Trout and About

October brings the first round of trout water visits each year and this year is no exception. I managed three days out this week, two to Grafham Water and one to Chew Valley Reservoir. I pike fished at Grafham once before, many many years ago when it first opened but that was before I knew how to approach trout waters. That said, my result was the same this time, a blank!

Grafham is not a noted pike water these days but is known to produce some very big zander and since I've never caught a decent zander I decided to give it a go. The method most people use is to jig lures at considerable depth. Now I've tried jigging before and didn't do very well at it then either but armed with a soft rod and a box of jigs I set out onto Grafham's 1500 acres to see what I could get.

Day one I was on my own in the boat. That left me at a slight disadvantage since it meant I had to carry the anchors, battery, sounder and all the boating paraphernalia on my own from car to boat. As a result I was one of the last boats away and of course, when I got out on the water all the best spots were taken. My jigs were not taken by any fish that day but there were some very big zander caught with the biggest going 17lb 8oz, a very big fish. I did see a couple of good ones boated and at one stage saw that one of them was struggling on the surface. Zander don't deal with changes in pressure very well. That's because they don't have a pneumatic duct to vent excess air from their swimbladder like pike do and sometimes when they are dragged up from great depth they over-inflate and can't get back down again.

Fortunately I had made myself a contraption I'd spotted on one of the websites which is designed to get zander down into deep water again. This basically involves the hook from a coathanger with an eye whipped on and a heavy weight. You hook the hook under the zander's gill cover and let the weight take it down to the bottom before shaking the fish off with a couple of flicks of the rod tip. It worked a treat. the fish went down to the bottom and I didn't see it come back up so either it's lying dead on the bottom or it recovered.

Day two was only slightly better in that I did actually get a couple of hits to my jigs but still nothing in the boat. I spent the day with Dave Horton though and we entertained each other with tales of our exploits, both fishing and non-fishing. So nothing was caught but we got to know each other a little better and that makes it a successful day as far as I'm concerned.

From Grafham I had a mad dash across country to Gloucester where I collected my son, Joe from the railway station. We spent the night at a Travelodge and in the morning drove on to Chew. I really like Chew, it's a water I fish every year and it usually produces a good fish or two. Things were hectic out on the water this time and in contrast to Grafham, we had lots of pike, 27 in all but most of them were quite small. It was opening day, the first I'd ever had on there and the problem of location was always going to be the one to overcome. The choice we had was either to go on the drift and just fish lures or "gun and run" fishing static with baits and lures but for only brief periods. We chose the latter and moved many times during the day. Best fish came to me, a lovely tailwalking specimen of 20lbs 14oz but Joe was close behind with an equally fit 18lb 14oz pike, both of which fell to float-legered smelt.

The drive home from Chew was a long one and Joe fell asleep on the way. We were both exhausted but very happy, roll on the next session!

It Never Rains...

...but it pours, that's the old adage. What it means of course is that when things start to go wrong they go wrong badly and my recent trip to Chew Valley Lake just about proved it.

I was there for four days last week, two of them I spent in the boat with Denis Bird and two with Kevin Dunne. The fishing was fairly average for Chew, we caught plenty of pike but most of them were small with a sprinkling of mid-doubles thrown in to make the heart jump a little when one of them hit a lure. Yes, lures took the majority of the fish with only two falling to deadbait.

Day 1 brought a few trials and tribulations for Denis. He hadn't put his braid on the spool tightly enough and as a result it was overrun after overun. The pic shows him doing a bit of knitting in the boat - he spent quite a bit of time doing this and it meant more fish for me since I was probably getting three casts in to each one of his. Every cloud has a silver lining though and by the end of the day he finished with two scarves, a pullover and a pair of mittens.

It was an awful day weather-wise. Torrential rain poured down on us all day and we were glad to get on dry land at the end of it.

Day 2: We re-spooled Denis's line the next morning and he had a much better day of it. This was the best day of the trip with six doubles coming to the boat amidst a barrage of jacks but it was spoiled a bit by me having a good pike, a possible twenty pounder, shake the hooks out right at the boat. The day nearly ended in disaster too. On the last cast of the day, Denis made a mighty heave with his six-ounce replicant in an effort to get it as far out into the lake as he could. Unfortunately, instead of the lure sailing out into the blue, it connected violently with the back of my head, whipping off my cap and almost knocking me out. "Ah well" I thought, "At least we'll get a picture of it and it'll make a good story." That was the plan, but as you can see, Denis then made a hash of the picture too!

Days 3 and 4, both spent with Kevin on the tiller were much the same as each other. High pressure brought hard night-time frosts and hot, cloudless, still days, just about the worst kind of weather for autumn piking. I was even wishing for the return of the torrential rain we'd had on day 1. This meant just more jacks and a solitary double to me, while Kevin had to make do with the jacks.

This is when things really started to go wrong for me. One of my reels stopped working - I later discovered that the internal spring had snapped. Then another reel started to play up. Only wear and tear this time but the effect was getting worse with every cast. Eventually I dismantled both reels to see if I could cobble up a good one between them. the result? neither reel was any good now. Then I started to crack lures off. Three Replicants were sent to the bottom of the lake before I realised what was going on. The tip ring on my main lure rod had broken and it was slicing through the line. I had left my other rod in the car (as I had no reel to put on it) and this left me with no tackle at all that I could use to fish lures. Kevin came to the rescue and lent me a rod and reel but it meant we were restricted in what we could do.

Oh well, these things happen, at least we got to see a spectacular sunset and got to share the water with a couple of piking "elites". Can you identify them sillhouetted against the sun?