Back Door Man

I spent the morning trouting again amidst some spectacular scenery.

I moved a couple of real brutes in the fast pocket water but in the clear, bright conditions the fish were super spooky.

This little warrior fought well above his weight.

As I reached home with the rod still rigged it seemed rude not to give the perch a chance to grab my little crank baits.

Stunning little creatures.

Spots

If pushed to categorise myself as an angler I would probably call myself a specimen hunter, preferring venues and techniques which are more likely to produce big fish. That said I have a weakness for fishing the wild and unexplored streams of which there are many in Lancashire.

These streams are, in the main thin, stony affairs where the fish struggle to sustain themselves and are populated with small brown trout with the occasional chub.They provide amazing sport taken on ultra light tackle and a fix to a moving water junkie in the coarse closed season.

At this time of the year these small valleys are paved with carpets of wild garlic and bluebells patterned with myriad spring flowers, the light filtered through the acid greens of new foliage.

Often these small streams are best tackled by careful wading but when the water is as low as it is currently and when the water is unruffled by the breeze I find it better to stay on the bank and use what ever cover the vegetation provides. I love exploring new ground and it often involves walking long distances and many trips up and down the bank in order to find a place where it is possible to thread a cast under the  trees. This is often one shot fishing with takes coming in the first run through a riffle or pool. In water often only a few inches deep spooked fish go tearing off, either upstream or down, alerting their stream mates of the imminent danger.

Wanting to take advantage of the light evenings I returned to an area I haven't visited in years to explore a new stretch of this particular ribbon of water.

My preferred set up is a 5'6'' Majorcraft Trapara rated for lures up to 3g, a mini Abu fixed spool reel loaded with 4lb mono and small crank baits.

The action was instant with fish hitting lures everywhere it was possible to present one. The shallow water means that the fish often go air born, cartwheeling repeatedly before being tamed. What these fish lack in size they compensate for with attitude and sheer beauty, each one in its unique garb.

The Halco Sorcerer is my all time favourite in low water conditions, it has a super tight wiggle and due to its arched shape a rare ability to tick over the bed without constantly getting hung up. As the bill contacts the stones it goes veering off in a new direction and does a superb impersonation of a fleeing meal. The brown trout pattern is often the most productive, revealing the cannibalistic nature of these protein starved fish.

I regularly lose all sense of the time when engaged in this type of fishing, constantly wanting to see what lies around the bend and find myself miles from where I started.

For all I love the satisfaction of big fish captures I hope I always find joy lost by these small streams.

Children With Cancer 2015

Thanks to those of you still looking in even though it's been some time since I blogged. I haven't fished for over two months so I've had little to report.
I know one young reader, Dan Barlow has been missing the catch reports, so this one is for you Dan.
Wednesday saw the 2015 charity event in support of 'Children With Cancer' which is organised annually by Keith Edmunds and held at Suffolk Water Park on their Big Lake.

With strong winds already blowing pegs were initially drawn on the sheltered sides of the lake. Anglers had to stay in their allocated peg for 20 minutes before being allowed to roam at will.
I failed to stir any interest in the first swim and soon moved of down the lake and into the teeth of the strengthening breeze.
In the next  swim I found a friend just unhooking and weighing a good fish which turned out to be a PB!

I had a couple of hits and misses before finally getting one to stick. I played it to my feet at which point it rolled and very expertly spat the hooks!. This event is more about the cause than the fish or the fishing but losing fish is always frustrating! About half way down the lake and an hour into the competition this little beauty took a liking to one of my hybrid tailbaits, These lure which are made from the Savage gear Butch lures and the Real Eels made by the same company have become a firm favourite and, as on this occasion, saved many blank days. Quite by accident they have almost perfectly neutral buoyancy. They just hang on the stop and I can change from an ultra slow rise (about 30s per foot) to a super slow fall just by changing the trace. Long stops followed by a sudden dart have produced fish on the most difficult of days.

The tail on my most productive hybrid has seen lots of action and was a bit worse for wear and after a little nip during a retrieve came back a little on the short side! Fortunately I have a few of these and switched to a different pattern.

As the day wore on the winds got stronger and stronger making throwing large (and not very aerodynamic) lures increasingly difficult and it wasn't until late in the afternoon that I finally managed to tempt a better fish.

The wind and rain of the previous few days had stirred the relatively shallow lake up and visibility was very much reduced from my last visit to the lake and consequently the lake fished much harder. Nonetheless one of the anglers banked his first 20 lb fish, mid doubles were caught alongside a good number of fish in single figures.

The day finished with the raffle of prizes donated by the anglers and supporting businesses. It was a great day despite the tough conditions and the money raised is going to a great cause. The link below is for anyone who would like to contribute

https://www.justgiving.com/Keith-Edmunds2

Last year I drove to the event in the early morning, fished all day then did the long journey home in the evening (a 520 mile round trip!). Coupled with work the next day it nearly finished me off!.
This year a friend offered to put me up the night before so I had a leisurely drive down on Tuesday afternoon, a lovely meal and a decent nights kip followed by a full English breakfast ....absolute heaven.
So I end with a massive thank you to Ste and Kaz for their fantastic hospitality and for making supporting this event so much easier.

#EastnotSouth

Floundering

Had a recce around Preston Marina today in the hope that the area might give me my first lure caught flounder. Although the marina is actually a few miles from the sea a quick surf had revealed reports of flounder being caught from 'The Bullnose' - a structure between the first basin in the marina and the river.

A minus 4 degrees walk to the car and a beautiful sunrise.

 Sky hooks attached to the heavy fog!

Upstream towards the city.

Seawards

 A guy bait fishing for them had a small one while I was there so I know they are there!

Happy New Year.....

...to all of you. Thanks for reading and I hope I can entertain you further in 2015.

Cut Perch

As the river has been in flood for a couple of weeks I've enjoyed trying to get to grips with some canal perch. Both sessions saw low overnight temperatures and cold, blustery conditions with wintery showers. These are never going to be easy days and I tried a few different presentations before finding that dragging a lure very slowly across the bottom to be the way to winkle the fish out.

Do Not Apply

There is so much being written about the drop shot rig at the moment I've been moved to add this to the Drop Shot section of my blog.

When I first put the blog together I stuck to the mechanics of drop shot. I'd been using it in my perch fishing for a while and felt there was so much variation in the way it could be used that, attempting to describe ways of fishing the rig would be pretty pointless.
I do not belong to the 'I've been using it for years brigade' as if some cudos arises from being told about it or discovering it before others. It is a very old technique, two decades or more, even as it is used today and yes, the paternoster rig with hook above weight has been around for even longer.
I'm not claiming any particular expertise but I love the technique and have gained experience over many sessions. Here is some of what I have picked up.

The first comment often to come out in any discussion is that it is a boring technique. If that means chucking a DS rig out, leaving it completely static and maybe jiggling it about it a bit and blanking, I guess I would agree - I would get bored very quickly too.
A completely static presentation is hardly effective lure fishing in my book and waiting for a fish in any venue to find a lure and then to hope it will be enticed into taking it would, for me, be time spent poorly.  I got hooked watching guys who were already profficient when I first became interested in it and found it endlessly fascinating. 

Is there anything completely unique about the drop shot presentation - something that cannot be replicated or approximated to in another way? I can think of only one - the ability to stop and hang a lure in one position in flowing water. That said, there are other features which make it a useful technique in other circumstances. If you can see the bottom or are completely familiar with the bottom contours of the water it might be possible to retrieve a lure at  a constant height above the deck and keep it in the kill zone for the whole retrieve. In any other situation a DS rig will do that job better.

A DS rig allows a lure to be fished around both natural and man-made features very effectively. It is often possible to lower a DS rig in causing minimal disturbance. If the approach has been stealthy it can produce an almost instant hit and if not, it is often only a short time before a fish moves out of the feature to take the lure. Given that neither of those events have come to pass, leaving the rig in place is a fairly pointless activity. You may be lucky if you left it long enough to bank a fish but I need to go hunting in these circumstances. My first response would be to run the lure past the feature, maybe parallel to the shore along the reed bed or a short cast past the trees, bushes or logs and a retrieve working the lure as close as possible to it. 'Run it past' can mean a steady retrieve, fast or slow or a retrieve with pauses, long or short. Therein lies one of the many fascinations for me - an almost infinite combination of retrieves is possible from dead stop (without a nose dive or rise) to ripped. I usually start with a half turn or full turn of the reel handle followed by a pause with either no movement of the rod tip on the pause or only the slightest movement - almost a vibration. The length of pause will increase in coloured water, or low light to give them a little longer to find the lure and in cold water where they are more lethargic. I will usually work the lure faster with shorter pauses in warmer water or in clearer conditions or brighter weather. 

 I usually fish with the reel stem inside my little finger and my index finger resting on the blank.  I want to feel the bite through the rod. I cannot stand for any length of time watching a high rod tip without risking a cricked neck! Any time when the line has some slack I revert to watching either the loop of line from rod top to water or the entry point of line into the water if that is possible. Takes are often unambiguous thumps , especially with the bigger fish. If the fish are smaller or more tentative and you get small sharp taps without hooking up, soft hands are required. I just tip my wrist and allow a small amount of slack. This causes the lure to drop a little whilst at the same time allows the lure to be inhaled more easily - a combination that can result in a hook up.

One of the often repeated ideas is that it is not a good searching technique particularly in open water. However I have found that it allows such a natural presentation, that generates a response so often that I often use it in that way. A fast retrieve in warm conditions will soon have any perch in the area having a nip. In these circumstances once I've found them and realised they are up for a chase I might switch to another method. It really excels in cold water where fish are not so active and less likely to move far to take a lure. For me it is in winter when these cold, clear water conditions are prevalent that the technique really comes into its own. 

In all my years of fishing I have discovered several things of note that are worth sharing - fish do not read the right books, use forums, social media or other online resources and that 'always' and 'never' do not apply to fishing.