Des Taylor’s
weekly diary
AT LAST the rain has eased a little, but even so the rivers are still a little cold and in flood.
So once again last week I concentrated on stillwaters, and caught some lovely fish! Here’s how it went…
MONDAY
Charlie’s Lake in Shropshire, where I felt confident of a decent perch on lures. In a really cold easterly wind the big fish didn’t feed, but I had a good number of stripeys drop shotting and on jigs.
The most successful that day was the Ned rig. This is basically a flat jig head which sits on the bottom with a buoyant rubber lure hooked on. The jig is then worked slowly across the lakebed, but today I got most of my takes when the Ned was motionless on the bottom.
As anyone who does a lot of jig fishing will tell you, many takes come when the jig is stationary. Best colour was green, and most of the fish were under a pound, with the best just over that mark.
I went home happy with my return. It’s not all about big fish. Lake owner Shaun came up to see me in the afternoon and we spoke of his plans for the water over the coming years. If only half of them come to fruition, then this fishery has a great future.
WEDNESDAY
On the Avon with my mate Wayne after pike and zander, but it was slow, with only three pike and no zander. I pulled out of what I think was a decent zander first cast.
We made plans for a barbel session next week, when hopefully a decent fish will show in an area we have prebaited.
On my way home a mate phoned to ask me if I fancied a day on the River Test in two weeks’ time after grayling, so when I got home I booked the B&B for us both. It’s great on a winter’s night to sit by the fire dreaming of days to come. Already I can see that big grayling coming over the landing net!
SATURDAY
Trout fishing on the syndicate lake again, and another red-letter day with 13 fish, three of them into double figures.
By the end my wrist was aching from these hard-fighting fish!
This water is spring-fed, with thousands of gallons going through every day. With this fresh, clean water and an abundance of natural food it makes for super looking, fit trout that fight like tigers.
All my fish were caught on small competition size 10 lures. White and orange were the catchers on the day, with orange bagging the most. I was fishing a floating line and using quite a fast retrieve for this water. Normally a slow ‘figure-of-eight’ retrieve works best here, but after an hour of little success retrieving slowly I tried a faster retrieve and I was into fish straight away.
I find it exciting stripping a lure back fast in the water and getting the line almost pulled out of my hand as a big trout smashes into the lure. Fishery owner Andrew and his father also caught trout to double figures, but it was my day this week !
I thought I’d fished well and was happy sitting in the car with the heater on full blast on the way home. My wife and I had one of the trout for tea with home-made chips, peas and crusty bread. A lovely finish to a great day, washed down with a lovely bottle of wine!