• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Fishing Fiend

Mad About Fishing

Fishing Fiend Ltd Logo
  • About Me
  • The Anglers Challenge

Trotting

Dace Fishing On The Irwell

27th June 2019 by Mike Duddy

After a tough day mulling over financial spreadsheets I wanted  nothing more than a few hours of peace and quiet on the river after work.  A quick trip to the tackle shop turned into a slog through the traffic, and a swift in and out at home turned into a chat with the wife and kids about their day and me being sucked into sitting down with them for tea.

I didn’t get to the riverbank until 6.30pm  but when I finally arrived the excitement rose as it looked spot on.

River Irwell Agecroft

I set up with 15ft Drennan float rod, my trusty old Abu 506, and a 5bb stick float – bait…. just to see what was there… a single maggot on a size 18 hook. Having fished this swim a few times over the last couple of years I wasn’t really expecting too much as I’ve still never had as much as a bit from it (despite recent reports of chub and dace being caught from the opposite bank). Over the years I’ve been present at the stocking of more than 40,000 fish into the Irwell,, many of them going in at this exact spot… I’ve still to get a bite here,,, but god loves a trier !!

Fishing Kit

And my luck hadn’t changed from previous visits, as an hour and 15 minutes later I still hadn’t had a bite.

Now in recent times, fishing time has been limited and I didn’t want to be wasting a whole evening on a swim that might be devoid of fish…. so a move was in order…… upstream/downstream decisions decisions….

Downstream was the choice .. and I settled down in a fast pacey swim where I’ve previously caught good nets of roach.

First run through in the new swim resulted in a smashed maggot, second run through a fine plump dace of about 6 ounces.

An Irwell Dace

I had a bite a chuck for the next two hours – packing up on the dot of 10pm – as the bells of Manchester Cathedral tolled in the distant back ground (take that as a hint).

The dace were aggressively but cunningly attacking the single maggot as it ran through the swim… if I let the bait run with the flow, the bites didn’t register and I came back with a smashed maggot…. If I held the bait back to about half the speed of the flow then the fish self hooked themselves, especially as I moved a size 6 shot to within about 4 inches above the hook.

Mixed in with the dace were the usual aggressive trout – I landed two decent fish of about 2lb, and got smashed by one much bigger, that just hurtled off across river like an express train. My light silver fish gear not really being up to the job of hanging on to a big bucking bronco brownie.

I reckon that I had close to 20lb of fish in the last 2 hours – and might go back again in the next week or two with a keepnet and get a nice net of fish and share the picture.

Here’s the smaller of the two browns that I landed – a lovely fat fish.

 

Filed Under: Dace, Irwell, Trotting, Trout

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)

Black Death On The Irwell

 

“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.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

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..

It Came From The Irwell

 

 

Filed Under: Fishing, Grayling, history, Irwell, roach, Trotting, Trout

Using A Pole Float For Trotting The River

27th November 2018 by Mike Duddy

I arrived at the river yesterday afternoon with my pal Terry for a short session, to discover that I’d forgotten my usual trotting floats and only had a few pole floats in the boot of the car. Not ideal for trotting the river, but its not the first time that I’ve used a pole float for trotting on a river. When you have no other choice you have to adapt !

However -as you can see in the pics below – a 0.6 gram float wasn’t ideal for a fast pacy river that had a bit of extra colour in it from overnight rain.

Terry chose his swim at the head of the pool – and fished with a simple gold head Pheasant Tail Nymph,,,, I settled down in the smoother deeper water at the tail end of the pool and fed a few maggots every couple of minutes… and then cast in.

I needn’t have worried as 4 fish in my first six casts  soon gave me the confidence that my bait was down where it needed to be.

Maggots did the trick on a size 12 Kamasan B560, 3lb hook length and my trusty old Abu 506 – I caught fish steadily for an hour…. including taking a break to sort out my friend Terry who accompanied me.

Looking at the river in the picture below, you’d never believe that such a light rig would be effective. But believe me 3 x No4 shot which only adds up to 0.6 grams had the bait down doing the business where it needed to be.

Fly Fishing River Holme
Not your usual spot for using a pole float
River Holme Grayling
Terrys First Grayling

We only had time for an hour or so fishing and we ended up with 16 fish between us. A nice short sharp session on a cold Novembers day.

Using A Pole Float For Trotting The River
Using A Pole Float For Trotting The River

 

My reward was plenty of these……. happy days.

Filed Under: Fishing, Grayling, Trotting

Primary Sidebar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOM-emZ1Wkw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEJLElb6HUc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEQlDACC1WI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cne7QOilerQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm0KDPjP1J8&t=9s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ZAuuDTsQs

Archives

Tags

5 Bar Gate Agecroft Pond Anglers Challenge Anular Bream ashton canal Bass Beach Fishing Birkenhead Dock fishing Bitterling blank Bradshaw Hall Bread Punch Bream Bridgewater Canal Bridlington Carp cheshire ring Chub Cleveleys Cod Common Blennie Common Comber Cornwall Crucian Carp Dab Dace Drinkwater Park Drop Shot Dropshot Drop Shotting Dusky Grouper European Eel FC United Fenix Flounder fly fishing Football Fuerteventura Fuerteventura Fishing Githead Bream Gynn Wall Heaton Park History Holiday Fishing Ide Irwell Isome Issos Beach Corfu Kelzo Labranda Beach Fishing Lesser Spotted Dog Fish Lesser Weever Live Bait Liverpool Docks LRF Lure Mackerel Madeira Goby Madeira Rockfish maggot Mariners Wharf New Brighton Old River Irlam Ornate Wrasse Painted Comber Pandora Perch Perch Rock Pike Pilsworth Pollack pollution Pollys Flash Prison Pond Rainbow Wrasse Roach Rochdale Canal Rockpool Blenny Rudd Salford Quays Sand Smelt Sarga Sea Fishing sewage litter Smoothhound Starry Smoothound Steenbras Striped Sea Bream Tench Three Bearded Rockling Tope trout walking Wallasey Dock fishing wallasey docks Whiting Worm YoZuri Minnow

recent posts

  • Back On The Bank 12th December 2022
  • The Fenix Trophy Final 2022 14th November 2022
  • FC Utd And The Fenix Part 2 17th October 2022
  • FC Utd And The Fenix Part 1 16th September 2022
  • Fishing Issos Beach Corfu – Summer 2022 3rd September 2022
  • A New Logo – time for a refresh 14th August 2022
  • Fishing For Big Perch At Bradshaw Hall 24th December 2020
  • El Blanko And Sancho Phil Ride Again 14th December 2020
  • Chasing Perch On The Worm Dropshot 23rd November 2020
  • Pilsworth Fishery Dropshot 9th November 2020
  • Fishing Cures The Blues 26th October 2020
  • Fishing Salford Quays – Smash And Grab 10th October 2020
  • Fishing Liverpool Docks 6th October 2020
  • Artists On The Irwell 1st October 2020
  • Drop Shotting Wallasey Docks and Salford Quays 29th September 2020
  • Its Like February Again 26th September 2020
  • Drinkwater Park Again 20th September 2020
  • A Summers Evening Fishing Drinkwater Park Lake 1st September 2020
  • Holiday Fishing Cornwall 24th August 2020
  • Ashton Canal Fishing Free Parking 20th August 2020
  • A Good Read ? 31st July 2020
  • Driving Me Up The (Gynn) Wall 30th July 2020
  • I Smelt A Record But Let It Go 27th July 2020
  • Out Fishing Again 19th July 2020
  • Attack Of The Killer Crabs 3rd July 2020
  • An Evening On The Prison Pond 27th June 2020
  • Bitterling and Bream 6th June 2020
  • Out On The Ocean Wave 1st June 2020
  • Only Mad Dogs And Englishmen 29th May 2020
  • Back In The Saddle 27th May 2020
  • Excitement Turns To Disappointment (again) 15th March 2020
  • New Season Excitement 14th March 2020
  • Waiting For The Tide To Turn 8th March 2020
  • An Anglers Challenge 29th February 2020
  • Piss Off February 24th February 2020
  • Fishing Fiend Species Hunter 2020 1st February 2020
  • In Search Of Pike 21st January 2020
  • Fishing Fuerteventura (again) 12th January 2020
  • Bringing Things Up To Date 11th January 2020
  • Tackle Shed 26th December 2019
  • The Friendly Anglers Fund 2nd July 2019
  • Dace Fishing On The Irwell 27th June 2019
  • Happy Times 25th June 2019
  • Parklife Fishing 9th June 2019
  • New Kit 6th January 2019
  • A Little Perspective – Pike 30th December 2018
  • Irwell Barbel Quest – Part 12 – Utter Frustration 23rd December 2018
  • An Artists Palette 15th December 2018
  • Hungry Pike 10th December 2018
  • The 2 Hour Rule 3rd December 2018
  • Black Death On The Irwell 30th November 2018
  • Using A Pole Float For Trotting The River 27th November 2018
  • My Most Successful Lure This Year 25th November 2018
  • Washed Up On The Beach 19th November 2018
  • Fishing At Monton Lighthouse 27th August 2018
  • Out With The Kids 17th June 2018
  • Winter Bream 5th February 2017
  • Manchester Grayling 31st January 2017
  • Pleasure Fishing Bradshaw Hall Fisheries Lake 7 25th January 2017
  • A Fish At Last 19th January 2017
  • A Bit Rubbish – Part 2 3rd January 2017
  • A New Year – An Old Challenge 1st January 2017
  • A Bit Rusty 10th November 2016
  • A Bit Rubbish 1st November 2016
  • Holiday Fishing Tenerife 5th July 2016
  • The Irwell Imp 22nd May 2016
  • Daddy Daddy Lets Play Fishin Lod 21st April 2016
  • Scratching The Itch 29th March 2016
  • A Great Day 25th March 2016
  • Holiday Fishing Fuerteventura 11th March 2016
  • Mersey Salmon Video 31st January 2016
  • Fishing On Christmas Day 25th December 2015
  • Going Fishing With My Dad 10th December 2015
  • I’m Still Here 6th December 2015
  • Walking The Cheshire Ring Pt2 1st April 2014
  • Walking The Cheshire Ring Part 1 31st March 2014
  • Is Back On The Bank 19th January 2014
  • A Stolen Hour 28th October 2012
  • A Day Out At Gingham Fishery Nr Horwich 30th September 2012
  • Irwell Barbel Quest part 11 13th August 2012
  • Full House 1st August 2012
  • Back On Th’Irwell 30th July 2012
  • Warning – Fishing Pox 19th July 2012
  • Your help needed 23rd June 2012
  • Duchy Lagoons 5th June 2012
  • All Quiet 31st May 2012
  • Right On My Doorstep 1st May 2012
  • Longer Evenings 17th April 2012
  • Shore Fishing Tenerife 15th April 2012
  • Trout In Dirty Places 2nd April 2012
  • Caddis On Steroids 29th March 2012
  • Irwell Pollution 19th March 2012
  • Fishing and Blogging With The BBC 15th March 2012
  • Always A Wag 2nd March 2012
  • Long Overdue 29th February 2012
  • Roach 23rd February 2012
  • Hooked 22nd February 2012
  • Trout Fishing At Pendle View 19th February 2012
  • The Quarry 18th February 2012
  • An Impressionist On The Irwell 5th February 2012
  • Angling Research – The Social And Community Benefits Of Angling 31st January 2012
  • Casting About 22nd January 2012
  • Church Gardens 21st January 2012
  • Golden 15th January 2012
  • A Different Kettle Of Fish 13th January 2012
  • Not A Just Reward 7th January 2012
  • Blanking On The Quays 4th January 2012
  • On The Rocks In Lanzarote 14th December 2011
  • Bloggers On The Box 23rd November 2011
  • Irwell Barbel Quest Part 10 15th November 2011
  • On The Canal In Manchester 5th November 2011
  • Roaching On The Ribble 31st October 2011
  • Fishing On The Ship Canal With The BBC 28th October 2011
  • October Kick Sampling With The Riverfly Partnership 15th October 2011
  • Angling Trust North West 11th October 2011
  • Donegal 6th October 2011
  • Rochdale Canal Tench 19th September 2011
  • 8th October Match – River Irwell Old Course Irlam – Top Hat Optional 17th September 2011
  • Canal Tench 10th September 2011
  • Pommie Bashing 2nd September 2011
  • River Irwell Old Course Match Aug 2011 29th August 2011
  • Road Trip 25th August 2011
  • On The Canal 19th August 2011
  • Starlight Express 15th August 2011
  • Bitter – ling 11th August 2011
  • Ouch 28th July 2011
  • A Warm Glow 18th June 2011
  • Inspiration 22nd May 2011
  • Not Another Bloody Blog 17th May 2011
  • River Irk Polluted Again 14th May 2011

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in