Winter blues and damp shoes!

Wonderful winter nights and mega star shows!

Bonjour Mes Amis!

After the cracking Grayling session I had on the Taff last week, I really fancied a bit of carp fishing action! I decided to pay a visit to Hartleton Pool again and try my luck with the lovely golden commons. I set up on the Sunday morning after a nice early start. The lake had a couple of match anglers set up on it but the majority of swims were free and no other anglers could be seen. My first choice swim was the spot I had caught from just before New Year but the track was heavily muddied up and pretty much impassable in my low car. I decided I'd settle for the swim opposite on the other side of the island. I set up a couple of rods and positioned baits about 2 feet from the island margins. The water depth was a little over 18 inches and within minutes I was being wiped out by pesky bird life. The ducks, coots, moorhens, swans, budgies and parrots were all having a bloody field day out there!

On the money?????Nope, on the Bream!!!!

I decided to move swims and opted to fish the deeper end of the lake near the dam wall. I chose the corner reed lined swim and went about placing baits in good looking spots. Things started slowly and it wasn't until after dark that I started to get any action. The only problem being it was from now 'pesky' Bream! Slowly but surely they lined up one after another and despite continued attempts to fool them with double 18mm hook baits and tigernuts, they made mincemeat of everything I threw at them. 1 after another they kept coming over the course of 3 days! It was torture wading through them and just one pick up result in a hooked carp which then stitched me up good and proper on some underwater roots. Typical!

The first nights temperature dropped away to minus 8 and yet again I thought I was going to end up being frozen in. Despite the freezing fog of the Sunday night, things started to warm up on the Monday and the weather was quite pleasant. I finished on the Wednesday feeling a little deflated and rather battered. On well, that's fishing for you!

I had a few hours on my local club lake with old friend Colin 'Taffy' Farnham on Thursday and the weather was again feeling rather cold in the swift Easterly breeze. I dropped in next to Taffy and spent the next 3 hours biteless on the float! I couldn't believe it! Taffy managed a couple of small carp and a few bream on the method feeder but I just couldn't get a twitch. Very frustrating.

Ian is slowly working his way through all the species of coarse fish...

The weekend arrived quickly and Sunday had a days pike fishing and guiding penciled in the diary with another long time friend Ian Oxley. Ian and I have much history together from being on club committees together and we have fished together a very many times in the past. Only in the last 2 years though had we lost touch a little. It was great to finally get the chance to get together again as we get on so very well. We always have a good giggle, have lots in common and he's just a very genuine, loveable guy, who I think the world of. I introduced Ian to the dark side of coarse fishing about 10 years ago as he's always been a pretty die hard fly fisherman. He's had numerous good carp sessions with me in the past and I'm keen to help him build up his tally of different species.

Ian asked if i'd take him piking after seeing the few special fish the lads and I had caught recently. I picked him up Sunday morning and we headed up to the Wye in Herefordshire for a lovely day out. I chose a swim to put him in that had done numerous good fish for both myself and other clients in the past. We set up 4 rods with similar free running leger rigs on and a mixture of ever faithful herring, smelt, half mackerel and roach hook baits. Things were a little slow to start as the river level had spiked a bit over night due to some heavy but brief rain fall and it was carrying about half a meter more water than planned. This brought with it a dirty brown colour that was always going to make things a bit more difficult. Despite the conditions we ventured on and we got our first bit of interest about 2 hours into the day. The rod with the Herring on started to jiggle around and after a few seconds I struck and was met with fresh air! Story of my life recently!

Another first for Ian.....a nice Wye pike! Well done my friend!

Our next opportunity came knocking about 12.30pm and a really solid take on a 'bluey' resulted in another missed opportunity as the hooks came out the fish mid fight. Ian was left feeling rather gutted and so was I! Finally around 3pm the rod to our left with a half herring on started to come to life. A few bleeps from the Delkim and a wobbling tip saw me paying out a little line for the fish to take the bait with as little resistance as possible. This worked and a few seconds later I was able to hand the rod over to a very excited Mr Oxley who then proceeded to do a great job of guiding the croc over the net top. It wasn't as big as we would have liked but at 8lb 9oz it was a first for Ian. I took a couple of nice pics for him and we gently returned it to the river. Great to see someone catch their first of a new species to them!

I'm hoping to get Natasha on the bank this Wednesday as the kids are on half term this week in Wales. May do a bit of lake piking if it's not too cold out there. May try and grab a few hours trying for a barbel this week too.