When the hens away

With Lynne packed off for her hen weekend I continued my journey. The last I heard the wheelchair was decked out in L plates and furry dice, nothing to worry about there then…….

A cautious approach was required with the bright conditions and low tide holding spots.

This fish below actually beached itself when it took the lure and the scrap was over before it began.  I had a few bow wakes and follows but even scaling down further didn’t work after that.

I had to wait a little while before I picked up another fish.

I’m now seeing Gannets on a regular basis, they seem to stack and glide in circles over regular spots waiting for targets to appear, one of my favourite sights when they  then decide to peel off and go in hard. There were also a few Terns around adding their own soundtrack to what was a quiet evening , nearly time for a different type of silver.

 

Super Salmo Trutta

I’m enjoying my fishing at the moment,  after a dark  winter it's just a pleasure to walk the coast with the prospect of connecting with these fish.

I’ve lost a fish in the exact same spot three times, almost certain it's the same fish , tricky customer that one. In fact that’s been the story of the last couple of trips, they can be slippery at times.

I saw a peach of a fish leap clear of the water last night, one of those ones you might need to think about at 4am when contemplating turning over in bed or pulling on a pair of damp waders. I might just get a few hours in tonight……

 

A sunny Easter Monday

A sunny bank holiday Monday arrived, a novelty indeed. Since Lynne broke her heel we’ve had to re-jig a lot of the things day to day and will do for the next two to three months at least. Janice and Phil arranged to come up for the day and help out domestically, that let me cut loose for a trip and was much appreciated.

It was warm, bright, windy, midday, low tide, in other words it all looked a wee bit tricky. I wasn’t wrong. The fish were around, sort of in the mood but if there were a score line I was on the wrong end of it, six nil down to a bunch of follows and nips. I decided to use a sparse epoxy minnow teaser and orange/chartreuse lure looking to change it around a bit and get some commitment. It worked but I lost them both, one of them would have been my best fish this year so far.

On the teaser

 

The teaser again, better condition , nice blue back. Despite being miles away there’s always a dog walker. As it happens I was warned this one likes to bite rod tips, nice to know, I’ve averaged a  new tip for the HPR just about every year, I would like to give that a miss this year if I can.

I’m starting to pick up small Coalies again. It’s occurred to me that the mature and larger fish in the system that have been around for a while must have them on their diet. I’m going to take some of the more battered patterns I have and paint them black over silver, can’t do any harm.
 

 

Catching up on the coast

I had arranged to meet up with Sam after work for a couple of hours fishing. With the lighter evenings arriving it’s great to able to do this and as good a reason as any for a catch up. The fishing wasn’t up to much but we had a laugh and it was not without incident.

This nice fish made one immaculate leap in the sunshine just in front of me but my camera was off, typical. I've not had much luck capturing jumpers so far.

Sam dries out in the cool evening sun while taking a break from raiding my lure box.

Windy daze

It was difficult to find any shelter today as the wind found me in every hiding place I could think of. It must have been gusting close to 40mph at times and not very pleasant to be out in to be honest. The rain stopped about 10.30am which was nice, the fish were hard to find and it seemed I was destined to have one of those days. I had one deep follow and three takes which were on and quickly off again. I’ve had a busy week , a lot of driving and early starts. I was really feeling the effects of a 5am rise this morning and left the house in a daze, with 3 hours fishing behind me and no fish landed I was questioning if I should have stayed in bed.

I had a feeling that the Sea Trout weren’t being convinced by my efforts today but this fish eventually proved me wrong.

 

I was knackered and decided to have a kip for half an hour and see how I felt after that.  I didn't feel I was fishing effectively, sort of just going through the motions as can happen sometimes.

 

I can’t say I felt much better after my nap but got my ass back down the beach anyway , wakey wakey!!

A dip in the 7 c water helps to waken you up.

I had another fish about 40 minutes later then packed up shortly afterwards.

I'm fishing Tuesday night so I might give it a miss next weekend and recharge my batteries.

 

 

 

 

 

Some business and some pleasure

I was in Birmingham for a meeting on Friday morning so made the most of the opportunity by factoring in some fishing.

Before heading to my mates for the weekend I had a few hours on the canal and met up with Ade and Kev from TLF. We caught a few fish between us but lost more than we landed, in my  case that meant 6 fish both Perch and Zander and mainly just as the net was being deployed, a classic Zander tactic to piss me off.

The first fish to stay hooked

And the second

Saturday morning started pretty much the same way with the first two Perch letting go of the lure at the net,  one held on for too long and made it on to the bank. Kev had given me a couple of D-Fins in lime green and the fish seemed to like them.

Shortly afterwards I picked up this little chap from the same spot so I had a clearly found a shoal of stripeys.

I had a short walk to a spot that always seems to hold a Zander or two on either side of a snag. I dropped in directly below the rod tip and gave the lure a shake and got a hit which I missed. I swam the lure around in a circle and then converted the next knock into a fish.

 

I then worked my way around the snag again and picked up a surprise Perch

 

Pic courtesy of a dog walker as usual.

Having made my way back to the car for something to eat I decided on a move.  On arriving at my next spot I got a nice Perch on my second cast on the lime green D-Fin again, lost the picture due to a smudged lens. I struggled for a while after that so changed from a drop shot rig to yellow Duck Fin Shad and 7g football jig head and picked up a Zed and a Perch. I then went fishless for about two hours before losing a really nice Zed, usual routine, hook fish, play fish , grab the net and the fish lets go of the lure.

Big goggle eyes this Zed. It had a few scars as well, maybe mating or a big Zed as there are not many Pike in this canal.

 

I can’t see me being able to fish for Zander for a while now. If the opportunity presents itself later in the year I might sneak a few out around October or November.