Monday 14 May 2012

New Tench PB and the top two "wand"



A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and what a week it has been on the bank,   a real week to remember as the fish looked to finally have woken up from their sluggish spring and sprung into life with numerous captures of skimmers, roach, hybrids, carp and also a personal best tench for me. All these make up this week’s blog update and I have to say I took far too many pictures again so check out my Facebook page for some bumper pictures over the next few days on the following link.


This week the new river season was on my mind and with only just over a month till the magical day I began looking over a few of my past trips to the river and also about what I want to achieve from the river this year.  The rivers firmly on my mind I began to purchase a few bits and pieces in preparation for the river opening and purchased a few new floats from the Dave Harrell range in a two 10 no4 dome top floats ant two 3 gram bolo floats for my sessions on the deeper stretches, I also made another impulse buy whilst on the website and there will be more to come on that in next few weeks, fingers crossed.

I will be going into more detail closer to the time on my targets for this year’s river season and just thinking about the challenges that lie ahead fills me with excitement for the year ahead and I cannot wait for that magical morning of June the 16th to arrive.  Till then I aim to cram in as much still water fishing as possible and with the chase for the 10lb plus carp already up and running I aim to fish a new commercial venue in the coming week or so and have a few contenders in mind for that special trip out of my comfort zone.

On to this week’s fishing:

Thursday 10th May – Rixton Clay Pits

  There are times in your life when you have to do things that you don’t have a choice in whether to partake in or not and when it comes to having to go out on strike it’s a very close subject to me.  The reason for the strike was around the changes being made to civil service pension and although I am nowhere near drawing my pension you have to think about the people who are around that age and who it will be affecting in the immediate future.  Over my time in the civil service I have been out on strike a few times over different issues, never has strike action changed anything to the final decision and I doubt it will be in this case but the changes that are being proposed are very controversial to say the least so you have to do all you can to try and stop these changes, hence me supporting the action and going out on strike.

So with Thursday in the dairy as a day free and no mention of any picket line in work I was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and made plans with my dad to fish Rixton Clay pits on the Warrington Anglers Card.  The alarm set for 4.30am it was going to be an early start for us with a view to getting back mid -afternoon as I still have a really busy Friday shift in work the next day.

We arrived at this most haunting of venues to find one car in the car park but all three decent pegs taken, which was a shock from one car but you can’t complain as the rest of the pegs are so muddy anyone in their right mind would jump on the car park pegs.  We walked the short distance to a peg we had fished a few weeks back with the intention of trying our best to keep the gear clean by putting it up high out of the way and only taking to the peg what we needed for that days fishing, a great plan which proved ultimately impossible as the rain arrived and the peg went from muddy and waterlogged to plain dangerous throughout the day.


My box set up I thanked my lucky stars I had purchased this new seat box, my old Shakespeare with no legs to raise it up would have been buried in a couple of inches of heavy clay.  This new box meant the only mud that would be near would be on the feet of the legs and the footplate.  With the peg set up I immediately put out the sleeper rod on the killer bait for this venue and set about setting up the short pole line just off the marginal tree to my right.  BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!! Half way through tying up my rig the sleeper rod sparked into life and I lifted into a fish that was certainly a tench judging by how easy it was coming into the margin and half way in it slinked gently into the margin to my right where it all went solid, a snag and a good one at that!!, In my head I was cursing how on earth did the fish find that snag from 30 yards out In the most murky of water, god knows but the fish was gone and luckily I managed to get all my rig back, always a bonus in that situation.

The pole rig set up for the bottom I also set up a shallow rig for spraying maggot to catch some of the better roach that seem to cruise the upper layers of this pit.  Spraying maggots out the roach soon arrived in scenes reminiscent of piranhas feeding than roach but I wasn’t complaining at all.  The plan was to feed tis line and wait for the tell-tale bubbles of bream feeding on the bottom to arrive before plundering the depths with my deeper rig later on in the day.

Whilst this line was fishing well and I was getting a few bites the sleeper rig was also active and getting a lot of action with plenty of line bites giving away that fish where in the vicinity and I could just feel it wasn’t going to be long before I spooled off again and with five more minutes of increased activity the alarm shot into life as all the line went slack indicating the fish had swam towards me on the take, I lifter and reeled in at the same time and again connected with a fish that shot into the margins and headed straight for the snag the previous one had got me in, not this time I thought as I applied some extra side strain to turn the fish from the safety of the snag and luckily the fish played ball and the rest of the fight was played out in the middle of the swim, the tench in this water truly are awesome fish both in the fight and of course once you get them on the bank and get to admire their beautiful array of colours.



The fish looked a decent fish and it was straight in the trust cooperative carrier bag of truth to be weighed and with my previous personal best standing at 4lb 2oz this marked a slightly improved personal best for myself and I was more than made up.  This venue has so much potential for producing a really special fish and I just hope I can get more time on its banks in the coming weeks as I really do love this venue.

The fish returned and the rod was recast with a few more freebies scattered sparingly over a large area as to get the fish searching out the bait which was obviously proving to be of their liking and so it proved as the rod again roared into life within a few seconds of tightening the line.  This fish was not on the league of the previous one and came to the net without too much of a fight and in real contrast to the previous one was really badly behaved on the bank making it tough to get a decent shot and needless to say I got a soaking as I returned it to its watery home, thank you I whispered as  I returned back to my box to continue my fishing on the silver line that was now producing some really good skimmers and hard fighting hybrids which really added some spice to proceedings on the light blue hydro elastic I was fishing.

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The day trundled along and I with two bream coming on the sleeper rod It marked the end of the feeding for the tench than seem to feed in the really early morning till around 10am and then return in the late evening as the sun drops right down off the water, well that is the conclusion I had come too last year and on the few trips this year but fishing time and time again, when we think we have cracked, comes along a breaks all the rules doesn’t it and at 2.30pm the sleeper rod beeped twice and screamed off like never before, I was certain it was a carp , it just had to be.

The line solid and staying deep far out it was like no fight I had ever experienced on this venue, my head said it had to be a carp, everything about it was different form all the other takes on this venue.  The fish took line and headed for the back of the island in front of me but I managed to turn it and bring it closer to the margins where it began to feel a bit more like a tench fight and with that a big black paint brush tail flapped on the surface, I admit to being a little disappointed at that point but that was till I saw the size of the tench as it came to the net,  it was not as big as my uncles the previous week but it was certainly bigger than the previous one in the morning.



As you can see above the fish hot the scales at exactly 5lb and topped my previous pb on the day of 4lb 4oz and I must admit I was really happy with this capture but I think my dad needs some work on the camera as he has a nap of cutting me off the pictures, maybe it is for the best haha.

The sleeper rod was left out for the remainder of the session so I could relax and enjoy the silver fishing on offer and enjoyed bagging up on silvers for the rest of the session with a final net of approaching 17lb of silver fish I was one happy angler.



The past few weeks my MAP TKS 125 pole has been my constant companion on trips to the still waters we have visited and I think next time I go out chasing the silver I might change over to the waggler to add a bit of variety to my angling.


Saturday 12th May – Flushing Meadow Fishery

With Thursday giving my silver fishing itch a big scratch it was big fish or bust for me on Saturday as my dad and uncle joined me on a trip to flushing meadows fishery in Acton Bridge.  I have had more than my fair share of carp from this venue so I felt it was time to have a bit of fun on there.



We decided to fish deep marl, a pool furthest away from the entrance to the fishery that rarely seems to attract much attention from anglers who seem to jump straight on the canal and snake pools.  My plan as I have said was big fish or bust with a little twist, I have recently installed a pulla-kit on my white hydro power top two kit and I set myself a challenge to see how many carp I could catch only using my top two kit right under my feet, the results where ye opening to say the least.

Armed with a few big baits I set about my task by introducing a few baits close in and armed with my top two kit which after this day on the bank I aptly named “the wand” for its magical qualities of taming the carp close in and the great fun I had using it.  The actions was explosive with carp lining up to be caught one after another all day, they started off around the three pound mark and gradually built up each time till I hit a proper lump which then saw the swim die a bit till they slowly moved back in again obsessed with the offerings trickling down the shelf.



As you can see on the video above the elastic really does stretch but with the pulla kit you can tighten up on the fish to rein them in should they shoot off.  With this type of fishing you of course need a peg free next to you as some of the fish can zoom out of the swim but with two pegs free either side of me I had some of the best fun I have had on the pole on just the top two kits, who needs the other 12 metres of pole eh, great fun.  The fish I was connected with on the above video was the biggest fish of the day weighing in at 7lb 8oz and what remarkable markings this fish had with a full set of scales along its lateral line.



I also connected with a few more decent fish that I decided where worthy to be weighted throughout the day in a 4lb 11oz fish and a 5lb 6oz fish shown below.





In total I banked 19 fish during the day just from the water at my feet and rather than post them all here I decided to put them together in a small video.  I am still chasing this 10lb fish and although the fishery advertises fish to doubles I am yet to connect with one over 8lb I am sure they are in there and it is only a matter of time before I lure one, I just hope it is on the wand, great fun and a must for anyone with a pole.



Till next time I wish you all

Tight lines

Danny

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