Slow Progress

Denis and I have stuck at the rivers determined to find some good fish. It would be easy to get the boat out on the big lake and fish productive areas where we could be sure of latching into some doubles and the odd twenty but that's not what we do. It's easy to stagnate when you find good fishing, milking it for all it's worth and ignoring everything else but then what do you have for the future? ...and what do you have when your good fishing comes to an end?

The other approach of course, the one which many many people take, is to keep an ear to the grapevine and jump in on the going water. Hmm, not much attraction there. So we keep plugging away at likely looking stretches of river until something happens.

Two trips out this week. We had a couple of days on the new river, finding out more and more about it, and a day on the Severn. The new river produced a few fish, a low double to Denis on day one and two doubles to me on day two. We fished two different stretches some fifteen miles apart and found them to be quite different in character. The day one stretch was quite fast with only odd places where a pike might hang out. It poured with rain for most of the day and despite our waterproofs it started to get in.

Day two was a much brighter prospect with clear skies and some sunshine but of course there was always the threat of rising water which we knew would put the fish off. I settled into a swim at first light and had half an hour's lure fishing before dropping a deadbait in. The lures produced nothing despite covering a fish on the far bank which appeared to be rushing a shoal of dace from time to time but it was a different story on the deadbaits.

I packed away the lure rod and dropped in a legered sardine around five yards from the bank. Just five minutes later it was away and I pulled in a hard fighting fish of around thirteen pounds. Unhooked and a quick pic. before putting it back then I put out a second sardine. Once again this was taken within five minutes and I pulled in a fish of similar size. Indeed I'm quite sure it was the same pike once again since it didn't fight at all, probably still tired from the last fight.

The day ticked by and no more fish came our way despite fishing many different swims. It's becoming noticeable even this early that the fish in this river feed early but then don't seem to show later in the day. We'll be back there in the coming weeks I have no doubt.

Later in the week we had a trip to the Severn, to the same stretch where I fell in last week, though not to the same swim. This part of the river is baffling. There are two text book swims which look like they should hold some good pike but so far all we've had is jacks and so it proved on this occasion. I had all the fish, one on a lure and two on deadbaits but the largest would only have weighed seven pounds or so. I expect we'll stick at it for a while yet as there is sure to be something better but it had better put in an appearance soon!

Long Time Comin'

I was quite pleased with my bream success. I had decided on a target of a 12 pounder this year and of course I had met my target on the first fish. A twelve pound bream may not be big by national standards but it's a good fish for here in the NorthWest these days.

My tench target was more ambitious. I wanted a NorthWest 'nine' again and while I knew it would be difficult, it certainly is possible as I've proved in the past. As it turned out though, it was going to be a lot more difficult than I expected. May ended with no tench at all to show for my efforts and I was already lowering my sights. "An eight will do" I told myself.

Why the tench wouldn't come out to play was a mystery but I took comfort in the fact that most other people were struggling to catch them too. Indeed I never even saw a tench on the bank right through May and early June though they could be seen rolling in several places. The weed was one of the big problems. It's grown up much thicker and faster than usual this year and it isn't hard to spot the reason why. This lake usually has upward of a hundred coots living on it but this year I've never seen more than a dozen. The tufted duck are thin on the water too and with so few birds eating the weed it has grown out of control.

Where are all the birds then? Well that's another mystery but I'm guessing that the very cold winter has seen a lot of them off. With the water frozen for several weeks they will have struggled to find food and I expect a lot of them died.

The lake's been very busy too. The controlling club have stocked a lot of carp and the no-hopers who can't catch in a natural water have flocked to it. Every swim is now occupied every weekend - am I glad I work shifts and can fish midweek!

I've fished a different swim every trip, partly to try and find some feeding tench and partly to find an area where I could present some bait without it becoming buried in the weed. I nearly had a success last week when, after fishing hard and feeding maggots for eight hours I fanally got a bite - only for the hook length to part inexplicably in the middle. I was getting desperate and lowered my sights still further, first to a seven pounder and then to a tench - any tench!

Today, at long last I put a couple on the bank. I fished a deeper area - again to try and avoid the weed and as a result I expected to catch bream. I wasn't disappointed there, taking two bream in the night topped by a big-framed male fish. Both of the bream took mini boilies which pleased me rather since I've switched to a new, fruity flavour and this was the first time I've tried them. I was getting quite a few line bites early in the night and picked the two bream up both before midnight so I thought I might be on for a big hit. The clear sky and nearly full moon put paid to that though, all activity drying up once the white face was on show.

In the morning I started to get line bites to the maggot rods at around ten. This went on for some time until at mid-day the first rod was away and I pulled in a plump five pounder. I've never been so pleased to catch such a modest tench but there was better to come. An hour later I struck into a better fish and after a very hard scrap slid the net under a 7lb 14oz female.

I caught two pike too, one of them a double so it was a nice mixed bag.

Off We Go

Early start for the pike season for Joe and for me - and it was much better than last season's start. It took me several trips even to catch a pike last year but we both had fish this week and I managed to begin to claw my way back into the friendly (?) competition with Joe since I had easily the biggest fish. We took the boat out onto a big glacial venue with livebaits and lures. It's a water I fish from time to time - a lovely lake with the prettiest pike you'll see anywhere.

There's a particular restriction on this lake which keeps the boat traffic to a minimum - petrol outboards are not allowed. This has the double advantage of keeping the Hooray Henries away whilst at the same time cutting down on noise pollution. There's a downside of course, in that it's very much slower going when you have to rely on an electric motor to get about and if there's any wind at all, it can be downright impossible to make any progress against it. In the past this has resulted in me never venturing out if the forecast is for winds of more than 10 miles an hour and of course that means I don't get out on there too often. My electric outboard is a high quality Minn Kota model with maximiser that delivers 55lbs thrust but even that isn't powerful enough in a blow so this year I've taken the plunge and invested in a second motor. I picked up a cheap 54lb thrust Rhino off ebay for £150 during the summer and I put it on the back of the boat alongside the Minn Kota. Using the motors together like this made a big difference to the speed we could get around on the lake and so allowed us to fish more potentially productive areas.

The water was quite coloured, unusually for this lake and the fishing wasn't so good. Joe took two small ones on livebaits and I had two on lures, a six pounder and a lovely 15lb 6oz fish. Both of my fish absolutely engulfed the lure and I had to use the cutters to unhook the bigger one, chopping up the hooks to get them out. Hooks are easily replaced and it isn't worth risking the life of a decent fish by spending too long unhooking it.