Bob Roberts My monthly fishing diary...

2021-12-14 -

WHAT a month! Lots of variety and fish galore. Alas, we are now well past the first frosts and fishing will get slightly trickier, but feast on these tales for now and don’t put that tackle away yet – just wrap up warm. There’s plenty of good fishing to be enjoyed through the winter months ahead.

Week one...

Every now and then a plan comes together. Today was that day, and then some.

Picture a stretch I visited earlier in the season – impenetrable head high brambles and vegetation growing atop a vertical bank at least six feet above the water. It looked to have great barbel potential but no- one had even tried to fish there. In high summer I couldn’t see a way to safely fish but the autumn die- back invited me to have a second look.

It was still impossible to fish from atop the bank but a dog spike and rope descent, followed by a tricky 25- yard paddle in chest waders, meant I could set up somewhere close and, after a little ‘ gardening’, I revealed a mound of gravel and clay just big enough to cover with my unhooking mat to sit on, half in the water, half out. I was in business.

Feeding hemp and casters through a Fisky Black Cap feeder with holes enlarged using scissors, I set about building the swim. Dace were troublesome in the early casts but as the volume of feed built, my tip hooped over and I was attached to an angry barbel of around 8lb. In the next half hour I caught three more but it was clear that the river was rising and the already powerful flow was increasing, so much so it was a struggle to actually bring fish upstream on the quivertip outfit I was using.

Not to worry, I had a Black Widow 1.75 test quivertip outfit with me and a switch was clearly needed. To this I attached one of Fisky’s large blockends, again opening up the holes to release the casters and hemp more quickly.

With greater volumes of bait

now being released in the swim, the activity increased accordingly and several much bigger fish came to my waiting net including a couple of decent doubles. And then the swim died completely, so I reeled in and studied the water.

The rising river had increased in pace considerably and where I had been catching earlier was now boiling up and looking decidedly ugly. Not the sort of area a fish would choose to sit and any feed would likely be wafted all over the place.

Ten yards further out and slightly higher up the swim was an area of water that was calm on the surface and running through at what I like to refer to as ‘ walking pace’. It made sense for the fish to have moved there and, sure enough, after a few casts to lay down a bit of bait, bites commenced again, except the bite rate went through the ceiling. Sometimes I barely had time to put my rod in the rest before another fish was on. It was crazy.

In my head I was thinking, maybe I will catch 10 today, or 12?

It wasn’t too long before the target was revised to 15, 18 and then

20, yet the bites kept coming and some of the fish

I was landing were huge.

Although I kept count of the running total, I lost count of the fish I would say were ‘ doubles’.

By now I was getting decidedly weary. The fish had so much advantage in the fast flow the fights were prolonged and quite frankly my arm was dropping off by the time I reached 24. Fish number 25 was a monster, a huge, pristine example that looked every ounce of 14lb! Not only that, it was the start of a run of five fish in five casts taking me up to 29 barbel ( and one chub). By now I was completely shot, had aches and pains in my shoulders and neck, plus my hooklink needed changing.

With two hours of daylight left I found myself asking, how many barbel do you actually want to catch, Bob? The answer was I’d had enough. I had filled my boots. A classic red letter day. It was time to pack up and head home for dinner.

Had I pushed it I’m sure I could have landed 40 fish before the light went. It really was that crazy, but recognising I’d caught enough means I can return to that swim whenever I fancy, whenever the river levels stay reasonably low. There’s no need to be utterly greedy, is there?

Climbing back up the slippery bank was extremely challenging and I mentally congratulated myself on purchasing a new dog spike and rope the previous day in anticipation of having to scale this bank. After loading the car, I noticed the Bluetooth had failed to pick up my mobile phone. Odd. So I unloaded the car and did a thorough search. No phone.

On with the waders again, in with the dog spike and a now much more tricky wade along the bank as the level had risen and the flow was now pushing really hard. No sign of my phone. So I returned to the car, changed into my trainers and set off for home.

I didn’t get far because dark thoughts were now running round my head. There was £ 50 in the phone case. Three credit cards, my driving licence, Covid certificate and much more. These were more important than the phone itself and a nightmare to replace. So I went back, parked up, donned the waders again, secured the dog spike and lowered myself into the water.

This time when I reached the spot I’d fished the water had cleared and there on the bottom of the river, a foot below the surface was my black phone case. Saved the cards and cash, phone destroyed. Oh well, it’s replaced now but I’ve lost all my contacts, images and messages. It was a brilliant day, though.

Week two...

Twelve years ago, Mistral Baits boss Allan Parbery was the best man at my wedding. Moving from Northamptonshire to Shropshire, however, means he’s the now thick end of three hours away, so we see less of each other. Negotiating the M1, M42, M5 and a host of country roads means any visit requires a bit of planning and a fair bit of luck with the traffic - something I was right out of on Friday afternoon. The roads were choked and darkness fell before we arrived.

That meant I had no time to set up a rod for the following morning but with a couple of lovely pools in his garden barely 20 yards from the sun terrace and two more in the adjacent field, setting up would not take long.

Imagine fishing pools that rarely ever get fished, stocked with big carp that get fed with pellets and boilies every day. How easy would it be to catch them?

Well let me tell you, a lot harder than you might think! It’s a conundrum that has puzzled Allan enough to discuss the problem with the fish farmer who sold him the original stock. Apparently, naive fish like this are incredibly line shy and as difficult to fool as any he has ever fished for.

Rubbish! I thought. But I was wrong.

Over the course of the weekend I had two carp rods out for about 18 hours without so much as an indication. Allan had two out, too. Not a run between us.

To pass time we both set up a float rod targeting smaller carp that have bred in the pool. I kicked off on corn, to which Allan said: “You’ll struggle on that!” And sure enough, I did. I could hardly buy a bite on the golden grains. How odd. Meanwhile, he fished pellets and had regular bites from fish running 6oz- 12oz. Switch back to corn, nothing. I didn’t need any encouragement to switch to banded pellet and join the party.

As the day wore on, an occasional lump would head and shoulder. Clouds of bubbles would erupt over the baited area as bigger fish clearly had a root around but none fell for the hookbaits until late in the afternoon when my float slipped away and a gentle strike connected with an immovable object. This was no tiddler.

Although only using a float rod with 6lb line and a size 12 hook there was no chance of the fish snapping me as there are no snags. Providing I was patient and didn’t put too much pressure on the hook, I would eventually land the fish, which I did do around 15 minutes later.

Time to crack open a beer and leave the fish to their own devices.

“Apparently, naive fish like this are incredibly line shy and as difficult to fool as any he has ever fished for”

Week three...

What is it with me and Harthill Reservoir? Today for the second time in three visits, I found myself stuck in traffic on the M1 due to an accident, cutting short my session to half a day.

My plan was to target roach on wag and caster. The weather was mild, the skies overcast and I really expected to bag up. A strong southerly wind was going to be a pain on three sides of the dam and I opted for the coward’s choice, straight off my back. Big mistake.

I struggled and the two guys to my right did no better, both packing up early. I caught in bursts, on and off. Nothing bigger than 8oz. I really should have been on the end of that wind. Oh well. Next time.

Next time couldn’t wait. I was frustrated by my failure so returned to fish from the dam wall and put things right using waggler and caster again – and struggled. Bites were few and far between.

Week four...

This week kicked off with the launch of a fabulous new book I’ve been heavily involved with during lockdown. Mike Townsend was a talented angler and the nicest bloke you might ever meet, but he died suddenly on the eve of the 2019 river season. At his wake we agreed it was such a shame we would never get a chance to read the book he was always going to write. I thought about this and decided folk should and would get a chance read it. With the help of his partner, Tracey, his fishing companion Martin Abonyi and friends from across the country, access to his computer was gained and we set about creating the book he would surely have written one day.

Launched at the Nottingham Piscatorial Society Speakers Evening, it’s available from the Little Egret Press website and early indications are it will sell out, so grab one quickly. It’s a fabulous read. Titled Mick and Me, it contains contributions from Hugh Miles, John Bailey, Duncan Charman, Dai Gribble, Lee Swords and many others. I’m very proud of it.

I ought to fish Springvale Lakes more often. Set on the fringes of Sherwood Forest just five minutes from the A1, it could hardly be easier to get to. Half a dozen lakes all feature well- spaced pegs and there’s far more to it than carp, unlike many commercials. The ide fishing is sensational even on chilly days like today.

It took a while to get them going properly, but by noon ( after starting at 10am) those ide were lined up and competing just beneath the surface. It was a bite a chuck! Shame I was a bit rusty having not used my pole in a while due to chasing so many other species, but winter’s here now and pole tactics will feature more heavily in my repertoire going forward.

A stiff overhead wind made for comfortable loosefeeding of casters by hand. I chose to fish six sections for convenience but I’m sure I could have come shorter and caught quicker, but how many did I really want to catch? In the early stages I picked up the odd carp. I even caught a couple of tench fishing 2ft deep but once the ide arrived it was silver all the way. Nothing else got a look in. On past visits I’ve had skimmers, crucians and chub, but these were noticeably absent today.

It felt good to have a frantic pole workout but I must confess to being so rusty I snapped a No. 4 section, trashed four rigs and lost a whole rig plus the internal pole elastic when the keeper knot must have somehow come undone. I won’t fish this badly again all winter, I hope.

Thankfully, by 3pm when I packed up, I had regained a semblance of rhythm and was fishing quite well, gently ‘ leaning’ on the rig to keep the line tight enough for the fish hook themselves against my pole tip. I’m not for a second saying

I’m back to match fitness, but

I’ll get there. Give me a couple of trips to brush away the cobwebs and I should reach the desired level of competency again.