What is happening to freshwater fishing?

What is happening to freshwater fishing?

1. Small stillwater trout fishing has brought trout fishing to the masses, however stocking larger and larger trout has devalued the capture of a big wild trout. Even reservoirs are not immune to the stocking of brood fish! Much as I enjoy catching doubles on these fisheries it always feels somewhat artificial.

2. Fishing for those silver tourists, the salmon and sea trout isn't what it was. Even if your wallet can stand the cost, catch returns from most of our rivers are pitiful. How lucky were those anglers who fished before the 1970's when the decline kicked in.

3. What is it about carp Commercial stillwaters are in many cases so seriously overstocked that visiting match anglers have to catch a hundred pounds of pasty carp during a five hour match to stand a chance of the prize money. Visiting pleasure anglers are guaranteed a bite every few minutes. The RSPCA and environment agency stand by and do nothing about this animal cruelty. Overstocking to that extent is cruelty, period!

4. Where are the young anglers ? Those few youngsters that can be tempted away from their screens are obsessed by carp fishing. Youngsters get all the gear, flock to the nearest carp fishery and camp out until they either get bored of carp fishing or catch a big carp or two and give up fishing because camping out for days behind multiple rods is frankly a bit boring and not real angling.

5. When I was younger a twenty pound carp was a real achievement, nowadays there are waters where every fish landed will be a twenty. Carp fishing has gone the way of stillwater trouting which has devalued the sport.

6. Many of our rivers have suffered serious declines. My local welland for example is a shadow of it's former self. Thirty years ago I could walk a mile of river and spot fifty or more chub,and shoals of small fish were everywhere. Now if I walk that same mile of river I am lucky to see any chub and small fish just aren't present. Cormorants clear a stretch of river as soon as the fish reach six inches or so. Otters which have been reintroduced without any consideration of the entire ecosystem pick off the few remaining specimen sized fish to eke out a living. That river of the seventies would have happily supported otters!

Rant over.

PS. Went fishing for the first time in a month and caught a stack of silver bream up to 1lb 7oz. The highlight of my day was seeing "ratty", it must be a decade since I last saw a water vole.

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!

Modern Carp Angling - A Rant!

 Where to catch a grass carp? I have never caught one in Britain although I have had several from France to over twenty pounds. Few waters hold grass carp, and most of those that do, only hold a handful. Elphicks Fishery, a commercial water in Kent has a reasonable stock and the staff advised me to fish their Prairie Lake.

Ideally I would have liked to surface fish to try to select a grassie, however the conditions were against me so I would have to fish blind. The lake was packed to capacity and I slotted in between two long stay anglers as the wind was blowing into that bank. Once the long stay anglers left I figured that the carp would follow the wind and come into the edge. I fished method feeder with popped up corn or white boilie and also float fished the margins. 

Things went to plan and I landed four of the six carp that I saw landed during the day with the biggest a common of around fourteen pounds. 

This is no criticism of Elphicks but I was reminded why I don't often target carp nowadays.

1. I fished a two and a half acre lake today which had nearly thirty carp anglers on it, with swims every ten yards or so. Carp fishing is too popular!

2. Apart from me, to a man two rods were fished to the Island, the tight lines effectively pinning the spooky carp to the island margin. Carp anglers are unimaginative!

3. Why do carp waters have dug outs filled with bark or gravel, not grassy natural banks. Elphicks even had astroturf lining each swim! See no. 6

4. When did the Koi and Ghost Carp escape the pet shop!

4. Does nobody know how to floatfish or use leads under three ounces? Why drop three ounces of lead in the margin and spook fish when a float will get your more bites. Carp have long forgotten what a vertical line means. If I can cast to the island with an ounce why use more?

5. Wheelbarrows.....are they moving house or going fishing?

6. Bivvies the size of double decker buses, I am sure that the carp leap to check out whether there are any carp houses set up before feeding. In years gone by we would have been sat behind screens or reedbeds hidden away.

7. Why on a snag free lake where the maximum cast is perhaps sixty yards stocked largely with singles and doubles do you need three pound test curve rods. This is all about fashion, if you are fishing a weedy lake at range maybe, hoever both Dick Walker and Chris Yates landed record carp from Redmire (a weedy lake) on Mark IV carp rods (1.5lb test curve). 

8. Boilies are not the only bait!

9. Baitboats..................after pushing the barrow presumably they are to knackered to cast!

10. Mallets............aaaarggghhhh

11. Why are there two number 4's in this blog article!

Rant over. 

Such a shame as carp are lovely fish, shame about most carp anglers! At some stage I am going to have to target a grass carp again.

Bitterling and Stillwater Barbel

I failed to locate bitterling on two trips to the Burwell Lode earlier in the summer. In desperation I decided to follow up a tip off that the famous carp bagging water Decoy Lakes near Peterborough contained large numbers of these fish in Willows Lake.

My approach was to fish Crucian style with a pole float in the margins. I planned to fish for the bitterling initially and then set my stall for my first stillwater barbel. My hooklength was 1lb 14oz to a size 24 hook (the smallest I have ever used) baited with a pinkie. Within a few casts I had my target fish.

Bitterling are an interesting fish in that the females develop a tube from the vent known as an ovipositor and through this lay their eggs inside swan mussels. There are small colonies in Cambridgeshire, Shropshire, Cheshire and Lancashire which it is believed resulted from escapes or illegal introductions from aquaria.

Scaling up the hooklength strength to a size 16 hook to 5lb line and fishing at dead depth saw me catch nine small barbel upto maybe two pounds and loads of small carp and F1s despite the cold northerly wind and driving rain.

The barbel I caught appeared to be in perfect condition, however to my mind barbel are a river fish and I suspect that mortality might be high in summer in carp puddles as barbel require highly oxygenated water. I hope I am wrong!

My Metaphorical Jam Jar!

The Anglers Mail carried an article on a "giant stickleback" caught from Head Fen's Snake Lake of 7 drams, apparently the second largest ever caught in Britain.

So rod and metaphorical jam-jar in hand I set off to find this new mecca for specimen sticklebacks! Eventually I found the lakes and had less than three hours to track down a record breaker.

An hour in and I had caught brown goldfish and loads of tiny common and mirror carp on my float fished maggots or pinkies fished on a size 22 hook.

Another hour and two more swims tried, more brown goldfish and small carp to just over the pound. I was starting to get worried.

I swept the landing net through the margins against the reeds. Yep, the evidence was there loads of stickleback fry so the adults must be around somewhere. Eventually after missing loads of bites I connected with a stickleback of average size just before I had to get off the water, the record breaker would have to wait!

Anyone know a stockist for size 26 hooks and magnifying glasses so that I can see to bait up?

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

The weather man predicted that Sunday would see a low pressure system coming in from the west and that rain could be expected just about anywhere. Ideal conditions for a return visit to Mill Farm in Sussex to hopefully catch a specimen silver bream.

I arrived at 7am to find a cloudless sky and went round to the far bank where the water was still in shade cast by the mature trees behind. I set up in the next swim along from where I was last week with one rod float fishing the margin crucian style and the other with a roach style maggot bolt rig fished further out.

On the float line I decided to feed a pinch of mixed dampened pellet (no groundbait allowed) every ten minutes or so with a 6ml sonubaits S pellet on the hook. This light feeding I hoped would encourage the silver bream and crucians without dragging in carp.

During the course of the morning I caught mainly crucians and small silver bream on the float rod. The maggot feeder attracted mainly "pastie" carp and small silvers to around a pound along with a banana shaped male tench. I have noticed in small waters heavily stocked with carp that the tench lose condition. In contrast the crucians were in perfect condition their beauty enhanced by their buttery yellow colouration.

Then it happened, the cloud built up and it started drizzling. It was like flicking a switch, the catch rate improved for the next couple of hours. On several occasions I had two fish on at once. Quality silvers started feeding topped by fish of 1lb 13oz and 1lb 10oz to the maggot feeder.

Mid afternoon the sky cleared and the big silvers went off the feed. After having the swim completely trashed by a twelve pound common (fun on a 2lb bottom)  I decided to pack up around 6pm and start the long journey home.

I had accounted for around thirty crucians, loads of silvers mainly small, stacks of carp, one tench, one decent roach and the smallest bootlace eel it has ever been my misfortune to catch.

As the saying goes every cloud has a silver (bream) lining!

In Search of Silver

There are two species of bream in British freshwater, the common bream and the silver bream. To confuse things further the common bream is also known as the bronze bream and the silver bream also goes by the names white or pomeranian bream.

The bronze bream is bronze and the silver bream, silver? Well, no actually the immature bronze bream is silver and in coloured water the adults can be fairly pale in colour and yet almost black in the clear water of some gravel pits. The silver bream is a rare fish in british waters and can be distinguished from its larger relative by both lateral line counts and its large eye. The pelvic and ventral fins also carry a tinge of orange.

Having experienced a cold and drizzly night after the crucians I decided to try and catch my first silver bream. A twenty mile drive from surrey down into sussex saw me arrive at a day ticket fishery Mill Farm early in the afternoon. This complex which last season produced the british record silver bream does not contain the bronze bream so each bream is the real deal. An hour or so wandering round the complex, talking to the locals saw me settle into a swim on the far bank of the mill pond giving me access to open water. Divide and conquer was my approach, so on one rod I set up a feeder rig to fish maggot big roach style, whilst the other I float fished a rod length out crucian style offering pellet or corn on the hook and feeding a few free offerings every ten minutes or so.

The next six hours were frenetic as I was constantly in action catching silver bream in the 12oz class on both approaches, and loads of small carp which just wouldn't leave the maggots alone! The sensitive float tackle also brought me four pristine crucians to just under two pounds. I also missed loads of bites on the feeder rig. The overcast, drizzly weather was perfect for breaming and my final silver was also my biggest at 1lb 2oz. The sun also came out turning the lake surface silver, not bronze in the late evening light.

Cool for Cats

This time last year the catfish at Anglers Paradise switched on and a number of big fish were caught. Although the weather over the last few months has been colder than average I decided to risk a couple of nights after a catfish.

Easy Access Lake Monday 5th April 2010

I decided to spend my first night after catfish on Easy Access Lake which a few weeks earlier had produced a fish of 45lb to an angler fishing maggots. With a brisk westerly wind blowing into one end of the lake it was likely that carp, tench and orfe would follow the wind and the catfish would follow the food fish.

I decided to fish a 21ml halibut pellet below a method feeder containing scalded pellets and maggots mixed in with some tinned tuna. One rod was fished off an island and the other in open water. Unfortunately only a couple of single figure carp before midnight (one mirror and one common) rewarded my efforts.

Octopussy Lake Tuesday 6th April 2010


A change of venue saw my fishing another lake, octopussy named after the shape of the island in the middle of the lake. Fishing just off the two points of the island in front of me I hoped to intercept fish coming into my bay.

Before midnight I had three runs resulting in a mirror carp of 10lb 1oz and a common carp of 14lb 7oz. Unfortunately on the third run the bobbin tangled and the slack line given to untangle the bobbin resulted in the fish coming adrift.

In the end I decided it really was too cool for cats.