Gold & Green, Beautiful Crucians & Tench

Once again this next blog is a retrospective look back at a few trips to one of my favourite venues........

I generally keep a little quiet about certain places I fish (I've seen many great swims ruined forever when they get a mention in the press)

But this little collection of 3 lakes have been well documented in the angling fraternity so many times.

Marsh Farm in beautiful Milford, Surrey...

The home of very large & true pure bred Crucians & some cracking tench as well.

This little carp could very possibly my favourite fish to catch & admire it's buttery gold flanks.

But one of the main reasons I adore this species is they can be extremely tough to catch, dam near impossible as times....

But that magical moment you slip your landing net under a good Crucian is a huge justification of your tactics & skill as a fisherman, because you know the big old girls don't give themselves up easily. It's truly a great feeling.

         A pristine 1lb 5oz Crucian & @dangriff75's 4lb 2oz tench

I have a warm feeling in my heart every time I arrive at the Marsh Farm car park, it's been good to me over the last few years & 2013 has been the best so far, this blog is an amalgamation of 4 or 5 sessions this summer.

I never blanked but, of course different weather conditions of course negate my catches to a degree.

Right down to the nitty gritty of tactics... 

A pair of 1.5tc rods loaded with my favourite small Okuma baitrunner reels & 6lb line, worm or sweetcorn are both great choices for a hookbait, maggot can work well but you might find that you can get bitted out by the many small roach & rudd.

Next it's the eureka moment for me via a YouTube video with Duncan Charman...

An small inline flatbed method feeder !

Now don't get me wrong I'm a purest when it comes to catching on the float & often 10 good fish on stick float beats 30 good'uns on the tip.
I'd love to be able to catch these stamp of fish on the float mid way across the lake but with even a small amount of  wind it causes major presentation issues & crucians are the fussiest of all course fish.

Having said all that dusk & dawn is a great time to try a float & I always have a my Maver 17ft float rod & Okuma centerpin with 4lb mainline to a pole float with a 2lb hooklink & an 18 hook.

The near side marginal shelf is only 15ft from the bank with bushes & reads almost reaching that distance, thus providing a bit of cover as well. A few times I've picked up a bonus bigger fish & halibut paste has scored well for me in the past.I learnt to fish running a stick float through a nice glide on my local river & this kind of fishing will always have a place my heart. Although I feel it's a dying art really, it's a sad place to be when you see kids learning to fish behind alarms & carp rods, terrible !

I find i rarely miss many bites & lose fish with the method & the semi fixed nature of this feeder. always make sure you use the correct swivel size as I'm sure you wouldn't want to cause the fish any further danger with a fixed lead system. I team it up with a short 4lb hometied fluorocarbon hooklength down to a size 16 korum S3 hook mounted with worm or corn, the groundbait was just dynamite baits betaine green, mixed with a little lake water & no freebees at all, I find you bank many more fish in a session this way, the fish home in on the hookbait as the groundbait cloud doesn't have a large nutritional value. That's the theory anyways.

So swim primed with a few large balls & bait cast, time to wait.....

Baitrunners on the lightest setting & Korda stow bobbins clipped on, I lift into the fish (no need to strike hard) on any indication however small & most of the time the bigger fish hook themselves on the semi fixed rig 

The first few hours can be slow but as the shoals home in, the sport can be crazy & it seems the hot weather can really turn get them churning up the lakebed.

Over the 4 or 5 days fishing we regularly had well over 30 fish each (including my girlfriends first ever fishing trip, she had many fish, including tench to 4lb & Crucian to 2lb, I couldn't believe how quickly she picked it all up)

                                            My girlfriend with her new pb tench

                                               

                                          Two big tench, the 1 above is my new PB

This summer I broke 2 pb's

A Tench 5lb 4oz & a 2lb 10oz Crucian

My pal @dangriff75 had a similar stamp of fish & last year, he even had a 2lb 1oz roach (on my rod while I took a leak I might add) 

                                                    My pb 2lb 10oz Crucian


Truly great fishing in a beautiful & well run day ticket water. We're all counting down the days & can wait 4 summer 2014 to come around as soon as possible.

Big river Thames bream

Ok this blog is the first of a few retrospective looks at a couple days this summer.

Don't get me wrong... many times I've blanked this year but who wants to hear about me catching sweet FA & swearing far to much. ;)

I'm sure I'd have written my catch reports as soon as I arrived home, but all this blog malarky was just a twinkle in my eye at time.

Very early starts are needed for a Thames session & luckily I live very close this wonderful but at times very challenging river. The boats & rowers (of which there can be many) are a right pain at times & come in so close to the bank, drives me mad at times but you have to remember the river is used by so many other people, that's why very early mornings or evenings I find are the best.

5-30am...

I'm up & once again picking up my old fishing pal @dangriff75, traveling down to are favourite swim between Kingston & Hampton Court.

The afternoon before consisted of replenishing my vital bits & pieces of my tackle box, the many river snags swallow up rig after rig if ur not careful & accurate with your casting. We also had to prepare the epic amounts of my secret (just kidding) groundbait.

Down to the supermarket for 20ish loaves of the cheapest bread possible blended up in to a crumb, also purchased was 2 or 3 tins of sweetcorn just for a change of hookbait, added to the mix is 2 or 3 bags of 2kg halibut groundbait & a couple of kgs of hemp. we mixed it with the sweetcorn juice & will remix it again bankside with more river water.

I know it sounds like this an extreme amount but when the big shoals bream are really feeding hard you need to keep them interested.

I never forget the Thames can be very fickle & very hit & miss at times, but if you do hit a big shoal of "Abramis Brama" it's happy days.

As we arrive the river it's looking lovely, nice amount of flow, nether to fast or to slow, it really makes such a difference to old father Thames, if it's hammering through its so hard to hold bottom even with a large "dead cow" attached to the cage feeder, no flow & the fish just go off the feed. It's a fine line so I really try to make the most of the limited conditions at any one time, not easy with a busy job & family but if you can, make the most of it.

First job is to get the groundbait ready & get 20-ish orange sized balls out in the swim.

I fish a powerful-ish rod 1.5 or 1.75 TC, with a 5oz quivertip, 6 or 8lb mainline & a 20cm hooklength of 4 or 5lb fluorocarbon (I find it gives less tangles & good presentation) with a running cage feeder & a strong size 16 hook mounted with a juicy worm or double red maggot.
Just a simple feeder rig really.

Now the flow can vary hugely on this part of the river but u can't go wrong with the biggest feeder you've got.... 30g is fine the majority of the time, i always bring some dead cows just incase I underestimate the flow.

People may read this & scoff that "Bream don't fight hard"

Let me tell you the Thames bream DO !!

Ok the battle is never like a hard fighting barbel of course but they're strong fish & use their deep bodies in the strong flow.

Anyway I cast out midway across the river, normally there's a deeper channel created by the huge boats & regular casting every 5 minutes till the bream arrive....

Normally you start off with a few small roach or perch but once you hook the first bream of the session they normally push out all the small fish out of your swim.
It can get frenetic.... if you can, sit on your hands when you get a twitch, more often than not it's a real bite.

These bream love to bang the feeder to get at the groundbait & patience is needed...
You don't miss the proper bites when the tip wraps around & they hook themselves.... or like me you get in a right mess, I'm normally drinking a brew & the rod leaps off the rod rest, into the water.

On it's day this river is amazing & the bites come thick & fast, sometimes your tightening the line after casting & the quivertip flies round, you can't beat it 😃
Fish after fish came to my keepnet & i don't even have time to stop for lunch, its easy to take this kind of fishing for granted but i can assure you i loved every rod bending minute

Average stamp is 5lb+ & I had them up to 9lb 8oz this year which is unbelievable size for a river & the quantity of fish is just as incredible.

                     A typical sized 6lb Bream

                            A 7lb 8oz old warrior

          My biggest Thames bream of 2013

I can't imagine what's it's like down there on the riverbed when the fish feeding hard.

We'll probably never know the true potential of old father Thames but over the years I've had a few surprises including  Rudd, Crucian & a 4lb roach/bream hybrid.
I know of Sea Trout, Salmon, Tench, Sturgeon, Zander & big Wells Catfish caught over the last 10 years as well.
Talking of large Cats i know of a friend that got snapped up by a big Catfish that took a 3lb Bream !!!

If it swims in freshwater it will have been caught in the Thames at least once before.

After a 7 hour session we've had well over 30 bream each equating to 150lb+ for each of us, this happened on more than couple of occasions this summer.

My advice is to get out on the bank & hunt down those river Thames beasts of all kinds of species,because they are some very large fish out there, somewhere...

Tiny urban rivers & big surprises

So here's a little about me before I start waffling on about water levels & stick floats.
I starting fishing around age 11 or 12, down the local bit of river mole, (across the road in fact) float fishing with my dad, catching dace, small chub & the ever present perch, (you can find them in just about every single lake, river or pond deep enough to cover that spiny dorsal fin).
Over many summer holidays I spent many hours, days & months honing my skills (I say that tongue in cheek) on the mole, moving on to biggish chub, pike & eels.

Anyway I digress, it's a cool November day but the sun is out & warming my face as I drive around trying to figure out the closest place to park, I don't fancy a 4 mile trek.
I love these kinda days where you never even visited this part of the river & I really have no idea what the next few hours might hold.
As many of you reading this well know, many things sound great on paper but In reality it's nothing of the sort.
Having researched this small stretch of the river via google, I had a rough idea stick float was the way to go, being that the river in question is a lovely if very shallow streamy river.
Of course the stick float mans best friend, the maggot, I've infact got a couple of pints on the wriggly little blighters on this occasion.
I found a parking spot down a narrow cul-de-sac (I've never understood the reasoning behind that strange collection of French words used in England) anyway I parked up & it looked like there's a footpath at the end of the road, close enough to the river on my phone, Google maps.
So I quickly grab my landing net, rod & rucksack (traveling light really is my key to this style of wandering river fishing that I really love)
The path leads me to a large green wasteland where there's some extensive building work going on but over the sound of heavy machinery I hear that lovely sound of trickling water that every angler knows so well. I found the river, all be it very low, a surprise as we've had a huge amount of rain lately, my local bit of the Thames is chocolate brown & hammering through as I passed by it earlier that morning.
So sunny & low clear water, the challenge is on to catch anything today.
The first thing that caught my attention was a small fish topping just down stream, I've made a school boy error....
Polaroids quickly found & put on & the small fish in question has scarpered to the overhanging bushes on the far side no doubt.

As I slowly walk upstream with my eyes peeled for another sign of a fish, I can't believe how small the river is here, maximum 12ft across & barely 2ft deep, I carried on further down river & I've seen nothing, not even a flash of a turning fish or any surface movement, except for a heron on the far side, ok mr heron wouldn't be here if there were no fish at all so where are they all ??
Next thought, I've gotta find a deeper part of the river with this bright sunlight today, I'm sure all the decent fish will be under cover or deep water.
After a mile or so of river still no fishy signs at all, not good. As a cross a lovely wooden bridge & walk in to a park of sorts, water is still too low to run a float through & I'm starting to lose hope of any bend in my rod today
Then I find another bridge & a good swim.....
But there's a problem
The bridge is being resurfaced by the council & thus closed, shizer !
I spoke to a bloke in a high visibility vest near by & he said "u'll have to walk into town & round to the left"
Not all is lost, I traipsed through the city centre feeling very out of place & getting strange looks from many people, probably because I had a stinky & slimy landing net In my hand ha ha, did I care ? Of course not... I had chub, dace & maybe a wild browny on my mind.
I finally arrived at my chosen swim & I'm very disappointed, very shallow to the point of almost unfishable, shizer again.
Maybe I could fish a light link ledger over the far side, by some reeds but I could see every stone on the river bed, it's just to shallow & I decide to have a walk up to the end of the park & beyond, surely I would find a patch of deep water somewhere.
I crossed a road bridge & looked down in to river. I smiled from ear to ear, a lovely deep run with a big tree to the right. Lots of potential.

I threw out a couple of small handfuls of mags & watched them fall down through the water layers, no flashes of silver, no swirls, not a sausage, for a 3rd and final time (I hope) shizer !
But as we all know, the proof is in the pudding & until a had run my stick float through this beautiful run as least a dozen times, who knows what beast might lie beneath the dark water.

I set up my drennen 13ft float rod with 5lb line through to a korum S3 size 16 hook below a wire stemmed stick float holding 4BB's
I'm using a fixed spool reel, purely because when in fishing somewhere I've never been before there maybe a chance you need to cast further then normal, difficult with a centerpin.
Although I love the simplicity & great control my pin gives me in most stick float situations.

Right.... first run through with a small amount of grub freebees, as the float came to the end off the run it buries in a second... That caught me by surprise & the rod bent in 2 action & clutch lets a foot or so of line (thank god I set it earlier)
I'm in 2 a very good fish & my bet was a good chub but I soon changed my mind when the fish jumped well clear of the surface, a lovely wild brownie & quite a size, my estimate would b around  5lb+
A bit of lump 4 such a tiny river.
After a couple of long runs up & down the swim, I have the fish close to my net & disaster strikes, with one swift shake of the head, he threw the hook.
Gutted ain't the word, that WOULD have been a pb 4 a wildy

Onwards & upwards anyway, 3 fat maggots impaled on my korum hook & my second run through is underway.....
Again a storming bite & unbelievably I'm in again, a much smaller stamp than the first but my confidence is back ;)
But I spoke to soon, this 1lb-ish trout flung my hook as all trout like to do, by jumping like a mini tarpon.
This is NOT funny....
I checked my hook & just as I feared it's not as sharp is it should b !
New & very sharp hook retied & I'm on my 3rd cast very quickly.
I've got a nagging feeling I've missed my chance, spooked the swim & buggered it all up !!!
20 odd casts later & all I have for my efforts is a dozen minnows & a tiny little salmon par/brown trout, hard to tell when there're so wee. dam dam dam

Thinking about giving up for today & the float buries just like the first cast & I'm in...
This is hairy stuff as the fish makes a burst for the tree roots, I turned him just in time.

After a short & powerful fight in the fast flow I've got a good sized trout in the net, get in there you beaut 

Weighing & photos taken place & I slip my prize back into the gin clear water & my smile is back, 2lb 7oz & prob a pb wild trout.
I will always rue the one that got away but that's fishing I guess & I can't be too greedy.

After a couple more casts the swim is dead. I make myself a promise will be back 4 Mr 5lber sooner rather than later.

Monster stripy hunt

My phone alarm rouses me at the 3rd snooze....

It's 6-20am & I'm supposed to be picking up my best fishing pal @dangriff75 in 10mins, oh well.

Car filled with far to much gear (as is the norm with me) & flask filled with tea & I'm on my way as last.

A dirty macy dees breakfast & strong coffee were devoured en route to a Southern Stillwater & the car chat for the hour journey is filled with anticipation of everybodies favourite stripy & spiky fish.

It seems we both has similar dreams of 4lb+ perch last nite.... If only all dreams came true.

It's are first trip to this venue but it's supposed to have a large head of 2lb+ Perch, all the way up 2 just under a whopping 5lb lake pb. My appetite is fully wetted 

Full of anticipation we arrive at the lake & complete a full lap of the 2 acre pond.

I fancy a few mid way swims with lots bank side vegetation & a tree to the left, opposite the large island & we agree on a couple of adjacent spots.

While dan tackled up his 2 1.5tc sonik rods with small waggler floats, 6lb line & size 14 hook, I mixed the groundbait of sorts. 

This set up is a touch heavy for perching but with the chance of 10lb+ carp around & i think it's just foolhardy to fish lighter.

Back to the groundbait.. It consisted of white crumb (used as a carrier for) the chopped worm, red maggots & a couple liquid additives, "predator liquid" & "liquid worm" from Dynamite baits.

Both great for flavours for Perca Fluviatilis.

Prawns were also on the menu & a squirt of the predator liquid boosted the colour & flavour, hopefully the big perch thought it looked tasty anyway.

Prebaited swim while I set up & 1st cast made about 3 rod lengths out, 1 baited with lobworm, the other with the flavoured prawn.

The weather is again against us, very bright sunshine, unseasonably warm & not a cloud in the sky, not conducive for perch & we missed dawn, so dusk could b are only hope.

The first 2 hours passed without a bite for either of us, trickling in the red groundbait with chopped worm the swim slowly started to come alive.

Lots of line bites & the float bobbing about, after what seemed like an age the (worm baited) float sails away, at last...

A poor fight & just a couple of head shakes & the first fish in the net, unfortunately it's not a perch...

It's a bream... 1.5lb of shiny & slimy fish, forgot to take a pic but with the unusually   large eye, it could a Silver bream & retrospectively, most probably pb

Nice but not my chosen species...

Another worm mounted on my korum S3 hook, where r those spiny fined fish ?

The next few hours the carp moved in & we had plenty of 3 to 7lb carp, F1's to 3lb, sliver bream & a couple of beautiful goldfish

Had we fed to much ? I think not but maybe it's just to warm, by 2pm carp were up in the surface layers & I'm in a tshirt in November. Crazy

After 20 or more carp (most of them rather manky looking) & not even a tiny perch hooked.

The light faded quickly & the witching hour had arrived, that last hour of warm light before darkness descends, "come on you perch, let's be havin you"

I decided to try & escape the carp frenzy in my swim & I tucked a float fished prawn right under a bankside tree, I prebaited this swim throughout the day & now is a great time to knock a very perchy looking door

30 minutes without a bite & it's time to pack up, with most of the gear on the barrow & my float plunges deep under the darkness of the tree, could this be my chance of a monster stripy.

A ploding fight & lots of head shaking, it feels a heavy fish....

But I hopes are dashed by another f***ing carp of around 4lb.

My last chance has gone along with the sunlight.

Oh well that's fishing ;)

It's amazing that u can a have a day after a perch & not even hook a 3oz one but almost every other session you can catch  thousands of the little blighters, swallowing your hook in the process.

Still it's hard to complain when you have a constant bend in ur rod for most of the day 

No doubt we'll b back when it's very cold & the carp have switched off the feed.

There is always next time huh & that's the reason why we go fishing, you never know what's around the next fishy looking corner.