Unexpectedly Breaming

So a quick update, I managed to target the same venue/location as last time out. Same tackle, lift rig float fishing. With the SSG+AA just 2 inches from the size 12 hook holding the two maggot above red corn cocktail. I was also using the red corn juice as an attractant again. Conditions, slightly warmer, perhaps 10 Celcius but partially overcast and no significant tow. Time around 8:50 again.

This time, I kept getting slight dibs down on the float with knocks making it move side to side. Then a bite would ensure which would have the float move under at medium pace and very smoothly. Not very Tench like I thought and sure enough it was not. I was hooked into something heavy but strangely it was not fighting very hard. I managed to get it to the surface and wow, the largest lump of a Bream I have ever had on. It rolled and went for the center of the pit but on the straight through reel line to hook tackle, I had the confidence to adjust up the clutch and give some side strain to try and bring the fish back. Sure enough, it turned and I managed to reel it to the surface. A couple of gulps of air and the fish seemed to be docile and I managed to pull it gently over the net. It was when I lifted the net out of the water that I realised how heavy this fish was. I've had plenty of skimmer bream before but nothing this big with that lovely green-brown colour of a big bream. I unhooked the fish on my unhooking mat, still on top of the wet net and had a chance for a breather before photos and weighing. I could hardly believe my eyes when the scales tipped 7.25 lbs - a new personal best!

7.25lbs Bream

I had met another angler, Ollie, who was carping and decided to ask him to take a picture of me holding the fish. One for the scapbook definitely. After this bream, I had a number of other bites, including a similar large one that headed into the middle of the lake but the hook pulled on me. I kept missing quite a few bites when I struck, not quite sure why. I was running out of time so did not get a chance to experiment with rig but I did try a couple of different bate combos, including treble maggot and treble core neither of which got me as many bites as the double maggot/single red core combo. I think I was stunned by the bream I landed and was not being very methodical with trying different tactics.

I had heard the pit had a good head of largish bream but never seen one so this was a real bonus and eye-opener. Before I left, I put in the remaining red corn and maggots in and around the marginal weeds. Hopefully this will keep the fish interested in these baits for a future trip. If I had been thinking about it, I might have put some of my pellets in as that is a bait that I want to try at this pit. I hear that the carp and bream are partial to pellets.

Still, as I packed up, I felt a bit of a quandry, I've pulled out a few nice Tench and the bream from this venue/swim. It feels like I need to try something/somewhere different for a while. I guess it is easy to keep targeting the same 'favourite' spot but this will not up my game. I think a trip to Bordeaux pit to try some pole fishing on the small pond or back to proper feeder fishing on the ledger would be a good riposte.

One issue I had with the rig/tackle whilst using the lift method was the float slipping up or down the line. With the float 'locked' with a single float rubber, this was highly likely on a long cast or fast retrieval. One idea I had was to use a ledger stop above the float to 'set' the depth. This would probably still support lift bit indications and drop indications. Also, I consulted my John Wilson, Carp and Tench fishing book to refresh my memory on the nuances of the lift method. One thing that it made me think was, I could have scaled down the float so that I could have used less weight for the indicator shot - say even just a single AA. This might have given me more fine bite indication - worth a try in the future.

'New' Season Tenching

A 'New' Seasons?
So a 'new' season and finally some more angling action. I say 'new' as it is very odd for me to be fishing at this time of year. When I was a kid, this would have been the closed season and there would be no fishing permitted. It seems the rules have changed for still waters with closed season now being entirely up to the water owners. This sort of makes sense from a scientific point of view as fish spawn at different times of year. Hence a fixed 3 month closed season is a bit ineffective. Still, I get the impression that most clubs with still waters basically have no closed season which IMHO is probably a bad idea. I think perhaps a month with no fishing might allow the fish to get a breather and might also be good for fishing when the baits the fish are used to are reintroduced after an absence. He, ho, well back to actual discussion of fishing action!

Cracking Ledgering
So I had a chance to go a couple of times in May to the local pit. This season I was determined to crack ledger so I tried my favorite spot with a simple running 1oz lead through to a bead/swivel and then hooklink. Hook size varied from 16 down to 12 - mainly pre-tied Kamasan spade ends with 12inch leader. I used my carbon quivertip 11' rod (using lightest 'white' tip) and swung the lead in close to the bull rushes where my favorite prey, the Tench tends to hide.

Fun with the boys
Previously I had gone with the boys for a bit of lighthearted shallow (3-4ft), double maggot, waggler fishing for silvers. Preston innovations 4BB bodied waggler, secured with float rubber and 2 AAs about 12inch from the hook. We managed to catch a few small silvers and perch to 2-3 oz - which was great fun. The boys' casting was dramatically improved and we had very few tangles.

2-3oz Perch

2oz Rudd

Getting more serious and weedy travails
Serious fishing though was relegated to early mornings, 8:45am being a prize time. These outings, I went with the running ledger tackle mentioned above. First time out, I was travelling light, no rod rests, just using the landing net and reeds to act as a rest. Fishing with line parallel to reed bed, perhaps just 2 meters out where the reed line ended. Bait was treble red maggot and there were a few knocks. The hooklink was perhaps only 12inch to the swivel and the running lead hit the bead just above the swivel on the main line. Line was tight through to the quivertip. Generally bites were very finickety, with quick 'knock-knock' or wobble of the tip. There was perhaps 3-4 meters of line between the tip and the lead so I was perhaps expecting a bit more positive bites. None the less, I picked up a couple of silvers (rudd) and a small 4oz perch on this setup. I would chuck in a dozen maggots every few minutes to keep the fish interested. The real problem here though was the weed, there was lots of silk weed and Canadian pond weed around the reeds. And when I was not dragging in loads of weed, the hook was snagging on the reeds.

4oz Perch

Still, I was getting some bites despite the lead and probably the bait (treble/quad maggots) burrowing into the weed. I got one nice fish on, probably a large tench or carp that gave quite a fine bite indication followed by ploughing into the marginal reeds. I could not side strain it out of there and eventually had to slack line it for a moment to allow it to swim out, which luckily it did. I managed to pull back into the fish but it took a beeline straight for the middle of the pit and in ratcheting up the clutch, I snapped the leader. This presumably happened at the mainline swivel knot as I lost the lead (which would have safely fallen off the line to the bottom and not dragged behind the fish). Actually, thinking about it, this time I was not using a swivel but a Korum quick change bead. I'm always a bit suspect of the plastic to mainline knot on these compared to a decent swivel - but need more tests to verify this.

Not put off, I tried another day, same tactics although this time, I used an inline korda 35g lead and a slightly heavier hook link, a 5lbs size 12 pre-tied Kamasan B510 through to the swivel. I chucked a few tiger soft hook pellets (chocolate flavour IIRC) in as free feed. I got the sense that the inline lead was a bit better at not getting loads of weeds caught up but I was still being plagued by this. This time, I hooked into something on treble red maggots. It kept its head down and went straight for the weeds. Did not feel extremely big but it was well into the marginal reeds. With the slightly heavier tackle, I thought I'd try and pull up, i.e. trying to pull the fish to the surface where I could try and guide it around the reeds. As I pulled, I could see the fish coming up from under loads of weeds which it eventually pulled through (luckily) and then shot off into open water. Once it was there I could tell it was a little tench and it wanted to fight hard, swinging right across to the lily pads. A bit more side strain and I had it rolling on the surface and finally into the landing net. Phew - an awesome 1.25lbs tench, first of the 'new' seasons.

First Tench of 'new' season 1.25lbs

The old techniques are the best
The weather these couple of days had been very varied, the day with the kids had been a nice sunny, low wind day, with temperatures pushing 18 Celsius. The day I caught the tench was over cast and more like 8 Celsius with a bit of wind/surface tow. The weather took a turn for the worse and although temperatures were probably about 10 Celcius, it was slightly more windy and overcast with spots of rain. Still this got me out for another bash around 8:45 again. This time after reading some interesting posts at: http://fishingfortench.co.uk/ about float fishing for tench in the margins. I thought, against my better judgement, to try float fishing. Clearly this was not in line with my philosophy of 'cracking ledgering' but it did appeal to me as a potential way to get the bait above the weeds. Also, I am a sucker for the lift method - which was how I first caught tench as a kid. So I set up with a crystal loaded 4BB waggler secured with a float rubber straight through to main line down to the hook (no hook link). A SSG and a single AA 2 inches from a size 12 eyed hook was the terminal tackle. The main line was 6-8lbs mono so normally my gut would say you need a lighter hooklink just to avoid the line looking like rope to the fish. Clearly modern mono is much more thin than mono of old and it did not look very thick but none the less I was a bit sceptical this set up would work. Still, I attempted this set up to work around two issues I'd had before: firstly the issue with the hook link snapping around the swivel and secondly the fact that if a fish went into the reeds, I would have to bull wrestle it out and for this I did not want a weak hook link. For bait, I tried two red maggots above a red (strawberry) corn kernel. I also chucked in a small handful of red corn as free feed and squirted a mix of water and the juice from the corn tin in as attractant. I was fishing in the same place up against the reeds at a depth of 4 feet. The float was showing about 1.5 inch above the water without tightening up the line and I just held the rod in my hands. I got a few knocks and didn't get anything on the strike but not all bad news as there was hardly any weed on the hook/leads. Cast out again and this time, I got a small dib down then up, then again. I decided to strike in and had a fish which took straight for the reeds. With just 2-3 meters of line to the float, I side strained the fish out of the reeds relatively easily and tried to get it to the surface. When it was up it rolled and I could see a small tench, about 1lbs. It did not put up much of a fight once it was on the surface and I managed to get it in the net fairly easily.

Big backed Tench at 1lbs (est)

Bull Wrestling (or rather Tench Wrestling)!
A good start, and not too much disturbing the swim while fighting the fish. After I had returned it to the neighboring swim, I went in again, this time double yellow maggot above red corn. About five minutes later,  another bite, this time very positive, the float just buried under the water. I struck straight in and could feel the strain of a much heavier fish. Surprisingly, it did not go straight for the marginal weed, it shot off away from me along the bank, parallel to the reeds. A fair amount of side strain and I turned it but this time it went for the center of pit. I crouched down and applied strain up and to the right hand side and managed to tweak up the clutch getting the fish to turn back towards me and the bank. Winding in, I got it to the surface and I could see this was a nice tench. It rolled once on the surface and shot down towards the lily pads to the left. This time, more side strain and I got it back to the surface. I got the impression that when it got to the surface and took a gulp of air, it lost its fight a little (possibly something to remember for the future). Now I tried to keep its head up and rolled it back along the surface towards the net which I managed to scoop it up with . Wow, a big early season tench. Getting it to the unhooking mat, it looked massive with an ominous red eye. The barbless size 12 slipped out without any effort (showing how important it is to keep lines tight when fighting fish on barbless hooks). I could tell it was a male fish by looking at the protuberances on the belly flank. Very similar fish to the one I caught of a similar size last season. On the scales, the fish came in at 4.5lbs. A few photos and I slipped it back in to the next door swim. Awesome!

4.5lbs male Tench, caught on red corn/maggot combo

After clearing all the tench slime from the bottom 2 feet of my rig, I fished on for about 20 minutes with no bites. I suspect that the fight scared off a lot of fish. Before I left, I threw in 2 handfuls of red corn, with some in the marginal reeds. Hopefully this will get them interested next time I try.

So what lessons learned?

1. Persistence and experimenting with different approaches is hugely important. If I had stuck with the same approach, I might have been lost in the weeds and not hooked into anything.
2. When you have to wrestle with big fish in weedy/snagging conditions, you need to up-rate the tackle e.g. skip the swivel/separate hook link. This may put some fish off but when you get a big one, you have a better chance of landing it.
3. Different baits are worth trying, along with cocktails. E.g. multi-maggot/maggot-red corn mix.
4. Pick the right method to present the bait correctly. While I really want to crack ledgering, it was probably not the best technique for this weedy marginal swim.
5. Holding the rod at all times is tiring but you are immediately in touch with the fish if you get a bite, not having to hover over the ledger rod. Still this is probably a general issue with ledgering?
6. Getting the fish up to the surface to get it to gulp air helps calm it down. Clearly this needs to be tempered with not trying to man-handle a fish too forcibly - this might result in a snapped line or pulled hook.
7. Getting out to the bank for a spot of fishing first thing really wakes you up for the day and puts you in a great mood!

Winter Fishing in Granchester

After months of being too busy to get out fishing, I recently spent an hour (of an afternoon) at Granchester mill pool. On arriving, I found another angler, deadbait fishing for pike and ledgering worms for perch. He pulled a couple of small perch out while I was there but otherwise had limited luck. It was very cold, probably about 1-2 Celcius and there was only an hour to go before sunset so not much time to fish.

I targeted the roach and dace with bread flake on a size 20 hook under a self cocking float. I varied the depth between 1-4 feet. No nibbles on the bread so I switched to some soft hooker pellets. Slightly more luck here with something definitely nibbling the pellets but no bites.

Unfortunately after an hour I had to pack up as it was getting cold and too dark to see the float. Despite not catching anything, it was nice to get down to the water again after so long. Next time, I think some worms and ledger would be worth trying. I suspect the fish were down on the bottom given the nibbles came when I increase the depth of the bait. It would be good to do a little more research on winter baits. From past memory I recall that scaling down tackle and bait helped e.g. pinkies rather than maggots and smaller hooks. Hopefully I'll get anther try soon.