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Exploring New Swims

Exploring New Swims

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I spent yesterday afternoon and evening with Tony on the banks of the Ribble. The river was up and our favoured two swims were unfishable.

This gave us the opportunity to try out different areas of the beat, and i am very pleased to tell you that we caught fish from every swim we tried. We both caught roach, dace, small chub and sea trout.

I wish the sea trout were like the one Phil caught a few weeks back, but none of them went over a pound. However the silver purple sheen they have on their bodies make them a very attractive fish to catch. I wish i could capture the irridescent colours i can make out with my naked eye on camera but havent yet found a way to do so. I have always thought that sea trout would be larger than the ones we have been catching, but Tony thinks that these fish have never really gone to sea, but migrated for a period to the rivers tidal area.

After the recent heavy rains the river banks were treacherously slippy, and i fell on several occaisions. On one occaision after slipping, i stood up only to smack my head against a low branch which had me seeing stars for a good 15 minutes.

As the evening drew to a close, Tony and i found ourselves in a swim beneath Duck Island, where we found that the quality of the fish we were catching dramatically improved. This renewed our enthusiam, and it was dark when we slipped and stumbled our way back to the car.

As always, a trip out with Tony, lifted my spirits, his enthusiasm is infectious.
manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout

Fishing On The Mersey

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Yesterday evening i had my first ever session on the River Mersey. I haven’t really explored the opportunities that this river has to offer and so far i only know one swim which looks good to fish in. As i only really know the one swim a weirpool and i didnt have time to have a proper explore, i decided to fish water i already knew.
After the recent heavy rains the river was high and coloured, and the water was really flowing strongly over the lip of the weir, turning the normally gentle weir pool, into a boiling maelstrom.
Using my customary tactics of avon float and centre pin, i trotted double maggot down the inside line about 15 ft out.
I caught a succession of small chub and dace for two hours, but for some reason i felt freezing cold and decided to call it a day. It was thoroughly enjoyable fishing with all of the fish in fantastic condition and i think that i will be coming here more often over the next couple of months. The highlight of the day was catching my first dace of the season. I cant believe its taken me so long to catch a dace this year as all the local rivers are full of them.
manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout

At Last

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I spent a great day fishing with Neil (aka Miggy). After a week or so without fishing i was itching to get out again and an agreed 8am start saw us on the banks of Square Pit in Hindley. I have fished this small lodge before with Tony and caught some lovely Rudd and Crucian Carp, its a cracking little venue and i was really pleased to be wetting a line there again.
I decided to use different tactics from my previous visit, where i had alot of success using maggot as hookbait over swim stim green groundbait. Today i decided to feed two swims, the first in the margins with a hemp feed and sweetcorn as hookbait, the second line was 4mm pellet feed with 6mm green stim pellets as hookbait.

Neither line worked well and i only had a couple of roach by lunchtime. Meanwhile Neil seemed to be catching every fish in the lake using red maggots.

I needed a radical change of plan, as neither plan A or B were giving me any fish. I decided that i would drive to the local tackle shop to buy some casters would be the answer, but they didnt have any, so i bought some maggots and returned to the lake.

First put in gave me a rudd of about 6oz and i went on to catch nearly a fish a chuck for the rest of the afternoon. The hemp i had fed brought me a better quality of roach and i had a few pushing the pound mark – not bad for a small venue.

I was also lucky enough to catch half a dozen crucians to about a pound and lots of rudd.
The rain was atrocious with incessant rain but i was happy to be back on the bank and catching fish again.

Matthew has sailing club on Tuesday evening and is taken there by his grandmother, however she had other commitments this evening so it was my pleasure to accompany him to Hollingworth Lake for a few hours this evening. Matt sailed whilst Neil and i had a short lure session in the hope of catching one of the lakes reputed monster pike.

I caught this little jack on an ondex lure, and Neil had a good take from a fish towards the end of the evening on a traditional mepps style spinner later on. We had a good laugh standing together fishing off the dam wall, and i dont know who was more suprised , me to catch a fish or the little jack pike who miscalculated what to eat for its dinner.


All in all, a long but very enjoyable day.
manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout

Unable To Wet A Line

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As the title of this post tells you, i havnt been able to go fishing recently. School holidays, decorating and visitors from abroad have kept me awayfrom the riverbanks.
I have attempted to make two trips recently but have had to canel both at the last minute due to DIY commitments.
However a trip to Blackpool gave me the chance to visit West Coast Angling supplies (a fortuitous rain storm gave me a good excuse to shelter in a tackle shop for half an hour) where i picked up these lovely MAP stick and avon floats.

The next day, i took Lucia and our visitors for a walk around the north coast of Holy Island which is located off the west coast of Anglesey. I have searched for a rock mark called Mackerel Rock for quite a few years now, and finally discovered its location during our walk ( guesses for what its famous for). Again the weather was terrible, but this didnt alter the beautiful dramatic scenery which we were hiking through.

The waves were crashing against the cliffs sending huge plumes of water into the air and even though i had brought some tackle with me i thought it safest to leave it in the back of the car. I did find some hardy/foolhardy souls braving the elements on the leeward side of the mark, but the some of the waves were very high and i wouldnt have liked to fish there myself let alone take non fishing visitors there- see photos.

The RSPB reserve which we walked through was both beautiful and exposed. There are huge expanses of gorse, heather and other wild flowers which carpet the ground, much like the machair regions of the Hebrides. These lead all the way down to the cliff edges a good 50 to 100 feet above the sea.

The main blooms of these flowers are in May and June when this area is nothing other than spectacular however the recent wet spell has seen a resurgence of the blooms much to our luck.


Our visitors leave on Monday, but a work trip to London, and Matthews rugby mean that i am not going to be able to fish midweek. I am going to be paying special attention to the weather forecasts this week as i hope for two days on the river next weekend.
manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout

Return To The Cliff

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I spent a couple of hours fishing the river at “the cliff” yesterday evening. It started chucking it down as i was setting up, and as usual the river coloured immediately and started to rise. (a good six inches in two hours). I started off trotting maggots through the faster waters at the top of the cliff stretch, but after an hour all i had for my efforts was a short fight from a smallish fish, which threw the hook in the fast water.
I had always intended to fish two swims this evening, so i moved down stream 100yds to a flat deep section where theres 6ft of water only 1 rod length out. A few bait dropper fulls of maggots at the head of my trot, and a couple of casts later a smallish chub of about 12oz graced my landing net. Action then dissappeared untill i repeated the feed via the bait dropper and another fish of about a pound came to the net.
It was going dark and the river was rising so i called it quits. Looking back through my records its 6 months since i fished this part of the river, which i have always said is my favoutite.

manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout

Shropshire Day 2

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When we asked Matt which lake he wanted to fish on our second day, he of course wanted to fish the lake we had fished the previous day. A quick trip to the local village to purchase every tin of sweetcorn we could find and we were away.

I caught 10 carp in the first hour, then things slowed down somewhat. Dave and Matt were having alot of success using prawn as hookbait, and were catching a better stamp of fish as a result.

I “borrowed” some prawns from Dave and also found an immediate improvement in the quality of fish i was catching. I turned to thank Dave for the prawns, only to see the end of my pole shooting off into the lake. I stood shocked as my pole was pulled further and further into the centre of the lake and at the same time slowly sinking deeper and deeper. As i have owned this pole for less than a month and it cost me a fair few quid, there was only one thing to do –

I was lucky to get the pole back as when i reached it there were only about 6 inches left above the water. The fish was still on and i played it as i swam back to shallower water , but it got off as i neared the bank. Dave, Matthew and the two other guys fishing the lake were in fits of laughter, but the water wasnt too cold and that pole wasnt cheap and i didnt think it would be covered on my house insurance for that (funny thing was that for all Daves laughing the same thing happened to him two days later, but he didnt get wet as his pole immediately sank without trace).
The fishing was absolutely cracking and we all caught a great mixed bag of fish including rudd, perch, gudgeon, tench, bream and carp. Matt loved it and is now absolutely hooked on carp fishing. I also had another first when i caught a fish on a bare hook – a crucian of about half a pound.

At the weigh in at the end of the session Dave won again with 78lbs, i had 50 and Matt a very respectable 22lbs.

A cracking venue, great company and somewhere i will be able to take Matt to in future.
manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout

Shropshire Day 1

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Monday morning saw Big Dave, Matt and myself setting off down to Shropshire to a commercial complex which Dave invited us to. Matt has never really got amongst the carp before and had been looking forwards to this trip for ages.
There are 5 lakes at the complex all of which contain large numbers of carp, bream, tench roach and perch. We settled down on the first morning on Orfe Lake. We fished sweet corn over 4mm pellets tight up against the margin rushes and caught fish all day. As i have never really got to grips with pole fishing i only used the first three sections of my pole using a power top with 20’s elastic. This set up was too strong and i bumped quite a few fish before swapping over to a 12’s elastic which resulted in landing alot more fish.
Matt started off catching small carp and tench, but as the average size of carp increased so did his smile.
Dave meanwhile was intent on showing us the potential of the venue and was quietly building a decent net of fish. I very rarely use a keepnet, but Dave is an old match fisherman and loves the competitive side of fishing so i was happy to become his pools fodder.

Dave caught the biggest fish of the day of 11.5lbs but one of Matts ran him close. By the end of the day Dave had nearly 50lb of fish, i had about 35 with Matt getting up to just over 20lb.

We fished all day, and packed up as the light faded.

manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout

Short Session

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I had a short couple of hours on my local river this afternoon, and found the water levels very low. I fished what has recently become my favoured swim, and after a slow start caught some small roach, chub and gudgeon – standard fare for this stretch of the river. About an hour into the session, a large pike made an attempt to snatch one of the roach as i was landing it, and afterwards the swim died.

I kept up my feeding rate, with a dozen maggots every cast and was rewarded after about half an hour when my float buried and i struck into a fish which stripped off 20 yds of line on its first run. The lovely brownie above graced the net about 5 minutes later. I was really pleased to land this fish after losing the last good trout i hooked into here. However i estimate this fish to be less than half the size of the one i lost a couple of weeks ago.

Am now looking forwards to my carp fishing trip to Shropshire with Matthew.
manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout

Bradshaw Hall

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Photo above is Matts making a bream face – not a bad impression!

Took a trip to Bradshaw Hall this afternoon with Matthew, Big Dave and Matts friend from rugby James, his father Paul and a first time angler Pat – a real motley crew!

As always when taking youngsters and first timers fishing, the main objective of the day is to ensure lots of bites, and the possibility of a fish that will have the lads reels screaming. Bradshaw Hall is a local commercial fishery, stuffed with silver fish and loads of bonus carp fitted the bill perfectly.

We all caught loads of roach, perch and gudgeon fishing waggler floats and maggots close in. Matt and I were both trying out new poles, so we alternated our lines between maggot and soft pellet. We both caught some nice skimmers, but the carp werent showing, and i only had one carp on about 5 minutes before we packed up. My float dissappeared, and i lifted into a fish that instantly ran out 10 metres of 18’s elastic before the rig popped back at me. Its ages since i have fished the pole, but am going to a fishery in Shropshire for a couple of days next week with Matt and Big Dave where carp fishing using a pole is the standard method, so am obvioulsy in need of some practice.

We all caught loads of silver fish, and Pat who had never been fishing before was chuffed to bits with his catch of 30+fish. I dont often fish commercials, but they are a great place to take kids and new anglers because if you can drum into them the importance of loose feeding a little and often they can get regular action all day long.

manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout

New Technique

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Tonight i tried out a new tackle combination which was forced upon me as on arrival at the river bank, i opened the boot of the car to see all of my gear minus my rod. Not the best start to the evening. As so often happens midweek, i am so eager to get out of the office and onto the rivernbank that sometimes i forget an item of equipment, tonight it was my trotting rod. Tony was in fits of laughter at my predicament, as its a 70 mile round trip from home and he knew i wasnt going to go back to fetch it. He did very generously offer to share the use of his rod. But.

Tony couldnt believe it when i pulled a 1oft telescopic beach caster out of the boot, and told him that i would use it to bounce worms and a drilled bullet down one of the faster runs. A new technique – beach caster and pin. Not the most sensitive set up but i caught a nice chub on my second cast !!

I couldnt believe it myself actually, as i thought i was going to have an evening enjoying the view. This particular rod only sees the light of day when i go away on holiday as it packs neatly into my suitcase. Thankfully i have been a lazy bugger recently and not yet put it back in its normal resting place after my recent holiday.

Tony caught a nice barbel of about 5lbs from the “hot” swim, whereas my fish came from what i am from now on going to call the graveyard swim – its new name comes from the fact that its full of snags and sharp rocks and i have never landed any of the decent fish i have hooked into in this swim.

It wasnt the most productive evening, but as ever thoroughly enjoyable. I now have an unused pint of maggots in my bait fridge so it looks as though i will have to go fishing again this week, as i hate waste, what a shame. Lets hope it doesnt rain too much and i will be able to have a crack at one of the swims on the Irwell that i havent been to for a while and am beginning to miss.
manchester fishing Irwell Ribble Trout