Erewash canal at Ilkeston

Had some nice fish out of this canal when I visited my friend John & Scott, we caught plenty of perch that looked like they had not been angled for, John had a live baiting session, whilst myself & Scott fished the pole.

The results,

Some big perch there along with a few roach, rudd, dace, some skimmers & gudgeon, also a jack pike that gave a good scrap caught by John....

More of the perch......

We had a great session & will be doing some more next year, after Johns wedding which i'm his best man at.

Great to see....

A couple of teenagers fishing a weirpool.....

Great stuff & you can subscribe to their YouTube page here

Now if all teenage lads were like this, the world would be a better place !.

Underwater barbel pics....

Nice footage, more info. Don't forget to log in on facebook before you click the link.

Last nights session...

Must've spoke too soon about 4 local stretches not being fished for some time, I got down the river last night, 2 of the stretches of local river were loaded out with folks settling in for a session.
OK so I went further downstream to a secluded stretch that had not seen an angler, so far this season.

I settled down for the night in a swim of choice with a steep river bank & with 4ft high grass & nettles flattened down later, I tackled up, ground bait feeder & feed pellets were the choice of loose feed & hair rigged boilies for the hook bait.
Now this tactic has produced the goods on numerous occasions for me, but not last night, nope not a sniff, I blanked.

That nice looking coloured floodwater was pacey, it were running off too fast, has if all the sluice gates upstream were wide open & every bit of floating drift weed & leaves were coming through like there was no tomorrow & yet fish were rising on the surface all night long, strange me thinks, somethings not right.
You can only change your rig so many times & yeah it were a humid night, so after all the rig changing & constant re-baiting of the swim @ 0400hrs I gave up, called it a night, thinking to myself maybe night fishing's not the answer, who knows.

Time for some changing of tactics, not so much tackle wise but bait wise, could be the key solution, as an angler I'm always looking to improve the way I fish & coming from a match fishing background, I'm used to the old (ringing the changes) scenario & finding out what others are having success with, but on these occasions when you've got stretches of river to yourself, it's a case of finding out for yourself what works & what don't through putting theory into practise.

After all I've still got the buzz to get back on the river bank & I cannot wait to have another session soon. 

  

Recently...

It's been a busy summertime with lots of work on & not much fishing, but I've managed a few sessions so far, I have had no success with the barbel fishing yet mainly because the middle Trent where I fish has got no flow at the moment, almost like a still water it is at the time of writing this blog post, we are in desperate need of rain to flush the river through, even tried the Levas stretch at the weekend which is just below the Colwick sluices & still no flow, it's hardly been fished down there & the weed growth is unbelievable, plenty of streamer weed & silk weed congregating the river bed, now normally near the sluices it's like fishing the run off of a weir pool, but not this one it's like fishing the Victoria Embankment which has always, apart from times of flood water been known to have no flow.
This is not like the Trent at all, not seen this happen with the river before, even during the mid 90's when we had those red hot summers the Trent would be low & clear with some flow on it at the least, the only reason apart from the hot weather has got to be the amount of water abstraction permits issued to various farms, recycling plants, Armitages pet products factory & the Total oil company, but to name a few, OK there is also the National Water sports centre as well & various other still water complexes that have abstraction permits on the river to top up their lakes during the summer months.

Anyway have had some success with perch on the lures spinning & chub on the barbel gear during the dark hours, so i may go back to the drawing board here & fish lighter tackle, such as maggot feeder, or fish the waggler for a change, because the roach are making comeback, now the cormorants have gone elsewhere or so the regulars keep telling me.
This maybe the better option with hardly any flow at moment, suppose a change of tactics could be the answer, or just stick with fishing during the night time & pray for rain, not that that would make much difference at the moment because every time we get some flood water the authorities like to run it off faster, as part of the new flood prevention schemes, seems crazy but that is what they do.
Speaking of flood prevention, there is still a lot of flood bank restoration going on, the Levas stretch has been completed & now they are working further down stream still in Colwick, behind the industrial estate working their way from the Armitages factory through to the waste recycling plant, which looks like they could be busy with through to some time into next year, so we'll have to fish elsewhere in between time, it can be a preverbial pain in the butt, but the work needs doing due to bank side erosion, which made some stretches of river bank unaccessable.
One part of the river bank behind the Armitages factory was getting in a real bad way, that you couldn't walk down there as it all collapsed into the river, leaving just a flood bank & boundary fence as the river bank side, OK it's all being restored now, but that area is on a bend of the river very close to the run off of the sluice gates & the bank side there has always been steep, bit like the stretch of the river Severn at Iron bridge in the lady wood area, always remember having to climb down there lol every time we fished there, so this could be an hard job to keep the bank side in place, saying that though the piling plates & concrete re-enforcing equipment was the first bits of gear to be moved in after the clean up began.

Onto an old subject now, aww it seems the clowns of certain website are still in a bitter way, be best if they dropped the subject now to prevent any further embarrassments on their behalf's, they really do suffer fools gladly, one should'na go around pickin fights they cannot win thou knows, sitting back here watchin what has been posted over there really explains a lot about them doesn't it pmsl.
It is better to have loved & lost, than to have not loved at all ;)

Well now we've even had the rioters & looters up n down the country, how very dare they, but one thing I will say is.......  Enoch Powell was right what he said, when nobody could be rsed to lissen, & now look at it, this wasn't because the police shot that black guy, this is Serious Organised Crime on a nationwide basis, that these fools didn't even begin to realise that only good thing that would come out of it at the end of the day, would be the the police, magistrates & judges would all get a load of overtime, not good for the taxpayers of the country is it?

Mind you we all got penalised with the football matches being postponed, do they now see what they have caused? I'd guess not, but that is what former governments have made this country into, leaving the rest of us to pick up the peaces, & where in this was the BNP & EDL ? when all this was kicking off, I'll tell ya nowhere to be seen!.

Heard a couple of good jokes about the riots, this one being the best'un.....

Tottenham have just signed a new black Italian striker, his name is grabbatelli.

Ok, back to work now, as ever plenty to do n not enough hours in one day.

Well, that's that for another three months...

Yeah the coarse fishing close season ends tomorrow 14/03/2011 at midnight on our rivers, but you can still fish for eels with an half inch gape hook, if you wanted to.
Me, I'll not bother because I'll most definitely be canal fishing, so that'll be that.

Had my last session of this season this afternoon on the river & blanked, Frank was down there fishing the stick, he had one chub, another angler also blanked in what looked like ideal conditions for a few fish to show themselves, but alas was not to be.

Considering it's nearing the end, I'd have thought the banks would've been very busy this weekend, but that weren't the case, just three anglers, half a dozen or so cyclists, a few bird watchers & the usual local dog walkers, just about sums up your average weekend then.

Footie

I see Doncaster were very lucky to hold us "Notts Forest" to a Nil-Nil draw, next time we'll have yer.

Rugby

England were lucky this afternoon against the jocks, considering their poor performance, still a wins a win.




& finally, I'd just like to say a big thank you to all the people who have helped, assisted & advised myself this last season, cheers guys, I probably wouldn't have done it without you.

So whatever you get up to in the next three months, have a good'un.

Video of some fishing images...

  

 

Although it's a first attempt at creating my own vids, you won't find it on youtube, because I'd just uploaded to this blog straight from the PC.

Videoporama, can be downloaded here.

Back end of Season-part, 2.....

Decided to have a roving session yesterday (Thurs-24th,Feb), got the gear ready after dinner time and arrived at the river for 14:20pm after navigating three sludgy water logged footpaths and one village idiot later, to find the river still about half way up it's banks with coloured flood water and pushing through at jogging pace on one particular stretch I'd chosen to fish, not the best of conditions to fish but what the eck I went for it anyway, got to my swim of choice and tackled up, using the minimum of 4oz to hold bottom in this pacey swim, cast in and waited 15 minutes later, nothing, so I re baited and gave it half an hour, still nothing, and then the spot directly downstream was given a go and having not had a sniff after 20 minutes I was pondering what to do next, so the thought of moving to a different stretch was to be the next plan of attack.

Selection of leads, I use.

 Arriving at the stretch up stream from where I started out the session, I spotted what looked like the ideal flood water swim and hastily got comfortable in, I decided to try a 3oz lead in this swim has it looked not so pacey on the surface as the previous swims I'd tried and found it to have very little flow for a flooded swim, perfect you'd think! "There would be a few fish lurking in and around this area", but unfortunately that wasn't to be.
I carried on into the dark hours, plundering away to my hearts content at this perfect spot to not get one bite at all and decided to call it a day at 19:30pm, with the thought of returning to this swim next time with different tactics, which may or may not be the bait and wait approach.

Waiting for a bite

To say the river was half way up it's banks with flood water, there weren't a deal of drifting debris, only the odd bit of streamer weed clinging to the line, if I'd had a session earlier on at the beginning of the week, there would've been all sorts of crap coming through, to say the least.

Good luck to all out on the bank this weekend.

How would you approach this swim?

To say the least it's got plenty of features, but I'm struggling to find a way into it.

It's been a while, since I last posted.....

Hope you all had a good Xmas and a nice start to the new year, as for me! Well I've been busy for most of it and only managed to get down the river this last weekend, which resulted in a blank "not a good start" but nice to be out on the bank again.

The weather keeps changing everyday, it's either wet and windy one day and dry, cold and clear the next. Speaking of clear, the water authorities don't mess about with flood water nowadays they just run it straight off leaving the river low and clear, not good in freezing conditions. Anyhow rather than moan about it, me, I just crack on regardless with it, as they say, a bad workman always blames his tools, where as anglers always blame weather conditions, road salt influx + cormorants, otters, etc etc! Pah, yer just make use of the time you've got in any given condition.


Now I'd not been out on the river bank since mid October, due to my work commitments and apart from that November and December were bloody freezing and some rivers up and down the country had frozen or had drifting ice, not ideal conditions but well done to anyone brave enough to have had a bash at that.

So I see the angling forum world hasn't changed much, still the same ole, same ole names preaching the same ole, same ole what ever yer wanna call it. Isn't it time ter move on? some people, eh! Get over it FFS.

I never used to make new year resolutions, because if you don't make them, yer can't break'em, can yer? well we'll see.

Till the next time enjoy whatever ye get up too and tight lines to one and all.

Read An Article, The Other Day....

On Steve Popes blog, about using the bait dropper to keep the feed going in and achieving better catch results which made myself remember the days when the lads down at Clifton Grove on the Middle Trent, used to use this exact tactic around about the late 80's to early 90's in time. The results always won matches down there regularly with weights of 30 to 40lbs bags earning those 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. Mainly chub, barbel and bream being the target fish at the time in question, but a tactic really worth adopting to your fishing in my very honest own opinion.

So having read the said article, made me think about using one of the pair of carp rods I originally brought for dead baiting. Something that I'll now make more use of, in future to my advantage.

Link to said article 

Cheers, Steve for reminding me of a very useful tactic, one that I'll be using more often. ;)

Out on the bank again Last Night...

Decided to fish another stretch a bit further upstream from where I normally fish and on a different swim too, but didn't even have a sniff, zilch, nothing, nada. There were plenty of Kingfishers, a few herons knockin about and  the odd kestrel hovering around the bankside in what was a nice afternoon (weather-wise) to be on the bank.

Come around 6 oclock I moved downstream to a well known more prolific swim and as the sun set, by christ did the mist rise and the temperature dropped, not to the freezing mark, but not far off. Now I started getting bites in the more prolific spot, but couldn't connect with owt, there must've been a shoal of skimmers in the swim as everytime the rig was cast in place, the amount of knocks, rattles and slight pulls on the rod tip resulted in a 15mm boilie smashed in half. Some would say I was plagued by crayfish but not where I were on the Trent, no twas definately a shoal of skimmers.

So a total blank was had, maybe it's time I stopped chucking three to four rod lengths out and concentrated more on the boat channel area! At the present time in life the Trent's low and clear, could really do with another good rain storm to get some colour and flow back into it. Otherwise the stick float gears coming back out again, after those roach and dace.

Speaking about the wildlife I forgot to mention, the amount of dragon flies still hovering around, amongst the other flying insects and surface skaters was also a sight to see and by the end of the session the huge flock of noisy Canadian geese finally settled down in one of the gravel pits at the back of where I were fishing and on the walk back home there were plenty of rabbits dartin about in and around the fields and bushes surrounding the fields and here was me thinking to myself that the last dose of mixy had killed 'em all off.

Still Catching Chub, but no Barbel...

This afternoon started out t shirt weather, but soon turned cooler into dusk with a brisk north easterly blowing it's way through just to remind  me that winter is on it's way. The river has lost it's colour since Friday and gone back to being low and clear, near enough normal summer level. Frank came down and blanked on the halibut pellets. he never had one bite all afternoon. Then those flippin speeding idiotic cruisers came through and got caught out by the regional officer for the area of BWB, bless yer, it couldn't of happened at a nicer time, I was laughing my socks off when this ginger haired guy was walking past myself on the river bank calling the boaters a right bunch of wankers and he had the decency to explain to me who he was and what was going to happen Monday morning back at the office, nice one it looks like some clever prick of a boy racer is going to lose his boating licence, well that'll teach'em, thanks to the British Waterways Regional Officer patroling the river banks. A case of it's not what you know but who you know that counts, superb.

So after all of that I only had one bite resulting in a nice looking chub, weighing in at 4lb 6ozs.....

Next time hopefully I'll catch another barbel, personally I reckon Frank scared 'em off, nah just kidding, if their there they'll have it if not they won't but that's what it's all about seek and ye shall find, till the next time, tight lines.....

Having Another Session On The River Tomorrow....

Been sorting the gear out for tomorrows session, in fact when I'd sorted the gear out I even decided to tye some spare hook length rigs complete with hairs on, all stored on a rig board inside the rig wallet which is a handy bit of kit to own, so much so I'm considering buying a second one. Hopefully tomorrow the barbel shall play ball, if not I'm happy enough to catch owt that's having a go, that's the thing with my fishing whatever happens I enjoy it regardless of not catching what I went for or even blanking I don't care, I just go with the intensions of enjoying it and why not?.

You see the trouble with some folk I've come across in the fishing world are all so so serious and must catch fish all the time' as if they have made up demands to themselves in mind and what happens when they don't catch, they call the place/venue crap. That sought of thing to me is all wrong, you've just got to learn to enjoy it first and then consistency will reap your rewards of comitment there after. Yeah even I have my moans from time to time apparently, or so I've been told but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. Well who wouldn't go fishing to not enjoy it?.

Just read an interesting article over on Bobs blog about a capture of a four pound barbel, that even I assume was grabbed by a wels catfish down on the tidal Trent, that took bob three hours to land, ouch that must of been a painful experience, but that's fishing for you, these things happen and by the sounds of it even bob enjoys telling the story of what happened. Annoyingly this has happened to myself when stick float fishing for roach, dace and other stuff, the pike have come along and grabbed the hooked fish, then tore off down the river and snapped the line, but I just re-rig the rod carry on fishing to my ut most capabilitys of enjoyment and why not?.

Anyway to all whom are out on the banks this fine weekend, have a good'un, I know I will, even if I cannot shake off this dreaded man flu that is doing the rounds in the big wide world.

Out On The Trent Again Today....

Had a good session, was really fishing for barbel but the chub, bream and eels were more obliging and Frank had other stuff to attend to so he couldn't make it, sod it thought I, I'll fish all by myself then OK Frank popped down to see me later in the afternoon, bearing in mind I didn't get there myself until half past three, with the boilies and pellets intended for the barbel, that just weren't to be but I enjoyed catching some kamikaze chub for a change along with a nice slab bream and a foul hooked bootlace eel, not bad to say the river is still coloured but fining down after a flood..


                                              First chub weighed in at 2lb 10oz..

Then the bream at 6lb 12oz

And then a parrot faced old warrior of a chub weighing in at 4lb bang on the dot...

I didn't bother to weigh or photograph the foul hooked eel.So all in all a nice afternoons fishing was had again, hopefully I shall be out on the bank again on Sunday for another bash. And Frank will most likely make it this time! We'll see. 

Trent Roach....

Whilst out for a walk along the River bank this afternoon I happened upon an angler who I used to go fishing with regular, his name is Frank Sharpe. Frank is someone who is a bit of an all rounder and is equally happy to fish with stick float tackle as he is to fish for barbel. Anyway I got talking to Frank, asking him what he had caught and he said a few roach and the odd perch, but he said there are two nice roach in the net, which he showed to me and boy were they nice roach, now we didn't have no scales but I decided to take some photos of this nice pair of Trent roach. One roach had this orange streak across the side of it's mouth, something I've not seen before but quite common apparently! has you will see in the photos......


                                                                A nice pair....


And the one with the orange streak across it's mouth taken on it's own.....

Like I said in previous blogs there is a nice stamp of roach in the Trent at this present time in life, coming out on stick float fished hemp and casters and also maggot tactics. After a discussion with Frank, tomorrow we have decided to have a session for the barbel, seeing has the river has a few inches of coloured water on for a change. This usually is the best time to fish for barbel but we shall see how it goes.



Another Old Haunt Of Mine...

This place used to belong to British Coal and was called the Gedling Colliery gravel pits, there were originally five pits altogether, that were situated at the back end of the viaducts stretch of the river Trent and was fishable on day tickets at the time the coal mine was still working, eventually they filled three of the pits with slurry, before the coal mine closed down, leaving just two of the gravel pits one large un at the back and a small pit near to the Trentside, which then became free fishing.

The smaller pit was full of tench, roach, a few pike, rudd and perch, with a few bream, carp and bootlace eels. We used to fish this pit on a regular basis, in fact more often than the larger pit, which had the same species stocked.
Both pits were great to fish but were ruined by the litter lout brigade, there always was a years worth of rubbish in a couple of weeks, all around the place, it got that bad in the end, the place got closed down and turned into a nature reserve, shame, though it was at the time a great loss of local fishing.

Unfortunately I haven't the time to add photographs of the place due to being busy with my work, but later on! in maybe the next week or so I'll add some photos to this post.

Nearing The End Of Another Month...

Yes, not long to go now and it'll be October and winter time is around the corner, here's hoping the river will have some colour in very soon, mind you saying that, the Trent isn't a coloured river any more, only when it's got flood water on nowadays.
Still plenty of choice in various fishing methods, whether it's coloured or not! and another good thing about winter time being just around the corner means, the boat season will be over, ( thank fuck ) so I won't have to put up with those speeding loonies tear arsing up and the river, causing tidal waves. 

Speaking to my younger brother on the phone this morning, about yesterdays weather, he was telling myself all about the storm over at Gunthorpe, which had a foot of water on the road surface, he said it were that bad you couldn't see past your window screen, for it were raining that much, it should do the river some good then, me thinks! we shall see.

So far it's been a good season for me, achieving a new Personal Best double figure barbel and not doing so well with the lure fishing, but getting back on the stick float, catching a nice stamp of roach and dace, before the pike came along and knackered it up, has certainly made it worth while, well you can't always have your cake and eat it. Onwards and upwards as they say, for it'll soon be that time to get the barbel gear out again.

Another Good Session On The Stick...

Had another great day on the river again, stick float fishing for roach and dace with the odd perch in between, was building a nice weight of fish in the net until the pike came along and knackered the swim.

There were roach and dace around the 8oz mark lining up to take the trotted maggots in what could have been a potential winner, if I'd been in a match on the day, unfortunately the pike wanted their share, so that put paid to that, there was also a thunder storm and a few showers today," that weren't worth bothering with a brolly" I wonder if that turned the fish into a feeding frenzy? hmm, maybe.

Apparently it was pissing it down bad over at Gunthorpe and Burton Joyce got flooded out, so I was told in a phone call, I was about two miles away from there and missed it all, so there you go, another good session on the river bank and cannot wait to go again.

Shall Be Out On The Bank, Tomorrow And Other Stuff...

Booked tomorrow off, for another crack at the stick fishing and just sorting out gear ready, cannot wait to get some more of them good looking roach and dace, with the odd perch in between again.

Just acquired some decent steel box section and a sheet of square mesh from a friend village idiot/come Nottingham's No.1 shit stirrer up the road from where I live, for nowt, that's for another project that is going to be made into an extension of my platform, when I get round to it, so there is a bit of work for the angle grinder and mig welder, saying that I don't often do much welding because of my eye sight and haven't done any for a fair while, so I'll have to at some point, get a practice session in again.

But saying that mig welding is easier than arc welding or even gas welding! Which I have plenty of experience at, saying that I used to do a lot brazing and also soldering as well, but like I say I haven't done any for a while, once you've got that gift of "achieving miracles" which I have, any things possible.