roach

Fishing For Big Perch At Bradshaw Hall

24th December 2020 by Mike Duddy

So – after a few sessions catching small canal perch on the drop shot – and a long hard blank session at Pilsworth I’ve had a few hours contemplation time – to think about where I might be able to catch a perch big enough to break my measly PB of only one and a half pounds. In the middle of my last blank session at Pilly – the penny finally dropped. Even though there are plenty of good perch in Pilsworth, they are probably to be located in very small area of a very large lake. I need to increase the odds in my favour, and at the back of my mind I’ve known for a long time that there are some good perch to be had at Bradshaw Hall Fishery in Bolton, and that very few people ever fish for them.

Right – that decided it – a few sessions at a venue with a good head of rarely fished for Perch was needed So a week or so ago Phil and I headed off up the A666 (the devils highway to Bolton) for our first of three sessions.

A very cold morning saw us setting up in a likely looking corner of Lake 3 – and then the wait started – and went on and on… bloomin heck – it was chucking it down, it was cold, we’d set our hearts on a decent perch and it just wasn’t happening. We were fishing half a worm, over a bed of chopped worm on a size 14 hook an inch over depth under a 5bb waggler. Great perch rigs. However, the fish thought otherwise and we had to endure another 3 biteless hours in the rain.

Once the rain abated, Phil had a little walk round the lake, and noticed that 4 pegs down from where we were fishing, the lake was alive with fish topping and there were bubbles coming up all over.

Less than a nano-second later, we had packed up our rain shelter, picked up our kit and moved ourselves into the two pegs on the lake that looked as though they had a few fish in front of them.

And bingo we were straight onto a few fish. Only small Roach, Perch, Ide and Chub to begin with – but then as the afternoon started to draw to an early winter close – I hit into a couple more solid fish.

I’m not someone who regularly takes a set of scales with him – if i catch a decent fish i put an object next to it and try to work out the length/weight later on at home — but I think i might in future have a go at weighing a few.

Anyway – 15 inches was the length on my best perch of the afternoon – If I had a roach of that length it would according to length/weight tables weigh around the 2lb 5oz mark – so surely this fish must be a new pb and I will claim it at 2lb.

I tried to look for a perch length/weight table similar to this excellent one that was compiled by Jeff Hatt a few years ago for roach (below) but couldn’t find one. I think i shall try to create one for perch over the next 12 months.

The float in this photo is a smidgen over 8 inches long – so the fish must be 14-15 inches by my reckoning.

And we had a couple of fish this size and slightly smaller between us on chopped worm before it was time to call it a day.

Our next session a few days later we arrived and it was a howling gale and driving rain. Oh God – Phil had left his brolly at home – so we decided to both squeeze in under mine – cosy. As the wind direction had changed – this time up the valley, we forgot about fishing lake 3 again, and fished Lake 4 with our backs to the wind.

Using the same rigs and bait as the previous session, it didn’t take too long for us to start getting bites and catching fish. Though it did take until nearly 3pm (again) until the bigger fish showed up. And I caught this cracker below – a similar size to the one previously on lake 3. Our hands were cold and wet – and we have a bit of trouble getting a decent photo – so another fish on a mat in a net photo followed. Never mind – I’d got no scales again – so this fish I reckon to be 15 inches – the weight 2lb — at a guess.

Again – we had an assortment of other fish, mostly roach and ide.

Our 3rd session – we were joined by Kaden and Dave – who had by now heard that we were catching a few nice fish and wanted to join us.

Sadly for them – the day we chose – the weather was truly awful – a cold biting north easterly and squally showers. The two lads were keen and set up facing the prevailing wind (or foolhardy) into Lake 4, whereas Phil and I both took the much easier option of fishing into Lake 3 with our backs to the wind. It didn’t make much difference in the end – on this 3rd session the bigger perch just didn;t want to play – but we could plenty of smaller ones, some nice roach, ide and F1s.

I think the penny has dropped for me regarding Perch – a few chats with Phil and we now have a little list of local waters with “perch potential” that we can explore over the next few months off lockdown. My next two targets – a set of weighing scales and a Manchester 3lb perch …..

Watch this space.

A few things to note about Bradshaw Hall Fisheries

Please take a look at their website – as opening times vary throughout the year.
Speak to the staff, tell them what you are trying to catch – they are very friendly, knowledgeable and helpful.
No live baiting or lure fishing for perch – fishing from designated pegs only.
There are good perch in lakes 2 3 and 4.
Biggest I’ve heard of is nearly twice the size of the ones we caught.
It has BIG potential to smash your PB

If you catch a cracker please let me know (and I will be back in your peg the next day lol)

A Summers Evening Fishing Drinkwater Park Lake

1st September 2020 by Mike Duddy

Here’s the latest write up from my fishing adventures : video and written

I recently spent an evening with my mate Phil fishing Drinkwater Park Lake, one of our club waters, conveniently located 100 yards behind my house.

The lake has a good head of recently stocked small carp, plenty of tench and bream, and plenty of roach, rudd, perch and pike.

The lake also gets quite heavily weeded in late summer, so we had to rake swims out in order to fish.

After a good half hours raking I cleared a hole in the blanket weed and managed to get two rods in. The first rod i used a hair rigged worm on a small bomb rig, and the second a traditional float set up with a lovely quill float handmade by my pal Mike Cootes (aka Purple Peanut).

The evening started off very slowly with bites quite hard to come by for the first two hours, probably due to the disturbance caused by the raking. Then I started to catch small roach and rudd, very welcome after a slow start.

Drinkwater Park Rudd – Traditional Quill Float

I had nothing on the worm/bomb rig all evening, but as time passed my float line hotted up and I was catching a small roach or rudd every cast on maggot.

My catch rate increased massively as I cast 20 yards beyond the area that I’d raked, but all fish were palm sized. Not that I minded, they were all in pristine condition.

Phil and I were entertained all evening by a group of teenagers holding an outdoor rave in the woods about 100 yards behind us. They had their own sound system and were having a full on party. Good on em. Some of them came round later on in the evening and apologised for the noise, at which point we got to tell them that we loved their choice of music, and had no problem if they wanted to turn it up.

I’m still learning how to take video whilst fishing, it didnt go too well this evening, as I missed a great bite whilst filming my swim erupting in bubbles, also somehow i didn’t manage to pick up the sound of the rave behind us, despite it being bangingly loud. And i missed out so much stuff…. this video blog is definitely work in progress.

The evening ended as the light dropped, I must have had over 60 small roach and rudd – great to see. There were plenty of carp crashing about but they didn’t really show in my swim. It was also great to see pike chasing the silver fish – which raises my expectations for a bit of local autumn/winter predator sport.

I think my next session is going to be on a canal somewhere, I’ve got plenty of bait to use up. I will also go alone, and get myself better aquainted with my video camera and make a much better vlog of my fishing session.

Have a look at the video below of this fishing session.. It would also be great if you could subscribe to my video channel. – Thanks. Mike 🙂

Ashton Canal Fishing Free Parking

20th August 2020 by Mike Duddy

All anglers love a bit of free parking, and I’ve been meaning to have a few hours on the fishing on the Ashton Canal with lovely free parking for ages now.

Wedged in between Man Citys ground and the National Cycling Centre is the Ashton Canal – and a lovely big Asda car park offering 3 hours free parking.

See the map below and look at the red dots (where I parked) and the red cross (where I fished).

Now its important to remember that the car park is monitored – and only allows you three hours for free. And also that the angling on the canal is not controlled by any local angling clubs, so you will need a “Waterways Wanderer” permit to fish their legally.

So, back to the fishing. I know the Ashton Canal contains a good head of roach and skimmers, I’ve also seen some cracking carp and tench over the years, but I was keen to add a Gudgeon or Ruff to my seasons fish tally.

I parked up close to the canal and walked through the passage way from the car park to the canal — no more than 10 yards from my car. Bliss.

Seeing as though both of the species I was most interested in were bottom feeders, I initially set up a rig to fish 2 inches over depth. A 2g pole float, and 0.08mm hook length to a size 20 kamasan B520 with single maggot on the hook, and no ground bait.

I could see plenty of fish topping but decided to stick to my game plan of bait hard on the deck.

It didn’t take long for the roach to find my bait, and I had a good run of fish in the first hour (but sadly no Gudgeon or Ruffe.

Then the swim died – pike maybe ?

An hour of nothing was broken by a few small perch, to break the monotony. Then before I knew it, it was time to pack up my kit, and get the car out of the car park before the ANPR cameras stitched me up with a £100 ticket.

I didn’t catch either of my two target species but did enjoy a couple of hours maggot dangling on the canal … all good fun.

Out Fishing Again

19th July 2020 by Mike Duddy

Despite the recent bad weather I’ve taken every opportunity I can to get out fishing again.

My species hunt is progressing quite well, and I’ve been going out on a few sea fishing trips with Phil, and a couple of freshwater trips with the kids has seen me racking up quite a few more species.

After a nice chat about local fishing spots with my friend and master float maker Mike Cootes (who also has an excellent blog called Purple Peanut – click to read it) I was given heads up about a lake thats less than 20 minutes from home where I’ve never fished before… a small pond behind a factory, that Mike said was ideal for kids.

Tucked away behind a factory – a hidden gem

So Phil and I headed out one evening to have a look see — Phil with a pint of maggots …. Me with a tub of lovely lovely worm, my 13ft Drennan float rod, centre pin and a selection of Mikes lovely floats.

All set to fish with a selection of floats from Mike Cootes -aka “Purple Peanut”

Worm Salad — what fish can resist their charms?

Mike had told us that on a previous trip he had caught roach, rudd, perch, skimmers, crucian carp and tench … so we were quite looking forwards to trying out this new North Manchester venue. I set up fishing in a corner of the lake that was fringed with reed, and small lily pads, with a depth of four and half feet…. I set up my float rig about 3 inches over depth to get the worm bait hard on the bottom with the hope of a nice tench, and anything else that was interested. A small piece of worm section as bait with a size 16 micro-barbed hook, with plenty of chopped worm as a form of ground bait.

What fish can resist? I did snip off that ridiculously long tag once I’d cleaned my glasses and noticed it was there !

First cast — the float had hardly settled before a greedy little perch took my worm, then another, then another, then another then another ,,,, and so on until I was getting sick of the sight of them. So I upped the feed rate a little bit, to see if I could get any other fish species interested and to see if they might start to out compete the perch for the bait.

I fed off the perch with plenty of chopped worm, and the silver fish started to move in.

After the first half our of nothing but perch, the over feeding of the swim started to pay off. Once I hooked my first small roach, the perch disappeared and I spent the next hour catching small roach and rudd, and then a few nice skimmer bream.

A nice fish,,, but not there was no sign on my target species of the evening

Then, as we were getting towards 8pm and light levels were starting to drop the float slid away and I hooked into something a little more solid. I was rewarded by this wonderful little Crucian Carp — my first of the year and another entry onto my species list.

And then, back to the roach — but they had started to get a bit bigger, with a few fish pushing the 12oz mark.

And then, the float slid, I lifted into a fish, and my rod tip hooped over as a solid strong fish gave me the run around through the marginal reeds and lilies…. I had a hunch that it was a tench…. and after what felt like a couple of minutes (but probably a lot less than that) a lovely tench graced the net.

A Tench on one of Mike Cootes Tinca Sticks

I was thrilled. As the light started dropping as the evening drew to a close, we changed tactics and fished up in the water, spraying maggots and watching good roach swirl and pick up the baits less than 12 inches below the surface. We had a few more roach nudging the pound mark – but they didn’t photograph well with the flash of our cameras in the growing gloom.

I was delighted with the discovery of this little lake, my first ever visit despite its proximity to home. It just goes to show how theres always a surprise near to home if you are prepared to give small venues a try.

It was so good, I took one of my two little apprentices back the next day for an hours entertainment. I can’t think of a better venue to take kids for an hours fun.

I’m now up to 19 species for the year to date , as during the sessions on this little lake, I caught Perch, Crucian Carp, and Tench.

It’s great to be out fishing again after lock down ruined the spring. As you can imagine .. there are plenty more sessions and write ups on the way.

My progress can be checked against my Anglers Challenge page click the link here

An Evening On The Prison Pond

27th June 2020 by Mike Duddy

I’m lucky enough to live close to a number of ponds that are manged by our fishing club. They were all terribly neglected for a number of years until the club took them on. Fish stocks were low, and anti social behaviour was rife (and still is to a slightly lesser degree)

One of the ponds was constructed behind Forest Bank Prison in Salford in the 1990s as a surface water run off pond – and as it collects run off water from the prison roof and car parks, its had inevitable water quality issues over the years.

The Prison Pond has now matured nicely (also known as Agecroft Pond), and both the club and the EA have restocked the lake in recent years with small roach, rudd, tench, bream and carp.

It’s not a heavily fished venue as the fish haven’t had the chance to grow to any size in this lake, so I thought I’d have an evenings fishing as see if I could hook a surprise or two.

The Prison Pond In Spring – Only a Small pond less than half and acre with 8 pegs

Obviously I’ve fished this venue a quite a few times before, and I know all the features, lake bed profile etc but I’ve never ever had a bag up session here…. but who knows what might happen this time following on from the restocking 18 months ago….the fish must have settled down by now.

The first thing I noticed was that there were masses and masses of fry in the margins ,,, which was a good sign that there was a healthy population of adult fish.

I set up to fish the pole at 11 metres as there is a 6ft deep bowl shaped feature in the centre of the lake, and put on a very light 0.2g rig with size 10 stotz strung out to fish a slow falling bait on the drop.

I also fed a bit of groundbait (Sensas Lake Black) on the swim slightly to my left at 10 o clock, and I put in a couple of pots of micro pellets on the swim to my right at 2 o clock.

So first put in, I had a very slight tremor on the float, and I lifted into this little scrapper of a Rudd, my first this year so another addition to my “anglers challenge list”

I had a few more roach and rudd in the first 20 minutes from the left hand ground bait swim, and then decided to rest it and move over to the pellet swim to my right.

Nothing on the drop, so I pushed the stotz about, and lengthened the rig to give me 2 inches over depth, to see if there were any bream or tench about ….. and still nothing. I stuck it out trying all sorts of little bite inducing variations for 20 minutes — but I could’t get a bite (despite there being indications of fish bubbling)

So – seeing as though this was a short session, I went back to my left hand swim to see if i could tempt a few more fish out of it now that it had been rested.

First put in, the float slid and I hooked a tiddler, but it was only when I swung the fish in that I realised I’d caught my first Dace of the year…. A Dace ??? how on earth did that get in there. And then I caught another tiny dace and another.

Maybe they had slipped in when the EA restocked, maybe they had arrived when the River Irwell had flooded a few years ago, maybe a naughty angler slipped a few …. who knows…. but we now have a pond with Dace in.

As the evening progressed the bites sadly became fewer and harder to hit, and then with rumbles of thunder and a summer downpour soaking me to the skin, I packed up after having had only a couple of hours fishing.

Anyway — look the prison pond up on the map, behind Forest Bank Prison… its a cracking little pond and bites are easy to come by.

I’ve now clicked another couple of species off my anglers challenge list taking me up to 13 — I am still very hopeful of catching at least 50 species (fresh and salt water) this year – despite the few months of inactivity due to lock down.

In Search Of Pike

21st January 2020 by Mike Duddy

I caught some lovely small roach from a local canal recently as I’d promised to “bang out” half a dozen live baits for a pike session later that afternoon with a mate.

There hadn’t been a hard frost the night before, but the weather was typical winter Manchester, cold hard and grey. Conditions that a lot of anglers struggle with (noted by their absence from the bank)

So on arrival I set up 4 sections of pole, a 2g pencil shaped float, a size 20 hook – fed an almond sized lump of sloppy liquidised bread and sat back and waited for the fish to wake up for breakfast.

It took longer than I thought as this method of fishing can often produce instant bites – and after 15 bite free minutes I was started to have a bit of a panic that my bravado of “oh don’t worry I’ll bang out a few live baits in double quick time” was going to result in me having egg on my face.

Much to my relief, my float gave a micro dip — so I lifted and brought in a lovely little roach of about half an ounce.

The session then continued as expected with a bite every put in, using my smallest size of bread punch, and within another 15 minutes the larger 3 and 4oz roach had started pushing the micro roach out of the swim. If i had continued fishing for the rest of the morning I would have added a bit of crushed hemp to the liquidised bread and usually within the first half hour or so the roach of 8 to 12oz would again move in and bully out the smaller fish. But this was not to be, I only needed a dozen fish to share between the three of us pike fishing later that day.

The roach were in superb condition – with a lovely iridescent purple/blue sheen to their flanks, a bright red eye and not a scale out of place. Check them out in the pictures below. Small – perfectly formed – absolute beauties.

Roach - a perfect fish — Roach – a perfect fish

So – I took tremendous enjoyment from catching these small roach, but it got me thinking that only through having years of experience did I catch them. Casting my mind back to when I was a youngster I would have been on a certain blank session on a cold January morning like today. The reason why I caught over a dozen fish in less than an hour was quite simple. I used a float and shotting pattern that is incredibly sensitive and a hook length and hook that were a match for a roaches eagle eyes in the gin clear water.

I see so many anglers both young and old with an inch of thick float showing, hook lengths like tow rope and a hook big enough to be fishing paste on a commercial in summer. I with tackle shops would stop selling this stuff – or at least advise the anglers buying these floats on how to set them up properly.

So back to the fishing.. I then drove the 15 minutes further up the canal to our usual haunt to meet up with Phil and his new mate Dean. A new mate ??? is this some sort of piscatorial affair – should I carry on and ignore this turn of events – or demand a fishing divorce ? maybe a period of reflection and mate/marriage guidance is necessary – we obviously need some sort of counselling – probably best done in a pub over half a dozen pints lol

Anyway back to the pike fishing. I know a lot of people think that live baiting is a cruel form of our sport, but its something that’s never really worried me. I stopped using treble hooks many years ago, and when I live bait I used a single circle hook through the top lip of the bait. If I catch I catch…. if not the live bait is released and swims off to fight another day.

I also think that live bait out catches any other pike fishing method – and I’m out to catch fish.

I met up with Phil and Dean further up the canal and set up my my usual rig – see pic below. I’ve started using these Size 2 Sakuma Circle Hooks – and again I caught a nice fish with the hook lodged perfectly in the top of the fishes mouth.

Rochdale Canal Pike — Its a pity the sun wasn’t shining as the gold flecks around a pikes gill plates reflect spectacularly in the suns rays.

My Live Bait Kit is pretty standard – a bung, a weight, a wire trace (essential) and a single size 2 circle hook

As you can see – it didn’t take too long for the canal pike to oblige – and itch had been scratched – and after spending the rest of the morning chatting it was soon time to go home to the family for the rest of the day.

My next few trips out are going to be in search of cod – as its that time of year. There are quite a few marks to try on the West Lancashire Coast – and I’m also going to book myself onto a charter boat out of Fleetwood… looking forwards to sharing a few posts with you soon

Bringing Things Up To Date

11th January 2020 by Mike Duddy

Life sometimes takes over, and I don’t have as much time or inclination to write about my fishing trips as much I used to… that doesn’t mean to say I’m not going fishing anymore… I most certainly am … just in a slightly different manner than I used to before.

Most of my fishing over the last 6 months has been with family and friends, fitting in with others plans etc… And having a lovely young family I’ve no doubts that these demands on my will continue into the future… work, family life, kids football practice and regular Saturday morning matches, running and other family stuff is limiting my time on the bank.

Anyway enough waffle/excuses – here’s what I’ve been up to since my last proper post in June

In July – I organised a little fish-in on one of my favourite sections of the River Irwell – the river fished well for those who took part – with nearly everyone catching small roach, dace and chublets, and I had a couple of nice trout too – all on trotted stick float maggot.

Wonky Swims Adelphi — The Wonky Building Swims

Duddy Fishing Irwell — A Small Irwell Brown

Towards the end of July, I joined in the celebrations of my mothers 80th Birthday at the Low Wood Hotel at Windermere in the Lake District…. again family time as in the ascendancy but i did manage to have a few casts of the lure rod off the end of the pier outside the hotel, and managed to hook into a perch nearly every other cast. Nothing huge, with the fish all in the 6 to 8oz bracket.

My next trip out was entirely different – at the start of August I had an odd day at work, a mornings meeting in Crewe followed by an evening meeting in Liverpool… so naturally I filled in the gap with a little cheeky session on the Shropshire Union Canal at Audlem… I’d never visited this bit of canal before.. I just had a look on google map and thought I’ll try there….

So i pulled up in the car park of the Bridge Inn, Audlem – payed for a few hours parking and had a nice session using hemp and corn. Sadly there was plenty of boat traffic but happily the roach were obliging – and I managed to catch a dozen or so decent fish up to about 12oz.

Shropshire Union Roach — Shropshire Union Canal Audlem

Shropshire Union Canal Roach — Plenty like this to around 12oz

I packed up after a few hours – some great roach fishing from a new spot for me.

Next up was a long weekend with the family to Holyhead in North Wales.. I only managed a single sort session at the Trearddur Bay flag pole. Using the remnants of a tub of denrobena worms, I set up a simple two hook paternoster rig and cast out into the bay. I was amazed by the results, school bass, pollack and about 3 or 4 species of little wrasse. It was a bite a chuck and I was smashed up twice!. I’d never considered using garden worms before for sea fishing but its quite obvious that the fish don’t mind

Flag Pole Steps Trearddur Bay — A Nice Little Pollack – one of many fish on dendrobenas

Alas family commitments that weekend only allowed for a single short session – I fully intend to come back to this spot next summer with a slightly beefier set up and see if I can hook into the much bigger fish that were smashing me up.

So October half term was spent on a Caravan Break to Devon Cliffs Holiday Park in Devon. As my in-laws were joining us I had free reign to do a bit more fishing. The weather was terrible for most of the time we were there but I managed a couple of good sessions. A nice afternoon on the beach at Budleigh Salterton on lures we caught some mackerel and garfish.

Kate is now 4 and she has loves her fishing with Daddy — Kate is now 4 and she has loves her fishing with Dadddy

Next up was a day trip to Brixham.. and ” I was amazed to find boats offering mackerel trips” lol.. which i suggested to my wife that the kids might like….

Just like a well baited swim and well presented bait… she took it hook line and sinker … so an afternoons mackerel bashing ensued..

I was delighted to catch my first ever pilchard ! – an added bonus

Plus then of course the mackerel arrived and we filled half a bucket full

Using the mackerel we caught – I then had a few sessions fishing into the night off the beach at Budleigh Salterton again…. Using my two 15 foot surf casters, and 2 hook flapper rigs I banged out strips of mackerel into the distance and sat back and waiting to see if anything was biting.

Beach Fishing Budleigh Salterton — A nice evening on the beach

It took about 30 seconds before my rod tips began to rattle, I thought it was crabs at first as the bites were just little rattles rather than more powerful pulls on the rod tips. I soon realised that Budleigh Salterton after dark is Pout city as I caught dozens of the cheeky little bait robbers. I soon gave up using 2 rods as the bites were just too frequent, and I was getting double hookups nearly every cast. And then eventually got fed up of catching Pout themselves, so rigged up a pulley rig with a dead pout on the end to see if could catch anything bigger

And it didnt take long to get a really positive pull on the rod tip. The culprit was of course a bloody dog fish…. not a bad one… but it signaled time to pack up and go home. That was the end of my fishing for this trip

I then managed a few sessions on the Fylde coast at Rossall with my mate Phil, but sea conditions and tides weren’t in our favour and we didn’t catch very much apart from some 3 bearded rockling and a couple of dabs and plaice.

And I finished the year by having a few sessions on Drinkwater Park Lake, but despite using a variety of lures, couldn’t get any takes,, and this despite taking my “lucky charm” with me

So the year ended with weeks of poor weather,, and I just didn’t fancy getting out fishing that much… and the year ended as a pretty damp squib.

To sumarise the year,,, I got out a lot, but mostly with the kids. I caught lots of fish, including a few brand new species (Pout and Pilchard) but other than a HUGE tench which I lost at the net, I didn’t manage any fish of note.

Imagine my delight when Mrs FishingFiend suggested we visit the Canary Islands for New Year …. 🙂

Read all about it soon!

Hungry Pike

10th December 2018 by Mike Duddy

Agecroft Pond is a bit of an enigma – it screams fish but it contains very few. The local angling club stocked 200 8″ carp in 2016, and as yet no one has ever caught one. I’ve fished this lake a handful of times, and never had much success other than a few small roach and the odd jack pike.

So last weekend, I thought I would give the lake a couple of hours of my attention, and because I wasn’t expecting much in the way of sport, invited two friends to join me for a fish and a chat.

I set up using the exact same rig that I’d used on recent successful roach sessions on other local ponds – a very light 0.3g pole float, a size 20 Kamasan B511, and a 0.08mm hook length. Again bait was punch bread on the hook, and liquidised bread (a very small amount) as feed. But as it was a cold day I used my pole at 13m to access the deepest water in the lake (6 feet) where I expected the fish to be lying up.

I’ve become used to my float sailing away immediately, but on this lake it was ages before I caught anything and with afternoon daylight being short at this time of the year, it was soon time to think about returning home.

To satisfy a theory about the pond I saved the 3 roach i caught in a bucket, and at the end of the afternoon set up a pike rod, and used the roach as bait..

It took less than 5 minutes before my old fashioned pike bung did the old fashioned thing……….. it slipped away – and a nice little jack graced my net.

In 3 casts…. I caught 3 jacks from different pegs……. good luck?

It made me think about a few things….. where had the carp gone ? why was it so hard to catch small silver fish? was the lake over populated with pike? or have all their prey been eaten by the black death?

I don’t have any answers but there appears to be a real imbalance in the fish population of this lake thats becoming evident over the years

Word on the street is that the angling club are currently looking at a significant restocking with roach, rudd, bream, tench and crucians and carp…. lets hope this brings the place back to life.

The 2 Hour Rule

3rd December 2018 by Mike Duddy

I have a self imposed two hour rule when I got out pleasure fishing.

Very simply if I don’t get a bite within two hours – I move swim or move venue. I’m out fishing for fun and whilst being outdoors and on the bank is important — so is catching a few fish.

This weekend I had a few hours free before my day was taken over by the kids. So I thought that an hour or two/three on one of my local lakes would be an ideal way to spend a few hours on Sunday morning. I’d taken my daughter fishing here earlier this summer and bagged up on roach and rudd using maggot waggler techniques. For this trip I wanted to brush up on my bread punch tactics, and was hoping that the roach would be obliging again.

I set up at 8.30 and potted in liquidised bread on two lines, 6 and 11 metres. Starting on the short line for the first half hour, I couldn’t buy a bite, despite trying all sorts of variations in depth and shotting patterns. So out to the 11 metre line – expecting a bite first put in seeing as though the fish had been given time to settle in on the bait, and had not been disturbed by the activity on the inside line. You guessed it – not a touch. I spent the first half an hour on the inside line, an hour on the long line, and then another half an hour back inside.

Not a flicker of a bite.

So – I’m quite strict with my two hour rule and was now left with three options. Move to another peg on the same lake. Move to another lake on the same complex (Rhodes Lodges in Middleton). Or move to a completely new venue. The fact that water levels were down on all the lakes on the complex after the long dry summer and autumn that we’ve experienced helped me make the decision to move venues. The lake that I was fishing is usually around 6ft deep – but water levels were over 2ft lower than normal – and maybe the fish had just holed up somewhere in a deeper hole. I wasn’t going to spend the time finding this hole,,,, so a move to another venue was the best option.

Sainsburys Pond in Middleton has always been a banker venue for a few roach…. so that’s where I headed. Only a short drive away, I was back fishing using the exact same tactics within 20 minutes. As I was only had an hour left I fed only 1 line. Again the water levels were down by nearly – so using a bit of local knowledge I set up in what I know is the deepest swim in the lake – however this was only 4ft !! (I am worried that these venues might really suffer if we have a long cold winter, and extended ice cover on our lakes).

A small nugget of sloppy liquidised bread, a small size 20 B511 hook, 0.08mm hooklength, a map 4×14 pencil float, 4 no 8 stotz as bulk with a single 10 stotz as dropper and I was away.

Kamasan B511 - my favourite hook for small roach — Kamasan B511 – my favourite hook for small roach

I like to use make feed nice and sloppy and feed it via pole cup

First put in, the float didn’t event settle before it slipped away and I was into my first small roach. I didn’t catch anything over 4oz but had a brisk hours fishing catching plenty of small roach and rudd before I reluctantly packed up. The fish were hungry, and if didn’t keep the bread feed going in, the bites soon died off. As you can see from the photo above they ate all the feed I had.

I’m hoping to have a canal session this week – again on the punch bread/sloppy feed..

Black Death On The Irwell

30th November 2018 by Mike Duddy

Here are the observations of a North Manchester Angler written in 2009 – it gives a great insight as to the impact Cormorants have made on my local River Irwell. (and I’ve added a few observations of my own to conclude)

“I’ve run Wickenhall bottom lake in Newhey for around 8 years now. It was a chance remark by one of the regular anglers about fishing the river Irwell in Manchester. loads of roach, most of them between 6 ounces and a pound he said, and on some days we get maybe 8 or nine chub up to 3lb or so, we’ve even had a couple of bream too.

After probing the said angler on areas to fish, he said ,”don’t go on your own cos it can be a bit rough, and swims are hard to find but worth the effort if you find the roach shoals”.

a couple of months later and after talking my daughter into a pre Xmas shopping trip, (on the condition that we have an hour looking at the river for possible access points, I was stood high over the Irwell on the impressive Trinity bridge, fish were regularly topping a few hundred yards upstream, nothing massive, but definitely fish. Anyway plans were made for me and Pete Healy, to go and have a go the following Sunday.

We arrived 30mins or so before first light. Fish were topping everywhere. We both started on maggot feeder. My first bite came before I put the rod down, a perfect roach of 10 ounces. I turned to tell Pete, who was fifty feet further upstream, only to find him with a similar fish in the landing net.

The next few hours were ridiculous. Fish after fish came to the double maggot baits. In fact at one stage we both stopped fishing for half an hour to have a brew and a butty.

Without going through every session we had in a period of 4 years, I’ll just say that the place was incredible. On numerous occasions, Pete, my daughter Abbie (9 to 13 years old at the time)on many, and I mean many days had at least 50 or sixty pounds of roach, chub, perch and dace. we only ever saw another four or five lads fishing over all that time and all of us kept it pretty quiet. Stickfloat was probably the best method with maggot, caster and hemp. But we caught on big baits like bread and meat too.

You’ll have noticed by now a lot of this article is written in the past tense.

These glory days of the Irwell have now sadly passed. After speaking to one of the regulars last year and finding out the fishing had gone downhill we decided to have a couple of sessions in the old swims,(we hadn’t been down for over 10 months). I can tell you it was a total waste of time, conditions were spot on for trotting, the water was perfect, but not a single bite in four trips.

now it’s quite normal for shoals of silver fish to hold up all winter in city centre rivers. whether it’s the lights or maybe due to it being a tad warmer I don’t know, but it happens in lots of rivers in the UK.

It’s also normal for fish to suddenly not be there one year for apparently no reason, quite often though they won’t be that far away. So with that in mind we took my small rowing boat (normally used for piking) to have a look around with a fish finder. We did find fish quarter of a mile downstream in a couple of places and caught some on trotted maggot from the boat. These were mainly roach but we only had about six each.

There’s a word I’ve deliberately missed out in this article up to yet, well here it comes……

……..CORMORANTS………

In the last two years of fishing we saw a huge increase in the numbers of these birds, starting with one or two at first and then going up to dozens in the end. We saw them many times taking big roach, chub and dace all day long on some days.

It was heartbreaking to see and is the main reason we stopped fishing there. Previously unmarked, pristine fish, were now very badly marked indeed and the fishing dropped dramatically. The reason I decided to submit this article was to let the lads in the Manchester area, who fished the Irwell now or in the past, know about the situation.

2008 between Xmas and new year we took the boat onto the Irwell. At this time of year, centre of town should be solid with fish….. we spent ALL DAY looking in every nook and cranny from M.E.N arena all the way to Salford quays.

WE DID NOT SEE ANY FISH AT ALL IN MILES OF RIVER, OR ANY OF THE BASINS, ETC, THAT CAN’T BE ACCESSED FROM THE BANK.

So what’s happened to all those beautiful fish? Pollution would have turned some up for all to see but no one has reported any. Maybe they migrated further than we looked, but I doubt it, I think the black death is back in the country……..only this time it can fly.

As a footnote we caught from six swims in the centre of town. (are you ready for this):

ROACH TO OVER 2LB
BREAM TO 6LB
PERCH TO 3LB
SEATROUT TO 3LB
BROWNIES TO 2LB
PIKE TO 23LBS
TENCH TO 3LB
GRAYLING TO 1LB
DACE TO 12OZ
CHUB TO OVER 5LB
GUDGEON,RUFFE, AND I EVEN CAUGHT A BLUE ORFE ABOUT 2LB ONE DAY.”

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Fishing Fiends Opinion Below

Coming to the end of 2018 now – its interesting to see how the Irwell has changed – the roach have all but disappeared despite regular restocking by the Environment Agency.

The bream in the lower river have grown on to near double figures, carp started to show – some of them nudging 30lbs

Sea trout ??? do they really exist ?? or are they just smolted up brownies – which now grow to nearly 13lbs. The three huge locks on the Manchester Ship Canal are an effective barrier to migratory fish (though plans are being put in place to enable fish passage in the future)

Pike — well they are still present throughout the river from Bury down to Manchester, with lots of small jacks but the occasional big girl to 20lb.

Tench – I’ve never seen one from the Irwell.

Grayling – a recent stocking by the EA of 3000 tiddlers but an odd fish to 12 inches being caught in the Bury area. Dace are present but not prolific.

Chub to 6lbs,

Plenty of Gudgeon.

A smattering of Perch but they are not prolific.

200 Barbel were stocked at the waters meet of the Irwell and Croal in the early 90s by Farnworth Anglers – and the odd fish has turned up between Bury and Manchester to 13lb – however these fish are as rare as hens teeth, and its a real achievement to catch the mythical Irwell Barbel. The EA stocked 500 fingerlings in 2014, and again with 500 slightly bigger fish in 2017 and another 500 in winter 2018. However they don’t appear to thrive in Irwell waters and are still the Holy Grail for Irwell anglers.

As water quality improves – the fishing has without doubt declined from the halcyon days of the early late 90s and early 2000s. I too can remember catching 50lb+ nets of roach on hemp and maggot – but these events are now a thing of the past.

However,the trout fishing goes from strength to strength as water quality improves, and their fry are better suited to fast flowing water.

Without doubt the Gooseander which so effectively predate on fish fry, the Cormorants which so effectively predate on adult fish, mink and frequent pollution incidents have decimated our river.

I wonder what the future holds..