Second December Session

 So it had been a week since my last session and this time I was able to stay out for a bit longer (6 hours) so I decided to go back to Dobsons Lake as I normally have it to myself and it has carp up to low 30's.

I settled into the session on peg 6 which is just opposite the end of the island.  There was a bit of a breeze and I was targeting the quite water at the back of the island.  You can see the peg from the picture above and the shots below.

After being in this swim for a few hours I was having no joy even though I changed rigs and hook baits.  I did however keep hearing what sounded like a fish jumping to my left.  So I decided to move.  I packed up the barrow and moved four swim down to Peg 2.  Whilst doing this I went through a puddle that was significantly deeper than I thought lol and get my feet soaked.

Once set up in Peg 2 I spotted the carp that was jumping and tried to cast to the area.  This was very tricky as I had to cast to my left under a tree as the swims closer to the fish were all flooded.  You can see shots of the swim below.

Unfortunately everything I tried I just could not tempt the fish.  I am not convinced my presentation was correct as there seemed to be lots of loose twigs and branches that I kept pulling out when I retrieved the rig.

I did try a bit of piking with a Savage Real Eel lure which has a great action in the water but alas not joy again.

Off to Cambridge for Xmas break and the plan is to go fishing with my Dad one day and my Daughter, Dad and Nephew on another.  Fingers crossed.

Blog later.....

First December Session 2012

Sunday morning rolled around and I had planned to go fishing so up I got had my breakfast loaded the car and I was off.  This time around Aoibheann couldn't come along as she has been poorly all week.  Also with the cold weather we weren't sure it would have been a good idea anyway.

As you can see from the picture above I had a stunning day of a bit of fishing.

The picture to the right shows my very simple rig that I used.  As you can see I have used a lead eject system as fish safety is paramount.

This was fished with a PVA bag and a pop up boilie with a plastic sweetcorn.

Firstly I put some sweetcorn in a bait container and added some brown crumb to dry out the moisture of the sweetcorn so it wouldn't melt the PVA bag.  To this I added some micro pellets.  I also crushed up some home made boilies.

So I added the "mix" to the bottom of the PVA bag then put the weight into the bag on top.

I then top up the bag with mix and then its up to your own preference.  I put the hook and hook bait inside the bag.  Some people prefer to leave the hook bait and hook on the outside of the bag.  As I say up to you.

The Glug pot to the right shows the bait soaking in Pineapple flavour.  To match this I used the Pineapple Goo.

Unfortunately most of the lake was frozen and I only saw some fish in another area 30 minutes before I had to leave so I stuck to the spot I was in.  If I had longer I would have moved and hopefully caught.

On the bright side I got some really good photos of the swim and scenery.

Blog Later....

First Winter Session

So last weekend Aoibheann and I went fishing.  The picture above shows the swim we settled on after doing a complete circuit of the Dobsons Lake which again is part of the Newbury Angling Association.

It took us about an hour to circuit the lake and get set up with all of our stuff.  At this point I thought I had left the maggots at home which would have been a disaster so after checking the bags AND the car I phoned my wife to check the fridge and by the front door.   Hmmm still no maggots so after re-checking my bags I finally found them in the barrow bag section.  Phew.  Once we had the maggots I then plumbed the depth just by the overhanging tree to the left of the swim.

Once I had gotten Aoibheann up and running I setup a basic ledger system and cast out.  Somehow I managed to hit the top of the tree on the island infront of Aoibheanns chair in the picture to the right.  After unsuccessfully trying to free it I had to break the line.  So I re-set up and cast out using the boilies Aoibheann and I made in an earlier blog.



I was very surprised that after a couple of hours the boilie still smelt the same as when I cast out :).  Unfortunately neither of us caught anything but it was a stunning day for it if not a tad windy.

Blog Later.....

Aoibheann and I making Boilies

So Friday afternoon rolled around and I had finished work so I thought I would pop over to Swindon to have a look around Hinders.  My local tackle shop doesn't really have a lot of choice when it comes to making your own boilies.  Aoibheann and I jumped in the car set the nav man and off we went.

Hinders you may recall was often seen on the Matt Hayes fishing program "Total Fishing".  Whenever they did a particle section it was normally at Hinders which is where I had heard of it and swindon being quite near I thought a pop over was in order.

When we arrived I was pleasantly surprised with the about of choice for the home made boilie enthusiast.  I purchased a few different flavours etc and left.  Friday night after the two younger children had gone to bed Aoibheann and I started to make our first "Batch".  The recipe we used which is completely made up is listed below:

Dry mix:

• 5oz Gluten & Wheat Free Flour - Mainly due to not finding any Soya Flour at Tescos,
• 4oz Semolina,
• 4oz Maize Meal,
• 2oz Super Krill,
• 1 teaspoon salt

Liquid mix:

• 4 x medium hens eggs
• 5 ml Mega Tutti Fruiti Nash,
• 5 ml Scopex No.1,
• 2.5 ml Intense Sweetner,
• 15 ml New Grange from Mainline.

Firstly add all the dry mix contents to a container.  Then mix these gently to ensure consistent mix.  Some people use a bag to shake the contents but as I did this with my 4 year old we used a bowl and spoon.

After you have mixed thoroughly add the liquid mix together in a separate container.  Ensure you do not whisk the egg as you do not want lots of air bubbles.

Once mixed you can slowly add the liquid mix to the dry mix in small increments.

When you have added the mixes you should have a ball which is malleable but does not stick to your hands if it does leave it to stand for a few minutes of add tiny amounts of the dry mix again.  We had to leave ours for about 15 minutes then it was fine.

Then as described roll out into roughly the desired diameter so in our case we rolled it to about 10 mm thick.

Then cut into lengths.  We only used the width of the knife I was using.

 

You can then start to roll them by pulling off the ends of the sausages and rolling them in the palms of your hands.  Once complete simply boils them for about 2 minutes and thats it done.

For some reason though ours seem to be pop-ups!

Not sure why any advice welcome I am going to try the recipe again but with Soya next time see if that makes a difference :)

The main thing is that Aoibheann enjoyed it.

Blog Later....

Knott's Lake in the Rain

Today was supposed to be only overcast so we were looking to try to catch some Tench or Bream to see if we can get more of the Korum Mission Badges for Aoibheann.  However come the day in question and the forecast was showers or light rain most of the morning.  I was hesitant to take Aoibheann given that she doesn't normally cope with being cold and wet but again she really wanted to go.  As I said we were looking for Tench or Bream so I decided on Knott's Lake part of the NAA that we are members of.  

Aoibheann and I did a complete walk around the lake first to see where we wanted to go.  We finally settled on Peg 4 as shown above.  Reasoning was as follows: 1) Island to cast a Method to with sweetcorn on the hair, 2) Overhanging tree to the left of the swim, and 3) reeds to the right of the swim.  Luckily we managed to get the tent and umbrella up before the first shower hit.

Whilst I set-up the Method rod I put some "Freebies" of Red Maggot and a mixture of halibut and course micro pellets.  Aoibheann helped mix up the ground bait which was a combo of what we had left over in terms of other ground baits and the micro pellets plus sweetcorn.  I then showed Aoibheann how to load the Method and cast to within a few metres of the island.  The Method was more of a cast and forget about rod really as I wanted to concentrate on Aoibheann and the pole fishing :).

Within 30 seconds of the float settling near the over hanging tree we caught a big perch (Well for us anyway lol).





Over the next three hours we hand a nice catch of Roach and Perch.  The Roach to the right is also the biggest Roach we have caught together.










We had Perch of 0.12, 0.11, 0.1 Kg and Roach of 0.2, 0.06, 0.06 Kg

Btw this is my view to and from the swim.  Daddy carrying the lot lol.


Blog later......

Aoibheann's First Rudd!!

 So this last week I bought a Total Fishing Gear (TFG) Force 8 Speed Lite Bivvy.  My thoughts were that as I was going to be on holiday this week having a staycation I wanted to get out fishing a few times with Aoibheann but the weather was supposed to be very bad.  The other considerations were that I can't spend half an hour putting the thing up with a 3 nearly four year old.  This tent is excellent I can have it erect in under a minute then peg the back and sides if needed.  As it happened we had a lovely days weather hardly any clouds and no real threat of rain and yet Aoibheann still wanted the tent up lol.

So after I plumbed the depth and Aoibheann mixed up some ground bait we were off fishing in Alders Lake at the Newbury Angling Association.  This time we had settled into Peg 5 mainly due to the fact that the tent, that we didn't need, wouldn't extend and block the path.

As well as the ground bait we were using mixed micro pellets 50/50 course and halibut.  To the ground bait we added some sweetcorn and the left over bits out of the previous sessions from various ground baits.  On the hook we had the trusty Red Maggot.

Full capture pic.

Roach, Perch and Rudd

First Rudd

We had a fantastic 4.5 hour session.  We caught Roach, Perch and for the first time Aoibheann had a Rudd and it was a nice one I think was maybe 1/2 a lb.  Silly daddy forgot to weigh it but at least I remembered to take a picture :)

NAA./EA Teachin Session

So Last Saturday Aoibheann and I went to Alders Lake part of the NAA to have the joint NAA and Environment Agency Teachin session.

So we got there at about 10:30 and it looked well organised with a sign in gazebo.  So even though we had sent in the form we filled in another form and were then told we had to wait until a tutor became available so we had a little mooch about.

They had a 2 ft fish tank on a table with the red signal crayfish that had been caught out of alders which Aoibheann was fascinated by.  They also had a couple of plastic storage containers with some weed and water in where we could see the various small animals including freshwater shrimp, sticklebacks and boatmen.

After about 15 minutes we were guided round to Steve who to be honest was brilliant with Aoibheann.  He asked her to sit on his seat box.  He then proceeded to show her how to attach a maggot etc.

During the 15-20 minutes she was with him she caught 2 little roach and a little perch.  She really enjoyed herself.

What I learned was to use micro pellet to bring the fish into the swim and then maggot as hook bait which i have promptly been and bought so our next session should be better.

I was disappointed though over all as the day was advertised as from 10:30 - 16:30 with a match from 14:00 till 16:00.   However as I say above after the 20 minutes we had with Steve we were then told that was it?  Aoibheann was given a bag with a mini tackle box and a magazine etc but the older kids were given some sort of pole either a fishing pole or landing net pole not sure to be honest which my daughter didn't get which didn't seem fair.

Aoibheann though didn't notice and had a good time which after all was key :).

Blog later....

Aoibheanns First Blank Session

 So today was the first day in two weeks we have been able to go fishing as my wife had her tonsils out a week last Tuesday and then got an infection so she's been too poorly to look after the two little ones.  This afternoon it was supposed to be warm and overcast instead it was boiling and very few clouds but we went anyway after lunch.


We headed off to the NAA and went back to Alders lake.  This time we settled on Peg 4.

Aoibheann wanted to fish on the bottom using  maggots so I setup a simple maggot feeder and hook length.  I tied off the line after the cast I was happy with so I had the length and I also noted a "feature" to align every cast to.  Every 5 minutes or so I reeled in and re-cast to reload the feeder.  As you can see on the left Aoibheann was settled with her Lemon bottle of juice lol.





We weren't getting many bites a few but not many so to keep Aoibheann entertained I got her to mix up some ground bait which she really enjoys.  She likes making up the balls and launching them maybe 3 feet from the bank lol.


Aoibheann also wanted to use her portable potty to go for a wee just before we left but somehow she was managing to wee above the rim so she was weeing over my hand as I was trying to lift the bag up to catch her wee lmao.


I did manage to get this really nice picture of the two of us just before we packed up after just over two hours and no fish in the net.  Which to be honest made my trip.  I think the thing that made Aoibheanns trip was this inch long beetle that was walking along the rod bag :).


At least she wants to go again tomorrow but we will see.




Blog Later...

Cheeky Weekday Session

So my wife has had a tonsillectomy on Tuesday so I was hoping if she was well enough Aoibheann and I would be able to get out to the NAA.  Unfortunately she has an infection and so has been more poorly than we thought she would be.  Never the less my amazing wife insisted Aoibheann and I went this afternoon.

So quickly throwing the things in the car we were of to Warwicks Water again part of the Rawlings Retreat complex.  I have to admit I wasn't particularly organised I forgot the camera and Aoibheanns chair.  Luckily I had my phone on me so I got a couple of pictures :).

 For this session I used some Hemp Oil readily available from Tesco's as "Good Oil".  You can find it with the other cooking oils.  I also had Silver X and sonubaits exploding fishmeal and crushed corn.  I also added some liquid bloodworm flavour.

For today's session Aoibheann wanted to try a rod and reel.  Now I thought this may be problematic as she is only three.  So I fished on the bottom using a method feeder made from the ground bait materials above with two sweetcorn on a hair rig.  This would enable me to help her and forget about my rod.  I just had to wait for the buzzer to go off :).

Aoibheann was fishing just a smidge over depth with one or two red maggots on the size 16 hook.  Typically she was first to catch a small roach.  I then caught an even smaller roach picture right.

After about two hours this was all we caught and to rub it in I could see a good 8 - 10 lb mirror carp rolling on the surface and there were other multiple fish jumping around the lake but Aoibheann wanted to head home to check on mummy so we packed up and headed off.

As I said I don't know if that will be that for this week as when we got home we had to take my wife back to the doctors for more pills and it is supposed to rain all weekend.  Now it wouldn't bother me but I don't think my three year old would enjoy it even if she is nearly four lol.

Blog Later.....