"The More You Know"

On Saturday my friend and I fished for Carp at Oak Hanger fisheries near Crewe Cheshire these fish were caught on 10 metre pole with pellet and paste.
Notice the guy in the back ground he was in the process of attempting to retrieve the top two sections of his pole which where floating across the lake.

Which brings to mind, a fundamental rule in most clubs and fisheries never to leave you rods or poles baited up in the water unattended, this is bad practice and common sense not to do so!

Personally I don't like to see this, and people who ignore it should not be allowed to fish there again! perhaps they should also consider the probability of the costly consequences before doing so!!

However just for the record total weight of this bag of carp was 52lbs just about as much as you should respectfully keep in one net.


Hopefully this post may be of help to those young Anglers amongst you, who may be reading my blog.

As you will no doubt be aware I have been around for sometime now! and although I have not achieved the success I would have liked, I have learned a great deal from some very good Anglers who were always willing to provide me with information,with regards to methods and the best baits to use!!

Which just reminds me of a simple quote made by former world Angling champion Ian Heaps, whom I have had the pleasure to meet on several occasions, a true gentleman and a real ambassador in the sport "The more you know the more you catch"a quote of which I am regularly being reminded of each time I return home from what I consider to be a good day!!

For example on this particular occasion after previous visits to this water, we had learned that there was an abundance of skimmer bream to be caught almost on every peg.

This time I decided to target the Carp as I had heard that you could not win a match with skimmers. Therefore I decided to keep it as simple and as cheap as possible , instead of the usual casters and chop worms as bait I took micro pellets, some six ml pellets and some paste.

I had soaked both the micro's and the six ml pellets separately, in some special additive mixed with cold water in the fridge over night, the benefit in doing this is three fold it helps the pellets to evenly absorb the additive.

It also helps you to feed them in a small toss pot, as they are better than feeding them dry because they stick to the pot, and don't bounce out as easy, when you ship out with them. They also break down faster on the bottom leaving a nice bed of ground bait, initially I fed two full pots and then continued to feed half a pot full every put in.

Personally I am not a great believer in the use of additives, preferring to keep things as simple as possible, but if it helps to build your confidence up there is no harm in it! However on this occasion it seemed to work a treat and certainly didn't prevent the fish feeding, so there just might be something in experimenting with additives after all !!

But if I was to choose a golden rule in Angling this would be, whatever you feed to feed it on a regular basis all the time! You will often hear Many Anglers describe how you should feed a swim, by the numbers of fish they are catching e g: feed every three or four fish! Although this is a good yard stick.

Another way of looking at how to feed a swim, is by the response you get from the fish in front of you "the number of bites", the logic being the more bites you are getting the more fish in the swim. If these bites result in carp what you must remember is carp will consume a great deal of food, especially on these commercial fisheries where they usually are plenty full.

What you must also consider is the depth you have in front of you, if say you have shallow water in front of you it would be a waste of time piling in plenty of food . This could possibly attract to many fish into the swim at one time, and result in to many fowl hooked fish. And as a consequence you may also lose the shoal eventually!

On the other hand if you are fishing deeper water say five to six feet, there is more water for them to select their food confidently, and if carp are the main fish you are catching then a toss pot full every put in can work well, if bites start to slow up then all you do is gradually reduce this to half a pot full.

A good general guide is to feed every three or four bites. Even if you miss a bite you should consider this a fish.

If bites are slow you have a number of options, you can try either fishing up in the water,
as with constant loose feed entering the swim, the fish may have moved up in the water to intercept your feed, if they are hungry!! Or you can put a large pot full in and rest the swim for 20 minutes or so and fish another line in the hope the fish will feed on the bottom again when you return to fish that line. It's all a matter of judgement!!

Some very good Anglers I know prefer to feed as many as three or four swims and take one or two fish from each swim, mostly on these heavily fished commercial canal type venues, where the water is shallow.

Having said that knowledge of the water your fishing and the fish you are attempting to catch is equally as important, as some waters which contain large shoals of fish can respond to large initial quantities of feed, this is better known as bulk feeding, this method of feeding is usually preferred if Bream are the target and you have depth in front of you! get this right and you will most definitely put more fish in the net.

But if you choose to feed like this you must also remember "what you put in you can't take out".

I hope you have all enjoyed reading this post as I have in creating it, and remember "The more you know the more you catch" Knowledge is the key to success!

By the way I hope the guy in the picture remembers to take a spare top two sections of pole with him next time.

I know I will be taking two nets this weekend so until next time tight lines!!

Fishing On The Whip!

This catch proves the more you know the more you catch! these fish where caught at Oak Hanger Fisheries near Crewe Cheshire. my mate and I had fished this on two previous occasions.

On our first visit we did OK! but as it was some time in January and the water was clear with ice on it! we decided to fish out in to the deeper water at about 10mt rs on the pole.

This was around about seven feet deep,a good depth for winter fishing! personally I expected to catch there but all we caught were gudgeon small Rudd and roach but as usual I had fed two areas as a secondary measure. At 10mt rs I had fed chopped worm and casters and at 3mt rs all I fed was some loose casters giving myself two options.

I had tried the 3metre line a couple of times during the day, but didn't appear to be getting many bites, so I persevered with the long pole, deciding to fish close in during the last hour or so.

This is a tactic employed by a lot of the top flight match men, and more often than not can provide you with some big surprises, and it did as I caught a carp of about 3lbs and some decent Roach on casters.

However we had a reasonable catch considering the conditions, but on reflection I felt that the majority of fish could be caught at close range! the picture above is the result. Although the weather had improved slightly this has reassured me that their are more fish to be had at 3mt rs.

Consequently after our second visit and always wanting to improve on the previous catch, I decided to feed hemp and casters and to try the whip but with a slight difference. I have just recently bought a set of whips and have substituted the top section of the 3metre whip, by incorporating a no: six to eight elastic in to a very fine hollow tip which I found in my garage

You might think this is somewhat unorthodox, however I can assure you it works and helps you to subdue those extra bonus fish that may enter your swim! it worked perfectly for me as you can see from the picture below, I was able to cope with small carp up to 1lb 8oz .

John and I fished with single red maggots on size 18 hooks, myself changing to caster later on because it seemed that I was catching far to many gudgeon. Although you had to re-bait up more often with caster it proved to be worth while because this change produced more Crucian carp which were bigger.

It was also an added bonus not needing my glasses for these! for a fiver a day it is certainly worth a visit, especially when you consider you are also able to see what you have caught at the end of the day, "as keep nets are allowed". John and I agreed it was a pleasure to catch such a mixed net of fish!! "Tight lines"

" The Last Straw "

This was a nice common Carp which I caught, on a recent visit to one of my favourite waters in Sandbach Cheshire.

This was part of a double figure net of fish which I mentioned in my previous post.

This was caught using an old fashioned Drinking straw float which I had made, with approximately a one inch length of eighth inch brass welding rod incorporated, and glued into the base .

The line is threaded through a three eighths inch piece of valve rubber. Then the float is just pushed into this, "simplicity in it's self" The top of the float is Sealed with a tiny piece of balsa wood, and then painted, these floats were used many years ago! and I believe were originally designed for fishing towards the far bank of Canals.

They don't seem to be used a great deal these day's! largely due to the development of long poles, and the introduction of loaded crystal wagglers.

But having said that they are a great float to use, and cost next to nothing to make.
The last person I can recall using one was "Angling legend", and former World Angling champion Kevin Ashurst.

It goes without saying if they were good enough for him, then they are a float well worth having amongst your collection. They are especially good when used on small still waters from two to five feet in depth I would say!

These floats are made with the majority of the weight built into the base, so that when they cock up in the water! there is about three quarters of an inch showing on the surface, this should allow for about no more than two number eight shot to be spread down the line.

This should then leave approximately an eighth of an inch showing on the surface, so you can then detect the shyest of bites.

In fact this was the float I used many years ago! to win my very first open match on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Yorkshire; with bread punch on the hook, before the introduction of long poles.

They are very simple to make! so if you have the time why not try them out? They are very sensitive, cast well! and a sheer delight to use . By the way they are also less costly and easy to replace.

so until next time bye for now and tight lines!

"THE DINGLE"

This was one of my favourite local venues a place where I used to visit many years ago! a place where the matches were mostly dominated by carp.

It certainly looks as though times have changed since those days, and the clubs restocking program has with out doubt improved the fishing.

With the introduction of some quality fish such as Tench, ide, chub, and Perch you never know what you are going to catch!

On two or three recent visits my friend and I have had mixed nets of fish, as you will see from the photo, each time we have fished it we have had similar weights just into double figures. Considering the prolonged cold weather
we have had I don't think we have done too badly!

All methods and baits can work well on here, for instance I fished on the waggler float on one occasion, and caught carp, tench, skimmer bream, chub, ide, and roach, fishing with casters on the hook.

The only draw back was that with not having fished on a waggler for many years, I lost most of them fishing towards an island. Never the less one of the clubs officials has kindly promised to retrieve them for me! having said that I have taken the precaution of making some more for next time.

I have been told that the club have also introduced barbel into Peggy's pool, which is the smaller of the two lakes.

This catch was taken on a ten mtr pole with maggots casters and the odd piece of corn on the hook, over a bed of hemp seed and casters although I am told that sweet corn is the bait to use, I didn't get many bites when I tried it. Perhaps it will work better during the summer months if we get one!!

There are plenty of crucian carp to be caught and I do know they love sweet corn, it might be a little early in the year for them to show up yet though.

One thing I have learned on this lake, is that if your swim does happen to go quiet, you can almost guarantee a predator has moved in, or even a shoal of Carp.

This seems to be a common occurrence on a lot of waters, I have fished, and to some extent it largely depends on how you feed it, how the fish respond.

This can also be the signal to try a bigger bait or change it to something else, this has worked for me each time I have been there. A good yard stick is to keep ringing the changes, and try not to be complacent you may be surprised at the results as I was!

Another scenario is that, the fish may have risen up in the water to intercept your loose offerings. This tends to happen if you start to introduce loose feed on a very regular basis, and of course when the fish are very hungry!! mostly during the warmer Months.

So as always it would make sense to have a rig set up in order to fish shallow, just in case this appears to be what has happened.

I am certainly looking forward to the new season, and my friend and I will be getting in as much practice as possible for the forth coming matches.

Hopefully we will get amongst the fish and improve our catches! "although pleasure fishing is a completely different concept to matches".
I am looking forward to getting to know more about the lake.

Will keep you posted on the results if any? tight lines.

"Mild Conditions"

This was a nice surprise these fish were taken during the Month of October 2007!!

On a lake about a mile from where I live, considering the awful weather we had during last year, on this particular day the weather was kind to us.

It is a comparatively small lake and from a previous visit I knew there were more fish to be caught, the last time my friend John and I fished it, we fished towards a small Island in more or less the same conditions.
After not Having caught anything of note on our last visit, this time before we started to set up. I decided to set my pole up at 11mtrs, with a float and plummet on, and take a stroll around the lake just to find out where the deepest part was.

After returning from my trek I explained to my mate John that the lake appeared to be pretty much uniform in depth, and there seemed little point in walking to far to find a comfortable area to fish.

Many years ago it was not to difficult to find a likely spot to fish, a good yard stick was the bank side vegetation, which was usually trampled down and worn out. But these days like this fishery, there are the uniformed duck boards or pallets to place your box on.

This lake had two shelves and dropped off to about 7ft deep at approximately 11mtrs out from the bank side on most of the pegs. We decided to fish were we stood, so I set up a 1-50Gram pole float with an Olivette approximately 21 inches from the hook and two tiny no 10 micro shot droppers, the first one 6inches from the hook and another one at approximately 4inches from the other.

I always prefer to keep things as simple as possible and as a rule try not to clutter things up on my rigs, the simpler the better! both of us had quite a respectable catch and being in October! a very unusual one at that, it just goes to show that contrary to popular belief Crucian carp will feed in winter .

It was as important as always when fishing for Crucians, to dot your float down to as close to the surface of the water as is visibly possible, because they can give you the most delicate of bites.

More often than not they will pick your bait up from the bottom of the lake, and if you have plumbed and set the float to the correct depth, this results in a lifting of the float. You can bet your life on it when this happens they are yours if you time it properly.

We caught most of these fish using single and double red maggots, on size 20 hooks and on an occasional piece of sweet corn, fished over a bed of chopped worm and casters. For some unknown reason they would not take a worm?

We have had a very poor time recently due to the weather once again, but never the less I will keep you posted when we have another catch to remember !! so until next October tight lines !!!

"Pleased As Punch"

Look Closely At The picture.
you will notice how dark it is
this was taken late in the day
as we were packing up!
This was typical of my friend
John, how on earth he hid this fish from me I will never know?
These fish where caught at a place called Oak Hanger fisheries, near Crewe Cheshire, a place were we had fished for the first time

Whilst fishing, we were visited by one of the local match anglers, who suggested to us that we would not catch many fish, where we were fishing, he then went on to tell us that the swims we were fishing, produced better results during the Summer Months!.

However who was I to argue? but once we had sat down it would have been a waist of time to move somewhere else, besides we had caught some fish, although they were only small six to eight ounce skimmer bream, and roach, we were still getting bites.

As usual whilst we were talking my swim had gone quiet, and I wasn't catching much, but not long after he'd gone and as I was just beginning to think he was right, I decided to throw caution to the wind, and introduce more feed into the swim, not long after doing this bubbles appeared on the surface directly under my float.

I knew these were of course tell tale bubbles of something bigger down under, immediately I linked this to be the reason for the reduced number of bites I was getting, as it is a common occurrence that smaller fish tend to move off from larger fish as they feed, they tend to bully them away, until they have had their fill.

Or get hooked like this one did! all of a sudden my float disappeared, and I new I was into something a little bigger than what we had been catching. My thoughts were confirmed when I slipped the net under a carp of two to three pounds.

After putting the fish in my net I got off my seat, and knowing John hadn't caught anything of note, I asked him if he had some micro pellets he said he hadn't, I took some over to him and told him what I had done, he then fed his swim with a good pot full of micro pellets, and within five minutes or so landed a carp of around two pounds.

Like myself John retired from competition fishing some time ago, but is thinking of fishing some club competitions in the future, you could see by his face he was as pleased as punch to know he has not lost his touch, we both fished on the pole a method that is relatively strange to him,but a method he is mastering very well.

Although we are only fishing for pleasure there is always the pride at the end of the day, and of course something to reel your mate in with!

Having said that there was not much to choose between us, as we had identical catches , apart from the fish John had under his coat at the end of the session?

For both of us to catch double figure weights in a seemingly poor area, was most encouraging to say the least, and as a result of that visit we will be returning, next time in competition perhaps.

Having said that if John decides to fish I shall be watching him very closely.
So until next time bye for now.

"Water Under The Bridge"

This is a picture of a lake in Cheshire where my friend and I fished last weekend. If you are looking for a bridge you probably won't see one because it's a motorway bridge, you can just make out the sign in the background.
Picturesque yes, but it was also very noisy!


My first introduction into match Angling, couldn't have got off to a better start, since then, match fishing has always been my passion. Ever since the day, I won my very first open on the Leeds and Liverpool canal in Yorkshire, some thirty years ago.

This match was fished on a Saturday during the winter months,with a mild frost the night before. Seventy five Anglers took part in this event and although I had won it, back at the HQ, I was criticized for fishing it completely wrong, by one of the top local experts.

Without doubt I felt very perturbed and bemused at what was said, was this what it was always like when someone one won a match? I asked myself! However I soon discovered this was not the case and went on to make many friends since.

Still shivering with excitement from the day before, I had been told that there was another open , this time on the River Aire, a River I had not seen or even heard of, after making some inquiries where the draw was to be held ,and also having some cash in my pocket, I decided to give it a go.

A chance to prove the critics wrong I thought! a chance to prove the day before was no fluke. "Although it was in a sense", because all I had taken with me on the day was bread, I had forgot to take my other bait with me and had left this at home.

Which just goes to show that a positive single minded approach can yield results be it accidental or not. It wasn't long for Sunday to arrive and with a lack of sleep, I woke up to a very miserable day, there was snow on the ground I thought the match may be cancelled! However filled with elation and enthusiasm from the day before I turned up at the draw, to my relief the match wasn't cancelled!

To cut a long story short five hours later I was to discover I had won once again . My name appeared twice the following day in the local paper, and ever since that weekend I have been hooked on match fishing.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since those days, but it's not all about winning, you do meet a great number of people and make a lot of friends in the process. Beware though I have just invested in a new pair of glasses tight lines.

"A Friend And Comedian"

A recent acquaintance who is relatively new to the art of pole fishing, who has recently acquired a pole and is currently catching more fish with it.

Isn't it strange how some people take better photographs than others?

If you look closely you will notice how cold it was. Note the ice in the back ground.

Regardless of this we still managed to catch some fish,not very many, but his jokes more than made up for it.These days I tend to do more pleasure fishing, and have not fished seriously for ten years.

Now that my children are grown up,and I have more time on my hands, I expect to be on the banks a lot more often, especially during the warmer Months.

However the urge to fish matches is slowly returning, and if I manage to keep going like my new found friend, "only one of your jokes mate" I feel quite confident of catching and putting plenty more fish in My net!!!

The Michelin man

Katerina

This is one of the many carp my daughter

caught on pole in the margins on Bay Malton Angling Club waters.

She went on to win all of her trophies there. During the same year she also finished second in the junior championships against all the lads.

As always it was down to the last match of the series, in order to decide the winner it was so close. but it was not entirely her fault she probably would have won it, had it not been for me helping her to make a wrong decision. We knew from previous visits the peg numbers where the bigger fish, such as carp could be caught in any numbers, and we also knew the poorer areas, where you had to concentrate and fish very hard in order to do well.

Unfortunately my heart sank when she drew one of these poor pegs, I knew that she would probably catch smaller fish in the open water, I also knew the fish might come up in the water to feed. So she tackled up accordingly to our match plan, this was to set up two rigs one for fishing up in the water, and one for fishing on the bottom. Then to feed three cups of chopped worms some sweetcorn and casters, it was about four and a half foot deep and the plan was to put quite a lot of feed on the bottom.

In the hope that they would stay, where they are far easier to catch, and if the fish came up to feed we would be rigged up ready for them.The plan was to fish on the bottom for at least an hour, and wait for any signs of them coming up in the water to accept the loose offerings. But what happened was the fish came up far sooner than I anticipated, "she knew this" and about thirty minutes in to the match, she said she wanted to fish up in the water, I told her to carry on with the way she was fishing, because she had already caught about six fish, and was still getting bites.

I also had it in the back of my mind that she had never fished up in the water before, and hadn't practiced how to do it, never the less she picked up her other rig and almost immediately she took fish after fish.feeding casters every thirty seconds or so to hold a pole and do this believe me takes some practice.But she certainly adapted to this method almost right away.

I had to apologise to her when the match was over, because I could see how devastated she was when she had learnt, that she had come second in the match, and also as a result ending up in the championship as runner up.

Never mind Katerina you were better than the rest. xxx

Winter Fishing

Fishing like this enabled me
to keep my hands in my pockets










Me with a smile of a recent catch

This is a net of skimmer bream and small roach which I caught, on 5th January 2008. These were caught using the quiver tip and a small open ended feeder, and single red maggot tied to a small size 20 hook. The wind was bitterly cold so I decided to fish like this rather than sit there with a pole in my hands.

The bites were very finicky but what I found out was, although you would normally think that with it being so cold the fish would not be willing to take a moving bait. This was not the case as nearly every time I moved the bait by gently lifting, and pulling the swim feeder towards me I almost immediately had a bite.

This is a tactic that is commonly used by match anglers, that can be very effective and does help to induce bites when the fish are reluctant to swim off with your bait. Although the fish were relatively small and I didn't end up with a huge weight it ended up to be a very pleasurable day.

So next time you go fishing don't sit there with your hands in your pockets, "get a move on" I will keep you posted, so until next time bye for now.

Team or individual?

Perhaps this may seem alien to some of you,but I believe there are in fact three distinct types of competition angler,that is " the team angler- the individual angler - and the natural angler". However I will make an attempt to explain, first of all it may be appropriate for me to start with the team angler, as this was what I was so closely involved in hence do have a little bit more of an understanding. It may also be appropriate for me to explain how most organizers decide on who has won what! and how team events are ran.

Most team events are commonly decided on a points system, say for instance you have four teams consisting of twenty five anglers, you would then have one hundred anglers competing, they would then be divided in to four sections, of twenty five anglers, then the person who has caught the top weight out of twenty five anglers would receive the maximum number of points available, which would be twenty five, the next weight nearest to that would receive twenty four and so on.

Until you get to the person who has caught nothing, which does and unfortunately for some can happen?. More often than not this scenario appears to happen during the Winter months. If at the end of the day there is a tie on points then the teams results are decided on the weight factor.

Of course it is no shame to catch nothing because on some waters, there are just no fish willing to open their mouths. this became clear to me during a National Team Championship, which I fished with a team of Yorkshire lads on the River Ancholme we came third overall winning a silver medal, in fact we were the only team on the day not to have a man without a fish.

This was such a memorable experience for me for a number of reasons basically because this was my very first National, and you guessed it, the man with the lowest scoring points was yours truly. But having said that I was still pleased with my efforts as we had the highly fancied smithies team on the very next peg to us, and they did no better than sixteenth. There where ten blank pegs either side of me and all I managed to catch were two minute transparent Tommy ruff which weighed a total of four drams, not bad eh!

The difference between an individual and a team angler as I see it, is the manner in which they approach their fishing, with regards to feeding the fish, that may or may not be in front of them. More often than not you will find that the team angler has practiced on the water they intend to fish as a team, then hold a meeting to discuss what each of them has learned about the water. For example where the good and the bad areas are, this is important to them as every angler relies on one another to catch a fish, no matter how big or small in order to gain points for the team.

There is a common accepted philosophy in fishing, which is, you can't take out what you have put in, in other words if you throw, or put to much feed in to the water where you intend to fish. Then if there are not many fish there you are certainly going to fill them up, or even worse they won't necessarily get to your bait.

Therefore the little and often approach for the team is most often employed, specifically on hard fished waters such as the ordinary navigational canals. Having said that it does also work on some commercial fisheries now that they have been established and more regularly fished.

This tactic is not so important to the individual angler as their approach is quite often more positive, were as they tend to introduce large quantities of feed initially. Both approaches do work but having said that knowledge about were you intend to fish is with out doubt the key to being successful.

Trent & Mersey Canal & Tetton Lake.

I think most of you will agree it has been a miserable year for fishing during 2007, I can't ever remember taking off my winter gear. However I did have a reasonable amount of success during the early part of the season, I believe this was largely due to the fact the fish had spawned and were rather hungry.

I have found this to be quite common on most waters after the fish have spawned, they seem to be somewhat easier to catch, never the less as usual my big catches dwindled as the season progressed.

After winning a number of small local matches on one of my favorite venues which I can't mention, as the angling club which I am a member of, has very stringent rules with regards to any publicity.

However I did have further success in the two open matches I fished, on waters that I had only fished on about two or three occasions some ten years ago. With these waters being in the same proximity, I figured they would hold the same species, as it turned out my theory was
proved right as I won both matches with similar fish which were bream and crucians.


The first of which was the poppy day match which had a full turn out of 50 anglers quite a prestigious match to win in the old day's, although many years ago they used to have some 300 anglers arriving on the banks.

The usual venue was the Trent and Mersey canal but more recently and unfortunately since the lack of interest in the hard fished navigational canals and the ever increasing commercial fisheries cropping up these waters are far less occupied. With the reduced numbers turning up for this event Tetton lake was chosen for the venue in Sandbach.

However I was delighted to have found that I had won this match for the second time, as I had been knocking on the door for a number of years prior to winning it. Further to my delight I found I had won more money, than when I had won all those years ago even with far fewer anglers taking part.

After not having competed in matches for some ten years or so, last year has brought back some very memorable times on the banks, and I intend to do a lot more fishing now my children have left home, hopefully the weather will improve next season.

Just for the record the matches I won last year were won using the pole, the way most anglers fish these days it's a great feeling doing something you love,"the rewards are a bonus".