Relics from the Ice Age

In Falkus and Buller's Freshwater Fishing there is a chapter about the Whitefishes. These game fish are an ancient relic of our glacial past and are probably surviving remnants of migratory stocks which became land-locked during the last ice age.

There are two species, the common whitefish (represented by the powan, gwyniad and skelly) and the vendace. Each species is found in only a handful of glacial lakes in Snowdonia, Lake District and Scotland. The powan is the most common of these and is found in Loch Lomond, Loch Eck and Loch Carron.

Very few whitefish have been caught on rod and line, mainly because few anglers have ever tried to catch one. In Freshwater Fishing, Dick Walker speculates how he would set out to catch a powan from Loch Lomond and suggests that they should be regarded as a kind of stillwater grayling. Dick suggested either flyfishing during the summer or fishing worm or maggot during the winter.



Fred Buller once held the British record with a powan of 11.25 oz caught from Balmaha Pier whilst catching roach to use as bait for Lomond's legendary pike.

Powan spawn on gravel shallows at the mouth of the Endrick River and at this time of year, if you are lucky like Buller one may happen along whilst roach fishing from Balmaha Pier.

The introduction of the ruffe to Loch Lomond has impacted badly on the Powan as they feed on the powan's eggs.

I am ashamed to say that it was pike anglers (through discarded livebaits) who introduced the ruffe and other non indigenous species including bream and carp to the loch.

If you have ever wondered how to keep maggots in perfect condition on an extended trip I can reveal a foolproof method. After purchasing your maggots from the tackle shop:

1. Place them in a bucket in your bait fridge and  let them chill off for a couple of hours.

2. Tip the maggots into a polybag, suck out all the air from the bag and tie off.

3. Put an ice block or two in the base of a decent cool box, add a thick layer of newpaper, then place your polybag(s) in maggots in, add another thick layer of newspaper before finishing off with more iceblocks.

When you open the bags the maggots look dead, don't panic as after a couple of hours they will be as lively as the day you bought them from the tackleshop.

My first sight of Lomond did not disappoint, this is a stunning location. My plan was to fish a maggot feeder for roach hoping that a powan might happen along.

Balmaha Pier is a popular location and to avoid the crowds on the Saturday and Sunday I fished to the right of the Pier. I set up a light quivertip rod and started off with a helicopter rig with a short hooklength. Initially I struggled to find my rhythm but by lengthening the hooklength I started catching a few roach, perch and ruffe. Indeed I caught more ruffe in four days on Lomond than in the last 30 years of angling!

On the Sunday one of the anglers on the pier caught a powan of around a pound. It was clear that the bulk of the roach, (and powan?) were about twenty or thirty yards to my left.

I made an early start on Monday to secure the swim. I need not have worried as I had the place to myself.
I started catching roach from the off, pristine little fish in the four to eight ounce bracket with the odd larger fish to a pound. During the course of the day I was lucky enough to bag three powan with the largest at 1lb 2oz.

I returned on the last day of my holiday and managed a further five powan to 1lb 3oz.

It is weird but in the photo's they look more like herring, but in the flesh they look like grayling without that sail like dorsal.  Being a game fish they put up a reasonable fight for their size. Powan must not be kept in nets as they are fragile fish.

I had enjoyed my week with this relic from the Ice age and finally achieved a long held angling ambition.

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 Papal Visit

To commemorate the Pope's recent state visit I decided to pay homage to the fishy equivalent. My pilgrimage took me to the village of Handsacre in Staffordshire and the murky waters of the Trent and Mersey Canal. This member of the perch family is indeed a rarity nowadays and I had failed to locate one on two previous trips to the Grand Union Canal.

I decided to fish just downstream of a bridge using the bridge itself as shelter from the driving rain. After three hours on a mini maggot feeder catching perch, roach and gudgeon I decided to change over to the float. 

First cast the insert waggler slowly dragged under and I lifted into my second ever pope. My prayers had been answered. In light of the driving rain I decided on an early finish.

Isaak Walton knew this little fish as the pope but it is more usually known nowadays as the ruffe. It is also known affectionately by anglers as the daddy ruffe, tommy ruffe or tommy pope. How can such a small, rather drab and insignificant fish have so many names? 

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!

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.