the newts.net

After a long break from the coarse fishing (nearly 20 years!) I’m pleased to say I had a pleasant debut comeback at a beautiful little private local water.

After a spell of dreadful January & February weather it turned out to quite a mild and pleasant day at this lovely pond owned by our friends Trev & Ian Oliver.

Tony was first off the mark with a little roach, with me close behind with a small perch.  Garry quickly got in to his stride after that though and netted an almost constant stream of small roach and perch.  Tony was still getting the odd small fish while I was just getting the odd finicky bite but no action.

Later in the afternoon the slightly larger fish started to show with Tony starting to catch mirror carp around the 1 - 2lb mark.  Tony then started to diversify and managed to tick a few boxes on his Fish n Trips species list after netting a small barbel, mirror and common carp, roach, perch, tench, a rudd and a little gudgeon.

Garry continued with a regular stream of small roach interspersed with the odd perch and finally I hit in to a decent fish.  It took a while to land ( so Gaz & Tone will tell you), but a 6lb mirror on 2lb line and a size 20 hook can’t be bullied in.  It has to be played with sheer mastery; It’s nice to see I haven’t lost my touch :O)

It was the biggest fish of the day, but specimen of the day had to go to Tony with a gorgeous perch approaching 2lb.  Infact it was that BIG he daren’t pick it up!!

So in a nutshell:  The 3 of us bagged an approximate total of 40lb of fish.  First fish to Tony Martin, top weight was Tony Martin as well (though Garry started to catch up with a flurry of small mirrors towards the end of the day), Best specimen was Tony’s too, most fish definitely belonged to gaz with a netfull of roach, and I sneaked on to the board in the latter stages with biggest fish.

More pictures are available on the Fish n Trips scoreboard here.

Great afternoon of fishing - thanks to Trev & Bov for the pleasure.

I’ve fished in some cold weather but this was just ridiculous…
(click to enlarge pictures)

This is what happened to my short baitcaster rod while pike fishing at Bardney Lock a few days before Christmas.  After noticing what was happening I put my rod down and tried to remove some of the ice build up from the end eye.  The ice was very crisp and solid and I couldn’t remove it without using considerable force and risking damaging the eye.  By this time the line had frozen solid through every eye on the rod except the butt eye.

It took two hours for my rod to thaw out!

You wouldn’t mind freezing your b*ll*cks off for a nice double figure personal best Pike, but we didn’t catch a bean.  I tell a lie, this is probably when I caught the flu that laid me up for most of Christmas!

I haven’t cast a line in search of Pike for nearly 20 years now, so when the invitation came for a few hours wobbling a dead bait one early morning I thought yeah why not, it will make a refreshing change from trout. We met up in Brigg and fished the Old Ancholme from a spot just a side street from the precinct in Brigg.

A very simple setup of 12′ Carp rod, 8lb Maxima, 18” wire trace and a wobbled smelt accounted for my first little Pike of around 3lb above.

And not long after this 4.5-5lb’er below.

Not bad for a couple of hours, frosty morning work!

I’ve been thinking for a while now of trying out some form of lure fishing with a small or single handed multiplier reel. Inspired mainly by Rex ‘Yibbida Yibbida folks - Thank your mother for the rabbit’ Hunt, watching him single handedly flicking lures from a boat towards some sunkissed Aussie coastline. I thought that’s one style of fishing I’ve never tried and I really fancy a go at.

So I’ve been on the look out for a decent multiplier reel and a suitable rod. I think I’ve found a good reel in the Team Diawa Viento I managed to get from an American tackle shop via e-bay. Not an easy job as you might think as the Yanks seem to prefer right hand wind reels, but eventually I was lucky enough to win a bid on a left hand wind one. I’m still undecided about which rod to go for. I’d like something that will handle a BIG pike and cast lures big enough to catch big Pike, but it would be nice to have something a little versatile that could throw a smaller lure should if I fancy a spin for trout, perch or even a spot of harbour fishing, Rex Hunt syle, while on holiday. The rods that I have found so far include:

The G.Loomis Mag Bass

The Greys Prodigy Jerk Bait GPK 050

The Greys G100 Spin GHR 030

David Lumb Power Plus-X

Fox Predator Piker Jerkbait

I think I need a bit of experienced advice for this decision, so right now I’m off to check out the Pike Forums to see if there are any helpful souls in there who can put me on the right line. And hopefully, in the not too distant future, I’ll be armed with my own Pike outfit and posting pictures of some monster fish!

And so to the first fishing trip of 2005. It’s a shame it took until May for it to occur, but that’s just about the story of my fishing outings of the past few years - not enough of them! However I’m sure that situation will be redressed when Ben’s old enough to come along with Dad. I can’t wait!

So it was off to Toft Newton near Market Rasen to open this year’s account. Me and Willie got there for 1pm and were fishing by 1:30pm as the only boat on the water all day. There were quite a few bank anglers but as the nippy North Easterly breeze was quite strong they were all relegated to the lea bank in order to be able to cast. Me and Willie however, with the benefit of the boat, were able to fish the winward bank with the wind behind us. Always the massive bonus of having the boat.
And it was a great start (Apart from me shearing my landing net handle into 4 pieces on the stern of another boat while leaving the jetty) with Willie into a fish on his very first cast of the day. A feat he’s never managed to do before. That meant that he’d already won £2 off me for the first fish of the day. It was just my luck that my first fish came 1 minute later with my 2nd cast!

The takes were quite plentiful and it wasn’t long before we had 4 fish in the bass bag for dinner and we decided, good spot though it was, we’d have a move and explore some more of the lake. It was pretty much neck-a-neck fish-for-fish catching throughout the day, with all the spots we tried offering up a fish or two.

Flies of choice were buzzers; red being the most popular for me and black for Willie, and while all my fish fell to either a red or black buzzer, Willie did get a couple on a small black hopper. It wasn’t until later on that the newts opened up a small lead winning 7-4, but after giving Wil one of my new experimental hot head buzzers that I’d tied, he quickly caught me up and we ended the day at 9 each.

One of my 9 was this fantastic 1lb 12oz Perch which fell to the red buzzer. It fought and felt like a trout all the way to the net, where we first realised it was a Perch. It’s not uncommon to catch a Perch at Toft, although you can usually tell when you’ve got one on because they’re normally somewhat smaller than a trout, but this fella was an absolute beauty and was bigger than most of the 1 1/2lb trout we caught!

A great day out, we fished til 9pm and the rain held off, although that Nor Easterly was pretty nippy by the end of the evening. It’s nice to start a season off with 7 fish. That always seems to be lucky for me and bodes as a good omen, so I can’t complain with 9! The funny thing was both Wil & I lost a fish each on the very last cast of the day! The fish came on great in the last hour and if it wasn’t for the fading light, I’m sure we’d have been in the ‘teens’ each.

Roll on trip No.2!

Well folks it won’t be long before the first trip of the season, out wetting a line in search of the hardfighting overwintered monster troots.

And just to whet the appetite, how about this photo of a gorgeous rainbow trout taken from a high mountain lake in Colorado, US.

What an absolutely stunning looking fish. Gorgeous!