Hi's and Low's

The Wye looked the nuts but just left me wanting!

Hi all.... Hope your all doing swinging! Lots happening in the Nuts about Carp household this last few weeks. I just completed my first large order for an Austrian chap. Loads of lovely bait went out there without a hitch. Customer very happy and for once, very little issues with couriers! (Result!) With numerous other bait orders and new bits and pieces to try out this spring, it's been a great few weeks. This despite the stupidly cold conditions we've endured this last fortnight or should I say every Sunday to Wednesday (my fishing days!) lol.

It appears that every time I book in a few days away with friends to do some carping, the weather goes all ape shit and the lakes freeze over or I have an attack of the jitters and realize I'm not the young spring chicken that i use to be many years ago. This cold weather fishing malarkey isn't getting any easier the older I get! I'm sure there are body parts randomly failing me each day???? Anyhow, at least I can still breath I guess.....As much to the dismay of many I'm sure?

Bishopswood. £7 a day! That'll do!

Fishing wise it's been tough out there this last few weeks and the cold weather as I said, has really stopped me venturing out too much. I did a brief half day session on the Wye on Wednesday at Bishopswood after a snapper or two. I arrived a little later than I had planned due to morning commitments getting sprogs to school etc. The first swim I fished had a beautiful slack to the down stream end of the swim and around 7-8 feet of water in it.....It looked bloody perfect for a fish. Well, I sat there for about an hour before my first indication of fish activity and a few trembles on the tip signaled that a pike was showing some interest in the Herring hook bait. I waited for a few seconds before picking up the rod and did my usual of opening the bail arm and allowing the fish some free line to run a little before striking the hooks home. The strike was met with no resistance at all and a set of empty trebles came back at me????

God knows what happened there but I never even saw a fish? That was all the action I had for the entire day and despite trying some half dozen or so swims, I never received another twitch. The light faded away and so did my hopes of catching another Wye monster croc! Still, I can't complain as the river had been so good to both Joel and I in the prior weeks.

It'd been a while since I last caught one!

I struggled for motivation a little this week and despite the inkling to want to get out there, I just couldn't get into the groove and pack my gear to go. I slept a lot heavier this week which I put down to some sort of bug or just winter hibernation???? Same thing happened last year around the same time....I worried myself to death that it was something incurable as my blood counts were lower than a vampire drained lost boys victim! Not good! Despite lots of check ups and specialists appointments, nothing was really found out? I suppose that's good news. Anyway, enough about my aches and pains and back to at last a red letter days fishing!!!!!! YIPPPEEE

Friday saw me venture back out to the River Taff in Cardiff. Now, at this point I will add that the Taff is probably one of my least liked waterways. It's a bit on the grotty side at the best of times, with shopping trollies, tins, litter and general garbage and dog shit coated banks. All this being said, it does seem to have a bloody good head of Grayling and some monstrous Barbel! Now, many of the guys fishing it for the barbel fish it in a manner suited more to carp tactics on the Thames than that of the little Taff and I'm not wholeheartedly interested in fishing like that myself. I guess if I did blend in a little more then I would catch a few myself but I just don't want to blend in down there. It's really not my cup of tea, full stop!

2lb 5oz beauty and a very happy Keith!

The Taff does however seem to contain a huge level of almost nuisance Grayling. Now, I love these little species and pound for pound they fight like trojans on light weight gear. I'm a little bit of a traditionalist and I prefer to fish for them with Fly tackle and tactics rather than the more preferred local methods of maggot feeders and trotting for them.

I chose a section down near Sophia Gardens Cricket Ground through the advice of Ryan who regularly fishes down there. Only trouble was, do you think I could get parked? Could I heckers! £10.40p for  3 hours!!!! No chance! I decided after an hours driving around looking for a space that it was probably best to just head for an area I knew I could park near the river safely and of course free of charge. The spot I chose was near Radyr Weir and after a short 5 minute walk I was stood in the river up to my waist in freezing cold water! It took around 20 minutes to get myself back into the swing of things as it has been a good 7 or 8 years since I last fished the Czech Nymph for Grayling.

Peas in a pod....they kept on coming!

A lovely technique which in all honesty is fairly easy to master and teach. My light weight 5 wt rod and reel were perfect for the job and my first River Taff grayling hit the net within half an hour of starting to fish. They then started to come quite regularly up until about 12.30pm. I then made a move down stream to try a few other spots. I tried around 10 different areas but to no avail...The fish seemed to be held up just below the weir area and that was about it. So, I headed back up to the first few spots and re-entered the river. A chap sat behind me to watch and with some pleasant conversation going on I started to pull fish out more regularly than during the morning. By around 1.30pm I was up to 12 fish with the biggest going 2lb 5oz.

I had my permit checked by the bailiff and after a nice chat I started back at them again....It was as if the swim was alive with fish and the next 2 hours saw me land another 20 plus fish!!! It was literally a fish a chuck out there and it seemed I could do no wrong! In the end I had to swap over from a green nymph to a pink shrimp gold head and that just emptied the swim. I ended the 3 and a half hour session with no less than 41 grayling and 1 out of season brown trout!

Bloody cars! I love them but hate them at the same time! Arrrgghhhh!

I'm looking forward to another session down there at some point soon and I was hoping to do a session down at Yateley next week but my cars clutch has started to slip today, which is probably down to numerous factors (age, uprated bhp and the fact my wife is learning in it too) All these factors and the stupid hill we live on have taken their toll on the poor girl. So, it's off to the garage for yet more expense! Bloody cars, I love them but they are just poxy money pits at the best of times.

Right time to sleep and dream of monster fishies! Hope your all in good health and lets hope the weather soon breaks and we get some hard earned warmer sun shine and carpy weather!

Love ya
Keith x