Well today I went on the river arun to do some feeder fishing. As I said its been a while since I've done river fishing but really enjoyed myself dispite the wind and rain.
I was up at first light and got to the river for 6am, I had about 2hrs until low tide.
I started with 4 big balls of groundbait into my swim while I set up. I used a 30g cage feeder which was attached to 5lb mainline with a 3lb hooklength and size 16 barbless hook. Bait was maggots and I used red breadcrumb,hemp, maggots and a little of my special ingredient for the groundbait.
Fished for about half a day and managed to catch plenty of skimmers, roach, dace, rudd, gudgeon and a bloody bootlace eel. I estimated around a 30-40lb bag of fish so I was happy with that.
DAY1: So I'm at Furnace for 6am when the gates open, so as i can get on the lake that I have been doing my homework on, but suprise suprise its full! not only is that lake full but every lake bar one is, so I guess i will be hard carp water for the next 7 days. Should be a challenge, but hey! I love challenges. I had been told previously that swim 20 seems to produce so I said to the baliff that I would like that swim, he said that it would be free at 4pm so you can either wait or jump in peg 19 until peg 20 becomes free. I decided to jump in peg 19. I did'nt realise that the quad service did'nt start till 8am, so my choice was wait or lug it to my swim, but me being me decided to start walking it to my swim. 55minutes later and all my gear is in my swim. Normaly I would plumb the depth and do some feature finding but as I was moving swim I just went with the old chuck it and chance it method.
Eventually 4pm came round and the guys packed up so I jumped into there swim and started to have a play around with the depths and a bit of a feature finding.
Pretty much most of the swim was about 7 ft deep but to my left I found an area of 8-8.5ft, I had decided to put my catfish rod over that. My method for catfish is a poly ball rig, size 2 glt hook, camofusion hooklink and glt pro tough 18lb flurocarbon line. My bait would be a live roach/rudd of about 4inch.
My middle rod will be place on a gravel bar on the corner of the island to my left, its about 3ft deep and looks very carpy. My set up is a clay safe zone leader with a 1.5oz flat pear inline lead and then made into a shocker rig. The hooklink is esp two tone with a JRC mbt 2 hook. Bait is going to be two tiger nuts over a bed of hemp and three tigers as freebies.
My right rod is going to another gravel bar at about 90yards out. My set up is the same as my middle rod but I'm going to use Cell boilies as hookbait. Again I'm only going to put out a few frebbies but I'm also going to crush a couple of boilies and place them over the bed of hemp.
The weather has been up and down but its mainly been very hot.
Its now 7pm and its just started raining. So far the only thing i've caught is the sun but maybe with a bit of rain it will oxygenate the water and the fish will start to feed.
8pm and I get my first run, Its on the tiger nuts. Its giving a good fight, and the guy next door has kindly offered to net the fish for me. But before he could net the fish, it spits the hook right infront of us. I just wish we hadn't seen the fish as we both estimated it as a mid twenty. I couldn't get too annoyed as I still had 6 days fishing left. I rebaited and sat back and started to read my book.
At about 11pm my catfish rod screamed off and then as quick as it happened it just stopped. My heart was racing, thinking that any minute that cat would be back and I would be into cat. Well...any minute didn't happen.
DAY2: No fish last night just lots of aborted takes on the polyball rig.
Alarm was set for 5am but was up anyway. I have noticed a lot of bubbling in the channel inbetween the two islands and am making a mental note, to see if it happens again tomorrow.
Todays weather has again been up and down. I've had rain, wind and sun.
Its 6-40pm and I,ve had 1 run today but struck into thin air, I wonder if there are fish out there trailing line.
I've decided to get the catfish rod in and concentrate on the carp. I'm going to have it set up the same way i've set the others up but with a criticaly balanced bait. I'm using half a bloodworm pop-up and half a spicy tuna boilie back to back, and I'm gonna place it to a shelf on my left hand side.
DAY3: Had two runs last night and missed both of them. I'm felling a little dejected this morning as its now 4 runs and zero fish.
My luck changed though and at 8pm my critically balanced bait went sreaming off and after a strong old fight the net went under a beautiful 19.9lb mirror. I really needed that fish, as I was starting to doubt myself as an angler.
DAY4: It was a really quiet night night last night I didn't hear a single bleep from anyone's alarms including mine.
I decide to change method on my right rod and go with a semi fixed lead of 1oz with a flurocarbon hooklink, JRC mbt 1 hook and bait was 3 grains of pop-up corn. On the hooklink I used 3 pieces of heavy metal putty so it pinned the hooklink on the bottom of the bed. I fished this over a bed of hemp and a few grains of real corn.
2pm and the right rod slowly plods off. After a nervous 15minute fight I slip the net under a fish that I was later going to find out was a new Pb mirror. The scales went round to 29lbs 12oz. Things feel like they are starting to fall into place.
I placed the same rod back out to the same spot and within 10minutes it went screaming off again, I couldn't believe it! Unfortunatly I lost it when it spat the hook.
2-40pm and my critically balanced bait goes screaming off. This time it was a smaller fish but I'm happy with anything. A 14lb 8oz common graced my net.
DAY5: Another quiet night, but that may be down to the cold night I had. I would like to say that I had a good nights sleep but I had company last night in my bivvy. Unfortunatly the company wasn't a nimpho blond, insted it was a hungry mouse. All I kept hearing was the mouse running across the bivvy floor, and everytime I would turn on my head torch the mouse would just sit there looking at me.
At 3pm I had a run on my middle rod which I changed to chick peas at 5am this morning. Now this fish felt big! it was holding bottom and pretty much dominating the fight. Eventually after a 20minute battle I landed a catfish of 36lbs. Yet another Pb, but was very suprised the cat took chick peas. i was thinking to myself that I was onto a huge carp.
DAY6: Today is a really warm and muggy day and I feel a storm is on its way. 1pm and its started raining and I can hear thunder in the distance, hopfully this will get em feeding.
8pm and like clockwork I get a run, this time its another immaculate common of again 14lb 8oz.
I thought I would try a different bait on the rod I just caught on, so I have now put on a fusion boilie tipped with plastic corn and placed it in the same place.
1am the left rod goes off, and then the middle rod goes off and I'm in a right state (probably the bottle of red that night) I finally come out of my daze and realise the fish has swam into my other line. I get the fish in and its a nice 24lb mirror but this fish has tangled and wiped out two of my rods so I put the two rods beside my bivvy and go to bed.
DAY7: My final day and I'm knackered but I'm very happy with the 6 fish I've caught. Two new Pb's and some new things learnt on the bank. One of the baliff's come round and I asked him if he would do me a deal if I stayed another night. He asked how many nights I'd done, so i told him and he said I can have it for free, now thats a deal and a half! I wonder if he would do the same deal for the next month?
DAY8: Its now 1pm and I've only got a few hours left, all my gear is packed away all that is left is the rods and landing net.
I had two runs last night, one of which I banked, a 23lb mirror and the other one spat the hook at the net.
Unfortunatly the 40lb carp was not willing to eat my bait this time but next time I'm not so sure. Either way I had a very good time, with a lot of lessons learnt and some new friends made, so all in all a great experience.
05/09/2010
Well today I went on the river arun to do some feeder fishing. As I said its been a while since I've done river fishing but really enjoyed myself dispite the wind and rain.
1 replyI was up at first light and got to the river for 6am, I had about 2hrs until low tide.
I started with 4 big balls of groundbait into my swim while I set up. I used a 30g cage feeder which was attached to 5lb mainline with a 3lb hooklength and size 16 barbless hook. Bait was maggots and I used red breadcrumb,hemp, maggots and a little of my special ingredient for the groundbait.
Fished for about half a day and managed to catch plenty of skimmers, roach, dace, rudd, gudgeon and a bloody bootlace eel. I estimated around a 30-40lb bag of fish so I was happy with that.
26/08/2010
Weeks fishing @ Furnace. Plantation Lake.
DAY1: So I'm at Furnace for 6am when the gates open, so as i can get on the lake that I have been doing my homework on, but suprise suprise its full! not only is that lake full but every lake bar one is, so I guess i will be hard carp water for the next 7 days. Should be a challenge, but hey! I love challenges. I had been told previously that swim 20 seems to produce so I said to the baliff that I would like that swim, he said that it would be free at 4pm so you can either wait or jump in peg 19 until peg 20 becomes free. I decided to jump in peg 19. I did'nt realise that the quad service did'nt start till 8am, so my choice was wait or lug it to my swim, but me being me decided to start walking it to my swim. 55minutes later and all my gear is in my swim. Normaly I would plumb the depth and do some feature finding but as I was moving swim I just went with the old chuck it and chance it method.
Eventually 4pm came round and the guys packed up so I jumped into there swim and started to have a play around with the depths and a bit of a feature finding.
Pretty much most of the swim was about 7 ft deep but to my left I found an area of 8-8.5ft, I had decided to put my catfish rod over that. My method for catfish is a poly ball rig, size 2 glt hook, camofusion hooklink and glt pro tough 18lb flurocarbon line. My bait would be a live roach/rudd of about 4inch.
My middle rod will be place on a gravel bar on the corner of the island to my left, its about 3ft deep and looks very carpy. My set up is a clay safe zone leader with a 1.5oz flat pear inline lead and then made into a shocker rig. The hooklink is esp two tone with a JRC mbt 2 hook. Bait is going to be two tiger nuts over a bed of hemp and three tigers as freebies.
My right rod is going to another gravel bar at about 90yards out. My set up is the same as my middle rod but I'm going to use Cell boilies as hookbait. Again I'm only going to put out a few frebbies but I'm also going to crush a couple of boilies and place them over the bed of hemp.
The weather has been up and down but its mainly been very hot.
Its now 7pm and its just started raining. So far the only thing i've caught is the sun but maybe with a bit of rain it will oxygenate the water and the fish will start to feed.
8pm and I get my first run, Its on the tiger nuts. Its giving a good fight, and the guy next door has kindly offered to net the fish for me. But before he could net the fish, it spits the hook right infront of us. I just wish we hadn't seen the fish as we both estimated it as a mid twenty. I couldn't get too annoyed as I still had 6 days fishing left. I rebaited and sat back and started to read my book.
At about 11pm my catfish rod screamed off and then as quick as it happened it just stopped. My heart was racing, thinking that any minute that cat would be back and I would be into cat. Well...any minute didn't happen.
DAY2: No fish last night just lots of aborted takes on the polyball rig.
Alarm was set for 5am but was up anyway. I have noticed a lot of bubbling in the channel inbetween the two islands and am making a mental note, to see if it happens again tomorrow.
Todays weather has again been up and down. I've had rain, wind and sun.
Its 6-40pm and I,ve had 1 run today but struck into thin air, I wonder if there are fish out there trailing line.
I've decided to get the catfish rod in and concentrate on the carp. I'm going to have it set up the same way i've set the others up but with a criticaly balanced bait. I'm using half a bloodworm pop-up and half a spicy tuna boilie back to back, and I'm gonna place it to a shelf on my left hand side.
DAY3: Had two runs last night and missed both of them. I'm felling a little dejected this morning as its now 4 runs and zero fish.
My luck changed though and at 8pm my critically balanced bait went sreaming off and after a strong old fight the net went under a beautiful 19.9lb mirror. I really needed that fish, as I was starting to doubt myself as an angler.
DAY4: It was a really quiet night night last night I didn't hear a single bleep from anyone's alarms including mine.
I decide to change method on my right rod and go with a semi fixed lead of 1oz with a flurocarbon hooklink, JRC mbt 1 hook and bait was 3 grains of pop-up corn. On the hooklink I used 3 pieces of heavy metal putty so it pinned the hooklink on the bottom of the bed. I fished this over a bed of hemp and a few grains of real corn.
2pm and the right rod slowly plods off. After a nervous 15minute fight I slip the net under a fish that I was later going to find out was a new Pb mirror. The scales went round to 29lbs 12oz. Things feel like they are starting to fall into place.
I placed the same rod back out to the same spot and within 10minutes it went screaming off again, I couldn't believe it! Unfortunatly I lost it when it spat the hook.
2-40pm and my critically balanced bait goes screaming off. This time it was a smaller fish but I'm happy with anything. A 14lb 8oz common graced my net.
DAY5: Another quiet night, but that may be down to the cold night I had. I would like to say that I had a good nights sleep but I had company last night in my bivvy. Unfortunatly the company wasn't a nimpho blond, insted it was a hungry mouse. All I kept hearing was the mouse running across the bivvy floor, and everytime I would turn on my head torch the mouse would just sit there looking at me.
At 3pm I had a run on my middle rod which I changed to chick peas at 5am this morning. Now this fish felt big! it was holding bottom and pretty much dominating the fight. Eventually after a 20minute battle I landed a catfish of 36lbs. Yet another Pb, but was very suprised the cat took chick peas. i was thinking to myself that I was onto a huge carp.
DAY6: Today is a really warm and muggy day and I feel a storm is on its way. 1pm and its started raining and I can hear thunder in the distance, hopfully this will get em feeding.
8pm and like clockwork I get a run, this time its another immaculate common of again 14lb 8oz.
I thought I would try a different bait on the rod I just caught on, so I have now put on a fusion boilie tipped with plastic corn and placed it in the same place.
1am the left rod goes off, and then the middle rod goes off and I'm in a right state (probably the bottle of red that night) I finally come out of my daze and realise the fish has swam into my other line. I get the fish in and its a nice 24lb mirror but this fish has tangled and wiped out two of my rods so I put the two rods beside my bivvy and go to bed.
DAY7: My final day and I'm knackered but I'm very happy with the 6 fish I've caught. Two new Pb's and some new things learnt on the bank. One of the baliff's come round and I asked him if he would do me a deal if I stayed another night. He asked how many nights I'd done, so i told him and he said I can have it for free, now thats a deal and a half! I wonder if he would do the same deal for the next month?
DAY8: Its now 1pm and I've only got a few hours left, all my gear is packed away all that is left is the rods and landing net.
I had two runs last night, one of which I banked, a 23lb mirror and the other one spat the hook at the net.
Unfortunatly the 40lb carp was not willing to eat my bait this time but next time I'm not so sure. Either way I had a very good time, with a lot of lessons learnt and some new friends made, so all in all a great experience.
Scott Morley
3 replies