Formerly Loughborough Fishing

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Rubber pike strikes again

With the first warm weather for a few weeks, I thought I'd take a few lures along to the canal to see if I could catch a large perch that I have been wanting for a while. There are definitely large specimen perch in the canal and river Soar around Loughborough; I have seen one being caught before. 

The lure I decided to use was a little rubber waggly thing (I really don't know that much about lures yet), and from a range of wonderful colours I went for a silver one, as common sense tells me that a fish will probably take something that looks like normal food over something that doesn't... 

Silver rubber waggly lure thing

As I was going for perch, I fished just off a lock wierpool wall where perch tend to hide in the shadows and strike out at little fish passing by. I simply let the lure sink to the bottom, and jigged it up and down between half depth and full depth. This resulted in loads of bites - obviously lots of small perch that couldn't swallow the lure beyond the hook point. 

I managed to hook 4 perch in all, the biggest being a fat lump of around one and a half pounds.

Lure caught perch

After a while I noticed a large shoal of small fish being spooked in the middle of the canal. This could have been perch, but I guessed from the mass panic that it would be a pike. I changed lures to my trusty rubber pike (shown in a post below) and ran the lure through the area. On the second cast, the pike stuck. After a good fight, this turned out to be a fish of around 6 pounds. 


6 pound pike

I have caught 3 pike now on the same lure, all in a similar area. I briefly wondered if I might have had the same pike twice as they are territorial, but the size differences have been too big and the markings are different looking at pictures taken. 

I seem to be getting the hang of this lure fishing stuff, still looking for a zander as the ultimate target though!

Saturday 23 February 2013

How it all began

Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by water. I'm not sure why this is, maybe I was a fish in a past life or something. 

Anyway, I used to go on holidays a few times every year to a caravan park near where I lived in the North East at a place called Staithes. The park is in a valley, with a small river running through only a mile or so from the sea. 

This river is stuffed with little brown trout, which led me to trying to catch one. I must have been around 11 years old when I bought my first fishing rod and gear. My tactics for catching my first fish were very simple: a small piece of bread freelined off a bridge. The water was so clear that the bread could be placed just in front of the trout, and then you could see it take the bread. I managed to catch a couple of brown trout this way, and then I was well and truly hooked. 

I started trying to refine my technique a bit, by starting to float fish the river below the bridge to give a better range of water i could fish. I had to learn quickly how to cast fairly accurately, as there was lots of bushes and trees overhanging the river; perfect cover for the trout, and if I could cast just upstream of these areas I had a very good chance of catching one. 

I played around with different baits, using bread, sweetcorn, cheese - all stuff I could take from the dinner table. After not much success on these, I went to the local fishing shop and bought my first bag of maggots. These turned out to be wonder bait for the trout, and my next mission was to find some of the deep pools where the bigger trout would live. This was a lot easier said than done as the bank sides were often steep cliffs or very heavily brambled. 

I began by taking a kayak down the river all the way to the sea mouth, to scout out the deeper pools. I found a particularly good spot just above the point where the river turned tidal. I decided it would be easier to walk down the river in swim shorts, sticking to the shallows, and stand in a foot or so of water to fish this deep pool. 

The deep pool, notice the extreme foliage

Float fishing this pool with maggot about half depth resulted in a fish every cast, with the brown trout pushing up to 3 or 4 ounces, which is respectable for a river this size. 

One of the many brown trout caught

I have come a long way now from the times spent fishing for tiny brown trout on the little river, but it definitely shaped me as an angler, and made me learn lots of techniques that I still use today. 

On occasions I have spotted larger sea trout and baby salmon in the river, which will be my next challenge when I am in the area.  

Tuesday 19 February 2013

Another pike

This afternoon I had a couple of hours to spare, and as it was wonderful weather I thought I'd have another go at lure fishing the canal - my second time of doing so, read about the first below.

I was hoping for a personal best perch, pike, or maybe even a first zander. 

Over a couple of hours, I hooked two fish, one came off but was quite small and felt like a perch. The other take resulted in a nice jack pike of about 3 pounds. 
3 pound jack pike

I wasn't expecting a great deal today, I spent a lot of time playing with different techniques to make the lure behave in different ways. 

The lure I have been catching pike on is a rubber artificial baby pike lure, with a jerky retrieving method. 

Baby pike lure

Today was great for improving lure retrieval techniques and for improving casting accuracy. Hopefully next time I can catch an even bigger specimen, there are pike rumoured to reach 20 pounds in the area! A zander is my main species target now, as I have until June before moving back to Middlesbrough, and they don't get that far north. 

Saturday 16 February 2013

Loughborough canal, 16/02/13

Today the river was high so again I headed to the canal. I originally planned to fish the Swingbridge Road section, but there was a match on, I assume a rescheduled match originally planned for the river. 

I decided to head down to the Bishops Meadow section, and aim for some larger fish as I have caught plenty of small fish around the area there before. As the water was very coloured, I wanted to try some flavoured luncheon meat for some chub and bream or possibly tench and barbel. 


Bishops meadow section

There was very little interest for a while, and eventually I reverted to my insurance policy of mixed maggots. I had a size 16 hook on for the luncheon meat, so I stuck a red and white maggot on the hook together and continued fishing. The effect was instantaneous: bites every minute. 

The double maggot seemed to encourage the larger fish, and in 2 hours I managed a nice haul of around 50 fish, most being roach of around 4-5 oz. 

Typical roach today

Other catches included silver bream, perch, and bleak - one of which was quite an impressive size for its species:

Impressive bleak
One of the silver bream

After the couple of hours I ran out of maggots, and did not fancy going back to luncheon meat, so I decided to try a bit of spinning for large perch or pike. I was not expecting much, as I have never caught anything on spinner in fresh water, and the water was very coloured making it difficult for a lure to be seen. 

However, today was just about to get better. About half an hour into starting to fish with a lure, I thought I had snagged the bottom again. Just as I was about to get in a huff, the line peeled off my reel and I realised I was into something big. After a fight of about ten minutes, I landed my first ever pike!

First ever pike

I didn't have any scales with me, but I guessed the fish to be around 4 - 5 pounds. Getting the lure out was a bit scary with the incredible set of teeth this monster has, but I have seen on videos how to do this and had forceps in my bag as always.

Now I had the technique sorted, I continued fishing, and hooked an even bigger monster! I fought with it for around 20 minutes, and as it was surfacing I could see the hook was only just caught in the outside of the jaw. Unfortunately this hold was not enough and he managed to free himself before I could land him. I will get him next time!

So today was very successful with two very different styles of fishing. I wonder if the match blokes sat for hours with their daft poles caught anything all day? One thing is for sure, they will not have had anywhere near as much fun as me!


Friday 15 February 2013

Useful links

Hello world, I've had this blog for a couple of weeks now, and I was pleased to find that it is now listed on Google - so anyone searching for information about fishing in and around Loughborough should be able to find this blog. 

So if you are looking for info - here are some links to useful websites:

Loughborough Soar Angling Society website - Owners of canal north of Loughborough lock and majority of surrounding river Soar. 

Barrow on Soar fishing - Information about the two angling clubs based around  Barrow, including Quorn Angling Society who own the rest of the canal through Loughborough.

River levels - Environment agency river levels showing the current level at Pillings lock, which is south of Loughborough. Environment agency website can also be used to buy a rod licence if you don't already have one. 

Weather - BBC weather forecast for Loughborough, normally accurate up to about 3 days in advance.

I think that will do for now, I might add more if I can think of some.

Should be going fishing tomorrow, on the canal again as the river is high AGAIN, it seems to like raining before weekends at the moment. I'll write up the trip tomorrow. 

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Float fishing tips

It is still incredibly windy in Loughborough, but it is supposed to calm after the weekend. 

Anyway, if anyone reading this blog is interested in fishing but has never got around to doing it, there is an excellent tutorial video on youtube explaining everything needed to get started float fishing. The link is below:


Even if you are an experienced angler, I am sure there will still be something to learn from this video. There were a few tips for dealing with windy weather that were useful for me, especially as Loughborough seems to be the windiest place in the universe at the moment. 

Sunday 3 February 2013

A special lake back home

Loughborough is not my home town, I am originally from the North East of England, near Middlesbrough. There are many great places to fish in the surrounding area, and I will probably write more posts about those places in the future.

There is one special lake that has produced some of the best days and fish so far, and is also where I really learned the skills and craft of fishing. 

The venue is called Ingleby Road Pond, and is a small 30-ish peg pond surrounded by countryside. The pond is very natural, with lots of trees and reeds and plenty of features to fish to. Although a relatively small pond, it is stuffed with an amazing range of fish, from small skimmers to carp almost reaching 30 lbs. 

Watercraft is very important at this venue. In the right place at the right time, anyone can catch anything. In the wrong place, the best angler in the world will struggle. I normally begin by fishing the bank with the wind behind me, as there are plenty of trees to fish near, where fish will be sheltering and expecting grubs to fall from the tree. 

Maggots will catch everything in the water. However, recently I have moved on to target the large carp by laying a bed of hempseed on a shelf and using a large kernel of sweetcorn as a hook bait. This has proven to be a very effective method, the last carp caught on my last visit is shown below. 


Ingleby Mirror carp

Species I have caught at this venue include: Roach, Rudd, Bream, Perch, Tench, Mirror carp, Common carp, F1 Ghost carp, Ide, Golden tench and Crucian carp. There are rumours of a solitary Koi carp, but I have never seen it. People also say trout, chub and goldfish are in there, I believe there may be trout but I think other people mix up the ide with chub, and the crucians with goldfish. 

Some examples of fish from this lake: 


7 lb mirror carp caught in showery conditions hence the clothing
First F1 ghost carp, caught one week after being stocked
First crucian carp
As a side note, if you struggle to identify the difference between crucians and goldfish, look closely at the dorsal fin of the fish you catch. Goldfish fins are much more concave than a crucian, and a crucian has a lot more spines in its dorsal fin, about thirty as opposed to 15 or so in a goldfish. 

3 lb ide
Another ide, note concave anal fin
To tell between an ide and a chub: the anal fin is convex on a chub, differing it from ide and dace that look similar.

First tench
Skimmer bream
On the subject of telling fish apart, the bream above is a bronze bream (young one so still silver in colour) and below is a silver bream caught from the canal:

Silver bream
Notice how the silver bream eye is much larger in proportion to the head than bronze bream. Silver bream also have larger scales but this is quite difficult to see sometimes. 

I cannot wait to get back on this water, should be sometime around easter and I will be aiming for a double figure carp. 

I would 100% recommend a trip to this fishery, even if it is a long drive! 

Tickets are available on the bank, last time I went I think it was £6 for one rod, and £8 for two, but it may have increased since. The fishery postcode is TS9 7DF. 

More posts of past outings to come, whilst the winds here in Loughborough are reaching gale force and stopping me getting out on the water. 

Saturday 2 February 2013

Loughborough Canal, 02/02/13

Well, the plan was to fish the swingbridge section of Loughborough canal today, but contrary to BBC weather's forecast, the wind was strong, cold, and causing a massive surface drift making it pretty much unfishable with a rod. 

So, back below bishops meadow lock where there is at least a bit of shelter from the wind. Again, the river was very high and the canal water very coloured making conditions quite difficult. 

Using the trusty maggot, I managed to pull out a nice mix of bream, roach and bleak, with a few hybrids. I've never known so many hybrids to be found in one place - perhaps the roach and bream have the same spawning patches on that short stretch of canal? 

After a couple of hours, the wind was numbing my fingers surely to the point of frostbite, so I prepared for one last cast. The float popped down, and I struck into a fish. I pulled it out and realised it was my first ever gudgeon! I knew they were in the canal, but somehow I'd never come across one. I briefly wondered if it was in fact a baby barbel, but the fish only had two barbels as gudgeon have, instead of the four of a barbel. 

First ever Gudgeon!
Talking of barbel, when I was setting up I saw a very large fish take something from the surface, I only saw the back - from the size it could only be carp, pike, barbel or tench, and the scale pattern was definitely not pike or carp. It looked more like a barbel to me - whatever it was, there is an extremely big fish in that stretch of canal, possibly into double figures. Something to aim for another day!

Hopefully the wind will die down over the next couple of days and the water become a bit clearer, and I can attack some other areas of the canal. 

Details for tickets for the north Loughborough canal are given in the post below.