Thursday 18th April saw me heading to one of my club pools (AA-B) at 0645, arriving at 0715 and in my swim making my first cast at 0800. Intended quarry was ‘anything’ really but I was hoping to make contact with some tench – I had noticed from club and general Facebook postings that they were starting to appear more in catches over the past week – and bream.

It was a slightly cool breezy day as I left the house and misty too – a good sign of the cool air being mixed with warmer and thus warmer later in the day, and, in fact, this was so with a fairly bright day with sunshine and the breeze dropped in the main part so that the water was stippled rather than rippled. I also noticed that the lily pads that line most of the swims were almost to the surface, and in a few cases actually had. All very good!

I decided to return to an old favourite swim that I’d not fished for probably 3 years having in time been fishing another peg opposite a small island which usually fishes well but had not been doing so well the past few visits. So as I say I decided a change was needed. These two swims are actually diagonally opposite each other on the pool, the one being on the far bank near end (peg 25), the on the other near bank far end (peg 10)….

In the pictures you see two of our anti-cormorant measures – the pool is usually clear and only four feet or so deep and cormorant have been a problem in the past. In the left hand picture, the black item in the water is a fish shelter which is a cover with wire mesh walls (6” mesh) down to the pool bottom to provide a fish haven and we have another of these further down the pool plus a scaffold island with similar walling which also carries the solar panels and pump for the pool’s automated aeration system. In the right hand picture a line can be seen that crosses the pool from one bank to the other – this is a rope and we have these between most swims as far up the pool to the island – the idea being that cormorant need a good run to take off and so these deter them landing. And for the past 18 months we’ve ‘installed’ a third method advised to us by the Environment Agency – the introduction of cormorant-resistant carp. EH??? You say? Yep, carp of over 3lb have been added to the previously carp free pool. As I’ve said in previous posts I was a bit confused as to why carp specifically – surely it was the size that mattered? But I think I now see why… carp being carp, and known as ‘puddle pigs’ from their nosing into the banks and bottom, they soon convert a clear water to a more muddied cloudy one due to their disturbances and thus the cormorant’s clear window into the pool now becomes a frosted glass version?

So, tackled up with my 13’ float rod , 6lb line, size 16 hook and 3AAA driftbeater float set up to fish lift method style I made my first cast into the pre-fed with crumb, hemp, wheat, corn and maggot swim with a double maggot bait … but the line had wrapped around the float’s stem so that the float was sitting bottom end up so I retrieved to re-cast within seconds – and landed a 1oz perch! I thought that would be sign of a good and busy day but after that it was to be some time, and hook and bait changes, before my second fish, another, slightly larger perch on worm, came to the bank although I was getting a number of nudges on the float over that time.

And then, around 1145, I changed my bait to 3 grains of sweetcorn on my size 12 hook and hooked into a better fish – one that did require use of the landing net – and so my first tench of 2019 landed after a few tussles to extract it from those sub-water lily pads. Not a massive fish at 2lb 4oz but a satisfying one nevertheless.

2lb 4oz Tench

Unfortunately, between this capture and packing up time at 1430, and although I was getting interest in my baits, nothing else graced the bank.

It was good to see that general fish movement was on the increase with the rising temperatures with fish rolling and jumping, and smaller fish dippling the surface – and someone fishing the adjacent carp pool who walked around my pool said that down by the back end of the island a group of half-a-dozen carp were cruising. And as the pool is more a ‘summer’ pool ie responds better to warmer weather than cooler then it seems to be well on track…..

In the week Liz and I received our club cards for the new club we applied to join. We can’t actually fish until May 1st and we’ll be on holiday at that time, back on the 6th IIRC, but soon after I’m sure we’ll be on one of the new waters. Quite handy really as one of their pools is just 10 minutes from home and has crucian carp stocked as part of a joint project between the club and the EA who are attempting to restore the diminishing numbers of the pure species – a lot of ‘crucian carp’ are not currently pure breds as they live alongside other species (common carp, etc) that they can mate with (F1s). One of my other clubs also recently opened up to fishing a special crucian pool after stocking 3 years ago which only contains crucians and tench as part of the EA project too – we supplied the pool, the EA supplied the fish. The new club also has another pool about 20 miles away which seems good – last week someone reported 20+ carp up to 9lb taken on floaters – and a stretch of Staffs-Worcs canal alongside the local pool which includes a small pound. I’m hoping to be able to relinquish a couple of the cards now that I have purely to fish this canal – my Birmingham AA and Wolverhampton AA cards – when they expire now as this new stretch is closer and easier to access and is a good fish area and it would save me £50 a year. One of my other clubs also has some S-W canal stretches too, and another of my clubs has water on the Shropshire Union canal – so won’t go short of canal choices whatever!

So, as I said, off on holidays to Yorkshire soon so we won’t be out on the banks again, at least until we go anyway … I was hoping to take the tackle with us as there is a pool on the camping site we’re staying at but I’m now having doubts as to if I can fit the tackle in the car as camping to us is not of the backpacking kind – more a roll-up deluxe caravan with all the added extras, so twin hotplate cookers, kitchen stands, pots and pans that would grace a commercial kitchen, home preprepped and frozen meals (ie 2 electric cool boxes needed) … and I could go on …and  on … and on…. LOL! But whatever, be sure that the crab lines will be with us! 🙂

WATER TEMPS:

11.4’C rising to 12.7’C over the day…

Liz and I had a good day at Angling Times’ ‘The Big One’ angling show at Stoneleigh Park, Kenilworth on Sunday 14th April – lots of gear at good prices (eg 36″,42″ or 50″ landing nets with pole – £15! And good quality too).

We brought a fair bit of stuff home although not a landing net as I struggle to lift even a 36″ these days… but amongst other stuff I bought 2 Shakespeare 40FS reels for £10 each (usually £20 each) .:)

Liz bought an Angling Times ‘goodie bag’ and programme at the entrance for £2 – included in the bag this week’s Angling Times and this month’s (released a few days ago) ‘Improve Your Coarse Fishing’ PLUS the previous editions of both – so as IYCF costs £3.80 on its own – and the bag also contained several tackle items too – that was good value.

I also bought a signed copy of Jeremy Wade’s new book – to be actually released next week (and his new TV series on Animal Planet entitled ‘Dark Waters’ starts on the 28th April) – entitled ‘How To Think Like A Fish’… and its a BRILL book … I read 2 chapters in bed last night and had to force myself to put it down as I had to get up early for fishing this morning… so probably be awake reading the rest of it all tonight! Last book, well series of books actually, that had that effect on me was David Eddings’ Belgariad series ..

We went to the talks by Dr Paul Garner (lure fishing), Jeremy Wade (his series – the planning of and happenings in filming), and Des Taylor (bit Judith Chalmers holiday travelogue’ish TBH)….

It was a great day out and we’re and hoping to return next year now….

Anyway …. now to the latest angling session….

Monday, April 15th, Liz and set off for a session on a club water over in Shropshire, leaving the house at 0730 and arriving a little after 0800 we parked up by the pool we intended to fish (KF-WL1) – actually more a large pond than pool in size the club allows day ticket fishing on it. Small but good fishing with good sized roach, rudd, perch and carp to double figures as well as ide and smaller species. As a fair, and very cool, breeze was blowing we decided to walk around the pool to check it out before unloading the tackle – as I say only a small pool and 10 minutes later we’d circumnavigated the banks and were back at the car and we decided that we might be better off on the larger, and possibly more sheltered, member’s only pool (KF-WL2) lying only a hundred yards up the track. So back into the car and after a drive up to far end of that pool we found a nice and sheltered area/bay section and decided to try there.

Liz fished one rod, using ledgered frame feeder with maggot, halibut pellet and sweetcorn baits cast out to the island on the left hand side of the photo. She was first into action with a small perch on maggot within 30 minutes of the start but that was not only the only fish she had but also the only bite of her day. To me, anyway, that should have been the perfect spot but ….

Myself, I fished on the float, laying-on, with maggot, worm, sweetcorn and small pieces of macaroni cheese on a size 14 hook. I started the day fishing just off the overhanging growth on the right of the photo but also fed out to my left side along other overhanging bushes. The right hand swim was very quiet – producing one tiny rudd plus one other bite, which I missed, on mac cheese – and when I say tiny, I mean tiny to the point that ten of that size wouldn’t counter the weight of a single swan shot (1.6g) on an old dual pan balance! At the end of the day I’d accumulated around 7-8 of these tiny rudd, a couple of rudd of around an ounce or so, a couple of sub-ounce perch – and one decent fish, a perch of 15oz…

15oz Perch

Over the day the breeze shifted around a bit so Liz got it more in the face whereas it was more diagonally across myself – and I thought it was a warm breeze whereas Liz found it quite chilly and had to wear her bobble hat and fleecy snood …

1500 we called it a day and headed back to our local hostelry…

Next trip planned for Thursday 18th – another club pool, or rather another two pool club venue. One pool is carp and chub only, the other a mixed species pool. I intend to fish the latter but may fish the former, which in 7 years of membership I’ve probably only fished 5 or 6 times, depending on conditions which are forecast to be warmer but still quite breezy.

WATER TEMPS:

9.3’C rising to 10.8’C over the day…

Thursday, April 11th, on a frosty morning that required the car’s windscreen to be cleared of a thin layer of ice, I set off at 0645 to a local club pool (AA-GH).

As the weather forecast had said that it was to be quite a calm day (3-4mph breeze) I had decided to floatfish for bream and to also set up my ‘floating bait’ rod for any top feeding carp that may turn up. So, I set up both rods and made my first cast with the float rod in to the 12’ depth of water in front of me, laying on with double maggot on a size 16 hook at around 0745.

At the start of the day it was calm as forecast but by midday the breeze, from the south, had picked up considerably and probably added another 10mph to that expected … but all was OK as I just changed my original loaded bodied antenna float to a larger driftbeater and all problems were resolved.

A few nudges on the maggot but nothing major led to changes of bait (bread, worm, macaroni cheese) and hook (to a size 12) didn’t get any more success although there were at least takes that were strikeable at with the bread despite not connecting to a fish.

BTW – macaroni cheese wasn’t a noteable success – if it even managed to get placed on the hook ok, it invariably fell off on the cast. I remembered my Dad in the 80’s using mac cheese in a club competition on the local canal in the 50’s (but don’t know if he caught on it) and thought I’d give it a try after spotting a tin in the supermarket the other day. Unfortunately, the tinned variety is far too soft and, as I said, either split on trying to put on the hook or flew off on even the gentlest cast. However, not to be beaten, I intend to get some ‘raw’ mac to parboil to leathery soft and then sprinkle a cheese sauce powder into it – add the flavour and also should soak up some of the excess moisture – possibly add a sprinkling of fine cornmeal to keep the mac firm but hookable if need be…

So, the float fishing wasn’t a great success but around 1300 I spotted a few BBSs (Big Black Shadows) cruising under the surface and the float rod was put to one side and the ‘floater’ rod baited up – basically, just 12lb main line straight through to a size 4 hook in its simplest form but I do generally add a ‘sausage’ of wax gathered from BabyBel cheeses or the Xmas cheese truckles about 2’-3’ above the hook which adds weight for casting, thus alleviating the need to soak the usual bread bait to create enough casting weight but softens the bread too much so it flies off on the cast easily – and the wax does float and act as an indicator – and, if you should use links to able to add hooklengths, if wrapped around the link it easily supports it on the water’s surface and prevents it sinking and dragging the line down….

A few bits of crust catapulted out showed that there was interest in surface food and shortly after casting in a 5lb 5oz mirror carp was netted….

5lb 5oz Mirror Carp

However, the good times soon vanished as a few, and one in particular, geese also located the area of the bread freebies. And this one goose, on its own, virtually destroyed any chance of another catch for, as soon as I cast out, it locked its targetting to my bait absolutely! Even to the point that at one time I even sat there for 15 minutes plus without my bait in the water until said goose had moved 200 yards or so away … and as soon as my bait hit the water, goosey turned back, and ignoring 10 or more pieces of free floating crust that it passed enroute made directly for my hooked bait … and even twitching the bait away from under its nose, which usually spooks any duck/goose, it just gave chase all the way back to the bank or until the bread fell off. And I also had forgotten to pack my dog biscuits which, usually anyway, seem less prone to be of interest to any water fowl although in this case I wonder…..

So, the rest of my fishing time until I packed up at 1545 was more taken up with the avoiding of that goose than it was attracting any fish….

Next outing will be with Liz on Monday – destination not yet decided but more than likely to be one of three club pools in Shropshire…

We filled in the forms for the joining of the new club last Thursday as said in the previous posting and will get our cards soon ready to start membership from May 1st – but we will be away on holiday until May 6th so won’t be able to make use of them until our return.

On Sunday (14th) Liz and I are off to the Stoneleigh County Showground in Kenilworth for ‘The Big One’ (https://www.thebigoneshow.co.uk/) – an angling show/exhibition with ‘the stars’ in attendance (eg Des Taylor, Steve Ringer, Andy May, Jeremy Wade, etc) and stalls from most of the major angling suppliers… and Sunday May 26th we’ve tickets for the Barbel Society’s ‘The Barbel Show’ being held just down the road (well, 15-20 miles or so) in Telford (https://www.thebarbelsociety.co.uk/barbel-show-2019/).

WATER TEMPS:

9.4’C rising to 11.4’C over the day…

Monday, April 1st, I returned to the pool (AA-B) which I visited on the 25th March – which, as I said previously, is a slow starter not really coming to life until usually mid-May but with the unseasonably warmer weather at the moment and water temperatures in general rising I thought I’d return to see if there was anything happening… and although the fish catching results weren’t far better there were slight, although not numerous, over the day, there were signs of fish movements in the form of bow waves and leaping/rolling and one fish spotted cruising (carp around 3lb) so boding good for the near future…

I arrived on the pool around 0715, again the first there although unlike last week others arrived later in the day with two or three others on my pool and one on the adjoining carp pool.

Although these days there are carp in ‘my’ pool, added within the last 12-18 months or so as an attempt to control predation by cormorants after advice by the EA. The club was told to add ‘cormorant resistant’ carp to the water ie carp of 3lb+ … at the time I couldn’t understand why we couldn’t have stocked 3lb+ bream, tench, etc instead of ‘polluting’ the water with carp … as we have a separate carp and chub only water literally 10 yards away … but yesterday I realised something …. this water used to be very clear for most part, only really getting murky only after heavy rains BUT with the carp doing ‘their thing’ ie snouts down churning the bottom and banks, it is now constantly murky … so to the cormorants it must be like driving in fog is to us, a limited visibility … and so the size requirement is probably more to due with the capability for the churn? Anyway, so long as the carp are not allowed to become predominant in this water and if it helps with the cormorant problem then I can live with that…

As for fishing, the methods and tackle used were much the same as last visit – float fished worm/maggot using the ‘lift method’ style and a ledger rod with prawn and bread baits. And the swims pre-fed whilst tackling up. First casts made at 0805 with maggot on the float rod and a piece of raw king prawn on the ledger rod.

First interest came to the float rod at 0850 with a slight float tremble and small lift’n’drop but not strikeable at… and then all was quiet on that front although I had a water disturbance a couple of swims or so off to my left – I couldn’t decide what it was as the area was partially obscured so I assumed it was the ducks. When it happened again around 1000 I just managed to catch a glimpse of a fish leaping towards the far bank and so, not having had any further activity in my swim for an hour, I wandered down to have a look about … and although the fish didn’t show again I did discover a dead bream of around 4lb floating on the surface just off my bank so grabbing my landing net I pulled it to shore. It seemed to have been a recent casualty, its eyes were still very bright, the body pristine without any obvious damage so not killed by cormorants or others (we did/do have mink in the area after some were ‘liberated’ from a local mink farm some years ago and we did have mink traps around the pool at one time) … anyway, I put it in the undergrowth behind the swim and sent a message to the club secretary about it for information purposes.

Demised Bream

Back to the swim, I fished on and caught a few (6 or 7) small perch over the rest of the day up to around 6oz on the float rod and mainly on worm baits … the ledger road was switched over to bread around mid-day after having solicited no interest on prawn to that time and within 15 minutes I banked a mirror carp of 3lb 9oz…

3lb 9oz Mirror Carp

However, fishing with bread – and a trial with macaroni cheese – on the ledger rod was without further interest.

1540 – it was time to tackle down and head home….

Next outing … I’m thinking of a return to the local canal on Thursday 4th to get another trip in before the boat traffic starts building up for the year. With the warmer weather there’s been more boats about this year than usual – previous years you’d have been (un)lucky to see a passing boat between November and May but virtually every canal trip in that period this year has seen at least one boat passing through – not too bad though and sometimes a good thing as a quiet (in terms of fishing) clear canal can be brought to life a bit by the churning and colouring of the water plus, like digging the garden can attract birds for the newly presented food items, the newly disclosed fishy morsels can bring fish to feed better.

And on the evening of Thursday 4th, Liz and I are off to fill in membership forms for another local club that has a pool about 2 miles from our house plus a stretch of canal with a pound that lays alongside and another pool around 20 miles out….

WATER TEMPS:

9.3’C rising to 10.4’C over the day…

With the weather as it is – warm and with little air movement – on Thursday 28th March 2019 I decided to re-visit a club pool (AA-KW) that I’d last visited in May 2018 although I seem to think I’d gone there once but due to weather conditions (which weren’t actually too bad in general) I’d left without even getting out of the car and went elsewhere. Yep, this pool on a calm and warm day is delightful BUT get a stiff cooling breeze and it becomes something else, the problem being that it is quite open with little shelter available and it can become quite bleak in the wrong conditions.

The pool has a good head of fish of multi-species, the main one’s being king carp and grass carp which both go to around 20lb in weight.

So, I arrived at the waterside at around 0730, cast out a few spombs loaded with hemp/maize/sweetcorn wheat and dead maggot towards the dam wall (Pic 1 above) and then tackled up my two ledger rods with the usual frame feeders, both with size 6 hooks on 8lb main line and cast out with bread on one rod, meat on the other.

After an hour or so of inactivity I set up the Deeper Sonar and mapped the area around my peg – and was pleased to see a fair few fish in the area of my feed. However, by 1100 I’d still not had a single twitch and changed my meat rod over to worm … and a little later a carp splashed about 6 feet out in front of me at a piece of bread that the angler next to me had been feeding to induce surface feeding, so I quickly got out my ‘surface’ rod – 11’ Winfield Specialist Angler rod with 12lb greased line and a size 4 hook – and flicked out a crust but the fish did not return and so after a while I went back to my ledgering.

So, I spent the next hour or so flicking out dog biscuits and bits of bread, perusing water looking for further signs of fish on the top and noticed that maintenance was being carried out on the nearby pylon wires with 3 cradles crawling along and seemingly the occupants giving the cables a good clout with a hammer now and then… 🙂

Cradles On The Pylons Wires

So, around 1400, with nothing having even shown the slightest of interest in my ledgered baits all day long, I noticed movement off to my right with a fish playing with bits of my floating bread freebies … and the ‘surface’ rod once again found itself in play with a large piece of crust attached and cast to the area of activity with a few extra freebie pieces added around it… Soon, a fish appeared, and for 5-10 minutes just played with my bait, nudging it a few times, moving away, returning back and repeated this several times before finally sucking it in … a firm pull to set the hook and …’FISH ON!’ …. and landed after a spirited fight – during which it seemed to have a companion following it around as several distinct tail swirls were discernible during the play – it was landed and weighed and photo’d before returning… a 6lb 10oz common carp…

6lb 10oz Common Carp

I continued feeding bread and biscuit out for another half an hour or so with no further interest apparent and then I had to pack in for the day and head for home…

Plans for next week … not sure yet… Monday depends on Liz, who currently has a really bad cough and is feeling ‘lousy’ – she had a few sick days off at the end of last week followed by her usual days off (Sun, Mon, Tues) and went into work on Wednesday only to have to leave early … had an unpaid day’s leave yesterday (can’t go back on sick so soon after previous absence) … but planning to go back today – so we’ll have to see if she’ll take up her rods for that day … Thursday I have a couple of thoughts about but nothing decided yet….

WATER TEMPS:

9.5’C rising to 11.7’C over the day…

OK … I’m going to start with the BLOOPER of all bloopers made in the last posting…. and to be honest it was THE major point of the posting…

Saturday evening I picked up my normal everyday phone –  as opposed to the (older) phone I take fishing with me as I’ve lost/dunked too many good phones over the years – and discovered something…

Firstly, I’ll set the scene by describing the Deeper Sonar applications for better understanding…

1. There is the phone application that communicates with the sonar when it is in use and this has several modes of gathering data, the one I mainly use is the ‘bathymetric scan’ which allows the sonar to transmit data regarding the depth plus its location, via its inbuilt GPS function, back to the application where it is stored as data that is then re-accessible to be shown as a map – so it displays a contour map of water’s bottom. It also records located fish….
2. The data collected can also be stored to the user’s personal account on a special server where it can be accessed by PC, tablet, etc via a web application called ‘LakeBook’… and so a water can be completely scanned over several sessions to create a full contour map … and the mappings of differing waters can be stored to create a library for future references…

So, as I said, I picked up my non-fishing phone and accessed my ’Lakebook’ page and the mapping taken on that last session … and I start playing the scan back …. and hundreds of sizeable (ie 1lb+, individual icons) fish are being shown … ‘that’s weird’, I think to myself…. and go and get my Android tablet with the same result …. Ummmm… whereupon I check the sonar app settings on my fishing phone – and discover that somehow I had inadvertently managed to turn off the ‘Show Fish Icons’ option – which was in a menu I didn’t actually know existed until I read the sonar’s manual … but previously the icons had been showing on all my scans so I don’t know what happened there.

SO…. the previous posting’s header wasn’t right at all as it appears that the fish were still there in the numbers as previously found. So missing fish weren’t the reason for lack of bites….

Anyway, now to the current session….

Monday 25th March, I headed off to a mixed species pool (AA-B) – which now contains carp having been previously carp free alongside the usual silvers, tench, perch, gudgeon, barbel, chub, etc… arriving around 0715 and found the pool deserted – and it remained so all day apart from myself – and that applied to the other adjoining pool too – so ‘millionaire’s fishing’ as we say.

I elected to fish one of my favourite swims – one that is adjacent to the end of a small island – and on arrival I immediately fed the two intended swim areas both just off the island, the main one in front with a few ‘pults full of dead maggot, hemp and corn and a secondary swim off to the right with the same plus a few small prawns.

The main swim I floatfished (lift bite method) with maggot (6lb line, size 16 hook), and the secondary swim was fished with a ledger rod (6lb line, size 6 hook) on an alarm and baited variously with prawn, bread and meat … and first cast with the ledger rod was made at 0800 .. first proper cast with the float rod around 15 minutes later…

So, let’s deal with the ledger rod – not a single touch all day long on any of the tried baits… done! LOL!

The float rod did fare better although first cast wasn’t the best as, due to the sun directly in my eyes as I cast, I overcast into the edge an island bush and lost end tackle and float and had to re-tackle… first bite on double maggot, missed, came at a little after 0900 … and at around 0945 came the first capture of the day, a perch of around 2oz…. followed by a tiny (<1oz) bream also on double maggot. I was getting a lot of float lifts and nudges that were unstrikeable or missed and so I decided to drop to a single maggot … and almost immediately had a better fish … a 4oz perch 🙂 … followed by the best fish of the day, a 3lb 4oz mirror carp…

3lb 4oz Mirror Carp

… and by the time I packed in at 1430 I also had two more perch of 2oz and 4oz. The bite/capture rate definitely improved when using a single maggot rather than 2-3 on the hook and the largest fish came to single maggot too.

It may seem not a great tally but this water can be moody at the best of times – referring to the days when I smoked we used to judge the day on the number of cigs smoked, the lesser the better the fishing had been as there had been no time to light up…. and on that system this pool would vary between 0 cigs to 3 packs … and this pool is also notoriously a warm weather pool not usually producing at its best until late May. So I’m happy with that result.

Also noted that this water would normally be fairly clear except after heavy rain but we’ve have no rain for a fair few days now but the water was quite murky – evidence of the introduced carp….

FISHSPY ECHO – FURTHER THOUGHTS:

I’ve had further thoughts about that new upcoming combined camera/sonar device – and don’t think its for me.

I was thinking it would just be a matter of clicking a menu item in an app on the phone to instantaneously switch from sonar->camera->sonar … and think that would be the case IF you wanted to film from the surface downwards BUT to use the camera underwater would require weighting to sink it … and the sonar needs to be weightless (ie to float) which means that weights would need to be clipped on/off to suit the desired purpose. A surface floating camera is basically useless you’re filming in a swimming pool type environment otherwise you can’t see anything above 3’ or so away – and even then it usually requires plenty of video editing to get a reasonable image of anything in that range. So, if you need to clip on/off weights then you may as well clip on/off (swap) camera for sonar? And as I’m very happy with both my WaterWolf camera (which is more versatile than a FishSpy camera anyway) and the Deeper Sonar then I don’t really see that this FishSpy Echo beats, or even matches, my current equipment.

WATER TEMPS:

9.0’C rising to 10.9’C over the day…

Thursday 21 March, I set off at 0630 as planned heading towards the pool (AA-GH) on which I found the horde of fish holed up in one corner and headed to that particular swim on arrival …

Obviously the first thing I did on arrival was to get the Deeper Sonar out and try the exact location of this horde and casting around I soon found them …. GONE! Well, no sizeable fish – I think the sonar reckons fish of around 1lb and  upwards to be sizeable and worthy of individual icons – but it did seem a fair few smaller fish (show as streaks/smears) were around. Anyway, on the basis they were there before and conditions hadn’t changed drastically I thought it possible they would arrive in the area over the day ahead. Also a few fish over the area were bow waving and head’n’tailing but these were most likely carp and I was more interested in bream and so set up for those initially.

So, I baited up the swim with several spomb loads of hemp, corn and wheat before setting up the tackle, accessories and the ‘station’ (ie seat, rest, etc placements)… and discovered that I’d somehow lost my bobbins whilst on my previous visit but luckily had a couple of others, not as good though, that I could bring into service for the day.

The usual two ledger rods setup with frame feeders on 8lb line were the starting tools for the day with a size 6 hook baited with bread on one rod, a size 12 with 5-6 maggots on the other and first casts were made around 0750.

So rods were cast out and then re-wound in so the feeders could be refilled and baits replaced every 30 minutes … and this continued until around 1000 when, with not a touch having been detected on either rod and with carp swirling and taking surface stuff that had been blown across just front of me in my corner – the wind was from the west and I was in the east corner of the pool I decided to change tactics and do some surface fishing with bread… but I’d not got my normal ‘surface’ rod with me, nor my BabyBel wax balls (see *** below), so I had to improvise somewhat… Firstly I wound in my maggot rod as it would be an unnecessary encumbrance and then removed the feeder from the link of the bread rod and replaced it with a small float in order that the weight of the old ledger link and ledger stops would be borne by that and thus prevent them dragging the line below the surface… a lump of fluffy bread was then place on the hook and the line cast out about 12’ from the bank into the active area and a few loose bread pieces introduced around too…

The first carp of the day came quite quickly at 1010 – a 4lb 2oz common…

Common Carp 4lb 2oz

… and within 1 minute of the release of this fish and recast I was into another fish, but unfortunately I suffered a hook pull…

1200, after a few near misses, another fish came to the bank … this time a 3lb 3oz common…

Common Carp 3lb 3oz

… and at 1300 another fish is banked – a rather tatty mirror carp of 10lb 14oz…

Mirror Carp 10lb 14oz

… not the world’s best photo, but on the other 5 pics I had been decapitated! I use a camera that allows a ‘custom’ series of shots via the self-timer function and I have set the camera to take the first shot 30 seconds after the shutter release is activated which allows plenty of time to get from camera to the fish, pick up and pose … and then a further 5 shots are taken at 2 seconds intervals from the first one. Many cameras only have a fixed single shot self timer option, usually 10 seconds after the shutter release is pressed which is far too short usually and one finds oneself having to repeat the ‘race’ several times in order to get a decent photo … others, slightly better, allow a longer delay to be set or allow setting up of a 2-shot option … or one can also set the camera to video mode and take as long as you (and camera memory) allows to do your pose and then on return home to edit a single frame from the video via software (pros: plenty of frames to choose from / cons: need software, takes time, quality can suffer). Anyway, if at any time you do decide to get a new fishing camera for any reason I do recommend looking at ‘Canon’ … good prices on eBay, good quality pics and I do know that at least some of their models do include the ‘custom’ self timer although I do suggest you check the specs for the particular model to make sure…. only other thing then is too make sure you set the right distance between camera and posing area to avoid decapitations! LOL!

1415 … I got snapped on a fish and as I needed to pack in at1430 anyway I decided to start to pack down and whilst doing so I swung out the maggots and frame feeder on the other rod into the area I’d been surface feeding to gain a few extra minutes fishing and a possible bonus fish whilst tidying around but it wasn’t to be….

About 6 other anglers had been on the water but no-one seemed to be catching consistently and my 10-14 looked biggest from what I saw … and one guy, fishing a plug, had a jack…

As March is now reaching its end I think I need to try to one more pike session in before ‘my’ pike season of October-March closes its doors… probably Thursday 28th March as on Monday 25th Liz will possibly be out to play although she’s got a heavy cold at the moment and laid up….

*** BabyBel wax … well, the wax that encases not only BabyBel cheeses but many other cheese truckles too – a good source being from the usual Christmas cheese and biscuit table selection. The usefulness of this is that this wax floats and thus can be used to easily add weight for casting to very light floating bait by wrapping around the line a suitable distance from the hook and, if like me, you use quick change connectors for attaching hooklengths then this can help support the weight and prevent the line being dragged under . One of my club’s waters has a braid mainline ban albeit that braid hooklengths are acceptable and, as I prefer the supple feel of braid at the hook over mono for floating baits, I use a mono mainline with a yard hooklength of braid there…

JUST SEEN:

This new, soon to be released, FishSpy device that incorporates not only the usual FishSpy camera but also a sonar function that seems to match that of the Deeper Sonar.

https://www.fishspy.com/echo

I’ll be interested into it more when it comes available as it would mean that I’d only need to carry one device rather than the two I do now (Deeper + WaterWolf camera). I did have FishSpy camera but decided the WaterWolf was better for my needs and sold my FishSpy. But with a 2-in-1 option this would mean less bulk to carry, no need to swap over items on the line when I need to change from one mode to another… but also the cost will play an important part in any final decision. Something to think over anyway? … 🙂

WATER TEMPS:

9.7’C rising to 10.4’C over the day…