A Day Of Discoveries

On the way to a meeting in town today, i was walking alongside the Rochdale Canal which runs through the city centre, and saw a British Waterways team attempting to remove debris from around the propeller of a narrow boat. In order to get access to the propellers of the boat they had lowered the level of water in a couple of the lock basins.

As expected the canal bed was full of rubbish, but amongst the rubbish i could see small bream, chub to about 4lbs, roach to over pound and more than a few jack pike. I was amazed at the sight of these huge chub, and maybe one day during the autumn i might have a couple of sessions trying to land one of them. They would definately be personal best chub if i were lucky enough to hook into one of these lunkers.

My work was done by about 3pm. and as the sun was out for a change i bought a pint of maggots and went down to the length of river which runs behind my house. Its the first time in ages i have fished this part of the river despite it being closest to home, and i tried out a swim i have never fished before, as its only this season that i have owned a pair of waders, rendering this swim previously unfishable.

I havnt taken any pictures of this swim, but promise to do so in the future, but it consists of a large shingle bank on the near bank shelving gently away to a deep run on the far bank. I could wade 3/4 of the way across and i ran my stick float through the faster deeper water. I caught a few nice roach in the first half hour, then a couple of small trout.

One of the trout had an unusal silver-blue-purple sheen similar to those we caught earlier in the season higher up the river. If i were on the Ribble i would swear they are sea trout but my local river is inaccessible to migratory fish so i can only assume they are brown trout which under normal conditions would migrate to sea given the opportunity.

I caught a steady succession of roach and trout throughout the session, but surprisingly no chub. However, as the light started to fail, i hooked into a real lunker of a fish which hooped my rod right over. The fish was on for a good 10 minutes before shedding the hook, and i never got to see what it was. It didnt fight like a trout, was too big for a roach, and fought too hard to be a chub – i do have an idea what it was and was gutted to lose it just as it was getting close enough for me to see it. I will certainly be fishing this swim in future in the hope of giving some of you a real surprise.

Another four hours now makes the running total 10.5 hours without a sniff of a fish. I did however see a couple of fish leap clear of the water two downstream of where i was fishing and more annoyingly one slightly upstream (annoying because it must have swum past me whilst i was trying to catch it!!).

I used my usual tactics of spinning with flying c’s, big mepps and for the first time this evening i tried a tasmanian devil which is a bladed type of revolving lure – i shall put of a photo of them later this week so you can see what they look like. The bottom of the river has more than a few snags, and i again lost a couple of spinners. This salmon quest is becoming expensive as well as time consuming.

Tony accompanied me this evening, and he fished 25 yds downstream of me, trotting maggots underneath a stick float running along the crease between the fast and slow water. He had a pretty successful evening, catching lots of reasonable sized roach and dace, however he lost what he described as his “roach of the season” at the net. Estimated at a good 2lbs i know that Tony would have rather caught just that fish than all the others. A 2lb roach is something special, and to lose it whilst attempting to net it is galling.

Tony had brought some worms with him, so as a change i tried to bounce some worms through the faster water using a rubber bouncing bullet. However the snags claimed my tackle twice in 3 casts, so i soon went back to flinging my spinners.

We fished until dark, which as you know is now unfortunately only 7.30pm. I dont know how many more midweek trips after work i am going to be able to fit in as i dont really like to leave the office before 3pm just to go fishing.

Next time i fish the river i am going to fish worm under a chubber type float as if the Salmon arent present maybe i might tempt something else.

After weeks and weeks of terrible weather it was a pleasure to go fishing and sit in the sunshine. Matt was determined to catch his first ever pike today, and we went to fish the moorland reservoir i have been fishing recently. We were accompanied by Phil, Neil and Big Dave and everyone had pike on their minds.

I had the honour of catching the livebaits, and as expected i caught 3 nice roach in with my first four casts. Matt was the first to get a live bait on his size 10 trebles, and i showed him exactly the spot where to cast to, only a couple of yards from the bank. Within seconds of casting in, his roach was taken by a nice pike of about 5lbs.

Weather and Lucia permitting i hope to get another try on Sunday afternoon.

I spent a couple of enjoyable hours flinging a flying c across the river, but had no takes. The highlight of my evening was seeing a salmon jump directly opposite where i was fishing.

It didnt put up much of a fight as it had a great big pot belly (probably from all the roach it had eaten recently).

We carried on catching roach on the tip, Tony even caught a Ruffe, a species of fish i havnt caught for many years. An hour or so later, Tony saw yet another Pike lurking in the margins, waiting to pounce on fish which we were releasing back into the lake. Again a roach was mounted on the trebles and within 3 minutes or so of casting in, took the bait. This fish fought much harder, making repeated runs, and spectacular surging runs on the surface of the lake. The size 10 trebles held neatly in the scissors of the fishes jaw and this lovely fish graced the bottom of my landing net. I was chuffed at catching this one as its definately my best Pike for quite a few years.

In exactly the same manner as yesterday, the bites slowly dried up on the tip, and black clouds closed in. We packed up quickly but couldnt beat the rain. Hopefully the river will have returned to fishable levels by Tuesday afternoon, as Tony said after we had packed up “its a nice change fishing still water but you cant beat the magic of the river”. I couldnt agree more.

Dad tackled up some plugging gear, and fished the dam wall in close proximity to where i was fishing, and where the pike that had been plaguing me had been coming from. Despite using a variety of plugs and spinners he couldnt get a take. Meanwhile, the pike were still launching themselves at the roach i was catching, so i set one up under a bung for dad and told him to cast about 15 ft out in front of me.

It didnt take long for him to hook into this small jack which gave him a pretty good scrap for its size. However the sunshine had now gone, replaced by dark clouds blowing in over the moors, and dad quite rightly made a run for the cover of his car whilst i did the same shortly afterwards.

Gordale Scar, Malham Tarn, Malham Lings and Cove are features unique to this area and helped show our visitors from Slovakia some the diverse countryside which we enjoy and sometimes take for granted here in the north of England.

On our last day out togther Lucia decided to walk around Cow Green Resevoir a real trout mecca, and today she decided to really stick the boot in by taking me for a walk along the river and then to the Aspinall Arms for my dinner!

I wondered why she was smirking all day – that girl really knows how to wind me up. I knew it would have been suicidal to mention that i had a travel rod in the back of the car as i think she suffers enough with my fishing, and to get up to my tricks when her parents are visiting would be a step too far.

However, Malham Tarn, the headwaters of the River Aire and Cow Green are all high on my list of venues to visit next season, and it does no harm to have a look around a venue before you decide to fish.