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.

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.....

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.