Rudd Archives - Fishing Fiend

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

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.

Rudd

Out Fishing Again

An Evening On The Prison Pond