Well, here I am again at last….

Not been out on the waters, at least fishing, since my operation for rectal cancer albeit in the past couple of weeks I have managed a couple of walks, about a mile each, along a local canal. Also done a few shorter walks on the estate.

All went well with the operation itself … had the operation on Monday 23^rd September … discharged on Saturday 5^th October. Had few problems in the early days with the ileostomy ‘equipment’ I have to have attached to my body leaking but that was soon fully resolved after change of style/model to fit my contours better. AND, I’ve had information from the surgeon that my histology is good – no follow-up chemo or radio required and we’ll be having a meeting mid-December’ish to discuss – part of which I’m told will be regarding the reversal operation to re-connect the natural piping…. so all seems good so far from that point of view…

However, I’ve not an easy few weeks overall. Sinus problems and breathing difficulties due to that have made me feel exceedingly fatigued at times .. even getting upstairs to bed at times being a huge effort with much heavy breathing. A visit to the GP a couple of weeks ago is seeing me on iron tablets – seems blood iron on hospital release was 90, and normally should be 130, so quite a deficit. I was also put on a course of anti-biotics and now following this up with a steroidal nose spray.

However, touch wood and hoping not to apply a jinx, the past 3 days or so have been much better and Liz and I are hoping to do another walk along a canal on Monday or Tuesday next week along a stretch that my club has the fishing rights on, and so I’m thinking of taking a mini-jigging rod along and just having the odd cast here and there as we amble along…

November 18^th we’re off on one of our Sun newspaper holiday breaks. Well, actually 2 breaks – the breaks are offered in Monday to Friday (midweek) and Friday-Monday (weekend) versions – and we’ve booked Mon 18^th – Fri 22^nd plus Friday 22^nd – Monday 25^th to make one long break. And actually we originally booked for October 7^th – 14^th but I contacted the actual site explaining that I’d be recovering from my operation at that time and, happily, they were happy to change the date ex gratis for us … and not only that but we’ve even ended up in better accommodation! So, it’s off to Tattershall Lakes, Lincs, we shall be off… From the name you’ll probably realise that when we selected the site in the first place we’d intended to take the tackle and do a bit of fishing but its going to be a chill and ramble type weekend instead now.

So … things are moving along … and hoping to do my first proper fishing session early in the New Year…

Best wishes and tight lines to all!

OK, have a few minutes to play with so I’m posting the photos I took at my two last outings…

Basically both sets show various views of the pools – the 1st set is actually comprised photos from an anti-clockwise walk I did around the pool starting at my actual fishing position and back – and a few of the fish caught.

Session 42  – Pool 1

Session 43  – Pool 2

This is going to be a VERY quick … and pictureless … precis of my two outings undertaken on Thursday Sept 12th and Friday Sept 13th.

As said at the end of the last post I did go to the ‘2 pool’ site for Session 42 and I fished the smaller day ticket water (KF-WL1) from around 0800-1430. I fished lift method with maggot, prawn, meat and sweetcorn baits. Sweetcorn and meat were both complete failures, not one take at all on either, prawn attracted a few nudges … maggot started off well but then tailed away and between 1100 and 1400 I had just 2 bites. Fish caught – a couple of roach and rudd, a lot of small perch, and best fish of the day was a perch of around 6oz.

Session 43 was meant to be to the pool water of a different club but problems with opening the gate padlock meant I gave up trying to get in and instead visited the ‘2 pool’ site again but this time visiting the larger ‘members only’ pool (KF-WL2). Tactics were the same but sweetcorn, bread, prawn and maggot were the baits of choice … all worked well with bread and sweetcorn taking some nice roach, mainly around the 8oz mark (10oz best fish of the day) – maggot was the superior bait for the small perch with prawn the ‘worst on day’ although it did attract a bit of attention from time to time.

OK … that’s it for now…. as busy busy busy here with Liz due to return home from Lanzarote tomorrow I need to sort out a shopping list to get in before she arrives, a trip over to Brum Airport to collect her at midnight tomorrow, general housework/tidying although all pretty good and just papers to be sorted … and prepping for more hospital appointments next week … and the week following is the BIG day, 23rd Sept is my operation day… which means I’ll not be fishing for a while afterwards but hopefully get out next week on Monday and Thursday even if only for a couple of hours, fingers crossed….

So I’m up up and away for now… but I’ll probably post some of the pics I’ve taken around the pools on the last couple of days if I get chance… watch this space!! 🙂

I said at the end of the last posting that I intended to fish on Monday 8th September – well, firstly the date was wrong (I’ll correct it shortly in the original document) as Monday was the 9th … and also I didn’t fish on that day due to (a) bad weather and (b) given (a) I thought the time would be better spent other ways. I’ve got an hospital appointment on Wednesday 11th and was thus intending to use the rest of the day to shop for wood shavings for our ferrets’ bedding and a couple of other chores … but decided to ease the time on Wednesday by using some of the Monday down time.

All went well with the Monday chores, and I got tackle and bait sorted for today’s (Tuesday 10th) outing with ease … which was the outing that had been planned for Monday…

So I arrived at the pool (AA-B) and found that it was still quite weedy with elodea visible in much of it and the near end of the pool covered in duckweed….

However, I did locate one swim that appeared to be weed free and which had a lily pad bed to the right hand side .. and to ensure that the elodea wouldn’t be a problem I cast out my water rake several times which came back in quite free of weed on all casts – so it seems someone may have raked this swim previously.

I did usual preliminaries (feeding, etc) and  at 0815 I made my first cast with my float rod (5BB waggler fished lift method with a single 2SSG shot 4” from the size 14 hook baited with maggot)… A few moments later the float lifted and went under …. missed! … but this bite a cast continued and by 0930 I’d landed 8 perch to about 4oz, 2 small roach and a 2lb 12oz tench… 

2lb 12oz Tench

Perch

Roach

At this point I tried a switch of bait to sweetcorn, both standard yellow and strawberry flavoured red for half an hour but apart from a few ‘knocks and nudge’ nothing was doing….

So.. 1000 I switched to small cooked and peeled prawn (in the ‘old’ days we called them ‘cocktail shrimps’ and they adorned our prawn cocktails) – and this proved to be a ‘super’ bait – plenty of bites and the average size of perch doubled (not that they were huge – about 5oz-6oz) … and by 1200 I’d had 15 or more perch plus lost a good sized tench when it headed for the sanctuary of the elodea to my left and I had to try to pressure it to stop short – hooklink snapped – but I did see it roll on the top and reckon it was getting on for 4lb at least…

Anyway, for the rest of the day, from 1200 until I packed up at 1430, I swapped baits between maggot and prawn and had another 10 perch, a small roach, a small rudd and two tench of 2lb 2oz and 1lb 10oz – and another three good fish managed to reach sanctuary in the lily pads and throw the hook, and they were almost certainly tench.

2lb 2oz Tench

1lb 10oz Tench

So an enjoyable day all-in-all… and looking forward to the planned outing on Thursday at the pool of another club. Well, there’s two pools on the site which one I’ll fish I’ll decide when I arrive.

As said at the end of the last posting, on Sunday 8th September I headed to a local stretch of the Staffs-Worcs Canal for a short mini-jig session for perch before heading to Sainsbury’s for the Sunday mini-shop and prep of tackle for another outing planned for Monday 9th to a club pool…

Anyway, this is the first of a week of short posts – unless something extraordinary happens – and they will probably be mainly made up of photos. Liz is away in Lanzarote for the week (7th-14th) which means I have unlimited access to the car and thus fishing is limited only by my mood and need… so hopefully I’ll get to fish every day bar Wed 11th when I have an hospital appointment at 1000. However, that break will allow me to go to the local agricultural suppliers to get more wood shavings, which are running low, for our ferret’s run and their shed aka ‘Ferret Palace’…

So, today … I did a couple of hours, 0800-1000, on the canal (SAC-SWC) with a mini-jig setup – 6’ lure rod, mini-jelly spikey worm body on a size 2/3g jig hook/head… and I walked about 0.5 miles of canal.

Spikey Worm Jelly Lure Body

Lovely morning to be out…

Result, one quick grab, missed, just past the canal bridge.

About 5-6 boats passed – one of which was certainly exceeeding the national canal speed limit of 4mph!

Next outing is planned – but heavy rain and wind forecast so its 50/50 at the moment – to a club pool (AA-B) tomorrow – Monday September 9th.

Monday, 2nd September, saw me heading to a club pool (AA-GH) that, as I said at the end of my last posting, I’d not visited since mid-June and for no other reason really than it fell victim of ‘so many waters, so little time’ …

Predominantly a carp water it does hold bream, chub, roach, rudd, a few perch seemingly and a good head of pike and I’ve heard tench although in 6-7 years of fishing there I’ve never caught nor seen/heard first hand of anyone catching one.

I arrived at the water around 0730 and headed to what used to be a good, and still looks like it should still be good, area for chub although the club had a clean up all around the pool around a year ago after complaints by the owner of old line being found in areas. One of those areas being along the bank on which the peg I fished is situated as it had many overhanging trees with branches that dipped into the water and as a consequence some broken line had become entangled on some of that overhanging vegetation due to either mis-casts or hooked fish seeking shelter. The club’s clearance and prevention measures were to cut out the branches that actually dipped into the water and generally anything less than 4’ from the water’s surface was taken out although the overhangs still protrude out over the water – but it seems that this change is not to the chub’s satisfaction and they’ve moved elsewhere – but where remains a mystery as there is no other place of similar vegetative cover elsewhere on the pool, the banks being mainly of short grass elsewhere although there is an island that has trees and bushes on its banks albeit they also having been trimmed… and the original tree-lined bank still looks the most likely chub holding area.

I initially started fishing at around 0800 on the float, fishing on the drop with a bodied antenna set to depth in a sliding float manner as the water along this bank is around 12’-13’ deep a couple of rod lengths out. Line was the usual float fishing line of mine – 6lb BS (Daiwa Hyper Sensor) – and 3-4 maggots on a size 14 hook was the bait. At around 0945 I changed my method to lift method with a 5AAA driftbeater float.

Pre-tackling etc the usual pre-feeding of the swim was done…

I was pleased to see plenty of bream bubbles in the area as I made my first casts and over my curtailed session I did have a number of small bream to around 8oz or so, none of the bigger specimens showing nor any chub per usual. A couple of roach and a pair of common carp of 2lb 14oz and 3lb 9oz completed the catch of the day…

2lb14oz Common Carp

3lb 9oz Common Carp

I did lose another carp, larger it felt too, to a line snap probably due to damaged line after several tussles with tree … read on.

I left earlier than usual at 1330 – due mainly to the frustrations mentioned in the title caused by overhead/hanging trees and that lost fish …. just to my left that overhanging canopy had a few stray branches/twigs sticking out, just enough to catch the line TOO many times but well enough to entangle the line enough that break-offs were needed – I didn’t lose any tackle as I was able to grab the two ends of the line (rod side and hook side) and pull from both – and occasionally the line stripped the leaves off the branch/twig and bent it enough to slide off but more usually the line snapped but as I had hold of the tackled end I got float/shot/hook back and re-used them to re-tackle up – about 6 times I think! At one point I did manage to bend the vegetation close enough to grab and actually snap off the offending woodwork and thought I’d solved the problem once and for all – but no! I had a bream on, just over the net when the hook pulled – end tackle was catapulted like a vertical take-off jet, straight up into the highest point of the branches from which another pull-for-break was required – did that, then immediately packed tackle away and went home.

Couldn’t get worse could it? Well, actually, yes it could …. at the end of July I was diagnosed with rectal cancer so I’m awaiting an operation to remove offending growth within the next few weeks… after which my fishing is likely to be curtailed for a while too 😦

Anyway, on Saturday (tomorrow, 7th) Liz is off to Lanzarote with friends and family for a week – and so I’ve a week that can be devoted to just myself and my fishing! I was intending to go out on Monday (9th) but the weather forecast is heavy rain and strong breeze on the day so it looks like I’ll give that a miss … however, the rest of the week is looking pretty good so… 🙂 And I might sort out my light lure tackle and have an hour or so mini-jigging on the local canal on Sunday (8th)…..

Thursday, 29th August, I headed off to the closest of my club waters (SAC-DP) for the day as (a) being Thursday I have to collect Liz from work so any travelling time saved is a bonus and (b) the pool is due to have work undertaken on it shortly and the water levels lowered – in fact since, it has been confirmed that the water levels will be lowered by around 0.5 metres and fishing curtailed by the closure of 25 pegs on the far bank – so I wanted to get a session or two in before the workings had their effects felt.

I arrived at the car park around 0730… and was fishing by around 0815…

Previously apart from one occasion when I fished from peg 33 on the dam wall I’ve always fished peg 25 but after my walkaround of the pool a short time ago I decided I’d try peg 8 if it was free on my next trip – and it was!!

As can be seen from the photo it is a peg that has bushes extending out into the water to both the left and the right of it… perfect fish haunts??

So, I decided on a float session, and pre-fed the usual crumb/particle/maggot mix to the outer corners of both bushes in order to create ‘switch’ swims – but during the day I actually only cast once to the left hand side – the reason being the breeze was coming in from right to left and, although it can’t be seen in the photo, there was a bare thin twig that protruded out about 24” and was about 18” above the water surface, and when casting the slight bow in the line caused by the wind invariably got caught over it. So I concentrated on the right hand baited area for the day.

Bites on my maggot baited size 12 hook came almost immediately and all day long I was catching – mainly small rudd/roach, a few skimmer bream to around 12oz/1lb, perch to around 6oz …. plus a mirror carp of around 2lb (well, the scales said 0.99Kg as I’d somehow managed to knock them off their usual lb:oz setting – and I had to play around with them for quite a time later to find how to switch them back to my desired unit!) …

… a nice looking crucian carp of around 12oz..

… and a barbel of around 12oz…

Another, bigger, carp was lost at the net when the hook pulled free … and the end tackle was catapulted straight up into the trees overhead … and tangled around the twigs. I was able to extricate all the bits and bobs OK but they were all wrapped up in one of the most disentangleable bird’s nests ever seen on this planet IMHO! Anyway, the bits had to be salvaged one by one cutting out the bits of line on which they were attached and then replaced onto the new clean end of the line…

1530 … time to leave to enable me to get home, put baits away, shower and head out to meet up with Liz.

So, a pleasant day albeit I had nothing of any real size. It was sunny/cloudy, mainly dry bar one shower around 1230, and when the sun was out it was quite warm but as soon as any cloud obscured it it was quite chilly in the breeze.

PLANS:

Monday 2nd September, tomorrow actually as I write this, I’m going to another club pool – one I’ve actually not visited in quite a time – looking back through my postings it was mid-June when I was last there. I’m intending to float fish at the start of the day hoping for chub but may change over to the ledger rods and feeders – or even the floater rod if the carp are on the surface – around 1130’ish depending on results – and my mood! 🙂