A year to remember - month by month look at the years results.

Looking through my diary for last year I have decided it was not too bad a 12 month period at all.  I have had better, but that's the name of the game.   I though a look at my pick of the catches for each  month could make interesting blog so here goes.

January.     I'll cheat here and pick a catch from the last days of the previous year since my January results were crap.  It was the 29th of December and I had gone down to the Hampshire Avon for a couple of days.  The first of those days I dropped into a favourite swim which had done 6lb chub fish for me on previous visits - Fishing a maggot feeder it came up trumps with chub of 7lb-3oz and 6lb-14oz.

                                                                7lb-3oz Avon Gem

February-     Following that very cold and snow covered period of the previous month there were a few gaps that gave a chance on the rivers - I took advantage of one of those and came up with a very nice Warwickshire Avon barbel of 13lb-10oz to prove that if the bait's is in the water you can catch.

                                                              13lb-10oz - very nice!

March                      Still variable weather and the end of the river season did not live up to my hopes for a big chub.  I started off a good year for sturgeon though, with a  catch of 5 fish over 23lb with a best of 28lb-11oz.

                                                       Best of 5 at 28lb-11oz

April           With April came better weather, and my usual trips to the Colne Valley gave me double figure bream, and tench to over 8lb, but I thought a bit of variety here so I include an eary catfish of 30lb-11oz.

                                                              Wells Catfish of 30lb-11oz.

May          A few more 20lb sturgeon but May is for tench and although my first choice venue failed - it seemed the big fish probably died in the freeze up of the winter - a local venue came good for the month with a number of tench to a very pleasing 8lb-14oz best of the month.

                                                       A lucky Friday 13th tench of 8lb-14oz.

June.                        With the loss of the big tench I was also at a loss as to where to try for a double, I decided to return to my bream venue since it does occasionally turn up a nice tench - it did, in spades and gave my new pb tench of 11lb-14oz.
Another nice catch for the month was a brace of double figure barbel on the same day off the River Teme which included a new pb for the river at the time of capture. 10lb-2oz and 10lb-7oz.

                                                       Probably my best fish of the year 11lb-14oz.

July                     A funny month is July - sometimes great and at other times it can be a killer.  A couple of notable capture here, first a new all comers lake record for Orchid Lakes with a 55lb-9oz Wells Catfish. Then added to this for the month is a 12lb-1oz barbel off the Warwickshire Avon.

                                                     12lb-1oz Warwickshire Avon

                                                          55lb-9oz lake record.

August                    Probably the best thing that happened in this month was that I finally completed the book and it went off for the finishing touches.  A few more 20lb sturgeon hit the bank, with lots of barbel from the Teme, Avon and Derwent along with another river pb coming off the Derwent.   The best of 6 barbel on the day, and at 11lb-4oz it was over a 1lb increase over my previous best so obviously very pleasing.

                                                                Derwent pb at 11lb-4oz.

September.                  Always a good month and this was no different, still lots of barbel coming to the net, but I do fish a lot of time for them.  A increase on my Teme pb took it to 11lb-6oz to give it the month's honours, but a close second goes to a 10lb3oz zander - my first double for a long time.

                                                        A new Teme pb at 11lb-6oz.

                                                            10lb-3oz the first double for years.
    
October                  The river Derwent has been good to me this year but now it was really good, a catch of nine barbel includng three doubles of 10lb-8oz, 11lb4oz and another river best at 12lb2oz, it does not come much better than that.

                                                       The season's biggest so far at 12lb-2oz.

November               It makes a real change to trot a river and a trip to the River Test gave me the chance to do just that - when it gave up a 2lb-6oz roach that really made the day.

                                                                River roach are something special.

December     I started this blog by going back into december for a great brace of fish, this year the month has been dead for me.  Roach and perch fishing very quiet.  A two day blank on the Hampshire Avon for chub was disappointing.  I will close the peice with a Boxing Day barbel mentioned in my last blog, always nice to end the year with a reasonable fish.

                                                        Small but perfectly proportioned!

I hope that next year can give as much fun and success to both myself and all of you as well.

Fishing over the Xmas break - success and failier in equal measure.

Well that’s the Xmas break over and lots of anglers are making their sad way back to the workplace.  It has been quite a mix of weather conditions but the start of the break saw very mild weather for late December, and I got out on Boxing Day in the hope of getting a late barbel.  Sitting on the banks of the river it could have been September and I basked in the sunshine waiting for the first indication.  It came as I was talking to one of the lads off a web site I visit on a regular basis, the barbel itself was not particularly big at about 5lb, but at this stage just its capture was very pleasing.  My fishing tackle was the usual arrangement of two rods with the end tackle being open ended feeders carrying mixed pellets and hemp along with a boilie on one, and two 8mm pellets on the other.  This time it had been the boilie that caught the fish, but a few hours later my wait was rewarded with another fighting fish of 6lb or so that took the pellet bait.  It would seem that often the fish just pick up bait that they come across in the wandering travels.

                                                     Boxing Day Barbel

The next day I went to a local lake with Mervyn Wilkinson in the hope of catching a zander, still reasonable weather for December, but decidedly cooler in the quite strong wind.  The bait to be used was a mix of lamprey section on one of the rods and a small 4 inch roach on the other, we had both used leger tactics and similar baits, but whilst I just had a couple of pulls that did not develop, Mervyn caught a fine specimen of 8lb-10oz that had looked to be a certain double.

                                                                                        Merv's prize

With the various thing that come up at this time of year I did not get out again until Xmas eve and I should have stayed at home, the river was right up and lots of rubbish was coming through making the fishing very difficult.  I did try for maybe three hours but in the end I gave up and left very disappointed.

I treated myself to a new pc tower and being a near total novice in these things it took me nearly two days to sort the transfer over from the old system of Windows XP to the new windows 7.  Even now I’ve still got problems with something called Active X and trying to find conversion leads for my traffic camera detector – an essential bit of gear that!  Still, I got out fishing again yesterday, 2-1 -2012.

It had gone quite cold with a near frost overnight and the forecast of a maximum temperature of 5C, but fortunately the wind was more of a gentle breeze so the chill factor was kept to a minimum.  With the sun breaking through the clouds occasionally, it was indeed nice to be on the banks.  It seemed that lots of other anglers had been cooped up for too long as well, and with ten or more people about it was by far the most I had seen on a river bank for a long time.  The river itself had dropped by a couple of foot from those conditions that had beaten me on the Saturday, and once fishing I could confirm that the rubbish had lessened as well.  Still plenty of dead leaves to catch on the line, but at least it was now manageable.

I thought the chance of a barbel was less than 50/50 and reports from other anglers confirmed that the big drop in temperature had indeed caused the fish to retreat to their hidey holes and nothing was being caught.  Today I had resorted to my favourite Dynamite Monster Crab boilie on both rods, heavily glugged I thought that the scent trail would perhaps encourage a fish to at least try, just like the cherry on the cake –irresistible!

As dusk approached I had already made up my mind that I would not stop into dark, the temperature was dropping fast and my hopes of a fish were dropping just as quickly.  I was again talking with a fellow angler when at last that boilie did prove irresistible to a barbel, one of that species had to be responsible for the bend in the rod, and with the fishes own power increased by the additional floodwater I got my days sport in the extra fight the barbel was able to give.  With the slippy banks left by the high water, both the fellow angler who was netting the fish, and me, nearly ended up in the river, but at last it was in the net and safe.  At 8lb-14oz not a monster, but a very pleasing start to 2012 and I retired from the river well pleased with the day – now what will the coming year bring?

                                                                         The first barbel for 2012.

Winter fishing trips

Now it is quite obvious that we all go fishing in order to catch fish, but if you fail in that task is it the end of the day?  Yesterday I was zander fishing on a lake with doubles availble, and good bait to attract the fish, but they would not play and I blanked, what did save my day was a sight I had not seen before.

Probably the best part of 100 yards away I noticed a number of flashes of bright red amongst the trees, robins was the first thought that came to mind, but that was quickly dismissed -they hate each other at times outside of the Springtime.  As I watch I became more and more interested, not being able to decide what I was watching.   With no binoculars to use I took the next best thing which was my camera with its 20X zoom lens and Image Stabiliser to make it possible in the hand held mode to take photos with maximum zoom in play.  It can be quite a problem looking through the camera with that zoom working to find just exactly what you are trying to find.  Even when I found the flash of red a number of the shots just showed the birds behind a branch or some awkward postion that was of no use.  Digital photography is brilliant in that you can take as many shots as you like - it does not matter as you delete the bad ones later, but here the first photo shows the image as captured, while the second is close cropped to identify the bird - a male bulfinch.

                                              Original shot at about 100 yrds.

                         One of several male bulfinches present.

Normally these birds are shy, retiring birds and you only get a fleeting glance as they move away from your presence, to see this flock at play, well it made up for the blank - almost!