First river session of 2016

With the temperatures plummeting and the majority of the lakes freezing I decided to hang up the perching gear and get out the river gear! With a week of cold weather dropping down to -6 and no rain I knew the river would be prime for a grayling or two! Maybe even a roach or two! Like normal I set my rods up the evening before. My first set up consisted of my 13ft Drennan acolyte plus coupled with a JW YOUNGS BJ centrepin loaded with 3lb Drennan mono. I know the river was a bit pacey and up so I opted to use a 3BB stick float not to heavy and not to light. Perfect for the long trot on the spots I had in mind! I always fish 3lb straight through due to the number of trout in there and snapping up numerous times gets very iterating and expensive. And I don't like the thought of a trout swimming about with a hook in his gob. I use a size 16 Drennan whisker barbed super specialist hook to obtain a good hook hold. For my second rod and set up I use a 12ft Drennan medium match pro feeder rod with a small reel loaded with 4lb Drennan feeder mono. I use a small 1oz maggot feeder tied on a double not system so it acts as a bolt rig system so the grayling in particular don't gut hook. I use a 3lb hooklink with a size 18 spade end hook. With both rods set up and my maggot lightly dusted in some pure liver powder I was ready for the days fishing ahead. It wasn't long before I was on walking the river bank. I stopped off at my first spot where I like to use the feeder fishing in a nice slack In about 6ft of water where the grayling usually like to hold up in this particular swim. The water was higher than normal and slightly coloured so I knew it wasn't going to be easy! After a few casts around the swim I finally started getting a few line bites. And soon enough the tip hooped over and I was into my first grayling of 2016. And it was a lovely one at that!

After a few shots in the mist she was realeased back to her home. The swim went on to produce a few more grayling around the same size. I moved onto the next swim where I knew there were usually some roach about and of course some grayling. This swim was ideal for trotting. I baited the swim for a little while with a pinch of maggot encouraging the fish to feed without any angling pressure. After baiting for half and hour I trotted through the swim and immediately started getting finicky bites which to me looked like roach bites! After every trot I baited and left the swim for five or ten mins getting the fishes confidence up, on the next trot I struck into a finicky bite and I was into a good fish! Yup it was a roach! Which half way in decided to drop off! Classic roach! I left the swim for a while and began baiting again. And it didn't take me long to hook into another fish and loose it! These fish were being very finicky! I went on to catch a few grayling before the swim dried up and the fish moved on or just stopped feeding.

I spent the rest of the morning into the afternoon trotting through various swims catching lots and lots of different sized grayling but nothing massive but brilliant fun all the same! I ended up catching some nicer sized grayling whilst trotting which brought the tally to twenty plus grayling landed! 

I ended up in the swim I first feeder fished and started again by using the feeder and wasn't long before I had another nice sized grayling in the net. The bites were longer between and much more finicky. But I stuck at it and caught a further more three grayling. 

Eventually that swim dried up to! And by this time it was getting late into the afternoon.. Time for some roach! I spent a good few hours trotting some swims but no luck. Eventually I found some roach and was lucky enough to catch and land one before calling it a day. 

It was a enjoyable first session on the river with conditions not being the best and the river flowing very high and coloured but I caught some lovely fish and had a lovely days fishing. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog I hope you enjoyed it. 

Red fin chasing part 1

As the colder weather is moving in and the clocks going back its time to get back onto the rivers targeting the roach and grayling. I'm lucky enough to bailiff a stretch of the river itchen, I also grew up living opposite the river itchen when I was a youngster I was either swimming in it or fishing it! So bailiff'ing the Itchen was a honour really! I love it so much and luckily it's not fished a lot. 

My fave time of year on the river has to be January when it's really cold and frosty! But there's always an excuse to get out and try and target those finicky red fins! I've found a few different shoals of roach all as finicky as the other to catch with the smaller fish always being the easiest to catch. I call them the body guards! I've been lucky enough to get a few good hits through the years but none of the real bigguns I've found yet. 

Late summer of 2014 

One session every thing came right and will be a session to remember for some years to come! I was house sitting for my mum who was away on holidays for two weeks and being that she lived opposite the itchen meant I could pre bait every eve and keep an eye on one particular shoal. Right stubborn buggers they were being! I didn't have to much luck I had the odd roach but nothing to shout home about! On the last Sunday I was house sitting I popped out for the old classic "I'll only be an hour" I crept up to the shoal and threw in a few red maggot.. Something was different today? They all started to feed! Rather than the smaller roach feeding whilst the bigger roach held back in the reeds and watched they were all at it! I decided to wait a bit and continued to feed little and often and the roach still fed! My favourite tactic is to bulk the shot under the float so the maggot on the hook slowly drift down with the free offerings I chuck over the top as I found the roach like to snatch and flee. I threw out the free offerings and cast the float out.. I watched my hook bait slowly drift towards the hungry roach and the first body guard slipped up and was sitting in my net so he couldn't return to his mates to tell them about his ordeal! Again out went the free offerings followed by my float. I was working through the shoal and surprisingly the bigguns still weren't spooking but we're holding back in the weed. This cast I was the one and I watched the maggots drift towards one of the bigger roach and he swam out grabbed my hook bait I instantly struck and I was in! But sadly for a few seconds and it was all over shoal spooked! Such intelligent fish are roach! 

 

I continued angling for the roach In 2014 but not catching anything over the magic 2lb mark but still had plenty of lovely red fins! 

This Autumn/winter I was really up for trying my hardest in beating my personal best and catching my first 2lb+ roach! I spent a lot of time feeding and watching the different shoals through the close season spotting out the bigger fish dreaming of maybe one day catching them! But like always come opening they disappeared! My first roach session was early October on a Sunday bailiff walk. I found one shoal and targeted them for a few hours before a hungry jack pike moved in spooking the shoal but landed fiver roach with three of them being over 1lb+ not bad for a few hours angling!

I look forward to my next session and maybe I'll be lucky enough to catch a 2lb+ red fin!