Out with the lads

We finally managed to all get out on the river, we even had the company of region 31 PAC member Pete Brownbill.We'd arranged the day before to fish the river in the hope that one or two fish may appear as the

water conditions have been far from ideal for the last month. We all met up by a swim we were all familiar with and then headed of to a new location I had fished the week before to try our luck. By river standards it was only a short walk from the cars to the swims, around 500 yds, Bernie was in the first stream downstream, a good looking swim with over hanging trees and a nice crease 8 ' out with some good depth. Pete was next to settle in up stream from Bernie, he had a little pruning to do which is a good thing in my opinion as it shows the swims exclusivity. It was then Sefo, Mike and myself either side of a bend with over hanging trees and big back eddies, creases and deep water. Today for me was more of a social, a chance to have the crack and sample some sausage butties cooked on Bernie's new coleman. The morning started wet but the rain cleared of not long after arriving, all our baits were out before the sun come out on what turned out to be probably the nicest day so far this year. The morning past with little action, I had had a bait mouthed and Pete missed a run shortly after getting there but the pike were having none of it. As the day pasted by I noticed the clarity of the water had improved and the level had dropped a few inches, this was obviously a good thing and gave me confidence which in turn inspired me to put a 3rd rod out along the up stream margin. Soon after I had a run on my left hand rod, the take was weak and the run didn't even drop the bobbin, it was a small jack of a few pounds that came of just by the waters edge but a fish all the same in difficult conditions. It was now mid afternoon, Bernie put on some more sausage butties for the team, god I love them Yates Greer sausages, they must be the best in the world, I sat down and watched the

rowers paddling up and down (some of them I find annoying but that's another story) enjoyed the wild life on display, Robins, Wrens, Geese and the odd Kingfisher. Mike was first to bank a fish "on my rod" because I was too busy nattering to Sefo, it was only a small jack of 3-4 lbs but it was the first to grace the net, we took a few photos then let him go. The end of the day was drawing closer and closer and the pike started to show signs of activity Mike lost a fish on his own rod this time and I had a dropped run with the bait coming back marked. As the sun melted into the ground I had another dropped run on my 3rd rod this time it took the baiter, I quickly cast a fresh bait to the same area and clipped the rod up, as I turned to walk back to my chair the bobbin dropped on my left hand rod, I picked the rod up and felt for the fish, it was taking line nicely so I gave it moment wound down tight and struck, fish on I said the our |Mike, he came down with the net and in no time at all she was on the mat ready for unhooking. Mike said that looks a double, I said no mate its about 8 - 9 lb at the most so we weighed her and Mike was right, the

fish weighed 10 lb 02 oz not a bad little guesstimate from young Mike. No more fish were caught that day, Bernie and Pete left not long after I caught that fish, Me, Mike and Sefo stuck it out till after dark. Fingers crossed the rain stays away, the river levels drop and the clarity improves and we get out again next weekend and land some big hungry pike.

2013 round up

2013 was certainly an interesting year for all of us with good memories and a few personal bests broke along the way. The key moments of 2013 only real started to developed in February when we discovered some good pike fishing on a local river, I had probably done a dozen sessions on the river prior to then and only one jack of around 8 lb to show for it, I new there was some good fish in there and witnessed Bri catch his first ever river pike of 16 lb 01 oz in February 2012. Location was the key and I found a good spot that put 4 doubles in the net for me in 3 sessions with the biggest going 14 lb 01 oz. It wasn't just the bank fishing either, me and Bernie made time at the beginning of March for a day session in the boat, this was to be our final trip before the close season, between us we landed 6 pike two of which were doubles with the biggest 14 lb 03 oz going to me, another personal best river pike. This very short spell of success put the dampers on my pike fishing so much so that once the close season kicked in I hung up my pike rods and started to fish for carp/and tench, the tench were having none of it but I did pick up a few carp on some small local waters to low doubles. Bernie and Bri continued fishing for pike and managed a few and I should of done the same thing. I started to concentrate on the tench fishing, this was very new to me, I've caught loads of tench in my time but never actually targeted them, I had the water, the gear and read up about it but where I got it all wrong was location and timing to a degree. I was getting up at 1 am  and I'd be fishing for 3 am at the latest, to the best of my knowledge no one else was making this kind of effort, I did this for 4 weekends in a row and found it to be very tiring but it payed off. I had tried almost all of the known spots but the fish were not there and with one area left to try I decided to do a reccy one evening late on in the week and took my

wife along for a walk. When we got there that evening the shallows were teaming with fish, just about ever fish in the lake was in this one area spawning or preparing to spawn, the weekend couldn't come fast enough. I arrived early on the Saturday morning and did my usual 5 hr session and caught my first tench by design just under 5 lb. I went out again the next day and managed 2 more tench, a female just over 5 lb and a male of 6 lb 14 oz which is my biggest to date. I did a few more

sessions to no avail but learned a lot and look forward to the 2014 tench fishing. We spent the rest of 2013 summer fishing for eels and carp (well I did at least) one eel session that stands out was a rare mid week session Bernie and I did on a local pit, Bernie had a good session and managed a few fish, it was to be the night that Bernie broke his personal best with a 2 lb 9 oz water snake, a good session but was only one of a few eel sessions I did in 2013. We didn't fish together all that much through the summer months, I wasn't too bothered about eel fishing, Bernie doesn't do carp fishing and Bri had fell out with his door step fishery Carmill dam, Bri as fished on Carmill dam for decades and I don't know anyone that knows the lake as well as him so I asked him to put me on the carp, the way I would fish for them and the baits I would use was my doing but the location of the fish was totally down to Bri, he put me on a swim alright, chest waders all the way, the rods were set in 3' of water and I was fishing tight to an over hanging willow. After 4 nights of pre baiting with tiger nuts and hemp I fished the swim, what a night, I never slept a wink, I had about 15 runs, landed 3 carp all doubles and lost 12 carp, relentless and tiring also pissed off i'd lost so many fish but defiantly doing it again this year. Summer soon passed and September was looming, Bri and I had

planned to start our pike fishing campaign a month early so on the 6th of Sept we hit the river. What a lovely place the river is in September all the greenery and wild life, I managed 3 jacks and Bri blanked but lost a fish. 2 days later we were back out, this time I brought our Mike and the boat too, Bri bank fished and me and Mike set of on Mikes first ever boat trip for pike. He had a great time, he caught 4 pike in total, 1 on a bait and 3 on a 6" replicant rainbow, I landed my 1st double of the new season 10 lb 01 oz and Bri
Managed to land his 1st pike of the new season. We did a few sea fishing boat trips in 2013, the idea was to catch plenty of mackerel for this coming pike season but it didnt turn out to well, the mackerel numbers were down of the coast of north Wales but the Bull Huss fishing was spot on and I think everyone managed at least a few into double figures. I was lucky enough to hook into a tope of 22 lb, wow don't they just go when you strike into them, a true predator. It was to be pike fishing all the way from September 2013 till early April 2014 and between us we've had a pretty good year, Bernie caught the biggest of the year and a new personal best 22 lb 03 oz river pike, Mike had a 21 lb 02 oz Scottish pike which up to now is the biggest pike caught on a club outing, he also had a 17 lb 04 oz river and English personal best and has caught 7 doubles since September. I broke my river record 5 times this year with fish of 11 lb 04 oz, 14 lb 01 oz, 14 lb 03 oz, 17 lb 04 oz and 17 lb 05 oz which also stands as my biggest pike to date. Although Bri didn't beat any personal bests this year he caught quite a few fish including at least 8 river doubles, between us we caught about 30 doubles including 3 upper doubles and 2 twenties, not bad for our first year on the river. Roll on 2014, so many fish to target in such a short period of time, tight lines.

Bernie with the biggest of the year 22lb 03oz

 Mike with the biggest on a club outing so far and PB 21lb 02oz

Mike with his biggest river and English pike 17lb 04oz

Bri's biggest of the year 13lb 01oz

My biggest of the year and new PB 17lb 05oz

Tidal surge

With all the rain we've been getting lately my initial plan was to fish a still water today, the only problem is  i'm a sucker for the river pike at the moment. I had planned to fish the day after new years days a few days prior as it was giving good weather. I find myself constantly monitoring the local river and tributaries that run into it, the river was about 1.5 feet over its ideal level and running constant, in other words the river was running fast and the water had more colour than I prefer and the fish don't really like these conditions but this was going to be my last chance for a while. Our river is quite different from most, at its lower reaches it as width is as wide as both sides of the M6, throughout its catchment several smaller rivers and one big river run into it, it is also a feeder river to a very large canal. On most rivers when we have a deluge of rain the water level rises rapidly and then subsides slowly, this looks like a smooth wave on the environment agencies river levels graphs, it doesn't work like this on our river, the levels are constantly up and down but not by large amounts although saying that if the water was up by say 1' but take into account that the river is as wide as a motorway you can imagine how much extra water is pushing through. The river at its lowest reaches is also tidal but the stretches we fish are protected most of the time by a weir, occasionally, usually just a few times a year the tidal surge breaches the weir and today was one of them days.Anyway back to the session for

now.I packed light ready for another roving session as I wanted to try out some more swims I hadn't fished before. As usual I arrived just before first light, I grabbed my rucksack and sling and headed of to my starting swim. With the first baits in and light starting to break I poured a coffee and soaked up this glorious morning, lots of fish topping and small birds singing and darting about. I prefer to sit it out for an hour after first light in my starting swim, most of the fish I catch on the river seem to come with in the first hour of light then you randomly pick them off throughout the day. Half an hour into the session I had a take on the rod down stream, the fish picked up the bait headed up stream then dropped it, this kind of thing happens every now and again using paternoster rigs, the fish feels the resistance of the fixed lead and lets go of the bait. I sat it out till 9 am then moved on up stream trying each and every possible swim for the next few hours. I set up in a swim that had a nice thick over hanging bush that forced a slack in the down stream margin, the swim had good depth as well, it was 8' deep less than a rod length out.

With the baits in I set about making good a few damaged traces with a fag in my mouth and a coffee on stand by when i got a single beep, I quickly picked up the rod and felt for the fish before winding into it and the striking, I could tell instantly that it was a small fish but that didn't matter one bit to me, I had caught a fish against the odds, I took a few pics then let it go. Once the fish was back I clipped on a fresh trace and bait and cast back to roughly the same spot then set about re making the damaged traces (OCD) after 10 minutes or so making traces I noticed the water level had risen a fair bit, at first it didn't make sense because we hadn't had any rain for a good 8 hours in our region, it was then I though could this be a tidal surge. I had only heard of these anomalies but never seen one first hand, in fact exactly 4 weeks ago we fished 2 days after a surge in a swim we fish regularly and could see that the water had risen  that high that it engulfed the swim leaving silt and debris behind. I checked the moon phase first we was only 2 days past a new moon, this meant big tides, I then checked the tide times and more importantly heights at Liverpool docks, High tide was at 11.26 am and it was a big one, 9.9 mtrs. Under normal circumstances that tide would of run to the top of the weir 2 miles or so down from where I was fishing but not beached it but with the river already in flood it prevents the system from emptying properly hence the term tidal surge. Once I discovered the reason for the rise in water level I thought it best to add rear bank sticks, I only expected the water to rise by a foot or so, boy did I get that one wrong. I never for one second thought the water was going to rise so much, if I did I would off wrapped up straight away, I watched the levels rise and rise taking photos every few minutes and logging the times for future reference. When the water got level with the bottom of my reel it slowly turned and started to flow in its right direction and I initially thought to my self, few, that was close. I too got this wrong, even though the tide had turned so to speak the water level kept on rising, as I said earlier the flood water from the river had nowhere to go so even though the water was flowing back to sea it couldn't get there fast enough. The levels only started to drop about 18 minutes after the water turned and that was one hell of a relief  for me, I was sure my alarm would get engulfed in water and die. It was a long boring wait for the water to recede enough to retrieve my gear, 2 hours in fact but when I did I wrapped up quickly and moved on to a swim I had caught my PB in. I didn't have much time left  to fish, it would be dark in one and a half hours so I put two baits out and drank the last of my coffee. Although the water had gone

back to its same level prior to the surge the water was more coloured, I could only see about 4" into it were I could see about 1' earlier in the day, this knocked the confidence but I was determined to see the day out. I stood there watching the rod tips, I love watching the live baits working in the flow when one of them started to move out of character, I slowly lifted the rod to feel for a fish and felt a heavy tug, tug, bang, I hit the fish and it went bananas, thrashing about everywhere, when it came to the surface I could see that it was a low double and couldn't get the net beneath it quick enough. Unhooked weighed and photoed, and back to her home (11 lb 14 oz) that capped of the day nicely, I stuck it out for another 40 minutes wrapped up and went home with a smile on my face.