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. 

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.

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.