Getting the "Fix"

Decided to go out on the river for a couple of hours last night to get the "fix" I have longed for, for several weeks.
Even thought I have still immersed myself in angling stuff for the last few weeks with blog updates for others and catching up with correspondence on burning angling issues, nothing gives you the same fix or hit as getting out on a river or lake with the rod

So armed with the UL gear, a bottle of water and a couple of snack bar I headed out for a section of river I'd not fished for a while and certainly not with any real conviction with small lures.

I parked up in the modest car park and grabbed the gear along with the bailiff's card and penalty book and headed off.

First swim was a shallow section where the cows that graze the meadow have created a shallow edge and have created a refuge for this years fry.
I clipped on a HRT small fry crankbait and started casting about the edges. I could feel the lure hopping along through weed and silt from the shadows of the trees and into the light were with the polaroid's I could clearly see the micro predators following it it.

It didn't take long before one of the bigger predators in the shoal to take a liking to the lure.

Good fun on light gear and a welcome sight on a warm barmy evening.

Couple more cast brought a micro pike into the area and whilst he had a couple of hits at the lure, he did stay on long.

Couple for spots tried and lots of micro pike about, must have been a good year for the pike along with dace and roach, plenty of perch too and before long a shoal turn onto the feed and snaffled the crankbait.

I could bore you with loads of picture of the 6oz perch, but I won't. The 2hrs soon passed by and I must have ended up with a dozen perch, a few micro pike and a couple of chub to boot.

Must do this again soon.

To a land far, far away

Well readers, I haven't been fishing much of late and when I have been out, the fishing has been hard.

I have done some small stints on the local river will only a few small chublets, roach and dace to show for my jungle expeditions (memo to self, need a new hacking blade!!)

But I did travel down to the west county for a social fish in with some of the weird and wonderful members of the Pike Pit for a days fishing on a coloured river for the barbel.

For some, the fishing was secondary to the social, but for me the tempting prospects of catching a barbel was too much temptation to have a lot of sauce the night before at the social gathering of the year.

Its a fair drive from Suffolk to the west county, and I did feel very jaded on arrival at the meeting point. We drove off on a convey to the camping area and setup our bivvies for the night along with the social area.

After setting up we gather and chatted, mostly about fishing. We had the pleasure of a living legend coming along John Costello, whom is the only angler to caught a 20lb Zander and a 40lb+ Pike!!!!!! Even Uncle Nev's & Uncle Eddie haven't done that.

John's understanding of fishing is to say "enlightening". He's a regular bloke who has family and work commitments, but managed to caught the impossible, due to maximising his time when out fishing, whether on a vast reservoir or on his local rivers


It was great speaking to him and I really felt that after a walk of the river, I had a good understanding of the river and its character. I was feeling optimistic about the next day

Next morning, gloomy and early with the bird, bee's and snoozing anglers making there morning sounds as they rose from their sauce induced slumber. I awoke to a "where the hell am I" moment.
Soon I was up, washed (of a fashion) and out of the bivvy, where Marty was also ready up (after prebaiting his swim allegedly) and made a cuppa for me and some of the other waking beauties.

Soon I was tackled up and following the first two anglers along the bank to a swim I fancied, which had some slack water out of the main coloured water.


I decided to use the lightest rod I had with me which was a 11ft 6", 2.1/4tc carp rod. It would handed leads and feeder to 4oz if fishing within a couple of rod lengths out.

I started with a straight lead setup on a running rig similar to ones I'd seen on Dave Lumbs site for barbel. Simplicity is the key. Hook bait was 11mm or 20mm pre soaked halibut pellets, with a 11mm and micro pellets in a pva bag.

I also baited the general area with a few hand fulls of this mix and let the flow wash it down stream in order to get a scent trail going.

I did get the chub going and had a number of small chub/dace taps, but every so offered they would nick the bait so I would have to reeled in, re bait, added a new pva bag and dropped it back into the margin.

This I did several time before getting fed up with the constant tip activity and increased the pellet size to a 20mm.

After 15min of soaking the bait, it was away and the baitrunner was fizzing, I struck and hooked into a fish, felt it for a nano second before it all locked up in a snag some 15yds downstream.
I walked downstream beyond the snag trying to get another angle on it, but it was going nowhere fast.

With the rod bend over, and no signs of life, I opened the bail arm and released the pressure to see if the flow would dislodge the snagged fish or the rig. Sadly, neither happened and in the end I had to pull for a break.

I fish on for a number of hours, in between I did switch to a heavy feeder, but nothing was coming to my rod.

The end of the session for me was insight, then as I decided to have "one more cast", there was a snap. The last 4" of the rod tip disappeared down the line. Bugger!!!!

It had now gone midday, and I was tired though lack of sleep and hungry through lack for breakfast and now rod less due to god knows what.


 So I packed up and head back to the bivvy for food and finally demobilisation of the site.