Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Bob Roberts’ diary
My monthly fishing diary...
Week one...
I try to avoid fishing on Saturdays. For the whole of my working life Saturday was sacrosanct. It was ‘my time’. My special day of escapism, a reward, but rare days off in the week were magical, the banks so much quieter, swim options multiplied. Leap forward in time and the single most rewarding part of retirement is being able to fish permanently in mid-week, although my perception has changed slightly. I now see it as I’m actually doing the rest of the world a favour by fishing only in mid-week thereby giving the working angler more room to fish at weekends. Trouble is we’ve reached the time of year when river conditions tend to dictate whether the effort of driving a hundred-odd miles is worthwhile. So, after a week of dreadful weather I ended up fishing on a Saturday. A rare pleasure although I needn’t have worried about space. Only one other angler was fishing my chosen stretch of the Trent. Unfortunately the river was far too low, clear and cold to be overly optimistic about daytime barbel fishing. It was time to dig out the zander gear. It’s been a while since I tackled this fascinating alien species. Time was I would journey down to the Lower Great Ouse to catch them, now they are widespread in the Trent, not that you would know unless you actually fish for them. The beauty of zander fishing is there’s an almost predictable feeding spell that coincides with the sun setting. It’s the magic hour and you can practically set your clock by it. It meant I could have a civilised lunch at home, load the car and head down to the river in good time for the 3pm kick-offs. Fishing with football on the radio – it doesn’t get much better. I even took along Barry McConnell’s Channel Zander book for a bit of inspirational reading. Life should always be as good as this. I had visualised the swim I intended to fish, where I’d set-up, the spots I’d cast to, even where I’d take the photos. It was vacant when I arrived but something just didn’t feel right. Do you ever get to a swim, and find you just aren’t feeling it? After a short deliberation I jumped back in the car and headed off to find a new swim, one I’d never fished before. Sometimes I get this little voice in my
head, the shoulder monster who whispers in my ear giving me guidance. He said: “Have a look at the swim below those trees.” It looked perfect. Now I could set up with confidence. The football commentary was tortuous. We went a goal down and took until the 87th minute to turn things around. The river was full of leaves which didn’t cause too many problems but I couldn’t be completely certain those single blips from the upstream rod’s Delkim were not gentle pick-ups, maybe a small fish examining the hookbait. Suddenly, I heard a distinct metallic click from the downstream rod. It only took a second for me to realise it was the slider inside the Rollover indicator. Like an idiot I had not been concentrating properly when I placed the rod on the bite alarm; the line was not on the sensor, but it didn’t matter this time, fortunately. Lifting the rod I held the line between finger and thumb, feeling for movement. As the line tightened, I struck and felt a solid thump. Zander on! It wasn’t a monster, but that’s hardly the point. Objective set, target achieved. My kind of fishing. I have to have some more of this.
Week two...
The river levels remained unconducive for barbel but in a way that was good. I could focus on catching another zander, hopefully a bigger one. Again I arrived with a specific swim in mind but decided against it. The five things I look for when zander fishing are some nearside slack water, a crease, steady flow beyond, decent depth and overhanging bushes. Find them all in close proximity and you stand an excellent chance of catching one. If I’m fishing over the slack water then a Rollover indicator cannot be beaten. Zander are finicky feeders at times and I find drop-back indicator line clips can be temperamental beasts, certainly enough to cause dropped takes, but a Rollover provides almost zero resistance. As soon as it lifts, the internal slider causes the arm to flick upright leaving the bait effectively freelined. I used to use ultralight leger weights to reduce resistance but nowadays I’ve gone for a large freerunning lead that doesn’t budge so a taking fish can move off unhindered. It works for me, anyway. Last week’s practice session meant I had my rigs set up and fine-tuned. An afternoon spent bait snatching had given me a selection of fresh deadbaits so it took only minutes to set up. I made sure everything went into position with minimal disturbance before settling down for what I hoped would not be too long a wait, but even I was surprised when the downstream Delkim gave out a staccato trill as the Rollover flew up to release the line. This took me by surprise as it was still half-light but nevertheless I was on the rod in a shot. With zander I sit as close to the rods as I can. Lifting the rod I went into autopilot mode. Hold the rod in my right hand, close the bail arm, gently wind up any slack, but not till it’s tight, then hold the line between thumb and first two fingers of my left hand. Providing you concentrate you will feel the line begin to tighten as the fish moves off slowly with your bait. Don’t hang about, hit it! Which is exactly what I did. I felt the satisfying thud from the other end. A solid resistance which told me two things. It was not a pike, which would have instantly powered off, and that it felt bigger than last week’s fish. They say the camera never lies and looking at the pictures there doesn’t seem a lot between the two fish but I swear this fish was bigger. Sadly no more action followed but at this time of year beggars cannot be choosers.
Week three...
Three consecutive days of high winds and near-horizontal showers gave me the excuse I needed to earn a few brownie points staying at home and catching up on domestic chores. No way did I want to go fishing in that weather! The following morning I rose expecting more of the same but on parting the curtains I saw the garden was white over. High pressure had arrived which meant I’d better revise my plan to fish for carp this week. An hour was spent in the tackle den, sorting light rigs and searching cupboards for the trusty old Image bread punches that have served me well for the past 30 years, then a trip to the Supermarket to pick up a fresh white loaf. Crusts removed, all but three slices were blitzed in a food processor till super fine. Bring it on. Drain silvers would be my target tomorrow. It was still dark when I crept out of the front door but the frost I was expecting was missing. Indeed it was raining again. Damn! Oh well. Best take a brolly. Not surprisingly I never saw another angler all day. The weather wasn’t fit to turn a dog out. The steep banks were treacherous but once I’d managed to get my gear to the water’s edge and tucked beneath my brolly the conditions weren’t too bad. The drain was carrying a fair bit of colour and pulling off gently. First job was to stick out a sleeper rod for pike in the near margin. If you’re catching roach regularly there’s a good chance it will spark the interest of a pike. I then plumbed up carefully at the bottom of the far shelf which was only nine metres away, setting the float at dead depth. There’s no point in fishing negatively, so in went three small balls of liquidised bread at the off. It’s been a mild autumn so there was still a fair bit of weed around causing me to shallow up slightly but there were a few willing fish around. I caught steadily in the first hour and every indication suggested the bite rate would pick up as the session wore on. And then the sleeper rod was away. Not a monster but a bit of excitement all the same. When you get a take here the culprit could be 2lb or 20lb. There’s no telling so the bite is just as exciting either way. Unfortunately the drain began to run. No doubt the extra water was being pumped off which meant I needed to step up to a much heavier float and every bite had to be worked for. Rafts of floating weed and debris became a nuisance. I finished up with 50 roach and skimmers plus a bonus pike on 50 pence worth of bait. Nice fishing in the grim conditions but I’m not sure how long it is going to take for my gear to dry off!
Week four...
Another narrow window of settled weather opened up; a rare sunny, if chilly day was too good to miss. I had to grab it as the weather folk were getting rather excited with their dramatic predictions of another ice age. I gave the rush hour a miss, called into Stainforth Angling Centre for some fresh maggots and took the scenic route to Messingham Sands. I rarely fish commercials in the warmer months, too many carp for my liking, but once the winter kicks in and I can safely use light lines and small hooks, Messingham becomes one of my go-to roach venues. It was approaching 11am when I tackled up. The swim was one I’ve not fished before, just shy of a full top four sections deep at nine metres. My goal was to catch on the deck, thus avoiding the silly bites associated with small fish when they invariably start competing for loosefeed and come shallow. To avoid this I dispensed with loosefeeding altogether. Instead I mixed up some groundbait – three hard balls went in at the off topped up with a further ball every 15 minutes. A big handful of maggots were also cupped in at the same time. My plan was to get a good amount of feed on the deck. If the fish wanted something to eat they would find it on the bottom or go hungry. I anticipated a slow start but was pleasantly surprised when my float dipped on the first put in, despite the hookbait being surrounded by at least a hundred free offerings. The first hour was steady, a case of patiently waiting for bites, but there was a bite to be had on every drop. The wind created a nice ripple and though my 0.75g float was coping well enough with all the shot bulked 18 inches above the hook and just two droppers, I was catching too many small fish so switched to a 1.5g rig to get my hookbait down quicker. This bossed the peg and a fair few ‘net’ fish began to find my bait. Bites were ever so cautious, barely moving the bristle but careful plumbing to find dead depth increased the catch rate. There was no knowing when the float dipped whether I’d hook a one ounce roach or one of 12 ounces and in between there were a few skimmers and big perch for variety. For the better part of four hours I caught steadily, despite stopping off regularly to reposition my camera – I was taking my own pictures, as usual. Although short, my session was as good as you can wish for in winter. I drove home a happy angler, plugged my camera into the computer to download the images and, aaaaghhh! I could see them on the camera view screen but not on the computer. The memory card file numbering system had reached 9999. Anything below this was okay, anything starting 0001 and beyond was simply not available. To cut a long story short, I managed to recover my images on a different computer with some pretty nifty software but I can do without a panic like that when a deadline is approaching. Still, all’s well that ends well. Had it not done so I would have been faced with another Saturday trip, and that would have felt more like work to a mid-weeker like me. Perish the thought.