Hilton Lakes, 23/06/13

I have now returned home from University at Loughborough back to the joyful north-east of England near Middlesbrough - hence the blog name change.

I have a job lined up beginning in July in Hertfordshire, which will lead to another blog name change in the next month. 

Today I thought I would try out somewhere new, and decided to give the Hilton fishing lakes at Hilton near Yarm a try. It is a relatively new man-made venue, only open a few years, so there are no monster fish in there yet, but supposedly a good amount of young carp. 

Hilton fishing lakes

There are 2 lakes - both roughly circular with a central island, about as wide as a canal. There aren't really set pegs as such, but there would be plenty of space even if the venue got busy - which it wasn't today for good reason; it was blowing a gale and thunderstorm showers forecast.

However, pitching a wind break upwind of the chosen peg made the trip much more pleasant than it could have been. Wind breaks are cheaper, more versatile and much bigger than umbrellas which makes them a much better option. 

As I was hitting a totally new venue to me, I decided to keep the method as simple as possible - with bog-standard float fished sweetcorn. I was using a 13ft Maver carp rod, a small cheap reel as it was loaded with the lightest spool I have (4lb main line) and a waggler float. I used a size 16 Drennan wide gape hook to nylon hook length connected to the mainline with a size 14 swivel. I prefer swivels to loop-to-loop knots as I find hard fighting carp can really twist the line up during a fight and cause tangles after unhooking. 

I spent a good amount of time plumbing the depth of the peg, and found that a slope dropped away from the nearside bank down to about half way across to the island and a depth of around 7-8 feet. The bottom was then flat up to the edge of the island. Fishing against an island always seems an obvious choice but there was just too much wind for float fishing at that distance.

I chose to fish toward the bottom of the slope, setting the float to the full depth, and then dragging the bait up the slope a little way with an anchor shot 6 inches above the bait to indicate when the bait was resting on the slope. The thinking on this method was to loose feed the slope with corn, hemp and groundbait, which would fall down the slope and settle toward the bottom. Patrolling carp would then scour the slope for particles, see the hook bait, take it and then move back down giving a clear positive bite indication. 

After fishing for around half an hour, the first bite came and after an extremely good fight turned out to be a beautiful 2lb 3oz mirror carp.

First carp of the day

After this came a 14 oz common bream:

A common bream

And a couple of juvenile tench:

Little tench

I increased the groundbait/loose feed rate to try feed off the smaller fish a bring the carp into the swim. This resulted in the smallest carp I have ever caught, 7oz:

Baby carp

After this the bigger carp moved in resulting in 2 common carp of 2lb 1oz, 1 common of 2lb 5oz and finally the largest fish of the day a common of exactly 3lbs:

Biggest carp of the day

These carp were all in pristine condition and fought well above their weight. Without the heavy showers and thunderstorms I'm sure there would have been many more quality fish caught today.

I will definitely be returning to Hilton lakes before I move down south, and if you live in the north-east of England you should definitely give it a go, just be prepared for your arms to ache when you get home.

Hilton fishing lakes website: http://www.hiltonfishinglakes.com/

Grand Union Canal, 10/04/13

Its been unbelievably long since the last bit of nice weather, so the wind dropping and temperatures rising was always going to produce a good days fishing. 

With the river close season in place, obviously I would be hitting the canal. Fishing along the Bishop's Meadow and Swingbridge sections with mixed maggots and worm produced a good mix of silver bream, perch, roach, dace and bleak. Boat traffic was a major major issue, with everyone in the East Midlands who owns a boat deciding it was a nice day to go for a jolly through my nicely baited up swims, but I suppose it will have to be early morning or evening sessions from now on to avoid this. 

I have been watching ebay recently for great deals on Rapala lures, which are supposed to be the creme de la creme of the lure fishing world. I recently picked up a Husky Jerk (HJ-10) for about 3 pounds, and thought I'd give it a try out for some pike. 

Husky Jerk Rapala lure

The picture above was taken when I got home, those observant might have noticed some quite large teeth marks and scratches on it. Literally using this lure for half an hour before going home I hooked 3 pike, getting 2 on the bank.

4 pound jack pike

Moi and pike

The first pike was measured at about 4 pounds and the second was a bit smaller. The last one I hooked was a beast but unfortunately threw the hook. I do flatten all the barbs down on my lures - it may mean I lose occasional fish but I'd rather that than damage a good fish or snag up and lose the lure. I use 30 pound braid so I can bend the hooks straight on a snag for this eventuality. I certainly don't want to lose my new Husky Jerk lure!

Anyway, it was a good day, could have been much better without the barges barging through all day long but never mind.

As a side note - paid £27 for my new rod licence - why no discount for students? I am the only student who goes in the local tackle shop, which is less than a mile from the University, and I am sure people would give it a try if it was cheaper for beginners. Looking forward to reaching the OAP concession, in 44 years and £1188 time, assuming no price raise, which would be silly. 

Osiers - First session on the Soar

I think it was November by the time I decided to have a go fishing the river Soar. I had a good look on google maps for the best looking stretches, and decided on 'Osiers', which is south of Loughborough, just before the river joins the canal at Pillings lock. 

I just wanted to try trotting a maggot along some nice swims and see if there were many fish in that part of the river. I took some castors with me as well; if the fish were feeding well I would go for a larger bonus fish with a castor and maggot hookbait. 

I started off fishing peg 12 shown below, as there was a large sunken tree giving cover and blocking the flow of the water creating a nice holding area for fish.

Osiers peg 12

This spot turned out to be a good choice, as I started getting fish every cast, mostly small roach and dace with the occasional perch. I even spotted a very young jack pike snooping around in the margins, and I bet the parents won't live too far away!

Casting just beyond the sunken tree on the edge of the slack flow seemed to produce the best fish, one of them being this nice dace:

Soar dace

 I decided to explore the venue a bit more and have a go at another more challenging peg. The area just after the railway bridge seemed to deepen up a lot, slowing the flow so I decided to fish there suspecting there could be a few chub and bream in the area. 

Peg 7 just downstream of railway bridge

The water in this peg is very well oxygenated, leading to shoals of bleak hanging around the surface, making it very difficult to get the hookbait to sink before one of them taking it. As a result I ended up catching mainly just bleak for the rest of the day, although a few of them were quite impressive size for their species. However, using the castor for a while managed to result in a few chub, although not very big. 

Soar chub

I also hooked a decent bream but unfortunately didn't have the line strength to get it away from snags and it managed to free itself. At least I know they are there - I'm still looking for my first ever river bream.

I love Osiers - I have been a few times since and it has never once disappointed. I also love how far away it is from anywhere - there are very few dog walkers which makes a nice change from the canal. It seems quite difficult to get too with lots of gear as well, so it isn't heavily fished and you can tell by the way the fish take a hookbait with no suspicions. 

If the river ever clears up - which it wont soon as its supposed to rain the next few days - I might just get back there. 

For anyone who is interested and want to know more, the Osiers stretch of the Soar is on the Loughborough Soar Angling Society ticket. 

First canal trip ever

The weather is rubbish and I have loads of University work to do, so I won't be going fishing for a week or so, and to keep this blog interesting I thought I'd do a new post about the first time I went fishing in Loughborough. 

I had ran along much of the canal around Loughborough before, so I had a reasonable idea of where some fish holding features may be. It was mid-October, and it was very bright. I decided to fish in the shadow of bishops meadow bridge - the first bridge beyond the conversion of river to canal. My thinking was that with temperatures dropping fish would be moving from the river to canal, and with it being bright they would take shelter under the bridge. 

Venue - next to bishops meadow bridge

I fished maggot on the float, in an attempt to just catch something. It was the first time I had ever fished any canal, and was much more used to commercial fisheries where bites would come every cast. I scaled my tackle down to a size 22 hook on 1lb 8oz line, which I would never have dared use before. However, the setup paid off and I soon caught my first canal fish, which turned out to be a perch. 

First canal fish - a small perch

I caught around 10 fish - perch and roach - in the space of a couple of hours, including a quite large perch of around one pound.

Largest fish of the day

I also caught a surprise fish - a ruffe - which I had never caught before, and have never caught since. I'm not sure how common/rare these are in the canal and river around here but it was nice to get a new species on the board. 

Ruffe

All in all it was a very good trip, and was a lot better than I expected. It definitely motivated me to go back and try fishing the canal again, and I had a go at the river soon after, which I will write about at some point soon. 

If you're reading this unsure whether to try fishing around here - do it! You will be surprised at the quality and quantity of the fish, I certainly was.

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!

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.  

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. 

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!

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. 

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:

Matt Hayes float fishing tutorial

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.