X marks the Spot

For the river angler January to mid March sees the best of the fishing with most species in prime condition. Chub are my favourite target, but I have also had some of my largest roach, dace, perch, grayling and barbel in these last couple of months of the river season.

I am never in a rush to get on the riverbank at this time of year, and it was late morning before I arrived on the banks of the Upper Welland. Although overcast and unseasonably mild I suspected the clear low water would provide difficult fishing.

I scaled down my hooklength to 4lb fluorocarbon as the river was so clear, and only needed a single swanshot to hold station when fishing to the far back. As there are a few decent Perch on this stretch, I decided to bait up with lobworms and reserve the cheesepaste for after dark.

As expected I fished the first four swims without a bite, although I nearly hooked a fully grown labrador. The dogs idiot owner threw it's ball into the river just off my rod tip, which was naturally retrieved. Thankfully the labrador somehow avoided tangling itself up in my line.

The next swim down was a deep hole where one has to poke the rod through a gap in the trees. Here was a deep eddy which Mr Crabtree would have marked with an X for perch. I missed the first bite, the bobbin rose slowly to the rod, bream thought I. Two minutes later another slow and deliberate bite resulted in my largest small river bream to date at 7lb 1oz.

This was followed by an altogether different bite, the bobbin rising in a jerky manner. Perch thought I , and a nicely conditioned perch of 1lb 7oz was netted. The next perch fell off which as I expected killed the swim.

My next swim was a massive flood raft, Mr Crabtree would have marked this with an X for chub. As expected a chub resulted and a good one too at 4lb 14oz. It had the length of a five but was hollow. Revisiting three of the swims I fished earlier through dusk and into the darkling resulted in three further chub to 4lb 8oz.

What a lovely day on a delightful little river,  I somehow think that Mr Crabtree would have approved.

The Grass is greener the other side of Northampton!

Brickhill Farm in Northamptonshire contains a viable stock of grass carp to target. The smaller lake contains six and the larger lake around thirty. Even so they are vastly outnumbered by the king carp varieties. With the weatherman forecasting that Saturday would be a warm sunny day, I knew that the time had come to target a Brickhill grass carp off the surface.

There was a gusty breeze and as I wanted to visually select the grassies I set up on the shallow more sheltered end of the larger lake where the water's surface was calm.


As nothing was showing I set up one rod on a method feeder with artificial corn and the other float fishing either corn or meat in the margins. The morning was uneventful apart from a string of small crucians and a few bits.

After lunch I followed the advice of Brian the fishery owner and moved to the smaller pool, where grass carp were spotted a few days earlier under some overhanging vegetation. As the wind was behind me I fed half a dozen pellets every couple of minutes for around half an hour after which time I had a number of fish competing for the freebies.

Over the next couple of hours I tempted four carp before the swim died. I hadn't spotted any of the six grassies present despite regular circuits of the lake. I then saw an angler on the larger lake land a grass carp on floating crust. It was an easy decision to return to my original swim where over the next few hours Fred (the grassie expert, it was his second of the day) and I landed a string of king carp up to just shy of thirteen pounds on floating crust. The ripple made it difficult to select individual fish but as the evening wore on conditions improved.


I enjoyed the banter with Fred and was genuinely sorry to see him leave. The first cast after Fred's departure saw a grass carp nose the crust without taking. I was beginning to think that time was running out when once again the crust disppeared in a swirl and the controller float zipped accross the surface. Like every other grass carp I have ever hooked it came quietly to the net before going beserk on the bank, hence my pained expression in the photo. At 7lb 2oz it was less than a third of the size of my biggest grassie, but I was over the moon to catch my first from British waters.

I had enjoyed a lovely day, catching around fifteen carp off the surface. True, most were small but on my barbel rod and ten pound line it was first class sport in lovely surroundings with not a baitboat or bivvy in sight!

The grass truly is greener the other side of Northampton and unlike Elphicks, the grass was real not made out of astroturf!

Aliens!

Much of what we think of as British wildlife has been introduced by man. This has been going on for over a thousand years, with the Romans introducing the rabbit and the Normans fallow deer, both for food.

The Victorians were responsible for the introduction of not only animals but also new and exotic plants from indo-china, including the invasive japanese knotweed and the himalayan balsam. The Duke of Bedford introduced alongside mammals such as the munjack deer and grey squirrel, two fish species from eastern europe the wels catfish and zander (known then as the pike-perch).

When you think about it a significant number of the freshwater species available to the angler have been introduced into Britain. Game angling wouldn't be the same without the ever obliging rainbow trout. The mainstay of coarse angling today is the carp, which were introduced by monks in the middle ages as a food source, however the modern carp angler wouldn't recognise the original slim fully scaled wild carp. Todays carp have been breed to grow fast and often resemble a football with fins. This all brings us back to the pumpkinseed fish which resembles a slightly deflated rather brightly coloured football with fins.

The Pumpkinseed was introduced into Britain by the Victorians and has become established in a number of stillwaters, mainly in Sussex.

I spent another day at Tanyard trying to catch a pumpkinseed fish. By lunchtime I was getting concerned as I still hadn't caught a pumpkinseed despite getting a bite every couple of minutes. Following a couple of conversations with other anglers I discovered that they were generally caught 'on the drop'.

After lunch I rigged up a no10 drennan puddlechucker float with a number 8 shot at mid-depth, the remaining shot being placed directly under the float. Each cast was only fished for a minute, although most casts saw a take on the drop as roach and rudd to just over a pound obliged. I did unfortunately lose a big perch (certainly over two pound) when it fell off at the net. By 4pm I had finally caught my pumpkinseed fish after wading through perhaps three or four hundred small fish of various species.

I decided to pack up there and then and check out Coarse Pool 3 to see whether I could locate some grass carp. Despite carp cruising in the surface layers the heavily coloured water made it virtually impossible to single out a grass carp so I decided to stretch my legs and walk around the complex. After a conversation with the baliff I found male pumpkinseeds guarding their nests and fending off all intruders in the margins of specimen lake 2 which incidentally is where the British record was caught.

Leaping Bream and the Elusive Pumpkinseed

As I had a day off work I decided to visit Tanyard Fishery in Sussex to catch the rare pumpkinseed fish, which are found in numbers at this fishery. The pumpkinseed was first brought into Britain from America as an ornamental fish about 100 years ago and by 1917 there were established colonies in several Sussex stillwaters.

After a conversation with the bailiff I set up on the Carp Free Pool float fishing maggot in the margin and felt confident being told that I should catch several during a day. Twelve hours and 200-300 bream, gudgeon, perch,roach, rudd, rudd (golden) and tench later, not one pumpkinseed fish had succumbed! I had fished several swims fishing the margins, alongside trees and marginal reeds. Were the pumpkinseeds spawning or just off the feed?

Have you ever noticed the metallic blue sheen that the gudgeon has, nor had I before now. This species hunt has made me look at and appreciate even the 'tiddlers'. Did you know that the Edwardians had gudgeon parties where ladies fished for and then enjoyed a dish of fried gudgeon cooked whole like whitebait.

I had been told of bream leaping on the end of the line before but dismissed it out of hand, however today I experienced this myself with bream in the 1-2 pound class. They still fight like a wet sack however!

Another Grand Day Out

I decided to revisit the Grand Union Canal at Cosgrove for an evening session after the elusive ruffe. The bridge swim I fished last time was occupied so I walked downstream to a lock where I hoped ruffe and perch would be lying alongside the brickwork.

Unfortunately I had forgotten the quivertip section to my rod, so I improvised and float legered with a 2BB insert waggler and a small feeder.  Casting tight to the wall on the far bank and alternating redworm and red maggot on the hook, I had a bite most casts, mainly small perch and skimmer bream.  Although born of neccessity I am sure that I connected with a far higher percentage of bites on my "Heath Robinson" float leger than I ever would have done on the quivertip.

In the last hour I caught two decent perch with the larger just an ounce shy of two pounds. I might not be able to catch my target ruffe but I will be back during the winter and early spring after the big perch that undoubtedly reside in the Grand Union Canal.

A Grand Day Out

The building of the Grand Union Canal was first authorised by an act of parliament in 1793, and linked London and Birmingham.

My target today was a ruffe also known as the pope. This mini species is a member of the perch family and research had revealed that ruffe could be found in the canal at Cosgrove.

Mr Crabtree didn't provide any advice on locating daddy ruffe so I sought out the bridges and locks around Cosgrove before setling on a bridge where the canal narrowed.

The gothic style bridge was built in the 1790's at the insistence of the local landowner (the biggins family) and is one of only two ornamental bridges over the canal. Sitting just above the bridge I could cast a small feeder right under the bridge tight in to the bank where I hoped that perch and ruffe were lying.

The first canal boat was not long in coming and neither was my first bite, a small perch. Over the next hour several more canal boats came through the bridge, surprisingly this did not appear to have any detrimental effect on sport and most casts saw the quivertip pull round and the tally of small perch grew. A small bream of perhaps a couple of pounds followed, the first of five skimmer bream. Occasionally I switched from maggot to half a worm which made no difference to the number of bites although the skimmer bream seemed to prefer worm.

A couple of decent perch the largest 1lb 9oz came amongst the smaller fish. Normally in coloured water perch lack the bold stripes and strong colouring of those in clear waters and the colours are washed out but these canal fish defied the norm. A couple of palm sized rudd as the light was fading completed what had been a grand day out.

One almighty stretch!

Another week of below average temperatures meant that my planned river perching session would have to wait. Instead I opted to go chub fishing on the Welland, revisiting the stretch I fished last week. The river had fined down nicely and carried a greenish tinge with the bottom visible in eighteen inches of water, perfect.

 My approach to small rivers is simple, I fish each likely spot for about twenty minutes before moving onto the next swim. Although many anglers recommend baiting half a dozen swims before fishing, I prefer to introduce the hook bait only as I feel that this approach offers a better chance of catching the largest chub in the group.

During the course of the day I had three chub to 4lb 6oz, although I could easily have had a couple more! Just before dusk I decided to fish a tree lined eddy where I hoped that a perch might be in residence. There was just enough room to poke a rod through the branches and flick a lobworm just off the crease (the junction between the flow and slacker water). After five minutes the bobbin moved steadily up to the rod and a controlled strike connected. I soon saw the broad flank of a decent river bream on the surface, however due to overhead branches I struggled to get the fish within reach of my net. With one last almighty stretch a large river bream, which weighed 6lb 12oz finally came over the net.