weather conditions to venture out.  However after a 6 week hiatus I was keen to have a dabble at something, before I completely forgot how to fish!

Geoff and I decided to give it a go, even though the forecast was yet again nothing special and a cold wind was predicted.  We didn’t get to Bury Hill Fisheries until around lunchtime and after a chat with Dave Roberts in the shop, we headed over to Milton Lake.  It looked fairly busy at the fishery today, with anglers well spread out across the main lake, Bonds and Milton.  It was nice to see the trees and bushes showing signs of spring.  We can’t be too far away from a noticeable improvement in the temperatures.

We headed to the far bank and set up in a couple of adjacent swims.  After a bit of plumbing we assessed the swim depth and mixed up some groudbait.  Mine consisted of Ocean Pride groundbait mix, a dollop of glug and some micro pellets.  It was a simple as that.  Tackle was a 14ft float rod, 3lb mainline and a size 16 hook to nylon.  I used a small waggler but big enough to cope with the by now, windy conditions.  As I started to fish the wind seemed to pick up even more and I soon found myself fishing into a strong wind which was affecting the float.  Despite fishing over-depth the float was being blown into the nearside bank.  As I was targeting the crucians, I didn’t really want to sacrifice the delicate presentation by having to compensate too much for the wind.

I decided to go for a wander and soon found a nice swim tucked in next to a huge reed bed containing reeds around 6 feet tall.  This area was also out of the wind, being protected by the island opposite me.  It looked perfect.  Plumbing soon revealed the swim was around 3 feet deep, even close into the reed bed.  I started out just off the reeds and put in a couple of small balls of groundbait and a few loose maggots.  I tricked the maggots in over the next 45 minutes but couldn’t muster a bite.  I then shallowed up and tried the waggler at half depth, firing just a few maggots out constantly over the float.  I thought this might entice a few roach to take but even that failed.  By now it was gone 3pm and I hadn’t had so much as a twitch.

I decided to try tight up to the reeds, just to see if maybe they were feeding in among the stems.  It seemed they were; and at last the float slid away in a confident bite. A good thumping fight ensued and it wasn’t long before a beautiful bronze flank gleamed in the spring sunshine, as a crucian broke the surface.  At last!  I soon poked the float in right next to the reeds again and put out 2 small balls of groundbait. Again an instant result.  The float kept sliding away for the remainder of the day.  Sometimes it went quiet for a while but the fish soon returned.  I was catching crucians regularly between around 1lb to probably just shy of 2lbs.  They all looked glorious with that lovely buttery gold colouration and orange fins.  They were not all genuine crucians; a few F1’s or brown goldfish were mixed in.  The true crucians are normally easy to spot; if they are a lovely golden colour then they are likely to be genuine.  If they look brown, silver or grey then they are generally something else.

A few good tench also put in an appearance.  I ended up with 5 or 6 with a couple of good fish around the 4lb mark.  They put up a spirited fight on the light tackle and added a bit of variety to the proceedings.  By the end of the day I’d caught 24 crucians and the tench.  Geoff had started off well, taking a couple of early fish but then faded as the wind increased.  Eventually he moved in next to me and managed to winkle out a few more crucians.  I think he ended on 15 crucians a couple of tench and a nice 1lb 5oz roach.

On those occasions where the sun came out and the wind abated, it was surprisingly warm.  It does lift the spirits when you feel the warmth of the sun on your face again.  I have to say I’m really looking forward to some warmer weather now.  Obviously when it gets above about 25/26c I’ll be moaning its too hot of course!!

 

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Winter Roach Fishing

Posted in Angling Diary, tagged , , , , on February 28, 2014| 2 Comments »


Over the last couple of weeks Geoff and I have been targeting a carp lake in Kent for it’s roachy inhabitants.  Just for a change it’s not far from where I live, so none of this 200 mile round trip nonsense!  I became aware of this lake a couple of years ago and we tried it a couple of times in less than favourable conditions.  At the time we managed to tempt a few roach but nothing special and almost forgot about the place until recently.

A mate of mine has been fishing over the winter for the big perch that inhabit this venue and so Geoff and I decided to return and have another go for these legendary large roach.  We decided to fish more thoroughly and give it a real concerted effort.  We both enjoy float fishing over the feeder method and so that would be our main attack.  Chatting to the bailiff and a couple of the regulars indicated that maggot and sweetcorn fished well, so both of those baits were packed along with a few lob worms and casters.

The weather has been somewhat trying of late to say the least; rain and the flooding of course have kept me off the rivers since around late November but also the constant wind is a bit of a drag (yes, pun intended! 🙂 ).  There’s barely been a day where it’s not blowing a hooley, with gusts of 30+ almost daily.  Thank God I haven’t resorted to wearing a wig in my dotage, otherwise it would have been fluttering like a kite.  It really does wear you down after a while though.  Still One has to grin and bear it as they say!

Due to the nature of the lake in question there are few places where the wind can be avoided, especially if you’re sitting close to Geoff!  However there are one or two spots protected by the prevailing WSW winds.  Over a two week period we fished the lake 3 times.  Each time we tried a different area in an effort to explore the nature of the lakes bottom (ooh er missus), hoping to identify different depths or features.  Lots of plumbing is a big help and soon starts to build up a picture of what’s in front of you.  Obviously due to the shear amount of rainfall this winter, the level of the lake is up around 18″-2′, however that does bring into play a lot of bankside cover.  A lot of the tress and bushes around this water are partially submerged now and offer a great feature to fish to.  Although the fish do tend to show further out in all fairness.

Tactics were fairly simple; a waggler fixed with float stops and the majority of shot fished around the float with only a couple of No 8 dropper shots down the line.  Careful plumbing indicated the required depth (and it is deep here, at around 6-7ft in the areas we targeted).  A size 16 hook to nylon attached to the 4lb mainline finished off the simple set-up.  The idea was to keep feeding maggots regularly and hopefully get the shoals of roach feeding competitively.

Bites came fairly quickly and pretty steadily all day on all three occasions.   I like to get my baits Pallatrax’d up and so add some of the Winter Almond overspray to both the maggots and sweetcorn and I combine this with using the excellent Bloodworm and Maggot Crush groundbait.   It just gives it that extra edge as far as I’m concerned and as Tesco would say “every little helps”.

Vital ingredients

Vital ingredients

The roach here seem to move around quite a bit.  One spot will produce steady bites and then they just seem to dry up, only for another area further out to start producing. This is probably due to having to put the fish back, they eventually spook the rest of the shoal and so they move on.    It’s worth keeping a few spots baited up and when things start to slow down, move the float to the next area.  This tactic worked well and both of us caught a lot of roach over the first two visits.  The size and quality of the roach here are superb.  We caught lots of fish around the pound mark with numerous fish over that weight to 1lb 5oz, with the majority of fish averaging around 8oz.  The real biggies proved elusive but the quality of the fish are extraordinary; they are in absolutely mint condition.

I tried casters, worm, maggots and sweetcorn.  On two of the visits they completely switched off the maggots and would only take corn but on our latest trip we couldn’t get a touch on corn.  They don’t appear to be too finicky either, with 3 or even 4 maggots producing lots of bites.  That said the float needed to be shotted down to hit some of the delicate bites, otherwise quite a few would be missed.  Fishing just a single maggot on a 18/20 hook produced lots of very small fish, so that’s best avoided.

Roach to 1lb 5oz

Roach to 1lb 5oz

The last trip saw one chap catch well over 150 roach on the hemp and caster approach, so on our next visit we’ll be giving this a try.  It’s a bit more intense in that you must keep the hemp constantly going into the swim, so a shower of hempseed is falling through the water layers all the time.  I’m hoping to get back soon for another go and hopefully find some of the bigger roach that this venue is well known for.

Still its wonderful catching so many roach in such superb condition.

 

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Roach at Bury Hill

Posted in Angling Diary, tagged , , , , on January 19, 2014| 1 Comment »


More rain has fallen since my latest trip to Bury Hill in Dorking.  In fact we’ve had 65mm in around 72 hours in Sevenoaks!  The rivers must be over the banks again in a lot of areas but the good news is things look like they are going to settle down now, well for a while at least.

Due to the dire forecast, Geoff and I opted to try for some more roach.  Old Bury Hill has a reputation for good quality fish and has produced good numbers over 2lbs.  Our drive through the Kent and Surrey countryside highlighted the effects of the recent storms.  Most of the fields were like lakes and the occasional view of a river showed them to be high, coloured and very turbulent.  It wouldn’t take much to send the river levels up and cascading over the banks and back into fields, roads and houses.

Bonds lake in warmer times

Bonds lake in warmer times

It was a rather grey day and the forecast was predicting heavy winds gusting to around 30mph and heavy rain showers.  We managed to persuade the gentleman in the shop to rustle us up some toast and marmalade and a nice cup of tea, as the cafe was closed.  That was a very nice gesture and was very much appreciated.  As we walked along the banks we realised just how bad things were.  Most of the banks were sodden and there was large amounts of standing water.  In some areas water was actually flowing across the banks.  Thank goodness we had put our boots on.  We also discovered that a small bridge across the stream which runs adjacent to the lakes had been washed away in the floods.

We were soon at our chosen lake and after some plumbing around, both selected swims.  By now the wind had already picked up but the rain seemed to be holding off for the time being at least.  My set-up was very simple.  My Maver Reactolite 13ft float rod, Drennan fixed spool, 4lb mainline and a 3.6lb hooklink and 16 hook.  I like to use a swivel to connect the mainline and hooklink and then mould some tungsten putty around this to set the float.  By doing this and using float stops, I don’t pinch any shot on the line and therefore avoid any line damage whatsoever.   There are downsides to using this method of course, for instance if you want to fish a long drop between hook and shot.  Then you may need to revert back to split shot, bulking it up at the float and fish a very small dropper shot around 1/2 way between float and hook.  This may well be a better method for roach, as they often take on the drop after a prolonged period of feeding maggots.

After around 90 minutes without a bite, I decided to have a look around the lake.  By now the wind had picked up and it was blowing directly into my face.  This was causing a  few problems with presentation and I wasn’t happy with the results.  I found an area slightly sheltered from the strong wind and with a reasonable depth of around 3ft.  Feeding small golf ball size balls of Bloodworm and Maggot Crush and loose feeding maggots flavoured with Winter Almond overspray, I then fished single maggot over the top.  I lost a couple of fish early on and then managed to tempt a couple of pristine roach of around 8oz.  Despite looking good, the swim just didn’t seem to be producing many bites.

Pallatrax Winter Almond

Pallatrax Winter Almond

By now Geoff had also moved and seemed to have found a few fish.  He had taken around 12 nice roach in the 8oz-1lb bracket.  He wandered over to see me and said that bronze maggots were producing more bites.  So I duly pinched a few of his and mixed them in with my flavoured reds and then out went the float again.  The float had barely settled when it disappeared.  After a very spirited fight a beautiful, pristine roach was netted.  I popped it on the scales and it registered 1lb 7oz and proved to be the best roach of the day.   The swim then produced a small bream and little else, so another move was in order.  By now the heavy rain showers had started and some were quite prolonged.  Due to the nature of the swims and the severity of the wind, an umbrella wasn’t really an option.  It was a case of hunkering down in our winter clothing and just trying to keep the rain out.

1lb 7oz

1lb 7oz

I moved across the lake and settled in next to Geoff.  He had found a deep swim of around 5ft of water close in and adjacent to some marginal reeds. He continued to catch steadily for the remainder of the day and ended up with around 20 nice roach to 1lb 1oz.  I seemed to elicit less bites with my set up than Geoff.  Geoff had opted to fish a long tail and an 18 hook.  This I suspect made the difference.  However I was treated to quite a mixed bag; I ended up with a tench of around 3lbs, a couple of bream, a couple of roach to around 10oz and just as the day was drawing to a close the float buried and something took off like a high speed train.  I had obviously hooked one of the resident carp.  It fought long and hard on the light tackle but with steady pressure I coaxed it into the waiting landing net.  I was fairly convinced it would go mid doubles but in fact it was smaller than I had at first thought.  It was a stunning common and weighed 9lb 13oz and was an exciting finish to a rather mucky, wet and windy day.

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As Arnie would say in that heavy Austrian accent; “I’ll be back”!

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