Boxing Day.

Well Hope everyone has enjoyed this Christmas, now on the eve of Christmas I posted on the blog about some river webcams anyway I've been keeping a watch on the one on the Severn at Atcham.

Christmas eve

Christmas day

 

 

 

 

 

It's been steadly rising &....

Boxing day

Looks like it's dropping now, great if it keeps dropping like in the last pic, it'll be a great session or two over the weekend coming, funnily enough I've always had better results fishing floodwater when it's peaked & starting to drop, maybe because I'm more confident of catching.

Blanking doesn't bother me neither, I just enjoy being beside a river somewhere.

Well besides monitoring online rivercams I'm gonna be keeping a close watch on the Trent in the next few days leading upto the weekend.

Now looking on the EA's flood warning site the Trent has got numerous severe flood warnings issued, but Colwick hasn't upto this point in time, so we shall see how things go.

Like I said in the previous blog post here in Nottingham I've got plenty of canals & stillwater fisheries to have a go at if the rivers out of sorts. 

I'm more fancying a go on one of the canals which  plenty of bait would have been put at the fish regular through this winter time with the amount of pleasure anglers & weekend matches.

Saying that I'm aware of a few gravel pits that still produce the goods with lure fishing, so either way round I'm spoilt for choice has to where to fish!.

Just gonna like I've said watch what happens with the river over the next few days & go from there, right gonna go get me dinner & after I'm going for a bankside recce.

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. 

  

Looks good to me....

Just had a bank side recce, it's got three ft of coloured water on that's running off & well worth a good session IMO, So out comes the barbel gear for a session into the early hours & the good thing about it is that it looks like no one has been fishing any of the four local stretches for sometime, funnily enough there ain't no one on the bank this afternoon either so I'm just gonna water the garden then get down there.

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.

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.

Update of the work on the Levas stretch, near Colwick park...

Took the afternoon off yesterday and decided to have a walk down the river and Colwick park as well, the wind weren't all that bad, at least it's warmer than of late. The river is now gin clear and has only about 2ft of extra water on, so fishing into the dark hours could be the key to success, for me and a few other locals that frequent the river banks.

Another reason for having a walk down there was to see how phase one of the flood bank work along the members only Levas stretch had gone on, which I had blogged about in a previous post some short time ago last year. Basically trees had been cleared, the flood bank raised and also a foot path installed on the top of the flood bank, so that's phase one complete, phase two is expected to start around about July time this year and will begin with re turfing the sides of the flood bank.
The work should be completed by around about 2013, so until then it's not worth having membership with Levas, unless you want to fish other waters run by the club.

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.....

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.



An Old Haunt Of Mine...

Just had a nice walk this afternoon down to an old haunt of mine, this place is called The Loop, it's the former coarse way of the River Trent at Colwick in Nottingham, it runs through the out skirts of the Colwick country park that is owned by Nottingham City Council, who charge day tickets on their bankside. It runs back into the re-routed Trent just below the sluice gates and the opposite bank is free fishing, as you can see from the images below.

I used to fish this place regular, when I was younger, sometimes all by myself and other times with a few friends, where we caught dace, bleak, roach, gudgeon also plenty of perch, this place in the summer time was great for watching fish cruising up and down, such as carp, bream and double figure pike, I used to fish waggler and the pole on occasions using maggots, casters and hempseed, sometimes with chopped lobworms, but unfortunately I stopped fishing the place, due to the dreaded work comittments, some fair few years ago.

Just thinking to myself has I were walking around the complex, all it would need is raking before a good session, but at this moment in time or rather until this December, the Environment Agency are doing floodbank improvements work, as you can see in a couple of the above photos, this is just phase no.1 of the said works which has been funded by DEFRA and phase 2 and 3 are expected to be finally completed by 2013, so to all the moaners on certain barbel forums,that complain of the EA not doing a deal for the licence revenue (you know who you are!) there you can actually see where your licence money is being spent, anyway the loop used to colour up in the colder months when the Trent was in flood, which was ideal for a spot of chubbing.

Hopefully when the EA has completed all this flood bank improvement work, I shall be getting back down there for another bash, we shall see.

PS: to any of the barbel police that lurk upon here (yes there are a few), this place is has popular as is Ironbridge on the Severn, so no need to jump up the high horse about swim naming!!!!

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.

Enjoyed The Fishing Today...

Had a great session on the stick float, plenty of roach, dace and perch were caught, in not so ideal conditions, that were gusty and more suitable for fishing the feeder, but I stuck it out till dusk on the stick and that paid off, for me, also I'm glad I've still got, the knack, with the stick.

There were also a few bank side loonies, walking their dogs and them fucking idiots on them fucking bastard cruisers, tear arseing up and the river, like they think there in the fast lane of the M1, cunts, fortunately this time, I didn't get drowned by tidal waves and didn't let that spoil an otherwise enjoyable day.

At the present time in life, there is a great stamp of roach coming back to the Trent, I noticed the weeklies have dubbed it "the Trent roach revival" from what I've read, so far nothing to write home about in sizes but certainly worth a dabble, in my honest opinion.
I reckon if it hadn't been for the gusty wind today, it'd be worth fishing with hemp and tares, for definite, with the current gin clear and low water condition of the river.

Not been on for a while

Been busy of late, with now being self employed, still doing all the hard graft me'self though, sometimes you just cannot win.

Anyhow had to miss the BFAMW Trent fish in due to some hassle at home, damn it was really looking forward to that an'all, but still these things happen.
That reminds me, I must give Coops a bell!

Don't know what happed with this years world cup but jesus, it's been the most boring world cup, i've ever watched! & as for England well lets not go there.

Been doing some barbel bashing on the Trent last weekend, had one out at 6.5lb, in a late friday afternoon session,not a bad looking fish, looks like it had been on the bank before because there were a few scales missing & some red marks round it's mouth.

Also had another one at 11.5lbs, in another session on the sunday yes a new PB double, I could'nt beleive the size of it when it came upto the surface, the fight of this double was totally different compared to the smaller fish, these doubles don't scrap like splashers do, it just hugged the bottom, but didn't go very far off downstream like they normally do, looking at it this one's also been banked before aswell anyway here's a photo of her.

So far two sessions two fish & i'm well happy & i even left behind Ray's dub dodging club,  cannot wait to get down there again.

William.

A Session on the River Trent

Been fishing the Trent for quite a few years now in & around Nottingham where i have caught barbel to 9.5lbs & chub to 6lbs,all my fish were caught on curry flavoured baits like maggots,sweetcorn,luncheon meat with casters & hemp seed in the feeder which have brought me a lot of success in my fishing.

One session i had on the River it was my 20th birthday which i decided to have a days fishing. I took nothing other than good old lob worms for bait which i dug from the back garden the day before.

When i arrived at the river at first light i saw a nice swim just screaming perch there were fish splashing everywhere after all the insects on the surface. So i set up my gear & chopped up a load of worms for the feeder & put a whole lob worm on a size 8 barbed hook tied to 10lb maxima mainline & with a gentle flick put the terminal tackle in just under an overhanging tree, placed the rod in the rest & waited about 15 minutes,i re baited, still no bites this happened for another two hours & then i decided to re bait the hook with a worm that i cut the tail off. Re cast & 10 minutes later whilst i was rolling a fag,bang the rod tip slammed down & boy did this fish go,it aimed straight for the other side of the river & wasn't going to stop, eventually i started to retrieve line back, but it decided to have another run which was at that point i thought i was going to lose it because it was all over the place.

When i got the fish to the net i got the shock of my life what i thought was a barbel turned out to be a perch of 3lb Wow what a birthday present that was a new personal best perch.

After all the excitement had calmed down in me i carried on fishing for the rest of the day but obviously that perch had spooked the swim & i didn't get any more bites.

The only thing that made me mad that day was not having a camera with me which is something i will never forget to take every time when i go fishing.