Wow!

Date:31/3/12-6/4/12
Location: Springwood Fishery
Report: With a break from school I managed to get a week away fishing. we stayed in one of the lodges the site provides. well in all fairness I honestly don't think i could have told you where the kitchen was, as i was out fishing constantly, every night bar one. During the week the weather was nice, but cold! it barley crept above 12 degrees. They have 4 lakes on the site and i focused on two, the main lake and the 'beach pool'. The main lake was deep, and it hadn't really warmed up enough to present a bottom bait. after half a day with-out a bleep i set up a zig rig.

I literally casted out the line with a floating dog biscuit as bait, I set the line on my swingers and began to flick a few slow sinking pellets out. After my third flick, my bait runner went mad! i struck into what felt to be a good fish. BUT i was zig riging up about 15ft, so the inevitable happened. the weight moved around to much and pinged the hook out. I thought this would happen, and had only really set the line out to see if i could get a take.

After this i fished the beach pool for the remaining 6 days! around half an acre in size, its tiny. Yet it is crammed with tench and small cats, with a few 20's known. I set about happily catching tench, including a new PB of 8.13lb. But then came the moment i never expected . . . i was had a good head of tench feeding and i was catching regularly, in fact i started just to us one rod. but all this movement attracted a beast! my swinger rose and my bait runner screamed at me, i immediately new this was no tench.

It was obvious a catfish had wanted to join the party. This was my first catfish, and one which has made me keen to catch more. my 2.75lb test curve rod was made to look like a quiver tip, and as i was using a spool loaded with 8lb mainline and literally had no control over the fish. A bailiff turned up, and asked for a ticket, before realising my situation. He fished the lakes often and said it looks as if i had hooked a decent 20lb cat. the fish ran be around the small pool for 20minutes before i could get him anywhere near the bank. just as i thought i was going to get my first glimpse of the beast he darted for some tree roots to my left. which i ended up having to stand on to try get it out

I managed to get the fish out and it finally rolled on the surface. The bailiff generally was shocked. In the main lake there are cats to 70lb, but he said this one was by far the biggest in the beach pool. He netted it for me, placed it on the unhooking mat.

I could not believe it! my first ever catfish, accidentally caught on a cell dumbell, with a size 8 hook, and 8lb main line. He tipped the scales to 36.2lb. As you may know, cats can double this, but for my first and the fact i managed to land it on the tackle i was using i was well chuffed! He is by no means a giant to most catfish anglers but i was overjoyed. I think the smile says it all -->

Almost A Blank!

Date: 15/1/12
Location: Cottington Lakes
Lake: Black Lake ( Species Carp almost pushing 20lb, good head of bream to 8lb, roach, tench rudd and perch to 3lb. with a few medium sized pike)
Catch Report: Weather was awful! Rain hammering down testing how water proof by bivvy was, and winds testing how stable it was. Thankful my bivvy stayed in one place, and i didn't get wet. Fishing was a real struggle, and no matter what i did, i didn't seem to be get nibbles.

I tried the usual baits that work well on this lake (luncheon, pellets & sweetcorn) yet i drew a blank on all of them. I set there all morning and most the afternoon trying and trying. With about 2hours of fishing left, I spotted a calm spot on the lake, not sure why it was so still as it was in the middle of the lake, but none the less i made a cast to the spot. I put two trusty maggots on a size 14 hook, sat and waited. i was using buzzers with swingers, and the wind was blowing a gail and i could not really register bites off the tip of my rod.

My swinger slowly started rising up, i approached my rods and waited. The swinger was still slowly rising, I usually find this is a tench bite. I waited for the swinger to rise fully and the line to go tight before striking (this must have taken 20seconds) I immediately felt the weight of the fish as it tried to run. I was correct, it was a tench. I find the fight on a tench very distinctive, yet hard to explain. It put up a fair fight, but i managed to get it to the net pretty quickly, and i was desperate not to loose this fish. The fish was in pristine condition, fin perfect. She weighed in at 7.2lb, so was a decent size to.

That was the only fish of the day, but in my view it was worth it to get such a nice fish. after the morning i honestly thought i didn't have a chance of catching. but i kept at it, and eventually tempted on fish into biting.

Date: 12/1/12

Location: Hythe Canal (Mainly Roach & Perch, with the odd Gudgeon and Bream)

Catch Report: Being back to school means the days I can go fishing are number, so I try make the most of ever opportunity I have. Although the fish in this local canal are of no real size, its still not a bad place to spend a day. There was a very cold wind blowing so I picked the most sheltered spot I could, this being a bend on the canal, surrounded by a good thick tree line. I set up a sensitive waggler, with a tiny size 20 hook, so i could catch all sizes of fish.

a single maggot as a hook bait proved pretty effective, and i started receiving bites and regular intervals. Although as usual the fish where literally tiddlers. I did manage a 2lb bream, which was by far the biggest fish. My second biggest fish being a roach pushing half a pound. I fished for about 7 hours, and managed to make up a keepnet of 11lb, excluding my bream. So all in all i was pretty pleased.

Quick Session

Date: 8/1/12
Location: Cottington Lakes (Deal, Kent)
Lake: Match Lake (Species some Carp just over double figure, tench, roach, perch and a few bream)
Catch Report: I only had about 4hours of fishing, so was looking to bag as many fish as i could, not being bothered about there size. I used a very sensitive standard waggler set-up, with a size 16hook. upon arrival i put a few oily coarse pellets into the swim, to try and get fish feeding while i began to set-up. Being careful not to feed to much as this is where many people kill there chances during winter fishing. hook baits i was using were simply a single or double maggot or a very small piece of luncheon meat.

The water was quite choppy, but i was fishing behind an island so i could clearly see my float. The fishing started slow, but gradually got better. i quickly built up a decent keepnet of roach, perch and a few skimmer bream. i only had about half hour left, so i put a larger piece of luncheon meat on to try and entice a carp to bite. it worked quite well and in the last half hour had three carp, sizes only being 4lb, 5lb and 7lb, but when using a light float rod with 2-3lb line, its great fun!

First Blog Post!

Date= 3/1/12

Location= Cottington Lakes (Deal, Kent)

Lake= Alder (Species: Carp to 25lb, Bream to 8lb, Tench, Roach, Perch & Pike)

Catch Report= first time fishing this year, was looking forward to it so much as i got a bunch of new baits for X-mas that i wanted to try. I arrived approx 7am, and to start with i fished to rods, One with a Mainline Green Indian Spice Pop-up on a Zig rig, about mid-water as i could see carp cruising around as conditions were still and not to cold. my other rod was a simple pike rig, with two size 6 trebles, with a dead baby trout as bait. 

With-in 15mins, the pike rod buzzers went made, and the front part of the rod was pulled off the front stand before i could react to it. the fish fought hard and low, i was using light tackle as the pike in that lake are generally quite small. I landed the fish, a 7.2lb pike. It was a good start, i put another dead trout on the rod, and put it back into one of the more reidy margins as i feared my long fight with the previous pike may have spooked them and this is wear they would be. Mean while on my pop-ups i had a strong take, and i played a fish for about 30seconds before it managed to come off. By now it was coming into late morning, so the fish slowed right down eating. 

My hunch about the pike being spooked in to the reids seemed to be right, but the fish were very weary and i had to small takes, but nothing solid enough for me to strike. About 2pm i decided to put Mainline Cell boilies on both my rods. And i'm not sure whether it was by luck or the Cell boilies stimulated them to feed but i had a brace of carp with-in 30 mins, between about 2.45 and 3.15. I weighed the fish, the smaller one being 8lb and the larger one being 13lb. Not particularly big fish, but at least i was catching.  

As an early dusk beckoned the fish began to rise again, so i changed to pop-ups to see if i could intercept one coming up in the water. This time how ever i used CC Moore Live System Pop-ups, as i felt the bright green Mainline ones may have made the fish weary of them. My judgment seem to be bang on and in the last hour before dark and managed to land another brace of carp. This time slightly bigger, one being 11lb and the other a beautiful 16.8lb mirror.

Overall was a great days fishing,