Saturday 27 November 2010

Mad like me?


I love it when you can look out the window on a frosty morning, from your nice warm house, cup of tea on the go and a snuggly cat on you lap and realise you don't have to leave the house all day... Then you think I'll go roach fishing, fishermen are a mad bunch!

This morning I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go after some Wandte roach, so I set off into the cold armed with a few slices of bread and a quiver tip. I snuck into the swim I caught the five pound chub in last week and the first cast met with a good bite and a 3lb 3oz chub.

I did everything I could to minimise disturbing the swim, I'm even lying down in the photo - so I wasn't surprised when the next cast resulted in another good bite. This time I hooked a large pair of white trousers! After pulling these through the swim I knew the game was up.

I moved up stream and had a roach about 6oz and two gudgeon both getting on for 4oz - I'm going to take the kitchen scales at some stage and find out exactly how close to the record these fish are getting. But, for now, I think I need to return to my quest for some winter pike...

Friday 19 November 2010

Over The Drought?


Well with my pike season being slow to take off I thought I'd return to trying to catch my old favourite fish, the chub. I've seen several big chub while scouting out the Wandte, unfortunately by the time you see them they have already seen you.

I opted for a swim I have seen chub in a number of times, about a foot deep with a two and a half foot deep channel, I tackled up well away from the edge and slid into position like a stealth-ninja! I couldn't see them - they couldn't see me.

I fished stinky old luncheon meat on the ledger. About half an hour later I had a gentle rattling bite and connected to a good fish, unfortunately I stood up, spooking the swim, the chub was about 3 pounds but collected a raft of weed before spitting the hook. Disaster!

I thought about changing swim or coming back tomorrow but opted to stay and hope they would return. About two hours of feeding the swim later I had another rattling bite and hit another fish, this time I got it - it's been a while - 5lb 2oz - my best chub for well over 10 years... Yay!


Also, inspired by my brothers fantastic photo albums I decided to make my own (an online version). I had a look at Flickr and a number of other photo hosting sites but in the end I made one from scratch - so it matched my blog. It's here.

Thursday 18 November 2010

Pike Update...


It's been a while since I've put any fishing updates on here, and as you can see I'm not leading with a photo of a pike, it isn't going well... I had a week without my kit when I lent it to a mate who found himself booked onto a carp lake while his kit was in South Africa - he got some nice carp - so it was worth it!

I've been piking on the Thames, as it's a big river I've divided it up on a map and doing 3 hour sessions on small stretches to see if I can locate any... None so far! Haven't even had a run yet but I'm still working on it... Have seen a few pike anglers about, and only one I spoke to had caught a pike, a six pounder from Hampton Court last Saturday. I'm seriously thinking about a trip back to my home-turf of the River Wye and trying to get my pike-mojo back!

In fact I've only caught one fish since I returned from shark fishing - a small dace in a quick barbel fishing trip with Dan a couple of weeks ago. Dan managed one small barbel and is itching to get back to the Wandle... I'm not going to convert him to a pike fisherman at this rate..!