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

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

My Most Successful Lure This Year

25th November 2018 by Mike Duddy

As I’ve said in my last few posts….. I’ve been doing a lot more fishing than blogging this year so I thought I’d share a bit more about how I’m getting on.

Work and family commitments have put an end to the long undisturbed sessions of the past, and I’ve been having to take my kicks where I can.

I’m driving round with a 7ft light spinning rod and reel loaded with 6lb braid in the back of the car and a lure box that looks like this – and with a ready rigged rod I’m ready to fish as soon as I park my car.

The lure tackle is a perma-fixture in the back of my car and enables me to stop off at venues for half an hour now and then to let my scratch my urge to go fishing. Most successful lure has to be this perch pattern in the picture below. I liked them at first sight in a tackle shop, and bought two packets. Sadly I’ve been using them up, and only have a few left,,,,,,and like the nitwit I am… I’ve forgotten who makes them.

You can see from the picture that I also use two sizes of weight – 3 gram for canals, and 5 grams for bigger more open water.

They are absolute perch nailers…. and the takes can be savage.

I drove past a local canal marina earlier this week, and had 15 minutes to spare between meetings so out came the rod. I was fishing in an instant and was rewarded with some lovely perch from around the live-in boats where perch love to lurk.

If anyone reading this knows the manufacturer of these lures can you please let me know in the comments section. I need to stock up!!

Washed Up On The Beach

19th November 2018 by Mike Duddy

I’ve been doing quite a lot of fishing over the last few months, but have been a bit slack with my blogging. The perch fishing on my local lakes has been great so far this autumn, lots and lots of fish but nothing spectacularly big. I few days out with the kids bit bashing on local commercials such as Bradshaw Hall, and Sycamore Fisheries, and some carp fishing at Drinkwater Park Lake… I have the photos to prove it honestly – and will do some write ups over the winter months.

However, I have a pal who needed a night out on the beach last night and I was happy to oblige with the driving. We arrived at 5 Bar Gate at Bispham just as low tide was turning into the flood, and walked up the beach towards Rossall.

Sunset At Rossall Blackpool — Sunset At Rossall

We found a spot where we could feel comfortable that the tide wasn’t going to come in a gully behind us in the dark without our realising, and set up a single rod each…. myself with a 2 hook flapper rig, and my pal Phil with the same but instead of loose hook lengths, his were to short wire booms. We both used 4 oz breakaway leads.

I used a 14ft continental style beach caster, and a big fixed spool reel loaded with 30lb braid.

Bait was frozen black lug from Bispham Angling shop.

Using this set up, I can get a good 100+ yards with a simple overhead lob. And I was casting a good 120 yards as there was a stiff offshore breeze.

It didn’t take long for the bites and fish to arrive, and we were catching Whiting, Doggies and a single Codling as the tide made its way up the beach. We fished until an hour after high tide and then packed up and made our way to the chippy for tea..

A good chin wag, setting the world to rights – I find beach fishing to be a very social experience as we can fish a rod each from a single tripod and chat all night long without fear of creating a disturbance. We had a great time, chatting about this and that, and as it was a cold clear night, we watched the constellations, the planes, satellites and shooting stars as we stared up at our rod tips.

An interesting thing we noted was that all the bigger fish of the evening came near to low tide, and all the smaller fish at high tide and the hour after. We had some really good sized Whiting to begin with and they got smaller and smaller as the night wore on. The tides were quite small, only 7.3m – so we agreed to come back for another session later in the month when the moon fills, and the tides reach 9.3m. It will be interesting to see how the fishing compares from a big low to big high tide.

Fishing At Monton Lighthouse

27th August 2018 by Mike Duddy

You might think that I’ve been out sea fishing going by the title of this post – but Monton Lighthouse is 30 miles from the sea – located on the banks of the Bridgewater Canal in deepest darkest Salford.

I’ve been interested in fishing this bit of the cut for a number of years now for a few reasons, 1. you can park your car right behind your peg (see photos below) 2. the water is stained orange by the ochre colour caused by washout of old mine shafts that honeycomb the area 3. its near my office and somewhere that I think might hold some decent tench, bream and carp.

However today I had the kids with me – so armed with a top 2 with 4’s elastic, Katies 6ft dayglo pink rod, some maggots and half the contents of the local sweeties shop we set up for a short 2 hour session.

Katie has lots of patience and will sit and fish for ages, but I can only get half an hour out of Tommy before his attention wanders – he spent most of the time playing with different radio stations on the car radio – but at least i got a couple of hours in.

We caught small roach and perch from the off – a delicate rig 1lb bottom size 22 hook. Nothing over 6oz but they kept on coming.

Now that I’ve tried it out once on maggot and battered the bits on the inside line, I might revisit with some proper kit and fish hemp and caster to see if the suspected bigger fish which live in the vicinity might want to come out to play.

The nearest tackle shop is Monton Tackle less than half a mile away. And this section of canal is controlled by Warrington Anglers … you can buy a ticket from the tackle shop

Plenty of small perch – a bit washed out colour caused by the ochre stained water in the canall

Canal Fishing — Some of the roach have a lovely blue sheen

Biggest fish of the day – not huge by any stretch of the imagination – but a delight for a 3 yr old

Katie wants to know why they don’t sell pink maggots

Out With The Kids

17th June 2018 by Mike Duddy

I can’t believe its so long since I posted anything on here….. I have been fishing … honest …. but with two young children and a wife who does shift work opportunities are sometimes thin on the ground these days.

When I have been out on the bank …. its usually with kids in tow

Here are a few pictures of my young apprentices doing their stuff..

Bradshaw Hall Fisheries Lake 1 is brilliant for kids

Katie Bagging Up Bradshaw Hall Fishery Lake 8

Tommy caught a lovely little crucian carp at Sycamore Fishery

Sycamore Fisheries is a brilliant venue for kids, and the staff recommended we fish a corner of Willow Lake that was just solid with small fish

As the river season opened yesterday -on the few occasions i get the chance to go fishing on my own I hope to be out on my local river, trying to catch an elusive Irwell barbel….

Winter Bream

5th February 2017 by Mike Duddy

I made it out this afternoon for a couple of hours to a small lake close to home. The temperature was cold as you might expect at this time of year,, and the water temperature was a chilly 3 degrees so I wasn’t really expecting much other than a bit of fresh air.

This lake has a good head of tench and carp – but there wasn’t much chance of them feeding – so set up with a very light end tackle of size 22 hook to 0.07mm hook length. Bait for the session was some old maggots that had turned to casters. I tipped them in water and was disappointed to find that 3/4 of them were already floaters – so I didn’t have much loose feed to play about with. I had some crushed hemp at the bottom of the box – so i fished caster and hemp setting my stall out for a few roach…

Which for a while appeared to be a bad decision as it took me an hour to get my first bite – and then it was from a bream.

I then managed to bump two more bream in the next 10 minutes and predictably the bites then dried up.

I swapped to a different line at the edge of the far bank rushes and then thankfully found the roach – getting half a dozen fish to 8oz in the last half hour before home.

Manchester Grayling

31st January 2017 by Mike Duddy

My fishing sessions seem to be coming in short sharp bursts at the moment – a stolen hour or sneaky afternoon out of the office. Today was my mate Petes birthday – and he wanted a bit of company – how could I not oblige…….. and to create a bit of extra birthday fun,,,,, I invited mutual friend and professional predator fisherman Ant Glascoe Jnr to join the birthday party.

Being the selfish so and so that I am, I inveigled the chaps into helping me knock a couple of species off my list for 2017.

Manchester has its own North South divide – Grayling are found in South Manchester rivers but not in the Northern ones.

So in order to strike Grayling off my species hunt – I headed south to the River Goyt.

I’ve never fished the Goyt before, so before tackling up – I had a good walk along the river bank at Woodbank Park in Stockport to search out any potential good swims….

It was great – a great section of river with plenty of variety – weir pools, shallow fast runs, deep fast runs, and slow glides.

So I tackled up the trusty old 15ft Drennan and Okuma Sheffield pin – a medium lignum stick and size 20 hook… Grayling love a maggot so……….

So do out of season brown trout – my first fish of the day was returned to the river without any fuss.

Working my way downstream swim by swim I began to feel as though I was struggling – water which I was convinced should hold fish appeared to be devoid of fish.

The gang of three reunited on a pool offering a great variety of swims – and none of us managed to raise a fish – until I started lifting rocks and scooping mini species (I am on a species hunt – in case I hadn’t mentioned it at least a dozen times before)….. a Bullhead and Stone Loach obliged within 5 minutes of each other.

River Goyt Bullhead — Bullhead River Goyt

Working our way downstream we finally started picking up Grayling in deep slack water above a weir.

Just love these fish – many thanks to Ant for his lovely pics

Great to see the River Goyt fishing so well – another urban Manchester river which has recovered from its polluted industrial past.

Have been given an all day pass this Sunday —- so many choices………….. lets see where I end up

Pleasure Fishing Bradshaw Hall Fisheries Lake 7

25th January 2017 by Mike Duddy

It was far too nice a day to remain stuck in the office, so when the phone rang with the offer of a couple of hours on the bank I jumped at the chance.

The venue chosen was Bradshaw Hall Fishery in Bolton – not my normal sort of venue – but ideal for a cold clear January afternoon when bites elsewhere would be hard to come by.

I had some old maggots that were on the turn, and a stop off to buy a sliced loaf gave us plenty of options for hook bait….

We considered stopping off at a tackle shop on the way to buy some crushed hemp, but both agreed that the fish would be happy with very little feed, and that a bit of loose fed maggot would be more than enough to bring the fish on……. and this proved right when we got stuck in to the fishing

Its been a while since I fished at Bradshaws, so being short of time we set up on Lake 7 which is near to the cafe.

I set up with a very fine rig,,, a 0.2g pole float, size 20 hook and 0.08mm hook length.

A good plumbing up session revealed that the lake was only 2 and a half foot deep – making us question our decision to fish such a shallow lake on a cold crisp day.

However I had a small roach on my first put in (on maggot), followed by another, and another……then a F1,,,, then a gudgeon… then. the float didnt stop burying all afternoon – from 12 til 3 we caught fish after fish. I also had skimmers, crucian carp, a small ide.

A great bit of sport for a short winter session.

It sounds easy but I had to work for the fish…. constantly changing hook baits to keep the bites coming as if I stayed on any one bait for too long the bites dried up,,, before coming back immediately after changing bait.

By constantly swapping bread flake, punch of different sizes, caster and maggot – the fish just kept coming.

Nothing big but a great confidence booster after thehigh number of blank sessions on the rivers and canals I endured at the back end of 2016..

And another 6 species knocked off the 2017 species challenge – bringing by years total up to 8 species.

I feel like a little Grayling trip next.

A Fish At Last

19th January 2017 by Mike Duddy

Its been a while, but today I caught a few fish.

A quick early morning whirl around 3 local park lakes saw me land 3 fish (2 perch and a pike) caught using the fishing rod I received for Christmas 2015 – which had been out on numerous occasions in 2016 but never christened.

Using a small white latex shad lure I blanked at Heaton Park Lake, but caught a small Pike at Broughton Park Lake, and then two perch from Queensmere Dam

I’ve a long standing relationship with all three of these venues, as they were the lakes where I first cut my teeth as a young angler…..

Maybe I look back with rose tinted spectacles, but all three of these lakes used to hold far more fish in the late 70s than they do today – a direct consequence of the current cormorant plague ??

I was joined for the morning by my mate Ant Glascoe Jnr, and we had a great few hours chewing the cud….we had a great time reminiscing about old fishing venues, so when we completed our circuit of the Boating Lake, we decided to have 20 minutes on Broughton Park Lake.

It was a great decision – I had a little pike after only a few casts which attracted the attention of the local teen gang who turned out to be quite sweet and not at all threatening.

They were incredibly interested in the fish we caught, and about fishing in general so we let them have a go.

As you can see from the pics below – they loved it

Species Count for 2017 Salford Friendly Anglers Society Challenge = 2

Pike, Perch

A Bit Rubbish – Part 2

3rd January 2017 by Mike Duddy

Back in October I wrote a post moaning about my inability to christen a drop shotting rod which I bought in January 2016 see A Bit Rubbish

This rod is called a Shakespeare Agility – I’m going to rename it the Shakespeare Inability

I have just returned from yet another short fruitless session which has also resulted in the loss of one of my favourite lures a little perch pattern Vibrax Minnow.

A 2 O’Clock appointment cancelled on me at the last minute and I had some kit in the car so thought that it would be a great alternative use of my time to spend an hour in contemplative meditation throwing lures around a local lake..

When I got there the lake was 80% frozen, and I managed a whole 15 minutes fishing before I lost my lure and the will to live

Not a great start to my species challenge

Roll on sunshine and warmer weather